Essay On The Loss Of Identity In Postmodernism

Cameron Vaughan

Professor Williams

Great Ideas

27 April 2014

The Loss of Identity in Postmodernism

How does one truly know oneself? Can anyone? The question of the “self” is fascinating, has pondered the minds of many philosophers over the centuries, and consequently has taken drastic change by the social conditions of the modern and postmodern world. Two centuries ago, this question was fairly easy to answer. Today, however, identity seems to no longer be a given, leaving this question unanswered. This sense of rootlessness is a byproduct of changing social conditions, which ultimately caused the shift from the stable view of self to the instable and disjointed postmodern view of self. By taking a closer look at Descartes’ modernist view

There had to be easier ways to search for their identity, so people began “identifying” themselves based on their nationality, common sports interests, club interests, etc. Consequently, at the height of the industrial revolution, philosophers began probing the seemingly self-assured modernist identity. They were able to successfully do so because of the destabilization that occurred after the drastic changes in social conditions. Friedrich Nietzsche questioned the whole basis for rationalist views on identity and modernist philosophy as a whole, believing there was no such thing as truth, there are only interpretations of the truth, or “mimesis”. He maintained that there is no truth humanity can get to by rational means, so to Nietzsche, modernists like Descartes were out of the picture. His views toward the ethical self, which seemed to be “a root of who we think we are”, did not hold values that are true. Rather, these “truths” had to be shown as historical constructions, which he articulated in his process of genealogy to illustrate how values are developed. For example, he says Christian selflessness or virtue is a weak slave morality that is really resentment against the powerful. The real self according to Nietzsche breaks free from these traditional bounds of morality. He noticed the need

Pragmatist philosophers such as Richard Rorty are guided by these previously discussed social influences that have shaped their views on the self. Rorty’s thinking abandoned all claims to a privileged mental power that allows direct access to things-in-themselves. In search of the self, he proposed the new idea of adopting Darwinian evolutionary principles to the philosophy of language. This resulted in an effort to introduce a realistic approach to issues of science and objectivity, to Descartes’ mind-body issue, and to concerns about the nature of truth and meaning. From Rorty’s perspective, language is to be used as an adaptive tool for dealing with the natural and social environments to reach a desired, pragmatic end. However, the problem with Rorty’s view (and other postmodernists’ views) is he creates an image of a person that has no real center, someone who is drawn in numerous directions and is continuously changing and being defined externally by the various relations he or she has with others. It was formerly believed that our goal was to attain a whole and cohesive self, to pull the different parts of our life together into one unified whole. Postmodernism says no, because by nature we are not one cohesive