Defining the Postmodern
Jean Francois Lyotard
Jean Francois Lyotard beings his essay to point out some problems surrounding the
term ‘Postmodern’. He is clear to say that the essay is concenred not to close the debate
on the notion postmodern, but rather to open up to develope by clearing certian
confusions as far as possible.
He idtingushes three points related to postmodern.
1. The modernism in architectural theory:
Lyotard sees the defining arts for describing modernity are architecture and design.
Quoting Paolo Portoghesi, Lyotard says that there is a rupture or break, which was
sublimated in the plastic poetry of the movement known as De Stijl. The rupture itself is
abrogation of the hegemony of Euclidean geometry. According to Lyotard , there is no
longer any close linkage between the architectural project and socio-historical progress
in the realization of human emancipation on the larger scale. There are various changes
that the postmodern architecture brings in the space it inherits and thus give up the
project of rebuilding the space inhabited by humanity. In this sense, there is no longer a
horizon of universalization, of general liberation before the eyes of postmodern man, or
in particular, of the postmodern architect. This disappearance of idea of progress would
bring the notion of ‘bricolage’.
Further Lyotard explains the postmodern with the term itself. He says “The ‘post’, in
the term ‘postmodernist’ is a diachrony of periods, each of them clearly identifiable.
Something like a conversion, a new direction after the previous one. I should like to
observe that this idea of chronology is totally modern” The idea of modernity itself
according to Lyotard, is bound up with the principle that there is a necessary to break
with the tradition to begin a new way of living and thinking. This breaking from the past
is not overcoming the past but rather a manner of forgetting or repressing the past.
2. A second connotation of the term ‘postmodern’,
Lyotard notes that there is a decay in the confidence placed in the idea of progress for
two centuries. The idea of progress was rooted in the concept that it would be useful in
the development of arts, technology, knowledge and liberty. But in the last centuries
(19,20) the question of knowing itself was the subject that was victimised due to the
lack of development. Though there were disputes and war over this subject, a common
belief shared was that everything is legitimate only “insofar as they contribute to the
emancipation of mankind”. But in the recent times, the development in techno-sciences
became the cause of increasing deceases not fighting it. the development does not
respond to the needs of the human but they are destabilized by the development.
Lyotard finds that the mankind is in a state running after the process of accumulating
new objects of practice and thought. It destines towards more complex condition. The
demand for security, identity and happiness are irrelevant in the face of complexity and
thus changes its scale. So we land in techno-scientific world like Gulliver: sometimes too
big, sometimes too small, never at the right scale. Consequently, the claim for simplicity,
in general, appears today that of a barbarian.
This suggests to consider the two divisions of mankind; one with the challenge of
complexity and the other is the task of survival. This is a major aspect of failure of
modern project.
3. The question of post modernity is the question of expression of thought.
There are certain discussions on the expression on art, literature, philosophy, and
politics occurred in the recent times. The expression of avant-gardism is one among
those expressions of thought. This is now outdated and rejected. The right approach to
avant-gardism is to compare the works of those artists with anamnesis which takes
place in psychoanalytical therapy. Freud calls this process as ‘Durcharbeitung’ which
isoperated by modernity itself. If we forgo this responsibility we are condemned to
repeat, without any displacement, the modern neurosis, the Western schizophrenia,
paranoia, and so on. So what the position of post modernity according to Lyotard is that
the ‘post’ of postmodernity does not mean a process of coming back or flashing back,
feeding back, but of ana-lysing, anamnesing, of reflecting.
