While having a discussion on 'post-modernism' with a relative of mine this is what I concluded... A discussion of post-modernism would take much too long. It has shaped our world-view, but mostly in ways that people don't realize, e.g., in familiarizing them with alternative views of what "makes sense". It is the ultimate rebellion against the authority of the canon.
In an explicit sense, only a few people - mainly in academia - are really aware of post-modernism. Its greatest contribution, is to undermine the idea of objective meaning and to expose the essential subjectivity underlying all claims of objective truth. From a traditional viewpoint, it is mainly a "destructive" approach and, indeed, rejects the value of constructed structures. In this, I think, it does not take sufficient account of human nature, which is based on the "real fictions" of agency and self-reference. Formally, it is a much more rigorous approach than traditional theories of meaning and signification.
According to Ali Minai, Assoc. Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Cincinnati (with whom I was having the discussion), we're now seeing the birth pangs of the post-postmodern age, where people are seeking a return to meaning without falling into the old traps of tradition, religion, nationalism, etc., that they have only recently escaped. Of course, not everyone agrees with this direction, e.g., the jihadi movement in Islam and the right-wing in Europe, in America. However, they will lose because this genie is out of the bottle, and is fueled by globalization. The biggest threat to it is that some great calamity, e.g., climate change, may yet turn people back towards parochial ways...
