Postmodernism as a denial of utopia

Abstract

Using the example of the concepts of H. Jenks, J.-F. Lyotard and F. Jameson the author analyzes ideas about the development of various social phenomena (aesthetic, economic and political) in the post-Modern era. In all these theories modernism is rejected as the embodiment of utopia. Thus, the architectural work of the modernist Le Corbusier embodied the features of Platonic utopia (radicalism, impersonality, egalitarianism). Architects of postmodernism, on the contrary, strive for the naturalness of their creations and respect for the historical heritage. The concept of metanarratives by F. Lyotard — the "big stories" of modernity, which are inferior to the "small stories" in the era of postmodernism, also approaches the concept of utopia in its characteristics. According to the F. Jamison's concept of late capitalism, utopia is transformed into a "desire machine", which is designed to replace the ability to desire in the schizophrenic subject of postmodernism, so his own ability to produce desires fades due to the secondary nature of culture, the predominance of nostalgia and pastiche in it.