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We count the postmodern from the modern, and the latter, in turn, as is clear from the name itself, also stands in opposition to previous historical and cultural eras. Defining postmodernism through modernity, we fall into another philosophical pit, because the essence of modernity is also ambiguous. Let's assume that this is not only a specific era of modernism, but also a “project of modernity”. Modernity – modernity, “nowness”, and what can serve as an operator of modernity? Cartesian cogito. Derrida called this the “metaphysics of presence” and, pointing out the time shift, argued for a crisis of presence: the ” I ” does not create itself now, it is produced by the past, it is just a trace of what has already been. In this way, Derrida brings us to the situation of the subject's death.
The problem is that time is a function of consciousness. The answer to this question follows from the very term “postmodern” – post-present, after modernity. How is the now that is after now possible? This is a problem of the relationship between time and history. Postmodernism seeks to write the history of the present. And this is a ready-made paradox, how can you write a history of what is happening now? If we write the history of the present, then the present ceases to be such. No sooner does it arrive than it becomes history. The past lies on top of the present, and the present falls into the past. We don't seem to have a future. Fukuyama's end of story. One of the postmodern cliches is “it was already there”. Everything has already happened, we have seen everything, all the stories have been written, the songs have been sung. Nothing is new under the Moon and everything was in The Simpsons.
One of the classics of postmodern literature, John Barth, somewhere wrote about how he read an ancient Egyptian papyrus, the content of which boiled down to something like this: “All the tales have already been written, and the exploits are described, and we, storytellers and storytellers, can only rewrite them in different ways.” On a practical level, the problem is already many years old. But since the time of the Egyptian papyri, humanity has accumulated a couple of good books and good stories. Never mind, we'll break through.