The question of whether postmodernism is alive or dead is really not an issue. Because it is all about perspective. And it is about how postmodernism is used and who uses it. To put it in the negative it is about how it is dismissed it and who dismisses it.
Postmodernism isn’t dead. It is very much alive simply because we are talking about it. We debating whether it is alive is in itself to give it life. It is however different to, say, Nietzsche’s “God is dead” proclamation because Nietzsche was making a statement about the end of religion’s grip on power over us. And it is also different to saying that Elvis is dead since this is a fact (or as some may want you to believe that he is living as an old man somewhere in Florida).
But if we are to take it to mean something like Nietzsche’s declaration, that is God has no power over us anymore, then I will still have to contend the point. While it would be ridiculous to say it is trying to become the dominant discourse, it never was trying to do so in the first place. And if it did try it isn’t postmodernism. It is only a modernism in the guise of postmodern sheeps clothing. Postmodernism must therefore always be an anti-thesis to a thesis (which was an anti-thesis to something else) without ever coming to syn-thesis.
So now do you care to argue about whether Elvis is alive?
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