Postmodernity as the Climax of Modernity Horizons of the...

Postmodernity as the Climax of Modernity: Horizons of the Cultural Future ABSTRACT: Given that any society is endowed not only with a set of institutions but also with the particular pattern of self-reflection and self-description, postmodernity should be viewed as an epoch representing the climax of modernity and its self-refutation. Parting with traditional society, modernity represents the triumph of power-knowledge, the divorce between spheres of culture, the global social relations, the new institutions, the change in the understanding of space-time relations, the cult of the new, and the modernization process. While preserving the institutional set of modernity, the postmodern period casts into doubt the basic thought†¦show more content†¦To understand the contemporary cultural situation means to penetrate in the spectrum of similarities and differences arising from its comparison with the classical stage of modernity. The new age started with a radical break with the traditional society and its cultural stereotypes. Reverence before the pas t and tradition, accepted symbols and the established order of things sanctioned by myth and religion constitutes the image of traditional society. On the contrary, critical reflection becomes the main force of development of modernity: all forms of social practice are reconsidered in the light of reason that should give a definite evaluation of their effectiveness / Habermas 1989: 27/. The triumph of formal rationality and calculative approach to the universe desacralizes the world and leads to the disappearance of naive symbolism . As a result, science allied with technology is considered as the main tool of comrehension and conquest of the world. In contrast to medieval period, modernity generates a total divorce of the spheres of Truth, Beauty , and Good. Philosophers of this period proposed different versions of their relations in the epoch when scientific images of the world pretended to be accepted as universal thus revealing their power function. Relying on the ideas of M. Weber, F.