In recent years, multiculturalism, tolerance and political correctness have been integrated into how American society thinks. America seems to be trying to learn more about the ingredients of her melting pot. These efforts can be best understood by examining post-modernism. Post-modernism is especially important to breaking down stereotypes such as those that exist surrounding the black family.
To understand post-modernism we must first understand modernism. Modernism is the philosophy that began with the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an era when science and art flourished. European society used the Enlightenment to object to the oppression of the church. This era emphasized only those things that are observable or measurable (Smith, 1995). The scientific method developed at this time became the standard to which everything is measured. Modernism, although moving away from the confinements of religion, was limiting in its own way.
Post-modernism can be viewed as an expansion of modernism. It does not limit the idea of truth to only that which can be observed. Post-modernism is all encompassing. Post-modernism does not allow for only one definition for anything. There are several explanations for phenomena. Where modernism emphasizes racial classifications, post-modernism emphasizes cultural and ethnic classifications. Post-modernism sanctions differences from family to family and person to person within the parameters of one culture.
This multiculturalism is being used to educate from primary education through higher education. In Percival and Black’s study with sixth-graders and multiculturalism, they realized that, although they were examining a specific Native American tribe, stereotypes of that tribe or people can develop (2000). For example, all African Americans from the South eat collard greens and corn bread. So, educating oneself about other cultures cannot be used to generalize to the entire group. Post-modernism is, thus, very important to understanding the concept of a black family.
Post-modernism reveals that circumstances cannot be explained in one way. Modernism has clear procedures and criteria for defining phenomena. The question of truth is determined by science. Scientists control the worldview or meta-narrative o...
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Post-Modernism, the absence of any certainty, discredits the values of modernism, opposing the fixed principles of meaning and value. It is built on countless theories about society, the media and knowledge of the world, but it is also aware that there is no ultimate way of making sense of humanity. Ondaatje embraces aspects of post-modernism, by creating a novel that breaks away from the traditional narrative, thereby giving readers a greater perspective on the novel. One learns that any story is simply a storyteller's construction, and is never unbiased.
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The third key principle of race, ethnicity and post-colonial analysis centers on a group’s culture being erased in order to adapt to the “new” dominant culture (Hall 269-271). The group being affected may try to hold on to established traditions but may face a divide in their ranks. The older generations are more likely to cling on to established cultural traditions but the new generations will try to adapt to the new ones society presents to them. Ellison gives examples of the divide in the African American community. “He was brought up along with the members of a country quartet to sing what the officials called “their primitive spirituals” when we assembled in the chapel on Sunday evenings” (Ellison 47). The older generation, that Trueblood
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Postmodernism assumes an ontology of fragmented being. Where modernism asserts the primacy of the subject in revealing universal truth, postmodernism challenges the authority of the subject and, thus, universal truth based on it. Modernism and postmodernism, however, draw upon distinctly different epistemological modes: critical and dogmatic.
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