Postmodernism is a nebulous and often poorly defined term. There is nothing genuinely concrete that separates the cultural icons that are labeled as postmodern from those that are not. Satire, cynicism, sarcasm, and other common features of postmodern sensibility are nothing new. The best way to understand the essence of postmodernism is to distinguish it from modernism, which was particularly enamored with science. Postmodernism is "largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality," (PBS). Postmodernism embraces concepts such as social construction and other contructivist theories that suggest that there may be no absolute objective reality. Eastern philosophy has championed constructivism for thousands of years, making postmodernism seem derivative. Postmodernism has the potential to seem nihilistic, which is why Frederick Nietzsche is credited as being one of the forerunners of postmodern theory (Aylesworth). There is no absolute truth, religious path, or ethic, according to...
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