The complexity of our postmodern times

I’ve spent the last few days immersed in the topic of postmodernity preparing for my final examinations on Monday and I still find myself constantly amazed by it. For me, postmodernity helps me make sense of what I see as a complex world and advocates the agency and creative capacity of a person. What it is is hard to pinpoint and often even refuses to be characterised because it opposes the reductionist tones of modern times where things are often addressed in universalistic and absolute terms. Yet, pitting it in this way against modernity might not be totally agreeable because some see is as an extension of modernity rather than rupture from it.

In any case, one of the better ways I’ve learnt about this is to read outside my text and talk to people about it. It is amazing to observe for yourself the contradictions and complexities that people have in their views and stories. In a sense, postmodernity celebrates diversity and difference but more importantly attempts to engage them rather than be ambivalent about it.

Such an engagement leads to the opening up of possibilities that could be good or bad, but like one says, that is the “tragic beauty” of it all.