Postmodernism’s defining move is proclaiming a radical break in Western civilization

Evidence

What runs through all the various - mutually and often internally inconsistent — accounts of Postmodernism is the idea that recent aesthetic changes (however characteristized) are symptomatic of a broader, radical novelty, a sea-change in Western civilization. A little before the postmodern boom got into full swing Daniel Bell noted the widespread ‘sense of an ending’ among the Western intelli­ gentsia ‘symbolized … in the widespread use of the word post… to define, as a combined form, the age into which we are moving’. Bell illustrated this proliferation of ‘posts-’ by listing the following examples: post-capitalist, post-bourgeois, post-modern, post-civilized, post-collectivist, post-Puritan, post-Protestant, post-Christian, post-literature, post-traditional, post-historical, post­ market society, post-organization society, post-economic, postscarcity, post-welfare, post-liberal, post-industrial.. . — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 126

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘post-’ proliferation maps directly onto Jameson’s periodizing claim of late capitalism as a new cultural dominant — this is exactly the categorization move Callinicos will contest. — connects to: Modernity defines itself by a radical break with all prior and non-Western peoples — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 834; Postmodernism’s case rests on a radical break dated to 1960 — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 35; So-called postmodern changes merely accentuate long-standing modern Western tendencies — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 716 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Modernity defines itself by a radical break with all prior and non-Western peoples #responds-to (0.90) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 834
• So-called postmodern changes merely accentuate long-standing modern Western tendencies #complicates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 716
• Postmodernism’s case rests on a radical break dated to 1960 #expands (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 35
• Defining Postmodernism as internal to Modernism abandons its periodizing claim #complicates (0.85)
• Western modernity is a hegemonic particularism disguised as universalism #responds-to (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 153
• Extreme postmodernism erases historical specificity into a millennia-old cultural constant #complicates (0.80) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 129