A Postmodern Bore

A Postmodern Bore

Imagine, if you will, a world where everyone was the same, where your neighbors had the same clothes as you did, the same kind of dog, and the same color house as you did. A world where everyone looked like everyone else, behaved the same, and thought the same. A world characterized by total and complete conformity through assimilation, incorporation, and deindividualization. A world where an elite cadre of individuals determined the very shape of reality itself. This world is held by many scholars to be typifying of one of the major aspects of Postmodernism. Although Postmodernism refuses to define itself , (Kozinets-see later,) it according to many of these scholars threatens the very existence of civilization as we know it, for without individuality there can be no creativity, and without creativity, we are incapable of advancement, and risk cultural deadlock. Postmodernism surrounds us with its influences, and the only way for us to resist its current is to take a step back from what we observe of our society and reflect on the way that it once was.

Once, men were free to theorize as they pleased. To think, understand, discover, hypothesize, and enlighten their own selves. Every separate individual lived in his own private sphere, each man with his thoughts to himself, and with the freedom to express those thoughts to others as his own personal opinions. This was what is now referred to as the Modernist era. It was an era in which primary importance was placed upon the philosophy of the individual and upon free thinking, free speech, and free information. This is evident as stated by the Modernist writer Jurgen Habermas, in his essay entitled Justification and Application ,

"The moral point of view...

... middle of paper ...

...ining individuality.

The overall greatest problem with Postmodernism is that it prevents us from moving onwards. The people in power prevent us from behaving as individuals, and therefore from being constructive, and cause us to turn into Borgian constructs of societal conformity. In order to remedy this, we must step back from society and return to our roots, for only then can we rediscover our individuality. Without individuality we are nothing, and therefore, we can only hope that we are able to separate ourselves from the stream of postmodern culture. For this is the only way that the human race can move on. If we lose our abilities to be original, we will reach civilizational deadlock, and be irreversibly stuck in our present situation. We will never be able to leave that world where everyone is the same, and life will be boring and without change forever.