Book Announcement: “The Emergence of Post-Modernity”

“This is one of the reasons for the remarkable loneliness and alienation from others many have detected in the post-modern landscape.”

Introduction

Few topics have proven as surprisingly controversial as post-modernism. It has provoked fierce controversy, with proponents seeing post-modernism as a liberating force, while critics condemn it as nihilistic, relativistic, proto-totalitarian, and much else. Indeed, for some, it would not be going too far to say that some ambiguous thing called “post-modern neo-Marxism” is considered an existential threat to an equally ambiguous entity called Western civilization. Despite all of this, it remains unclear what we mean by post-modernism; it has been associated with everything from an eclectic array of French philosophers who wrote in the late 20th century, to new styles in art and literature, to an aesthetics of popular culture influencing everything from The Simpsons to comic books.

My forthcoming book The Emergence of Post-Modernity, a sequel of sorts to my earlier The Rise of Post-Modern Conservatism, splits the difference on these interpretations by defining it as a historical epoch characterized by how individuals understand and approach time. This might seem eccentric, but it is actually significant since how human beings relate to time frames a great deal of their lives. If we believe that the world of time is simply a precursor to our entry into eternity (as many Platonized iterations of Christianity held), we understand our lives and purpose in the world very differently than if we think the time allotted to us is all we have. What defines post-modern approaches to time is how they are phenomenological, rather than historical; we see time as the horizon for our individual pursuits, rather than regarding our individual pursuits as contributing to a greater historical arc. This is, in part, because in a post-modern era, we have grown deeply suspicious of meta-narratives about history and historical change. Consequently, we approached our temporal existence as an opportunity to develop and transform our personalized identity within the present social parameters.

The Emergence of Post-Modernity

My book traces the origins of post-modernity to three factors: liberalism, capitalism, and secularism. Operating together, these remade the modern world and transformed the way human beings relate to time (and their sense of identity), preparing the way for the emergence of post-modernity.