Nowhere is the postmodern challenge to modernity more unsettling that enlightenment-the premise and the backbone of modernity-is delusory or impossible. Modernity's intimate connection with the Enlightenment (which is its very alias) is now widely thought to be its fundamental handicap. If human beings need the warmth and moral meaning offered by community, the Enlightenment effort to reveal to them their fundamental individuality can only make them anxious, immoral, or miserable. And if human beings are nothing but a web of prejudices, or socially-constructed beliefs and habits, the Enlightenment's attempt to strip them away can only reveal a hollow core underneath. Thus, it is no surprise that modernity is populated by increasingly aimless, alienated, chameleon-like denizens who cannot "connect" to their spouses, friends, commnunity, or God (gods, etc). By revealing the misleading or destination-free character of "Enlightement," postmodernism hopes to free us from the bogus metaphysics and empty neutrality that it has engendered.
Richard S Rederman
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