Modernism and postmodernism

[Maaja]

What about the modernism? I've heard that in general modernism is tought to be an optimistic and postmodernism a pessimistic philosophy. Why? And what kind of influence do have the modernistic or postmodernistic changes in the society?

[hawarameen]

i had to do a report on postmodernism in uni.
basically postmodernism has different forms, at the far end is chaos theory which basically states that you cant plan anything and that you need systems in place that can cope with any eventuality, this is why people say its pesamistic.

eg, the attacks on the WTC could not be predicted, therefore businesses need to be postmodern in their operation so that they can cope or at least soften the blow of any unforseen event.

i did this a long time ago so forgive any innacuracies.

[redstar2000]

I think "post-modernism" is a secular recycling of that old notion from the middle ages about "the inherent unknowability of the mind of God".

They also drag in stuff from quantum physics, the uncertainty principle, and so forth. And they have impressive names for it, like "complexity theory", "chaos theory", etc. Who would be so foolhardy as to argue against complexity?

Well, me! It seems to me that post-modernism is just a very pompous way of saying "what I don't know can't be learned...by anybody...EVER!"

There's a little "post-modernist" ditty that goes all the way back (I think) to the beginning of the last century:

I am the master of this college
and what I don't know isn't knowledge!