Marie89, 1/17

This week, in my American Dream and Pop Culture class, I read a quote that I found to be extremely relevant to CMC 300 and our continued discussion on postmodernism: “From the moment of birth, we are trained to see things a certain way, and that way seems natural and inevitable, not worth questioning. We look at the world and we think we see the truth, but what we see is what we are supposed to see…”

As individuals in the society in which we live, we are shaped by ideology everyday. We are subconsciously exposed to postmodernist thought, which is why it is so difficult to define it and how it came to be. Our generation has been spoiled in that we get what we want, when we want it. This has affected our psyche in that looming threats pose little concern to us as we have the tools to forget them and to take away any pain. (Anesthesia and Analgesia) Our perspective of the world and of Truth has been skewed as threats seem to be empty and the focus has turned to the individual. It is now more difficult to grasp the concerns of the world as a whole.

In a world where gratification is instant, everything and anything is readily available, and the success of individuals is praised, it is hard to believe that postmodernism is a relatively new phenomenon. No wonder it is so difficult to define. How can we imagine what life was like before when we can not imagine a world without the quickness of technology, the existence of personal music devices, the integration of race, and the explosion of media? To us, global warming has become normal. So has the existence of birth control, etc. How can we imagine it any differently when this is what we have grown up knowing?

It was said in class that “reality ain’t what it used to be,” but how can we define reality when we don’t even know what is true? Our perspective of the world has changed from generation to generation as we come to accept new ideas as our own reality.