ABSTRACT
Another key contemporary post- is postmodernism. Anyone looking to pinpoint the precise moment when the modern age gave way to the postmodern age, when modernity became postmodernity, would be engaging in a fruitless task. It is more productive to use the idea of postmodernism to describe a number of features of contemporary existence. These are best thought of in terms of opposed pairs of notions. The modern age was characterised by wholeness, the postmodern age by fragmentation. The modern age focused on production, the postmodern age on consumption. The modern age believed in the One Big Idea, the postmodern age recognises many viewpoints as being equally valid.
