5. The Post-Modern Age

              What is the post-modern age when we live? Is it be the age of an exhausted modern, the age of terrorisms, the age of empire, knowledge and information, or the age of a controlled society?

 It is possible to interpret this age from multiple aspects, and recognizing and evaluating it is also diverse. Everyone live in the same age, although recognition of it is diverse. The same logic can apply to the age which became past. It is not reasonable to think that metaphysics warrant the absolute truth. This is the ground where post-modern philosophy opened up. Everything is relativized. Cultural relativism is one of them. This was considered to be the basis of the post-colonialism movement. It is, however, used for legitimizing the argument that freedom and democracy are not exception for this relativism. It is true and nothing is exception.

              The Post-modernism disproved the absoluteness, suppression, and a controlled society, which were produced as by-product of the modernism. This is justifiable and fruitful, although it is a critical distinction between what there are issues in the modernism and disproving the legacy produced by the modernism.

It is a general notion for the liberalists that values of freedom, human rights and democracy in the modern age and in the post-modern age are not required to be evaluated by the same paradigm. No one seeks for the absolute truth or reason. In addition, metaphysics does no longer exist. It must be the part of religion.

How can we legitimate freedom? Would it be due to popularity or superiority of history? No, these are not necessary argue to legitimate freedom by reasoning. It is enough to legitimate freedom if you represent your confidence of the existence of freedom.  Schumpeter, an economist, articulated that being aware of what self-confidence of the validity is relatively true, and representing this self-confidence without shirking back, both of which can differentiate citizens from savages.

 The modernism has light and shadow, advantages and disadvantages. Despite, there are numerous points to be modified. It is not an appropriate way to think about the modernism to pay only attention to its disadvantages and to discredit its advantages. Who could illustrate the political expectation without considering advantages of the modernism?

              There are unfathomable issues when recognizing the age, objectives and values. It is implausible to integrate these as one absolute truth. Moreover, conversation and progresses of culture and science cannot promote mutual understanding. In fact, it can be unavoidable conflicts between them. It seems to be true that the only way to deal with issues— catastrophes of violence and war, discriminations and poverty—is to reasonably continue these conflicts. This is the practical objectives to deal with these conflicts.

People’s introspection has been progresses since the modern age. According to Yi-Fu Tuan, he pointed out that words refer to the introspection and opportunity to use these words has dramatically increased since the modern age. Brutal situations have decreased in daily life. It has also been produced the consciousness of empathy as human beings since the modern age. It is the modern condition that people would feel sympathy with people with poverty live in the opposite side of the earth. War became more devastating due to the progresses of science and technology, although it is hard to conclude that people’s mind is deteriorated. This is one of the hopes.