Are theories of postmodernism Eurocentric?

The rejection of history surely cannot be applied to cultures where the mass media have yet to take power, where the power of the image is non-existent. There are still many indigenous peoples of the world such as the tribes of Africa and South America who live by tradition, retelling myths and stories of their past to uphold their identity and the pride of their heritage. They do not reject the idea of the past as it is the past that constitutes who and what they are today. This shows how postmodernism can be seen as being Eurocentric as there is no inclusion of these people other than being considered as the Other, an unknown species. There is no consideration that there are people and places that have gone unaffected by the mass media as the cultural dominant or been seduced into the west’s consumer society as they live a traditional life where the commodity of goods is rendered meaningless.

The idea that post-modern theory is somewhat radical in its apparent inclusion and investigation into “difference” and “Otherness” can be called into question as whether it really does achieve anything substantial. The ideas of bricolage and simulacra show how there is a “mix and match” culture where, in certain genres of music all types of different music are moulded into one, or borrowed from. Early rock and roll, which was essentially a black musical genre but was “borrowed” by white musicians and cultivated for the mainstream. But there was no real recognition of the original black artists and as Robert Storr wrote;

“Endless second guessing about the latent imperialism of intruding upon other cultures only compounded matters, preventing or excusing these theorists from investigating what black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American artists were actually doing.”

Another more modern example of this is in modern dance music produced by acts such as Moby who have used black folk music from the 1920s and 1930s and incorporated into mainstream music. Whilst they have sampled this music there is little recognition in the mainstream of existing black folk musicians. Basically my point is that whilst the post-modern theory of bricolage puts an emphasis on the acknowledgement of the “Other” in contemporary culture there is little investigation or exploration of the cultures from which this “Otherness” has come from. This could be because as postmodernist theorists there would have to be an acceptance of the past still being relevant on the current and future cultures. This relates to postmodernist theory being Eurocentric as there is the acceptance of the “Other” into western culture yet there is little exploration of these so-called “Other” cultures. I also feel that this cultural reinvention of “Otherness” has been created to satisfy the west at a time when there seems to be a deep crisis of identity as multiculturalism takes hold and destabilises the old order. Again this satisfaction has little response elsewhere as it is elsewhere’s culture that is being consumed by the west.

 Postmodernism emerged from the west and was established as a means of breaking away from and almost trying to destroy the old grand metanarratives such as religion and tradition. However by discarding these metanarratives postmodernists are surely simply creating a new metanarrative to replace the old ones. Postmodernists have claimed to have put an emphasis on the “Other”, a recognition of the periphery but in the non-west it’s the grand metanarratives of religion and tradition that they use to differentiate themselves from the west. Thus by creating this secular world there is a new metanarrative which has correspondence in the non-west.

Post-modern theory legitimates the disintegration of the centre, it promotes a variety of voices, ignores universalism in favour of regionalism, allowing the growth of suppressed knowledge and multiple meanings of subjects. However, this creation of a new metanarrative once more places the west as the centre as it was with previous metanarratives as Nelly Richard wrote;

“Postmodernism defends itself against the destabilising threat of the ’Other’ by integrating it back into a framework which absorbs all differences and contradictions. The centre, though claiming to be in disintegration, still operates as a centre: filing away any divergences into a system of codes whose meanings, both semantically and territorially, it continues to administer by exclusive right.” 

It is almost as if postmodernism is another way of creating a false consciousness for the “Other” as it would seem that their cultures are being represented but in fact they are only being used to satisfy the thirst of the west to consume “Otherness”. It is a type of exploitation as the Other culture is generally not receiving any benefits, especially in advertising where these cultures are simply being pimped to a white audience. For example, recently I was watching an American street basketball DVD where there was an advert for an energy drink called Mountain Dew. In the advert the camera was placed in a car as it drives through a ghetto where the viewer sees black men playing street basketball as a voiceover says “Mountain Dew, bringing the taste and spirit of the streets straight into your home.” This shows how the Other, in this case African American culture is being repackaged for the white western audience showing no regard for their culture, instead they portray these people as street dwelling gangsters who play street ball all day long. This stereotype provides the example of how postmodernism flirts with Other culture but rarely delves deep into it, thus rendering it Eurocentric.

In opposition to the argument that postmodernism is Eurocentric I am going to propose that perhaps this is may appear to be true in some aspects but in others it is very different. I am going to use Hip Hop culture as an example of how postmodernism is not Eurocentric. Hip Hop is possibly the archetypal post-modern culture. The culture includes music, fashion, language and art. The culture was born in 1970s New York in the impoverished lower east side of the South Bronx, started by African Americans and Latinos. I will first start by looking at the fashion and artistic elements of the culture. Like how Dick Hebdige described of the punk movement, Hip Hop fashion borrows from elsewhere to create new meanings. Hebdige referred to Punks using safety pins, for Hip Hop fashion in the 1980s the protagonists started wearing sportswear such as Adidas, Nike and Puma which were not the fashion labels they are today as they were generally used by athletes and were companies owned by white westerners. Hip Hop took these labels and made them into a fashion changing the meaning from sportswear to edgy street wear. The labels in turn saw how Hip Hop had changed their clothes and shaped their advertising towards appealing to black people. This contradicts the idea of postmodernism being Eurocentric as the so called Other culture changed white western companies to appeal to its people.

The musical element of Hip Hop is the most well known to the world. The music is essentially post-modern in its make up, it is the moulding of several musical genres such as traditional rhythm and blues, black folk music, a large influence from soul and there has been the amalgamation of rock with rap. The music’s influence on modern pop music is undeniable, from the sound of many pop groups leaning towards R’n’B to the very structure of the music, 16 bar verse, 8 bar chorus repeated three times, which derives from Hip Hop. As with the fashion, major companies have used rappers to sell their products such as Reebok having a 50 Cent and Jay-Z clothing line. The power that the musicians have gained has led to them changing major companies as I mentioned previously but also now musically, the west perhaps looks towards black musicians as the great innovators. If the effects of this bricolage were Eurocentric surely then the black musicians would be being discarded as novelties rather than gaining positions of power and influence?

As the final part of my analysis of Hip Hop culture I want to refer to how its language and slang has influenced modern English. In a similar way to fashion Hip Hop culture has changed the meaning of terms such as ‘bad’ and ‘wicked’ to mean something that is good. It may not be so prevalent in the mainstream but recent studies have shown how people growing up in London no longer are influenced by traditional cockney, the most prominent dialects and slang are from Jamaican Patois and American Hip Hop slang, a mix and matching of cultures to create a new one, with its main influence coming from ‘Other’ cultures. This post-modern idea of mixing and matching and the denouncement of universalism, in this case the universality of English being the dominant language is dismissed as in the future it may no longer be so influential, so it is another example of how theories of postmodernism are not Eurocentric.

As a conclusion to my argument that post-modernism is not Eurocentric I want to quote bell hooks;

“Employing a critique of essentialism allows African-Americans to acknowledge the way in which class mobility has altered collective black experience so that racism does not necessarily have the same impact on our lives. Such a critique allows us to affirm multiple black identities, varied black experience. It also challenges colonial imperialist paradigms of black identity which represent blackness one dimensionally in ways that reinforce and sustain white supremacy.”

So, postmodernism has the ability to empower the non-white by dismissing colonial stereotypes and placing themselves in a prominent position in contemporary society and culture. It allows for the non-white to step out from being a sideshow, an ‘Other’ to being leaders in their fields. I feel that both arguments are relevant and I can see both have valid points. It is clear that in things such as advertising there is still an exploitation of non-white experience, a Eurocentric view but I feel that as postmodernism can be seen as continuous work then I feel it is moving away from Eurocentrism as the ‘Other’ cultures become more mainstream. As I pointed out with the developing language patterns of inner London and the developing influence of Hip Hop music in the pop charts but also of multiculturalism in the west I feel that the Eurocentric elements of postmodernism may be filtered out.

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