Postmodern Theory: Critical Questions

Author: (USA) Best et al., translated by Zhang Zhibin
Translator: Zhang Zhibin
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1999-02-01
Features: The book "Postmodern Theory" is one of the most objective and excellent works I have read on the study and introduction of postmodern theory. It is an academic monograph worth reading and even rereading. The two most striking impressions I have from this book are its rigorous attitude and the vast amount of information it provides.
The book "Postmodern Theory" is one of the most objective and excellent works I have read on the study and introduction of postmodern theory. It is an academic monograph worth reading and even rereading. The two most striking impressions I have from this book are its rigorous attitude and the vast amount of information it provides.
The so-called rigorous attitude, as indicated by the subtitle "Critical Questions," is an "analytical critical attitude." This may sound ordinary, but it is not easy to achieve. As is well known, there have always been two completely opposite attitudes toward postmodernism, a 20th-century influential global cultural trend. One is to blindly and wholeheartedly support it without analysis; the other is to dismiss it arbitrarily and start criticizing it immediately. These two seemingly completely opposite attitudes are actually one and the same—they are both attitudes of intellectual laziness.
The authors of Postmodern Theory have chosen to abandon this path of convenience and instead embarked on a much more difficult path, a path of intellectual inquiry. At the end of each chapter, the author explicitly states: "Our goal is to explain and understand postmodern theory, viewing it as a challenge to modern theory and modern politics. It contains promising new perspectives while also having questionable dimensions." They also say: "We will neither defend or praise postmodern discourse nor merely dismiss it with contempt. Instead, we will open our minds, accepting its challenges and critiques while questioning some of its exaggerations and expressions."