MODERNISM

(Early years of the 20th century)

• It rejected the existence of God (Nietzsche, a German philosopher, proclaimed that God was dead) -> Reason was considered powerful enough to understand the nature of life and mankind;
• It believed in universal ethical standards;
• Research of a centre, a point of reference;
• It considered only highest forms of art as respectable.

POSTMODERNISM

(Since the Sixties)

• It can be considered a reaction against Modernist confidence in reason -> Reason is weak and cannot lead to the Knowledge -> Theories developed as result of the World War II;
• It believes God does not exist -> Mankind is alone and limited in a particular space and time;
• It is not possible to find an objective truth -> Questioning of ideas of authority, truth and centre;
• Mankind has only Language -> Relativism -> No absolute meaning can be found because the meaning is never stable, it is always slippery, still to come (deferred);
• Background experiences influence the view of the world and the judgements of everyone -> Prejudice;
• Language and culture used as weapons -> Cultural War between different cultures in which language is used to attack other people;
• Pluralism as result of the tenet according to which it is not possible to find an absolute meaning and a single centre -> descriptive pluralism (society made up of different races each one having a different point of view), relativistic pluralism (there is not only one view of reality), legislative pluralism;
• Abolishing differences between low and high art (born of Pop Art and Pop Music).