page_title: Postmodernism
hierarchical_section_title: Postmodernism
caption_attribution_description: English: The Portland Building, in Portland, Oregon, in August 1982, about eight weeks before it opened. The building was designed by Michael Graves. This photo was taken from near the intersection of 6th &amp; Jefferson, looking across a surface parking lot which soon after this was replaced by the PacWest Center, making this view of the Portland Building no longer possible.
context_page_description: Postmodernism is a way of thinking about culture, philosophy, art and many other things. The term has been used in many different ways at different times, but there are some things in common.
  Postmodernism says that there is no real truth people can know. It says that knowledge is always made or invented and not discovered. Because knowledge is made by people, a person cannot know something with certainty - all ideas and facts are 'believed' instead of 'known'. There may or may not be some sort of ultimate truth, but we cannot know it. People often believe they know the truth, but their opinion will change later. This is different from traditional views of 'objectivity', which say there is a single knowable truth independent of anyone's observation or opinion.
  Since postmodernism says that the truth is not truly knowable, different people can believe different things and each think theirs is the only truth. As far as we know, no person can say with certainty that their truth is right and everyone else's wrong.
context_section_description: Postmodernism is a way of thinking about culture, philosophy, art and many other things. The term has been used in many different ways at different times, but there are some things in common.
  Postmodernism says that there is no real truth people can know. It says that knowledge is always made or invented and not discovered. Because knowledge is made by people, a person cannot know something with certainty - all ideas and facts are 'believed' instead of 'known'. There may or may not be some sort of ultimate truth, but we cannot know it. People often believe they know the truth, but their opinion will change later. This is different from traditional views of  'objectivity', which say there is a single knowable truth independent of anyone's observation or opinion.
  Since postmodernism says that the truth is not truly knowable, different people can believe different things and each think theirs is the only truth. As far as we know, no person can say with certainty that their truth is right and everyone else's wrong.  Since we cannot know the truth with certainty, persuading someone to accept your understanding of the truth is like two people arguing about something neither can really see. Postmodernism is not strictly subjective, however. It is more agnostic about whether truth exists, for there is no ground for anyone to say without any doubt there is no objective truth. 
  People can continue to strive to know more, however. Study and research are not necessarily a waste of time. We should just accept that we will never be able to say "that settles it--no one could possibly discuss the issue any longer." This keeping the conversation open, never ending the conversation and being open to what you might learn from others is why postmodernism is not nihilistic. It does not say that no one knows and everyone is free to make up whatever they want, rather that we are enmeshed in complex language games in which we constantly change our opinions about everything. 
  Truth, therefore, is not a single place we can say with confidence we are steadily approaching. Rather, truth is something that each individual constructs within the fabric of their communities and language games. This is in stark contrast to modernity, in which the belief is that we are constantly moving closer and closer to the one truth. 
  Starting with the 18th century Enlightenment and into the early 20th century, many people believed that science and new knowledge would make the world better. They believed that whenever scientists or philosophers discovered something new, it would inevitably make society a little bit better. This seemed obvious with all of the new technology that had come about in the Industrial Revolution, allowing people to have things from cars to washing machines. Many thought that this social progress could not be stopped. Those that believed this believed in Modernism. Postmodernism holds that there is no real "social progress", because different people have different ideas about what social progress is. The Industrial Revolution helped many, but harmed many too. Postmodernism holds that while some things about the world change, people only want to believe that the world is better than it was. It changes but does not get better, because there is no 'better'.
  Postmodernism says that since peoples' opinions change, and since one person's opinion cannot be more right than another, it means nothing to say that (for example) one work of art is better than any other, only that you prefer it based on a certain set of principles, standards or tastes. Postmodernism says that art, music, and literature, for example, could be right/wrong or positive/negative or forward-looking/nostalgic.  Two individuals who disagree have no basis to say that either's opinion is the last word.  
  The author has no more right to decide what a piece of art means than does the art critic; all anyone can say is that the work conforms or does not conform to a set of arbitrary conventions. Some people with postmodern views in art and literature commonly talk about and even makes f
caption: The Portland Building (Portland, Oregon)
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