Media Criticism of Postmodernism

I. Staging Postmodern Society and Its Social Characteristics

What is postmodernism?

While "postmodern" is not a temporal concept, it still has a temporal stipulation, and it is relative to modernity. The so-called "modern", according to postmodernists and Habermas and others **** the same understanding, from the historical period from the Renaissance, through the Enlightenment to the 1950s, in fact, refers to the process of the emergence of Western capitalism, development and towards modernization. The process of "modernization" means the process of commodification, urbanization, bureaucratization and rationalization, which together constitute the "modern world". The process of modernization is one of invention, innovation and dynamism. "Modernity embodies the spirit of rationality and enlightenment, and believes in the progress and development of social history, the continuous improvement and refinement of human nature and morality, and the movement of mankind from oppression to emancipation. "Modernity was diffused into everyday life through new technologies, new modes of transportation and interaction, forms of distribution and consumption of products, modern art and ideology.

Postmodernist theorists argue that from the 1960s onward, with the revolution in science and technology and the heightened development of capitalism, Western societies have entered a kind of "post-industrial society," also known as the information society, the high-technology society, the media society, the consumer society, and the most highly developed society, which is called the "postmodern society" in terms of its cultural forms. In terms of cultural forms, it is called "post-modern society" or "post-modern era". The postmodern era has undergone a series of fundamental changes in the fields of science, education, and culture, which indicate that it is a rupture or a new stage of development in human history.

The word "post-modern" has a double meaning, reflecting two different attitudes toward modernity. In one sense, "postmodern" means "non-modern", which wants to make a complete break with modern theories and cultural practices, with modern ideologies and artistic styles. "Post" can be understood positively as a proactive break with what has gone before, a liberation from old constraints and oppression into a new realm, or negatively as a sad regression, a loss of traditional values, certainty and stability. In another sense, "postmodern" is understood as "highly modern," dependent on the modern, a continuation and intensification of the modern, and postmodernism is but a new face and a new development of modernism.

How to deal with "modernity" is one of the main issues in the debate between modernism and postmodernism, and between different postmodernists. Many postmodernists have adopted the first understanding of "postmodernity" as a dramatic break or rupture in the history of the West, the end of something old and the advent of something new. Therefore, they take a critical and negative attitude towards "modernity". In their view, the "modernization" of capitalism has brought countless sufferings to the people; industrialization has led to the oppression of the peasantry, the proletariat and the artisans; women have been excluded from the public sphere; and imperialist colonial rule has adopted a policy of genocide and massacres. Modernity has also produced a whole range of institutions and practices of punishment, as well as discourses that legitimize its modes of domination and control. Modernity has moved reason to its opposite, and freedom to oppression and domination. So these postmodernists demanded new values and political science to overcome the flaws of modern discourse and practice, calling for new categories, ways of thinking and writing.

German thinker Habermas categorized scholars critical of postmodernism into "old conservatism", i.e., the rejection of modernity and the total denial of modernism, using the "trichotomy". Liotta and Deleuze are regarded as "neoconservatism", and Bataille, Foucault and Derrida are regarded as "young conservatism". Their **** is characterized by opposition to rationalism and the Enlightenment.

Whether to continue the unfinished business of modernity or to make a complete break with modernity seems to constitute a sharp opposition between modernism and postmodernism. However, Jamieson, a postmodernist Marxist, attempts to bring the two together dialectically. He argued that postmodernism was not merely a new aesthetic style, but a new stage in the cultural development of the logic of late capitalism. Drawing on economist Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism, Jameson argues that postmodernism is the "dominant culture" of late capitalism, and that the cultural staging is closely related to capitalism itself, which is divided into three phases of development, corresponding to the following:

State Capitalism - State Market I - Age of Capitalism - Realism

Monopoly Capitalism - Imperialism I -British, German Empire -Modernism

Late Capitalism -Transnational/Mediated/Post-Industrialized Capitalism I -Postmodernism

According to this staging, postmodernism is the cultural mainstream of late capitalist society. Each stage of capitalist development has a corresponding cultural style, such as realism in the stage of market economy, modernism in the stage of monopoly capitalism, and postmodernism in the stage of multinational capitalism. In response to radical postmodernists such as Baudrillard and Lyotard, who viewed postmodernism as a "rupture in history," Jamieson argued that a radical rupture between periods does not imply a complete change in content, but rather a reconfiguration of a large number of elements that are readily available. Characteristics that were subordinate in earlier periods or in the system now become dominant, and previously dominant factors take a back seat. This analysis recognizes both the discontinuity and discontinuity of the transition from modernist to postmodern cultural forms, and at the same time the inheritance and continuity of postmodernist culture with respect to earlier cultural factors, by placing the development of postmodernism within the larger cultural framework of capitalism. In fact, Jameson adopts the second understanding of "postmodernism" mentioned above, that is, to see "postmodernity" as a higher stage of capitalism, a "high modernity", an inheritance and development of modernity. It is an inheritance and development of modernity.

The difference between postmodernist philosophy and modernist philosophy

The essential feature of postmodernist philosophy is the comprehensive criticism of the Greek-originated Western philosophical tradition, especially the "modernist philosophy" that inherits and develops this tradition, which marks a major shift in contemporary philosophical thinking. This marks a major shift in contemporary philosophical thinking. The so-called "modernist philosophy" refers to the rationalist philosophy starting from Descartes, the Enlightenment, the 19th century German classical philosophy represented by Kant and Hegel, the Marxist philosophy, the positivism of Comte, the philosophy of Max Weber in the 20th century, the existentialism of Sartre, the psychoanalysis of Freud and the behavioral theory of interaction of Habermas, and so on. Habermas' theory of interactional behavior, etc. It can be said that postmodernism's critique of traditional Western philosophy is the most comprehensive, intense, and fundamental episode of philosophical criticism and polemic in the entire history of Western philosophical development. Postmodernist philosophy's criticism and denial of modernist philosophy is mainly manifested in the following aspects.

Third, how to view postmodernist philosophy

From the above criticism of postmodernist philosophy on traditional philosophy, especially modernist philosophy, we can make the following comments:

1. Postmodernist philosophy, in a sense, is a kind of social critical theory, which is a kind of theoretical reflection on the development of the capitalist society itself by contemporary Western philosophers. Reflection. When capitalism develops into a post-industrial society, the industrial structure, social life, mode of communication, art form and art style and even ideology have undergone great changes, and the cultural contradictions of the capitalist society have been exposed more fully, which prompts philosophers to reflect on the fate of the development of capitalism, the advantages and disadvantages of the process of modernization, and the rationalism and the spirit of enlightenment, which are the theoretical basis of the modernization of capitalism, from a higher theoretical level. of rationalism and the spirit of enlightenment as the theoretical basis of capitalist modernization.

Postmodernism, in this introspection, sees more of the hazards and drawbacks that the process of capitalist modernization has brought to the survival of mankind. In the process of modernization, due to the exaltation of subjectivity and anthropocentrism, the relationship between human beings and nature is understood as the relationship between ruling and being ruled, transforming and being transformed, utilizing and being utilized, and human beings demanded unlimitedly for nature, which made the natural environment and the ecological balance extremely seriously damaged, and the earth has become more and more unsuitable for human survival. Modernism preaches the supremacy of science, thinking that science and technology can solve all human problems. However, the development of science has not only led to the alienation of human beings and the neglect of spiritual civilization and moral beliefs, but has even resulted in the production of atomic weapons capable of exterminating human beings as a result of the high degree of scientific development. Rationalism and the spirit of Enlightenment had played a great role in opposing feudal theology and emancipating the mind, but the absolute domination, totalization, or wholeness of rationalism re-produced an almost horrific ideology of ideological confinement and oppression of man. Although it is said that postmodernism is thinking about the problems caused by the excessive development of capitalism, which is far away from our national conditions, however, as the reflection and lessons of the past, it is no less than an excellent sobering agent for the myopic people who think that modernization has all the benefits but no harm, and even disregard all the consequences for the sake of the immediate interests.

2. Postmodernist philosophy is indeed a turn in the development of philosophy. When mankind entered the highly developed scientific and technological post-industrial society, information society or the post-modern era, the production structure of society, cultural forms and communication methods have undergone great changes, will certainly cause changes in the philosophical way of thinking of mankind, philosophy of this turn is characterized by the opposition to the universalization, totality, homogeneity, hierarchical system, the essentialism, foundationalism and epiphenomenalism, and the affirmation of the plurality, diversity, differences, non-centeredness , fragmentation, chance, chaos, uncertainty, flow, and generation. These features are indeed lacking in previous philosophies or not given enough attention, but postmodernist philosophy is able to put them forward for study and pay special attention to them, which should be regarded as the theoretical contribution of postmodernist philosophy. It can be said that postmodernism is the result of the opposite of modernism, and postmodernism longs for a breath of fresh air when it finds modernism suffocating. In the above critique of modernist philosophy by postmodernism, it should be said that postmodernist philosophers have captured the problem well and hit the nail on the head of modernist philosophy. Postmodernist philosophy is a profound theoretical introspection on the development of Western philosophy, it is a bold attempt of Western philosophy attempts to jump out of the traditional philosophical barriers, although it is not a very successful attempt, but it is, after all, shows a new turn in the development of contemporary Western philosophy.

3. Postmodernist philosophy is to criticize the modernist philosophy as its own responsibility, but it is not entirely a kind of nothing to build, only the dissolution of the philosophy. Postmodernism seeks to replace modernism with its own theory. If it is unproductive, critique becomes impossible because it lacks a theoretical foundation. The fundamental problem with postmodernism is that it is overly radical, taking a completely negative attitude toward modernism and seeing itself and modernism as completely opposite poles. The relationship between rationality and irrationality, general and local thinking, horizontal and vertical thinking, sameness and difference, certainty and uncertainty, structure and deconstruction is not one of either/or, but should be one of complementarity. It is extremely wrong and na?ve to completely abandon rationalism and the spirit of enlightenment because of their many problems and defects. Rationalism and the spirit of enlightenment have played a great historical role in the development of human society, and science and rationality are still what we Chinese need to make up for today. In fact, postmodernism does not completely refute rationalism. As some critics of postmodernism have argued, although postmodernists oppose totalizing ways of thinking and grand narratives, they distinguish between "postmodernity" and "modernity," and have a clear understanding of the meaning of "modernity. Although the postmodernists oppose the totalizing way of thinking and the grand narrative, they distinguish "postmodernity" from "modernity", criticize and reflect on modernity, and try to carry out a fundamental transformation of the modernist way of thinking, which is itself premised on a totalizing frame of mind and a grand narrative. It can be seen that the term "postmodern" itself is not clear-cut with the way of thinking that it opposes, which may explain why the "modernist" way of thinking can not be completely transcended.

Four, postmodernism and the theory of film and television culture

Representative figures are French scholar Baudrillard and American scholar Jameson.

The concept of "imitation, analog": Baudrillard believed that we are in an era of "imitation" (also known as "analog").