Dec 20, 2009

Humanism | Humanism in the Postmodern World

Hamilton is an English teacher at Cary Academy in North Carolina. In this essay, Hamilton explores how Humanism continues to thrive as an attractive belief system in the postmodern world.

Postmodernism, the belief that reality is a social construct in which each person creates his or her own personal truth, has declared the “end of history” following Nietzsche’s declaration of the “death of God.” According to postmodernists, there is no possibility for a single, all-encompassing, objective belief. Everything is subjective, open to interpretation. This entails, according to postmodern French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, the “end of narrative,” or explanatory stories, as well. Lyotard claims that the “grand narrative,” or universalizing belief...