Customer Reviews

Postmodernism and the Other

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Postmodernity is a condition of profound and growing injustice and postmodernism is its legitimating ideology. And while most Western thinkers lie to themselves and argue that postmodernism is a new non-reductive, non-totalising theory of liberation the reality is that it is a condition which means ethnic restaurants and world music for the Western elite and devastation, utter devestation, for much of the Rest.

The book ranges across areas like architecture, film, television, pop music and philosophy to faddish new age religions and includes specific analysis of everything from Disney's Pocahontas to Rushdie's Satanic Verses; Mira Nair's The Perez Family; the Body Shop and Microsoft Bookshelf to tourism and terrorism.

In every instanace Sardar brings compelling evidence (and his own exceptional intelligence) to support his argument that while postmodernism appears to embrace plurality it in fact functions to legitimate the acceleration of Western imperialism.

This is book is more than just an effective antidote to Baudrillard and Rorty. It's a very serious, convincing, compelling and overdue attack on the way the world is. It's also a very necessary antidote to the selfrighteous smugness of most Western 'critics' and particularly those who are so blinded by luxury that they really do believe that we are entering a postpolitical age.

Postmodernism and the Other can be read with the work of people like Noam Chomsky, Christopher Norris, Lesego Rampolokeng, John Pilger, Jeremy Cronin, Anthony Richmond, Breyten Breytenbach, Vandana Shiva and Pierre Bourdieu. The Post-Development Reader is excellent too. And of course Frantz Fanon's classic, The Wretched of the Earth, still speaks as urgently as ever.

This is one of the most interesting books I have read about postmodernism and postcolonial discourse. The book covers most of the areas in the contemporary condition. It is divided into sections dedicated to literature, Science, religion, etc, and the author's knowledge of the Western culture as well as many of other cultures is remarkable. His arguments against the prevalent postmodern tendencies and propositions whether in literature, philosophy, science or religion are strong, convincing and interesting. One of the main contributions of the book is that it exposes the alleged pluralism of postmodernism and shows us how it is a mere extension of colonialism, and how it works in many ways to manipulate, subjugate, or even eliminate the Other. The author provides Non-western cultures with ways to protect themselves from " the virus of postmodernism". I also find the book very accessible

Honky, white, trash is all we `Westerners' amount to, sadly, through the descriptive analysis of Ziauddin Sardar's `Postmodernism and the Other: The New Imperialism of Western Culture', which explains to us, in detail, exactly, how, why and when we developed from honky, white, trash in modernity into postmodern honky, white, trash! The others in the tale are initially marginalized and finally consumed by Western culture and systems of exploitation. Sardar seems to enjoy subjecting us `Westies' (especially Americans) to a tirade of academic abuse concerning our inherent despotism.

Academic but readable, Sardar is sometimes very amusing, but always serious regarding the central issues. The essence of Sardar's analysis of postmodernism is this: the West and its culture has come, has conquered and is here to stay, to keep on dominating and, as Sardar puts it, will eventually consume all Others.

This may well be true in the minds of the current controlling `elites', whose concern for their own affluence far outstrips any empathy for the poverty and suffering their actions cause to others. Yet there is a counterforce, and the worse the controlling elites become the more support goes to the opposition. We should not be disillusioned nor dissuaded from the search for global justice and equity, but must realise, as Sardar describes so vividly in this book, the strength and determination of the opposition. Or, as Sardar puts it: `We are left only with a worldview that cannot differentiate between good and evil and hence cannot cultivate virtue. It can thus have no long term future.'

But there is another side to every dominant regime, American led globalisation is the current paradigm (putting economic policies driven by `consumerism' above human values), but all the evidence points to its implosion: not if, but when. What is required is an alternative or rather alternatives based on true moral principles which (as Sardar describes) are to be found within every culture (or tradition), and which could provide the foundations to lead the way forward. But contrary to the suggestion in most of Sardar's potent discourse, both `Westerners' and `Others' possess humanity, and unity of purpose is possible......ultimately. Sardar penetrates the superficial level of Western postmodern authors, film and attitudes, but perhaps may also have considered deeper Western `traditions' where the potential to redevelop our systems to `revitalise' justice and equity, raising them above the level of economic considerations (the mainstay of postmodernism), still exists.

Sadly (well, he does have a point!), Coleridge is singled out along with Wordsworth by Sardar as a poet of western romanticism, which he describes as `pathetic fallacy', yet in the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge describes the guilt, penance and final redemption of the old mariner, for the wonton killing of the Albatross, the lesson being:

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

Rather as the ancient mariner holds the Wedding-Guest spellbound, Sardar holds us with his own `glittering eye' (being the depth of his insight), forcing us to understand the cruel nature of Western supremacy; for as we read his work we become for a while as the Wedding-Guest, who having been stayed to hear, is finally released thus:

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

This is made all the more poignant since many of us are the proponents (albeit unwittingly perhaps) of the `crimes' of Western domination of all `Others'. But, as Sardar says in the final lines of this book `The invincible, life-denying forces of postmodernism are about to encounter the immovable object of life-enhancing tradition.' Or, as Martin Luther King put it: `I have a dream that one day this nation [USA] will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal'. Capitalist postmodernism is in fact already dead and the alternatives are springing up everywhere, but what kind of futures will materialise is yet to be discovered.

I couldn't help but wonder if this was an honest critique of postmodernism, or was postmodernism merely a mask to launch a diatribe against the West? I will admit, the West isn't perfect, but good grief! Even its charities have an ulterior motive them, and of course, if they didn't do anything, well I sure the criticism would fly for that too. To highlight the bad without noting the good tends to make one very dogmatic, thus rendering one not worth listening to.

Interestingly, the book is a clash of metanarratives. He seems frustrated more by the fact that it is the western metanarrative that is dominant and not the Islamic one.

Whatever the case, this author approaches the subject with a severe misunderstanding of what postmodernism is. There are many defintions of postmodernism, and it is clear that he is viewing the subject through his own anti-western world view. Sardar is critical of relativism and rants about postmodernism lack of objectivity. However, he is clearly defining and critiquing postmodernism through his worldview and is anything but objective.

Also, note his tips for surviving postmodernism: cultural authenticity and autonomy, tolerance, community, tradition, and even calling on non-western cultures to "redefine" postmodernity in its own terms. Sounds very postmodern to me.

Sardar in his book has become EXACTLY what he hates: prejudiced, unobjective, and dogmatic with an anti-western metanarrative that he knows is superior to that in the west.

This book may be right in several respects, but then people like Ziauddin Sardar themselves belong to parasite third world ruling elites that serve Western "interests" in such countries. If it weren't for this class and its hypocrisy and sheer greed, the West would have a very hard time in enabling its "interests" over here. So, who is to blame?