Anything goes: postmodernism

If modernism is setting the rules straight; postmodernism is breaking through all the rules.
We are currently living in the postmodernism era: where uncertainty lies in everywhere, and we constantly question everything.
It's basically like a kid keep asking you WHY, and will keep pushing your buttons.

If postmodernism have a face, it would probably be like this:

Although Y U NO guy could also be appropriate.

Putting things aside,

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement away from the viewpoint of modernism. More specifically it is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the problem of objective truth and inherent suspicion towards global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It involves the belief that many, if not all, apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Rather, it holds realities to be plural and relative, and dependent on who the interested parties are and what their interests consist of. It attempts to problematise modernist overconfidence, by drawing into sharp contrast the difference between how confident speakers are of their positions versus how confident they need to be to serve their supposed purposes. Postmodernism has influenced many cultural fields, including religion, literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, architecture,anthropology, visual arts, and music.(Wikipedia)

If we were to say modernism set the 'mainstream' values, postmodernism are the hipsters.
For example, let's look at a more popular icon: Lady Gaga

Yes, her infamous meat dress caught quite a lot of attention. And you don't really see people wearing this down the street, do you? Well, this lady here basically pull out a big question: WHO IS TO SAY WE DRESS CAN'T MAKE OUT OF MEAT, ANYWAY?

Just like postmodernism, we are actually giving 'normal values' the finger, and breaking away from it.

First, we enter a 'modernism' shell; then we uses 'postmodernism' to break out from it, but then again, if breaking out becomes the norm, the 'postmodernism'-ness will find another way to rebel against it (perhaps going back to the 'modernism' shell?) So it kinda like two steps forward, one step backward.


Another example is the social media. We are always blinded to believe of what is printed in black and white (eg, newspapers) but if we look further, are these really facts? Us, receiver, only received it through the transmitter anyway, who is to say that there aren't any noises added into it?

In this article about cencorship:

“The very act of censoring it made a bigger story than the article itself. If the international media wants to criticise us, let it be. If we need to, we will engage them, we give our side of the story.

“If they cross the line, then we have to resolve through legal means and (suing for) defamation is one of the means if we feel that we have been wronged by the media,” Najib said.

but similar case, different article:

If stories published about the Government were wrong, the publication in question could be sued, he said. 

Notice how the sentences are framed and brought different perspective into light? This framing is that the media focuses attention on certain events and then places them within a field of meaning.

As each person's way of decoding the subtleties are different, the middle party who tries to paraphrase the actual meaning to the third party will cause some lost in translation, and hence, causing some misunderstanding.

Us, as receiver, will have to use our postmodernism spirit and reject the spoon-feeding system and constantly question the underlying truth behind everything.