Post - Modernism notes

Ideas of truth need to be deconstructed

People who are privileged construct these ideas whereas people who live in underprivileged countries break conventions every day. 

If truth is absent then how do we deal with the matters of justice.

Baudrillard believed in hyper-reality presenting a different world to our own, a fictional one.

Simularcra - simulations of reality that replace any 'pure' reality.

The concept of grand narrative, and in particular what Lyotard called the “emancipation narrative”, concerns the kind of meta-narrative which talks, not just about “one damn thing after another”, but sees some kind of interconnection between events, an inner connection between events related to one another, a succession of social systems, the gradual development of social conditions, and so on – in other words, is able in some way to make sense of history. More particularly, when pronounced as it usually is, with a sneer, the “grand narrative”, the “narrative of emancipation” is all those conceptions which try to make sense of history, rather than just isolated events in history, concepts like “class struggle”, socialism and capitalism, productive forces and so on.

According to Lyotard, in the postmodern period, people no longer believe in grand narratives, and consequently, to the armies of postmodern pen-pushers, ipso facto, “grand narratives” are old fashioned and oppressive – oppressive because one grand narrative excludes another and doesn’t my narrative have just as much right to truth as yours?

The Matrix represents what could happen in society as they realise they aren't happy plugged into machine. This could represent society becoming more reliant on technology. 

The 9/11 was a scapegoat for terrorism and military invasion.

The Mighty Boosh deliberately messes with the idea that they are suppose to be a TV show and pretending that what the audience is real - TV shows are artificial. There is no depth or meaning - it is superficial.  

What people believe in: 

Grandparents

Family

Religion

Their country

Science & Technology

The government has destroyed the believe in the system because nothing has changed. Protesting shows that people don't buy into it. People have lost faith. Post modernism is not a belief in nothing but a rejection in traditional structures/dominant idealogies. 

We have emptiness because we have no belief in anything anymore. We have moved from external desires to internal desires. 

Post-Modernism words: 

1. Intertexuality - The relationship between texts
2. Distopia - An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
3. Simulacra - Simulations of reality that replace any 'pure' reality.
4. Bricolage - Bricolage is a word which is used to mean an assemblage of objects, along with the trial and error process of putting such objects together.
5. Pastiche & Parody - A pastiche imitates and celebraes something and a parody mocks it.
6. Superficial - Appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely.
7. Nostalgia - Something done or presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia.
8. Hyper-reality - Hyperreality is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality
9. Prosumers (Participatary media) - The merging of producers and consumers.
10. Grand Narrative -  An abstract idea that is supposed to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge