Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Contemporary Era
Naming and dating postmodernity
Just the West?
The ethical dilemma
Chapter 2: Truth or Truths?
Truth as a kind of fiction?
Emotion as the new truth?
Truth, Act II
Chapter 3 Ethics: "How I feel at the time"
Moral dilemmas
Skepticism about ethical foundations
Traditionalist ethics
Science-based (modernist) ethics
Postmodern 'other'-based ethics
Market-based ethics
Contractarian ethics
Chapter 4: Individualism: "I Believe in Me"
The costs of postmodern individualism
Self-indulgence
Civility
Decline of empathy
Lack of larger commitments beyond the self
Social distancing
Pleasure
Case study: The novels of David Foster Wallace
The goods and limits of postmodern individualism
Freedom - completing the work of modernity
Blysspluss
Chapter 5: Adventures in Cyber-culture
Internet gains
Internet losses
A decline of memory and literacy
A decline of reason
Illusory gains in multi-tasking
A decline of human connections
More democratic?
More resolutely into simulation
'Layered' reality
Internet addiction and mediated lives
Next step, transhuman?
Hunger for the unreal
Chapter 6: The Nation
Individualism: distrust of the political
Consumer, not citizen
Decline of the public sphere
Multilatera