America’s New Modernism

“A workplace with countless rows of desks.” by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash

When we cast off the chains of the modern period and leapt gloriously into the frontier of postmodernism, with its uninhibited freedoms and ambiguities surrounding meaning and purpose, we undoubtedly felt as though we’d escaped an oppressive regime and reached the height of social and individual liberty. But for years now the thrill has been waning, and we’re beginning to hear the whispered question: Is postmodernism dead? And we ought to be asking what is changing because surely something is dying. We’ve come to the realization that the freedoms we thought we gained through our release from the morally ridged societal expectations of the modern period have been stripped from us once again, this time by the inexorable engine of capitalism. And so here we stand, at the precipice of a new epoch of human understanding, and wonder how to define our time.

We made great progress under modernism, the cultural and intellectual movement spanning from the mid-15th century to early 20th century. We began to think of ourselves as unique and autonomous individuals rather than inhabitants of a preordained world choreographed by God. New ideas emerged and the rise of empiricism helped us gain the courage we needed to question authority. As we advanced into the postmodern era, freedom of expression and the re-interpretation of meaning took center stage, with avant-garde artistic and cultural paradigms rising swiftly…