| Richard
Tarnas ‘The Postmodern
Mind’ is a philosophical
as well as critical essay on
the study of the postmodern
mind. Before describing about
the postmodern mind, the writer
has discussed about the background
for the emergence of the postmodern
mind. He believes that each
and every philosophical movement
in the west has emerged because
of the sacrifice of certain
heroes. The sacrifice of sacred
gave birth to Greek classical
thinking, the trial and crucifixion
of Christ gave birth to Christianity
and because of the logical mind
of Galileo, the modern science
got birth. It is Nietzsche and
his concept of nihilism gave
birth to complex postmodern
mind.
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Nietzsche’s
philosophical of nihilism
suggested that the very
centre of our existence
is totally nihilistic
or hollow because everything
ends in nothingness.
This concept of Zeroism
has given bases for
the emergence of post
modernism and postmodern
thinking.The postmodern
mind is the complex
human mind and postmodern
thinking is the thinking
of complexity. After
the Second World War,
human mind was complexly
developed because of
so many absurdities
and so many emerging
voices. Postmodern thinking
is the complex thinking
rejecting the modern
thinking. |
As a rejection over modernism
post modern mind believes on
decentralization, undesirability,
uncertainty, ambiguity mystery
and dilemma. It is against heroism
and rather then dictating the
single truth or reality, which
is the monolithic claim of modernism,
post modernism believes on the
multiplicity and plurality of
truth. Post modern mind is such
flexible and liquid like thinking
which gets probability everywhere
but it does not go to certainty
or finality of anything because
it considers that all the truth
values that are man made are
the human interpretations and
non of the interpretation are
final interpretation so there
is no final truth. It considers
that interpretations are ever
coming and all interpretations
are the attempts to achieve
truth so truth is never one
sided and opened. Therefore,
post modernism is the state
of confused human mind, which
sees probability in everything
but undecideability everywhere.
There
are many doubts and questions
regarding post modernism. It
is asked whether post modernism
is, a distinct trained or post
modernism, itself is not a distinct
trained itself like modernism
or another philosophy. It also
does not claim anything heroically
but instead it is the awareness
of the postmodern mind that
single truth or single meaning
is impossible because of the
many emerging voices. In the
very centre of postmodernism,
there are the Radical perspectives
of Kuninian philosophy. Similarly
postmodern mind gives ears to
all the voices of philosophical
ideas such as existentialism,
absurdism, deconstruction, Marxism,
feminism, post structuralism,
linguistic idea. Because of
multiple voices given by such
different philosophical, political,
religious as well as linguistic
movements, the concept of truth
or reality has become very complex
to declare. Everything has become
probable and the concept of
central meaning has been divested
so in the post modernism the
concept of single meaning has
totally collapsed. Post modernism
is also a great revolution and
it is the suppressed voice speaking
against the long dominated Euro
centrism. The postmodern philosophers
and thinkers say that the European
white elites have dominated
the non-Europeans and the non-whites
since long. In the name of white
skin, all the non-whites have
been strongly exploited so the
post modern mind revolt that
there is bankruptcy in the white
skin thinking. Against this
Euro centrism, post modernism
has revolted and suggested that
new concepts and ideas should
be reconstructed.
Finally,
even though post modernism does
not claim anything heroically
it gives certain suggestion
of us for being the postmodern
thinker. First, it suggests
that final truth or reality
is impossible so we should take
all the truth-values not as
the final truth but as the product
of interpretation. Truth, reality,
or meaning is the matter of
human interpretation so non-interpretation
can be the final interpretation
so there no final truth and
no meaning is final meaning.
Secondly, interpretations may
come at any time because interpretations
are never ending so it suggests
us to make our mind flexible
and liquid to accept any interpretation,
Static; dogmatic or rigid mind
cannot be the postmodern mind
because postmodern mind accepts
everything.
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