The Nightmare of Postmodernism
The Nightmare of Postmodernism The Reader is Dead The term postmodernism (or ‘pomo’) refers less to an absurd philosophy expressed in the work of a few French intellectuals of the 1960s and 70s, and more to the absurd cultural world that produced these thinkers, the bizarre and frightening pseudo-reality of ‘late-stage’ capitalism we inhabit today, which first appeared in the 1970s, mutated into the monstrous ‘global village’ 1 of the 1980s and, since then, has reproduced itself through an uncanny kind of cultural cannibalism. This cultural unworld, radically alienated from nature, and from human nature, emphasised modes of thought and perception which reflect a reality in which nothing exists but the self. The horrifying nature of this solipsistic state initially concealed itself with pacifying hyper-stimulation and material abundance, but now that the free energy has ran out, the nightmare lies exposed. Postmodern culture was actually born with civilisation, and the fundamen...