The Three Phases of Culture

Pre-modern, modern, and post-modern. What's the deal?

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[ScarfaceTX]

Interesting that you drew the the line at 1870 for the beginning of modernism. That’s around the same time photography became available. I had an art teacher who once said that photography was a big reason for modern art - that artists had the job of capturing imagery before photos were around; afterwards, they didn’t need to bother anymore.

[Mogswamp]

The biggest thing that seems to define post-postmodernism for me is a rejection of irony. The theory that self-awareness does not justify cynicism coupled with an embrace of "wholesomeness"

[codybaker]

I love that in art and culture conversations "modern" revolves around the 40s/50/60s in America and we all just decided that we are cool living in a world beyond "modernity" like peak society was the middle of the 20th century

[LonkinPork]

It's especially interesting how you mentioned "memes" near the end there.
It's widely understood in a pop-acadmic sense that Memes as an Internet-based art form have gone through 3 phases (and are currently in their 4th) over the past 20-25 years:
Sincere (?-2010), Ironic (2011-2015), Post-ironic (2016-2019), and currently Meta-ironic (2020-?)

[MelchiorPhilips]

I wrote my thesis on metamodernism, and I'm very pleased with this video. It's a very clear and accessible video on the "modernisms". I enjoy your hot take, although I am still a proponent of the idea of a 4th style. In my view, the way that we approach (pre-)modernism today is very different because we as a society have experienced post-modernism. We are sceptical of attempts to formalize and functionalize, but we try regardless. We have lost the sincerity of the old ideals, yet we yearn for them and use them anyway. It is very "meta", hence the name.

[JREG]

jj sleeping on hypermetapostpostmodernism 😴

[ztl]

I laughed at the “retvrn to tradition” bit because that specific aesthetic of memes churned by accounts with marble statue profile pictures and names like “TradWest” have to be a perfect example of 4th-stage cultural output.

Bizarre, highly self-referential memes disseminated on communication mediums that didn’t exist until a few years ago, all used to express ancient ideals of faith, family, and honor.

[SpriteGuard]

I've always liked the term "polystylism" for the current paradigm. Rather than seeking some platonic ideal form or rejecting all meaning, we're now embracing the variety inherent to a global culture.

[insertnamehere]

This video did a lot to help me better understand the distinction between modern and post-modern. I am a big fan of modernist works though (mainly literature). I feel like many modernists authors at times could be a little full of themselves when it came to their "rejection" of pre-modern ideas. A modernist writer could say "I'm showing REAL life and those ancients had their heads in the clouds" completely ignoring pre-moderns like Mark Twain and other American realists or Dostoyevsky who had no problem showing grim, realistic life. Or claim that pre-modern didn't deal with interior mental struggles as if Crime and Punishment or the Divine Comedy or Augustine's Confessions just didn't happen. But to be fair, this is more a criticism of Modernist philosophers or historians. Most modernist authors like Hemingway or Joyce or Elliot will bring up and praise pre-modern works all the time.

[sophiasix]

My family collects mid century modern furniture, so I just wanted to make a note that it wasn’t just Eames his wife was his partner in all of it and he tried to give her credit but at the time people just don’t see as “architecty” artist. But she was definitely as much of a designer in it as him. (Her name was rey Eames and his name was Charles Eames) love your videos it’s just that history has not given her enough credit.

[Plumtopia]

So I guess in summary pre-modern is like the original version or method of something, modern is the attempt to boil it down to its essence and most efficient form, and then postmodern is nearly the opposite, seeing how far you can push something while still having some loose connection to the original concept

[wesanity]

Your final question in this video has been the million-dollar question of my entire intellectual and working adulthood, I still don't think I have an answer. I work in architecture, and while in architecture school (and design school in general) from 2009-2015, the weirdest thing I found about my entire education in architecture was just how biased the whole system was towards Modernism, especially in terms of aesthetic style. Even though the philosophy had *kind of* moved on from the ideals of Modernism, the aesthetics that were softly enforced through design classes and studios were still very Modernist.

Pre-Modern aesthetics (regardless of era) were a big no-no. Post-Modern aesthetics were accepted only in particular instances, and in those instances, it was the Post-Modern works that were accepted tended to very much in friendly dialogue with Modernism. Any kind of Post-Modern aesthetics that were more in dialogue with the Pre-Modern were also viewed very negatively.

I always found it very strange how much architecture school would emphasize how "style" was not a thing and that Modernism was all about "form following function, " when it was very obvious just how much Modern aesthetics were viewed as being "proper" and "good" design. There was even one time during a final presentation during my studio classes where one of the designers brought in to critique said "This needs to look more Modern." This continuous attitude really wore on me throughout my entire time in architecture school, and honestly I feel like it really sucked away a lot of my creativity for a long time.

To a general observation on this video, I find it interesting how this whole cultural discussion puts Modernism in the center, with both Pre-Modernism and Post-Modernism on the edges, which makes me wonder if there still is a heavy cultural bias towards Modernism specifically as a sort of "general cultural logic." This could be the reason why the question of what comes after Post-Modernism is so difficult to answer.

[eruditeidiot]

I kind of agree with you about there not really being a "next new phase" coming. I think the fact that "the art world" has become so democratized by social media and the internet in general, means that people aren't kept out as easily as they used to be. And, that also means that people without a university degree in art history are able to create master works of their own, find audiences, and make connections with them. Maybe the person who made an image that hits me hard enough to make me cry, doesn't really know what the term "post-modernist" even means, and I'm totally fine with that. I love that. That artist doesn't have to be a part of any special club, or check off a full list of classes, to still be talented. What they do know, whatever they are trying to say, and the skills they've learned are enough. And if there is no all powerful club, and no one can really gate-keep "the art world" anymore, then why would art move in any one direction? Why can't artist move in packs, like musical sub-genres only a few thousand people even know the name of, and still be meaningful? The Dream Pools can go on forever in their own direction, with their own swimmers and wonders, inspiring others of like minds, and my uncle might never see them. But that's okay, because he's got his own thing. I kind of like the idea that our culture doesn't have to follow a script, or a handful of voices. We can all find our own culture now.

[kaloncpu]

I'm on the Mixing and Matching train. In particular lately, I've really wanted to see new buildings utilize some pre-modern characteristics.

[kariduanimations]

As an artist and animator who also does speculative biology projects, I’m into something I like to call “hyperexoticism”, where art and interior design is functional but also so far removed from any culture or anything conventionally “practical” that, say, you might not even know that amorphous stone thing in the corner of the room is a chair until you sit on it. Or maybe instead of a lamp hanging from the ceiling, you have a long bright yellow neon tube running from the ceiling to the floor through the centre of the dining room table. Or maybe on the second floor there’s a random little square shaped hole leading to the first floor but there’s a metal fence around it, or there’s a window into the next room that’s only as big as a baseball. It’s just interesting and a playground for my brain, if you will.

[Zirror]

Woah, JJ. The numbers in Sarah Kane's psychosis 4.48 are not random numbers. They are actually a failed (and one successful) attempt by the 'narrator' at the so called "serial sevens" clinical cognition test, which is often used as a easy test of cognition and memory. The test consists of asking the patients to subtract 7 from 100 and then 7 again from the result and so on.
The narrator fails at first, but succeeds once the narrator is presumably under medication.

[trycoding_by_abidinghaze]

I guess I am someone who likes pre-modern stuff. If you ask me people write fictional stories to escape reality so their being unrealistic is something I like. For example, harry potter is a story about a magical world that is absurd but we still like it because it lets us escape into that world. As for everyday objects like chairs, pens, etc, I would say they need to be functional at the core and should be made as beautiful as they can be without losing their function.

I really like your videos they always make me think about different things like art, culture, life, etc

[JREG]

So you’re telling me yoko ono is a bohemian postmodernist??? A boho pomo yoko ono????

[KaijinD]

Describing "post modern" as "hostile to form and function" is the best way I've heard it put. I've forced myself to suffer through several modern art museums and I always leave angry and exhausted. Your characterization allows me to better explain why.

[ryry_]

I think a good name for phase 4 of art would be Neo-Modernism. It occupies a space between the utilitarianism of modernism and ornateness of pre-modernism. You can see this in animation, where it tends to be both incredibly detailed (see smiling friends and rick and morty) but also optimized via things like rigging or motion tweening

Edit: thanks for all the engagement but stop leaving multi paragraph replies bc I’m not fucking reading them lmao