Are We Postmodern Yet?: And Were We Ever?

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

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                                      

Multilateralism and globalization

                Deregulation                                                                                     

Reassertions of the national grand narrative

Global rule of law

Chapter 7 :Faith and Other Grand Narratives                                                                                      

"Evil Spirits"

Traditional beliefs diminishing in a postmodern context

Traditional beliefs continuing

The undecided middle

Ego-based personal narratives

Small narratives

Selective adherence

Pluralist adaptation

Humanism

Case study: Humanist chaplain Bart Campolo

Chapter 8: Conclusion