A question must be asked: what kind of society are people living in? As Fredric Jameson discussed in the Foreword to The Postmodern Condition, one may answer in different ways from different points of view: Guy Debord called it the ‘society of the spectacle’ following the modern media boom; Henri Lefebvre described it as a consumer society because it is the ‘bureaucratic society of controlled consumption’, while Daniel Bell designated it a ‘postindustrial society’ in economic development  (vii). Jean-Francois Lyotard argues that all these phenomena can be summarized as the ‘postmodern’ condition.

 

Postmodernism seems a ‘fashionable theme’ (Jameson vii). In 1848, Marx claimed that ‘a spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism’  (1); one century later, Portoghesi said ‘a spectre is roaming through Europe’, and that is the spectre of the postmodern  (1). This time, it is perhaps not only influencing Europe at the present, but also the whole world. In Terry Eagleton’s words, an absolutely global culture has been emerging as a form of postmodernism. Transnational communication, multiculturalism, economic globalization and so on make it seem as if all boundaries in the world have been disappearing and people have gained more rights and freedom than before. Nevertheless, unfortunately, Eagleton claims this is only an illusion. According to him, such things are only imaginary after the collapse of ‘a radical movement which had suffered an emphatic defeat’  (Illusions 1), especially because this defeat never happened. Therefore all these conditions are illusions from a ‘steady disintegration’, ‘a gradual failure of nerve’ and ‘a creeping paralysis’ (19): that is the condition ‘we are living in, and its name is postmodernism’ (20).

 

Jameson may to some degree agree with Eagleton, as he also defines postmodernity as an era in which people can no longer challenge the global system of capitalism. But the difference between them is that he still believes there is something called postmodernism which provides an imperative method to break the ‘high-modernist’ and modernity; obviously, he insists there is a gap between the two cultural styles. ‘Even if all the constitutive features of postmodernism were identical with and coterminous to those of an older modernism, the two phenomena would still remain utterly distinct in their meaning and social function.’ (Jameson, Cultural logic 5)  According to him, this is because postmodernism plays a very special role in the late capitalist economic system, and he believes this ‘new political art’ could bring about a cosmopolitan cognitive blueprint and the ability to resist capitalism.

Hence, it seems ironic that the wish of Jameson is equivalent to what Eagleton has criticized. Meanwhile, while in English, Eagleton and Jameson were struggling with whether postmodernism is a glimmer of hope or a global illusion, on the other hand, the French philosopher Lyotard has bid farewell to the socialist project in this field. Differently from Jameson, Lyotard claims postmodernism is one part of the modern, and what the two styles are coterminous and belong to the same cultural system which is entirely under the control of capitalist society.

 

Consequently, what does the term postmodernism really mean, and what sort of role does it play in the contemporary epoch? This idea has become very popular nowadays but it is still a vexed and confusing subject in theory, and these complicated questions will be hopefully clarified in this essay. However, another issue which has recently arisen is the situation of the Third World (or the ‘Other’) in the system of ‘postmodernism’, as the latter directly leads to a so-called ‘globalization’ process. Here, the term ‘Third World’ does not point to the set of political ideas, but merely a map in geography. Meanwhile, ‘the voice from the Third World’, which is the subtitle of this essay, can be understood as two signposts: one is to some Third World fields such as postcolonial, subaltern and oriental studies, including analysis of cultural imperialism to some extent; and the other is represented by the diverse speech from Third World intellectuals, whatever their discourses are. In this essay, both of them would be related to and analyzed together with postmodernism, and the conclusion about whether postmodernism is ‘postdominant’ could be hopefully drawn.

 

Therefore it is necessary to define the concept ‘postmodernism’ at the very beginning. It is easy to segregate this word into three parts: ‘post-‘, ‘modern’, and ‘-ism’; understanding those parts would be the first step in clarifying the exact meaning of it. Comparatively, does the ‘post-’ mean ‘after’ or ‘cross’, and what is the correlation between modernism and postmodernism? Next, in the first chapter, three terms are elucidated: modernism, postmodernism, and the Third World.