Post Modernism

Postmodernism - In the postmodern a cultural wasteland arises in consciousness as capital commodifies human thought and action. As a result of corporate capitalism's drive to seek profits wherever possible by injecting itself into human consciousness with its control of cultural definitions of the "real" and desirable, society's ideological posture reflects corporate control of publically owned media. It (corporate capitalism) seeks to create fear of stigmatization and isolation of one's self; it seeks to create artificial needs. Corporate capital now succeeds at convincing humanity that humanity is separate from, not part of nature. The consumer replaces the citizen as a political subject.

Much of industrialized humanity now persues consumer life-styles.

Much of industrialized humanity romanticizes male ideals above a reverence for life.

Much of industrialized humanity has a great interest in the "real," but a pornographic understanding of the visible.

Much of humanity experiences alienation, resentment, and a detachment from others as "reality," reflecting an existence directed by conspicuous consumption and relationships definded by commercial values.

Post-modernism reflected in literature tends to create characters with individual perspectives, transcending the modernist "stream of consciousness" as found in James Joyce; now characters may individually interpret one another's "meaning," accurately or not. The question becomes, as in contemporary life, which perspective mirrors nature as we might find in Shakespeare? See Tony Morrison's Sula for an excellent post-modern novel. More importantly, which system of beliefs mirrors actually existing nature, human and nonhuman?

See George Herbert Mead's Philosophy of the Act, as well as his Mind, Self, and Society for a dialectial, evolutionary discription of the postmodern, American Pragmatism's narrative on the relativity of the self.

Eddie Evans

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