The modern times have brought to us many changes. It was the time where many revolutions and transformations. It “emerged out of the discovery that human order is vulnerable, contingent and devoid of reliable foundations” (Bauman, 1992, xi). The Renaissance, for example, brought changes in the field of politics, the arts, faith and belief, and the way of life. However, this transformation from the old ways did not continue as it was hoped it would. The world plunged back to medieval system of living. But after years of struggle, the times slowly changed and modernity came to flourish as the world emerged out of the darkness of the old times. Modernity can be clearly seen in the technological advancements and the intellectual revolutions that took place. But after some time, another revolution took place and shook the very foundation of modernity.
Postmodernity can be seen as restoring to the world what modernity, presumptuously, had taken away; as a re-enchantment of artifice that has been dismantled; the modern conceit of meaning-the world that modernity tried hard to dis-enchant. It is the modern legislating reason that has been exposed, condemned and put to shame. It is that artifice and that reason, the reason of the artifice, that stands accused in the court of postmodernity (Bauman, x).
Postmodernity came and restored the world. But what did modernity take from the world? Does this mean the world is retrogressing?
Postmodernity aims to clear what modernity produced. Modernity created a world based on concepts, based on structures that are now deemed as true, but as time passed almost all of these truths has their truthfulness wearing off. These structures and concepts have created a bias perspective in many areas of studies that stagnates the pursuit for the truth. For example, in humanity’s quest for the truth about God, religion has created too much notions of God that it “kills” the very God that it wants to find; thus, the famous line of Nietzsche, “God is dead.” This is what postmodern minds want to break; it aims to revolutionize one’s mind without having to rely on mere concepts. This state of mind is the “radical (though certainly unexpected and in all probability undesired) victory of modern (that is, inherently critical, restless, unsatisfied, insatiable) culture over the modern society it aimed to improve through throwing it wide open to its own potential” (Bauman, viii).
However, there many who objected to the project of postmodernism. Modernity has aimed to fill the void (Bauman, xvii). In the field of science, scientists have endeavored to find and discover things that perplex humanity since the dawn of time. This is the one threat that is directed to postmodernism. It cannot just destroy the very movement that created innovations and discovered useful things that help in the progress of human life. But postmodernism does not wish to totally eradicate what was done that is of import to humanity. It aimed only to shape the mind so as not to conform to concepts that hinder further progress; and modernity has developed this kind of retrogression. It has grown weary that it neglects to continue to go on for the fear of destroying what it has so patiently achieved.
Critics also say that postmodernism is a “destructive destruction” (Bauman, ix). Subsequent to its destruction of a structure it does not create another that would be replaced as a better one. This is quite true. But advocates of postmodernism are optimistic. They see it as a bridge to newer, more develop civilization. Its deconstruction of a structure is a piece by piece evaluation of the structure so as to derive the truth behind it. In this manner, there is no need to have concepts; biases are then dissolved and, in the future, avoided. This is, so to speak, the uncovering of “the truth of truth” (Bauman, ix).
There is no denying that the concepts made by modernism are based on truth. Just like the development in psychology, with this science humans are able to look into their self in order to know their true reality. But as it continues its pursuit, it has created biases for some people that enable them not to see their self. This is also true in philosophy. In philosophy, men and women who devoted themselves in this field created so many concepts, paradigms, theories that, contrary to their intention, deviated from their purpose. This creates confusion and debates that further stray from the truth. So postmodernism hopes to dig the truth behind the concepts, which is covered by more concepts that allow the truth to escape.
This is the point of postmodernism: to go back to the true modernism, to restore the aim of modernism and pursue it in a new light. Modernism did not take anything from the world. It only deprived it of what can it see and grasp, th truth behind every concept it has made. Sociology is one that postmodernism hopes to reach. In the article of Norman K. Denzin published in the book edited by Dickens and Fontana (1994), postmodernism in sociological terms refers to a new society, viewed in the new light.
Here, he showed how decontructionism, a fruit of the postmodernist mind and primary method for their pursuit for the truth, can be employed in a contemporary study of the society as a research technique. Deconstructionism, as was discussed, seeks the naked truth, devoid of concepts that are attributed to it, so that it avoids biases and prejudgments. In this way, many sociological structures can straightened so as to focus itself to the problems that surround it today. As Nietzsche said, if we only stick to these interpretations what prevails is power; and power is not the thing in this world. It is truth.