Main areas of criticism directed at postmodern culture

Abstract

Today, it is becoming increasingly relevant to analyze the main lines of criticism directed at postmodern culture, which is disrupting society. First of all, this criticism can be divided into socio-political and philosophical. Socio-political criticism of postmodernity is a synthesis of four lines. The first is a critique of the conformist ignorance imposed by postmodernity. The second line is directed against its anti-democratic tendencies, and the third against its dehumanizing tendencies. The fourth line of socio-political criticism of postmodernity is directed at its contribution to social regression. Philosophical criticism of postmodern culture and postmodernism as its dominant ideology can be considered in ontological, logical-gnoseological, ethical, and socio-prognostic terms. Ontological criticism is based on the principles of totalization, essentialism, and a substantialist approach. From a logical-epistemological point of view, postmodernism is based on the liar's paradox: the denial of metanarratives itself becomes a metanarrative. The real external basis for the legitimization of scientific truth is socio-historical practice (in its Marxist understanding), and the real internal basis for the legitimization of scientific truth is a substantial explanation. Ethical criticism of postmodernism is justified in light of scientific consideration of the decline of the capitalist mode of production – a complex, self-developing, human-centered system. Heteronomous affirmation of virtues contrasts with postmodern ethical arbitrariness. From a socio-prognostic point of view, the formation of a new, non-postmodern type of culture is inextricably linked to the formation of a new holistic mode of production. At the same time, an analysis of the destructive attitudes of postmodern culture leads to the conclusion that overcoming postmodernism is a dialectical removal of Modernism, and not of postmodernism as such.