Although this is a very quick overview of Postmodernism, it’s not hard to see how it starts to fall apart under thoughtful investigation. It’s important to understand that the best Postmodernists are very clever wordsmiths who can sound quite profound as they deconstruct commonly held ideas-and even the meaning of words themselves.

“Postmodernism” is a fairly recent (from the past 30-50 years) philosophical movement, that comes after the period of “Modernism,” which took place roughly over the past 200-300 years. In order to understand Post (“comes after”) Modernism, we first need to understand Modernism. Modernism was a period marked by an optimistic hope in the ability of mankind to solve all of its problems through science, technology, unrestricted free trade and a social order that had been “released” from pre-modern/Medieval ideas about God, Church authority, government and human nature. Modernism is a movement that comes as a result of the “Age of Enlightenment.”

Here is a very informative video from professor Ryan Reeves about the enlightenment. Here’s another; and here’s one more that’s specifically about Voltaire and the Radical Enlightenment.

Here are some characteristics of the pre-modern/Medieval period:

• Kings, Queens and Kingdoms who derive their authority from God and the Church.

• Church as primary institution in society; Church authority unquestioned.

• Supernatural explanations for pretty much everything.

• Distinct classes in the social order with little upward mobility possible for the lower class.

• Very slow change in technology, discovery and education.

• Feudal economy is based on agriculture and has very little potential for lower-class economic advancement. People are stuck where they are, and they’re never getting out.

Now here are some things that came as a result of the Enlightenment/Modern way of thinking:

• Large advancements in science, discovery and education, which includes a growing skepticism of the supernatural.

• Reason (our ability to think) becomes more important than revelation (the Bible).

• Political power comes through democratic elections and is spread out in the form of a parliament or congress; mankind asserts that it has certain “inalienable rights,” regardless of what any Monarch used to say.

• Church power is reduced to the sphere of “personal religious beliefs” and has less political authority as it becomes more diverse, especially after the Protestant Reformation splintered into so many denominations.

• Individuals have more freedom and, potentially, more opportunities for advancement-especially as the Industrial Age expands.

• There is, generally, an optimistic outlook on the future, based on all of the advancements in society; this leads to less emphasis on mankind’s need to depend upon God. The Modern era is the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” era.

However, the Modern era became a great disappointment to a number of people as the 20th Century saw unprecedented bloodshed in many wars-most especially World Wars I and II. According to some people, even the most free countries on earth still had substantial struggles with poverty, inequality, corruption and injustice as the century came to a close. Although much progress had been made in the United States and other free countries, there were some philosophers, sociologists, theologians and others who believed the Modern era must be rejected and a new era should begin: the era of “Postmodernism.” The Wikipedia page is helpful to explain Postmodernism in more detail.

Postmodernism is a big topic with a large array of opinions, but here is a broad sweeping summary of its key ideas:

• The Enlightenment did not go far enough when it largely rejected Christian/Biblical truth claims in favor of pure human reason.

• Enlightenment ideas about rationality, spirituality, liberty, progress and tolerance can be rejected so that entirely new concepts can be discovered.

• Modernism failed to deliver on its promise of a better world, so any modern concept can be rejected. Modernism’s faith in reason, science and technology was misplaced, and so a rejection of any Modern concept-even reason itself-is acceptable.

• All universal truth statements must be rejected in favor of subjective beliefs. This eventually ends up producing the incoherent idea: “It is absolutely true that nothing is absolutely true.”

• Skepticism, irreverence, irrationalism and deconstruction are to be valued over older concepts of rationality, logic, reason, and objective reality.

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