Modernism vs. Postmodernism

Goals

Modernism upholds/espouses/champions/prioritizes: originality, newness

Postmodernism upholds/espouses/champions/prioritizes: appropriation, pastiche, quotation

Authorship

Modernism: authorship

Postmodernism: collaboration over authorship

Knowledge

Modernism: knowledge is a stable thing

Postmodernism: knowledge is constantly in flux

Progress

Modernism: Progress & science are keys to the future

Postmodernism: skepticism over whether progress is positive, whether science can answer all questions

Humans

Modernism: human subject as unified, centered, individualistic

Postmodernism: human subject as fragmented, diverse

Experience and Reality

Modernism: experience & reality are pure, unmediated (truth exists)

Postmodernism: experience & reality are messy, constructed (many truths exist)

Narrative

Modernism: "master narratives" of history, science, male/female binaries

Postmodernism: questioning master narratives in favor of non-linear developments, difference, plurality, multiplicity, trans-

Values

Modernism: values that are fundamental, intrinsic, essential, self-sufficient, universal, classic, transcendent

Postmodernism: views the above as constructs

Media

Modernism: print/televisual media are sole transmitters of knowledge

Postmodernism: web/digital/social media are only some of many transmitters of knowledge

Seriousness

Modernism: seriousness, intentionality, earnestness

Postmodernism: use of play & irony to overturn seriousness, intentionality, earnestness

Presentation

Modernism: wholeness

Postmodernism: hybridity, sampling, mixing things up

Realism

Modernism: the "real"

Postmodernism: the "hyperreal" & "simulacrum"