The most effective way to kill brain cells. An endeavor mostly pursued by people who hated math in high school. Postmodernism is
by BlackSpray May 17, 2015
Get the Postmodernismmug. A term that you keep on hearing about in college and have to look up on Wikipedia. Basically says "fuck it" to the search for any intellectual conclusions.
Once you look up postmodernism on Wikipedia, feel free to sound smart around your friends by using it in conversations!
by rackham March 11, 2009
Get the postmodernismmug. by pabst smear June 12, 2011
Get the postmodernismmug. Postmodernism is a cargo cult. It seeks to duplicate the form of rational inquiry, while lacking the substance. It's children dressing up in parents' clothes, and complaining about things they don't understand, like taxes and sciatica, for no better reason than that is what they see adults doing with their time. Monkey see, monkey do.
Postmodernists believe that if they make their terminology sufficiently obscurantist, sesquipedalian, and circumloquatious, nobody will notice the lack of substance. To a large extent, they are correct in that belief.
Some postmodern philosophers (like Baudrillard) are beyond help, while others (like Foucault) are largely salvageable. This must be judged on a case-by-case basis, but not without boots to wade through the exceedingly thick bullshit that permeates the entire idea-space.
When you start getting to ideas such as "science is sexist because it probes the natural world (which is the sacred feminine) against its will, thus committing rape" it's time to throw the document in the fire. It's important to leave a lot of room around the fire, though, as you've probably underestimated how much pomo literature is totally worthless.
Postmodernists believe that if they make their terminology sufficiently obscurantist, sesquipedalian, and circumloquatious, nobody will notice the lack of substance. To a large extent, they are correct in that belief.
Some postmodern philosophers (like Baudrillard) are beyond help, while others (like Foucault) are largely salvageable. This must be judged on a case-by-case basis, but not without boots to wade through the exceedingly thick bullshit that permeates the entire idea-space.
When you start getting to ideas such as "science is sexist because it probes the natural world (which is the sacred feminine) against its will, thus committing rape" it's time to throw the document in the fire. It's important to leave a lot of room around the fire, though, as you've probably underestimated how much pomo literature is totally worthless.
Jack: I just learned about postmodernism in college, and now I totally believe in it, and self-identify as such.
Jill: You and every other gullible sophomore looking for an intellectual family where you can't possibly be wrong, you fucking latte-sipping coward.
Jill: You and every other gullible sophomore looking for an intellectual family where you can't possibly be wrong, you fucking latte-sipping coward.
by R0rd_Er337 February 28, 2009
Get the postmodernismmug. An ideology based upon the silly idea that metaphors can meaningfully serve as the subject of a transitive verb. Favored by university faculty who have nothing better to do than waste my time.
Colleague: This modality of the social construction of gender can _speak_ causally, but it cannot _think_ causally.
Me: You are wasting my time with this silly postmodernism.
Me: You are wasting my time with this silly postmodernism.
by Ludwig Wittgenstein February 9, 2009
Get the postmodernismmug. The perfect (maybe) word to write about in Urban Dictionary because everything you say about it is encompassed by it. So if I were to say that Postmodernism is a goat, I am of course, right (left). If I say that Postmodernism is an art movement based on the unsurity of a declining art market of the 90's, I'd be correct (whatever that means). Eat your Captain Crunch, look at a Madonna video and drink a glass of Tang. Reality is media. Reality is simulation. Life is Art.
My professor tried to explain postmodernism but got hung up on what words to use. He kept losing track of the meanings and saying things that nobody could understand. Finally when he was unable to speak any language at all, we all understood and went home but couldn't find it, because home is in the film "The Wizard of OZ".
by Bozlog May 8, 2008
Get the Postmodernmug. widely debated state or traits exhibited in cultural expressions (architecture, literature, visual arts, etc.) and in social and cultural theory. argued to be the "cultural logic of late capitalism" (Lyotard, 1984) both an extension of and a breaking with modernity, signified by a primacy of the visual, the valorization of form over substance and simulation over authenticity(Baudrillard), the narrativity of science (Lyotard), fragmentation of the liberal subject (Jameson), decentering of (sup/im)-posed systems of meaning in infinite interplay with chains of signifiers (Derrida)
see "Postmodernism for Beginners"
see "Postmodernism for Beginners"
by c joseph April 26, 2004
Get the postmodernitymug.