The search for new forms of personal expression in the era of postmodernism

Introduction

The relevance of the problem stated in the article is due to the fact that the problem of the coronavirus world fits into the postmodern discourse that is in the process of deepening and being filled with new content. That indicates eliminating standards of classical philosophy and cultureand led to attempts of breaking with the traditional worldview concepts of modernism. The purpose of the article is to conceptualize the philosophy of postmodernism that evolves, on one hand, as a search for new forms of creative self-expression, and, on the other hand, is presented as a crisis of philosophical cognition. The focus of the article is on the analysis of the entire set of concepts in the philosophy of postmodernism - deconstructivism, intentionality of consciousness, “the world as chaos”. The tasks of the research include the analysis of the concepts of postmodernism resulted in the presented analysis of postmodern reality that led to the emergence of a new system of categories and concepts as a system of methods for constructing the new being.

The leading method for the study of postmodernism concepts is the systemic method allowing to determine their integrity and to explicate associative connections between them as interactions and interconnections brought into the system of the concept. This system of concepts includes a set of methods for cognizing reality, namely ontological-metaphysical, logical-axiological, critical-existential for understanding the essence and existence of a person, “deepening stable correlations and attributive system parameters that are characteristicsto understand a complex society-being, its concepts, structure, substrate (Swab, 2019).

The postmodern philosophical system is considered fully defined if not only concepts, but also the structure and substrate of the system, facts, phenomena, problems that turn into applied categories and fill the modern society-being of a person are determined. Following methods are used for this purpose: analysis and synthesis, which means dividing an object-subject into elementary-component parts-components, combining the obtained results into a systemmodel and based on it identifying interconnection and correlation matrices of the components of the whole. Synthesis is the result of immanent-reflexive acts, due to which the parts of the whole are combined into a single-integral process. Analysis and synthesis are reflections of the patterns of ontos-being-existence of the postmodern worldinextricably linked with the acts of individual human life andrelying on anti-synthetic methods of cognition. Analytics is a characteristic of that part of logic that interprets phenomena, argumentation, evidence, definitions as a result of the anatomization of the object under study and the gnosticizing the component parts. The study of the problems of postmodern life using methods includes an arsenal of tasks, questions, projects produced at all stages of the cognitive process and result in the solution of the problem itself based on evidence for the solvability or unsolvability of the problem itself.

Such philosophers as F. Jameson (2016),           J. Baudrillard (2016), J. Lacan (1966),               J. Derrida (1992), G. Bataille (1992),                G. Deleuze (1998), J.F. Lyotard (2020),           M. Foucault (1966), R. Barthes (1989), R. Rorty (1966) considered the problem of interpreting modern life that would result in re-coding the concepts and values of the postmodern system. The re-coding of the concepts and values of the postmodern system has led to the giving new content to the ways of constructing being, based on the game dynamics and simulacra. “In search of new meanings for the concepts of philosophy of postmodernism, scientists are trying to identify the conditions for creative self-expression of aperson, the ways of self-perception of human life that led to the crisis of being” (Pinker, 2019). As a scientific novelty, we use the analysis of the problems of the coronavirus and post-coronavirus world completely absorbed by the philosophy of postmodernism, which caused the emergence of a new system of categories and concepts as a system of methods for constructing a new being, including post-coronavirus reality. “Therefore, the aspect of the analysis of the concepts of postmodernism we are considering includes their debatable aspect of analyzing the problem and its deepening from the point of view of understanding our contemporary life, including post-coronavirus being” (Sadovnicova & Kokiel, 2020).

The philosophy of postmodernism

Postmodernism as a philosophical and cultural trend and movement of Western philosophy was closely formed as the world perception in conjunction with such sciences as aesthetics, ethics, art history, as well as such branches of philosophy as metaphysics, ontology, axiology, hermeneutics, phenomenology that clearly evolved in the cultural consciousness of Western self-consciousness in the last decades of twentieth century. “The philosophy of postmodernism amounts to decanonization and defragmentation of all philosophical ideas, non-perception of universal modernist discourses, their denial, and forms a set of cultural theories, linguistic discourses, economic forecasts, and religious revival” (Don & Tepskott, 2019).

The postmodern situation of the XXI century is a reflection of a new situation of “movement against the tide” where society and culture strive to reproduce new productive ties, traditions and innovations, an attempt to renew social forms of the person-society relationship. The epistemological uncertainty associated with the “crisis of authorities”, the collapse of scientific determinism and the cumulative nature of the changes resulted in radical transformation of knowledge. The postmodern situation is also growing in economic discourse, demonstrating that the imposed neoliberal ideology has led to deindustrialization, inequality, poverty, emigration of the population, excessive state debt dependence and addiction to palliative macro-financial aid from the West. Concepts of the postmodern philosophical system of ideas, principles, attributes, characteristics.

“The world as an autonomous context” caused eclecticization of rules, maxims, laws of logic, the prevalence of stylistics based on the recoding of concepts, creative editing and dismantling of subjectivity, which was replaced by the metaphysical idea of "presence" expressed in the categories of essence, existence, substance, transcendence. The proposed system of philosophical categories of postmodernism does not fully describe the essence of social processes, since a mobile army of metaphors and anthropomorphisms comes into forceresulting in truth equated to an illusion, “where the content comprises of the game function and rebellion against “philosophical totalitarianism”, and where the guiding principle of truth is an ironic collage and deciphering of the illusions of being” (Voronkova & Teslenko, 2020).

The concepts of the philosophy of postmodernism are based on the convergence of ideas - philosophical, religious, ethical, aesthetic, art criticism. Its totality testify not to a strict system of thought, but to the fact that postmodernism is an ambivalent and contradictory trend and a phenomenon that has spread to other spheres - politics, religion, science in search of an assessment of the cognitive capabilities of a person and his/her place in the modern world. “This tendency led to the denial of positivist, technocratic and rationalistic universalism and to the constitution of the theatricality of modern life and philosophy” (Oleksenko, 2013).

Denial of the traditions of modernism cultureas a kind of reaction to the monotony of the universal flow of the world in modernism and the manifestation of the general crisis of the era, as well as a reaction to conformism and consumerism of Western civilization that contributed to the emergence of a man - homo deconstructive - a man of the postmodern era.The main feature of modernist thinking of “homo deconstructive” is the loss of faith in such metanarratives as the dialectic of the Spirit, liberation of humanity from rationality, “Christian metanarrative, progressive expansion of freedom and the acquisition of political, spiritual, moral, religious, rational life borderline activity” (Voronkova et al., 2019).

At the heart of postmodernism, the "the world as a game" concept is formed, the gameful attitude of a person to life and to everything that happens. Gaming led to the partial elimination of all being and replaced the adequate activity and reality of a person, designed to achieve the progress of society, to exercises in using the techniques of playing stylistics, poetics, subjective dismantling of reality. A similar collage took place in the context of mixing genres and attracting ideas of post-Freudianism, psychoanalytic models of the unconscious, semantic-semiotic and structuralist ideas and principles that obviate the hierarchy of various levels of consciousness and absolutize the function of language as an endless stream of combining cultural signs, symbols, texts and values resulting in mixing of genres - high and low style, stylistic syncretism J. Heyzinga (1992); J. Derrida (1992); “in certain understanding of life sense as irrational, unconscious, non-discursive and illogical, beyond the boundaries of reflection and contradicts the laws of logic” (Maltsev, 2020).

The main concepts of the postmodern philosophy

The concept of deconstructivism of cultural standards and their privileged positions acts as a textual activity that casts doubt on the metaphysical values of being and appeals to the playful ironic nature of language and linguistic myths. Such postmodern ideas are based on methodological plurality resulting in departure from evaluative judgments of values, denial of universal authorities, interpretive polyvalence, “destruction of hierarchical structures, an attempt to reveal the deep universal mental structures of a pluralistic universe” (Kyrychenko, 2019).

The use of the means of postmodernism in projection onto the principles-postulates of the concepts of deconstruction of political, economic, information and other areas of life of society and man. Therefore, all spheres of life were influenced by irrationality, expanding their ideas to a wide range of phenomena of modern culture resulting in a positive irony of dissolution of the sovereign subjectivity of a person in the texts of culture, to the emergence of a new category - “death of the subject” (Lyotard, 2020). 

The concept of “intentionality of consciousness”, immanence and fusion of consciousness with the means of mass communication, immersion of a person by his actions in spontaneity, disorganization, uncertainty, complexity and variety of possibilities of being. This led to a change in the monotonous course of life with all the ensuing problems of experiencing the complexities of coronavirus and post-coronavirus world with its difficulties of being, an excessive number of politicians' mistakes, unprofessional approach to solving current problems, “illegal government actions resulting in mental and physical impairment of a person, his/her health and being, loss of his/her integrity, uncertainty” (Nikitenko, 2020).

The concept of “the world as chaos” where there are no criteria for the values and semantic orientation of the world. It led to the aggravation of risk problems and the use of different methods of individual self-defense in connection with the deepening of coronavirus uncertainty and spontaneity, comprehending "the world as chaos" where the cult of the incomprehensible, fragmenitarization, unconsciously creative and unprofessional activities of politicians dominates at all levels - both at the top and locally. Their oligarchization and corruption, with the appeal of the refusal of universal protection of the population from the World Health Organization and at the same time understanding of contradictory national statisticsthat intoxicates and confuses the population, caused a “crisis of faith” and distrust in the authorities and their institutions (Voronkova et al., 2020).

Simulacrum as an empty matrix or quasi-thing. A simulacrum is not an original, but a quasi-thing, an empty, zero matrix or artifact, just a transcendental object-model of a fictional world, witha real world of a person with all its problems and contradictions behind it. As a result, it is difficult for an unprepared person to exist in reality-authenticity after he/she visits Disneyland that represents a fictional reality. It is not by chance that the words “post-truth”, “post-authenticity” began to appear in the philosophical language, since today in the media space it is difficult to distinguish truth from lies, “truth from simulationin the media space” (Sinher, 2019).

Simulacra demonstrate the absence of truth as a result of the erasure of cognition between reliable and irrational (supposed) knowledge; therefore, simulacrum is a secondary, surrogate one in correlation with multiholograms of the fictional world. Simulacra are polysemiotic structures of thinking that create surrogate continua for the formation of paradigms of mastering realitybased on primitive stereotypes and banal judgments that do not reveal correlations, principles, laws and maxims of being. The very post-coronavirus existence of a person is based on simulacra and simulations rooted in various clichés, labels that are exploited by mass culture. “They state the priority of the phantom over the metaphysical, thus, unfortunately, being the bearers of artistic, aesthetic, cultural degradation and primitivism, not the high culture” (Kyrychenko, 2019).

The new values of a digital worldview

Today one can observe the acceleration of the world of technological innovation, since humanity devotes a significant part of its time to digital artifacts, technology becoming the dominant component of the public sphere, the accelerated introduction of new products and services, the change of processes, “the emergence of a new entrepreneurial spirit mobilized by the capabilities of technology to fulfill human desires”. Simultaneously with the growth of the ICT sphere, postmodern humanity is increasingly aware of the existence of a significant number of problems causing the mankind to strivefor comfortable and sustainable existence. The speed of implementation of digital transformations requires the earliest adaptation to this type and way of being and the use of all reasonable and sustainable human potential. In connection with the huge number of problems of digital transformation of human existence, “it is necessary to investigate how to use digital technologies in the context of digitalization to overcome the negative consequences of coronavirus and post-coronavirus life” (Oleksenko, 2013, 2019).

Today it is not clear what COVID-19 associated problems may arise in a non-competitive market space, since as a result of the concrete reality of the coronavirus, there has been a decline in economic life (and stagnation in Ukraine), and digital technologies are used in everyday life bypassing laws, labor agreements and fiscal systems and can lead to confrontation between countries. We agree with Prof. Lepskiy who says that “confrontation is turning into a trend, while the countries-subjects of crisis resolution (these are not always previous global players, but more often global and regional players) include systems of relations by “soft” and “smart” force, rather than “hard” force (Lepskiy, 2020). These global relations and influences enhance the dynamics of “whirlpools" in the local political and local economic spheres of the country, possibilities forglobal cataclysms (wars and revolutions). But, in any case, countries, international and global relations change their structures, functioning, institutions, communities (Nikitenko, 2019). The Digital Authorities Service has to introduce new technologies, which should completely rethink the digital development strategy in government. The concept of a sustainable digital development economy aims at increasing the well-being of the population and improving environmental situation. The indicator of "human well-being" describes, respectively, the average inhabitant quality of life of the planet, including both material and intangible components (Nikitenko et al., 2019)

Postmodernism as a philosophical trend in the search for new forms of relations between a person and the world, for new values and criteria of truth, implies the theme of the exhaustion of the previous era of modernism and the search for a new problematic of a person in the deconstructivist era “homo deconstructivus”. The era of postmodernism, despite the uncertainty and fragmentation and its deconstructivism and nihilism, was, on the one hand, an expression of the crisis of the modern Western era associated with the categorical prohibition of modernist values, and on the other, the search for new forms of creative self-expression of a person, his/her place in life, varied new ways of rethinking life, exploiting new values associated with the strengthening of the role of information technologies in the era of digitalization, dismantling of modern life and modern ideology, since the essence was veiled under the surface of facts and phenomena as presented by politicians. “New values require the formation of a digital worldview and consciousness. States should direct all efforts and opportunities to management that promotes the implementation of the concept of digital development” (Lepskiy, 2020). Postmodernists concluded that today there are no canons, since all truths have faded, all differences are equal, and truth has been replaced by the principle of complementarity.

Conclusions and recommendations

Summarizing the discourse, we note that the main goal of postmodernism is to eliminate rational discourse and proclaim the end of the general metadiscourse of rationalism. Postmodernity should be seen as the transplantation of aesthetic matrices into surrogate, illusory, eclectic ones, which veiled the real essence of phenomena and processes. “A person today is not a project endowed with individuality, as most philosophers claim, but rather a machine that consumes and reproduces these ideas and images that exist in the media, advertising, politics”.

An example of such a hyperreality is the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, since the principles of objectivity and concreteness are not applied to its analysis, since all statistics are paid, stretched, deceptive and the disease as a whole is programmed from above by global forces. A person continues to live in the “hyperreal world” of post-coronavirus reality, based on the sole purpose of consuming images and signs generated from above presented as simulacra. Simulacra are stereotypes, primitive matrixes that help a person to survive in this primitive fictional world and serve as an image of a virtual-irrational reality that demonstrates some authenticity of an object and its difference from the original.

 Simulacra are viewed as an empty, zero matrix or artifacts, quasi-things, transcendental objects-models of the fictional world, with is the real world with its problems and contradictions behind it unfolding without the active role of the subject, but with the help of the global forces of our time. The idea of the “loss of the subject” and his active role in the modern world, which does not require a search for a deep cognitive essence of this world and reality, but only an adaptation to live or even survive in a phantom-illusory world, was confirmed. Postmodernity is “a big process of losing the sensation of history and human meaning” that led to the destruction of history, «crisis of philosophical cognition in the era of digitalization where the authentic essence, the original no longer makes sense, and the model of a veiled copy prevails”.

It is necessary to analyze the postmodern situation where a person living in the world of hyperrelation develops, and, accordingly, to analyze the new problematics of a person of the deconstructivist era - homodeconstructivus, based on surrogate, illusory, eclectic forms of human self-realization. It is necessary to study the problems of the "hyperreal world" of post-coronavirus reality based on the consumption of simulacra, that are primitive matrices of virtual-irrational reality. Simulacra caused a crisis of philosophical cognition, because the truths have faded, and the world is ruled by primitive matrices that help a person to survive in a primitive (fictional) world.

The materials of the article are of practical value for in-depth understanding of postmodern philosophy closely related to the problems of coronavirus and post-coronavirus life. The world became disastrously confused, and the avant-garde of cultural evolution (the elite) proposed post-truth where truth does not exist. The elite could not fill all the niches and meanings of the post-coronavirus space, but filled it with nihilism, narcissism and a post-truth culture that is unable to solve a single problem of postmodern being.

This indicates that the avant-garde of cultural evolution ceased to fulfill its functions and acquired unhealthy forms based of the false program of the avant-garde resultingin performance contradiction that, subsequently, caused an epidemic of aperspective madness, requiring the development of a mechanism for self-correction of being. The deeply contradictory position of postmodernism "truth does not exist" turned into the bankruptcy of the avant-garde of cultural evolution. It began to look for new outlets, new meanings and new values that could replace the surrogate ones with the real ones aimed at development, progress, freedom, greater inclusion, diversity, partnership.