HOW REAL IS MODERN REALITY?...A POSTMODERN CRITIQUE (PART 1)

THE POSTMODERN QUESTION: IS THE WORLD TRUELY PROGRESSING?

One of the highly contestual dichotomy between modernists and postmodernists is the salient argument of if the world is truely progressing as posited by modernists, or if it is actually retrogressing as critically opined by the postmodernists.

Before examining the merits of these two opposing analects, lets establish insightfully what constitutes 'to progress' and 'to retrogress'....To progress in this ideosophic context would mean to move from a relatively inferior previous towards or through a path of relatively superior present cum future; while to retrogress would on the contrary mean to move from a present superior position or path to an inferior previous or backward position or path....Progress would simply mean to move forward while retrogression would mean to move backward! This is to say that for the modernist, our world as occasioned by modern enlightenments cum scientific positivism is moving farther away from the supposed inferior pre-modern realities cum conceptions to a better cum superior ambience of modernity (progression)...but to the postmodernists, these chain of social changes or movements occassioned by the enlightenement age was actually a continuum of retrogression embellished cum transposed cum decorated with the witty metaphoric peotic rhetorics of an illusive cum ironic 'modernist-progress'!

In a bid to try to avoid undue biasness towards any of the dichotomous ideoshades (postmodernism vs modernism), let us try to examine the realities/conceptions that constituted(s) the pre-modern condition and the modern condition, to be able to ascertain their levels of inter-departure cum simillarity, and thus evaluate whether there has actually been a progress or retrogression. And to do this with more objectivity, we all should individually ponder cum anwer the following demystifying questions/statements:

1. The pre-modern world was characterised by polytheism (belief in and worship of many deities) which the early stage of modernity challenged and thus urshered in the globalisation of grand-religions like christianity and islam...with the later stage of modernity experiencing wide-spread apostacy(a condition where humans do not know what one religion or doctrine to even believe in any more)- leading to present rebirth of what I call 'modern polytheism', which is an integrative approach to religion, with beliefs/doctrines cutting across or drawn from various existing grand-religious ideoshades. This is to say that the world moved from polytheism to monotheism and now to modern polytheism...is this progress or retrogression?

2. The early ancient cum pre-modern world was characterised by hyperpromiscuity cum absolute-nudity to gross-nudity or exposure of the human body, which the early modern world challenged vehemently and thus introduced a more conserved cum virtuous clothing sense, which was also dethroned by same enlightenement cum modern forces only to reintroduce the present dress sense of promiscuity-to-absolute-nudity...as we can observe with the prevalence of bikinis, mini skirts, sagging, nude party, nude-shopping, nude-films, and now most appalling nude marriages...are we really progressing or retrogressing?

3. Government in the pre-modern world were predominantly authoritarian cum totalitarian, this was challenged by modern pro-enlightenment ideoshades like liberalism, socialism etc...leading to the emergence and glorification of a modern systerm of government called democracy, but the same forces of modernity propelled the tenets of modernity to the extent that almost all democracies in the world, including that of USA and Britain and France, are becomming even more dictatorial, totalitarian and authoritarian as days go by...are we really progressing or retrogressing?

Let me stop at just these three critical posers...with a fuller work comming out with my new book ''HOW REAL IS REALITY?'' - A Postmodern Approach !


Victor E. Nwobike

(The Postmodernist political scientist)

victornwobike@yahoo.com
+2348084632728/+2348064097279