Hypermodernity (or supermodernity) is a type, mode, or stage of

society A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...

that reflects an inversion of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular Society, socio-Culture, cultural Norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the ...

. Hypermodernism stipulates a world in which the

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an a ...

has been replaced by its own attributes. The new attribute-driven world is driven by the rise of

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

and aspires to a convergence between technology and biology and more importantly information and matter. Hypermodernism finds its validation in emphasis on the value of new technology to overcome natural limitations. It rejects

essentialism Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their Identity (philosophy), identity. In early Western thought, Platonic idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an Theory of forms, "idea" or "f ...

and instead favours

postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...

. In hypermodernism the function of an object has its reference point in the form of an object rather than function being the reference point for form. In other words, it describes an epoch in which

teleological Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Applet ...

meaning is reversed from the standpoint of functionalism in favor of

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

Hypermodernity

Hypermodernity emphasizes a hyperbolic separation between past and present because: * The past oriented attributes and their functions around objects. * Objects that do exist in the present are only extant due to some useful attribute in the hypermodern era. Hypermodernity inverts

to allow the attributes of an object to provide even more individuality than modernism. Modernity trapped form within the bounds of limited function; hypermodernity posits that function is now evolving so rapidly, it must take its reference point from form itself. Both positive and negative societal changes occur due to hyper-individualism and increased personal choice.

Postmodernity Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in th ...

rejected the idea of the past as a reference point and curated objects from the past for the sole purpose of freeing form from function. In postmodernism, truth was ephemeral as the focus was to avoid non-falsifiable tenets. Postmodernity described a total collapse of modernity and its faith in progress and improvement in empowering the individual.

Supermodernity

If distinguished from hypermodernity, ''supermodernity'' is a step beyond the

ontological Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every ...

emptiness of

and relies upon plausible

heuristic A heuristic or heuristic technique (''problem solving'', '' mental shortcut'', ''rule of thumb'') is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless ...

truths. Whereas

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

focused upon the creation of great truths (or what Lyotard called "

master narrative In social theory, a metanarrative (also master narrative, or meta-narrative and grand narrative; or ) is an overarching narrative about smaller historical narratives, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as ...

s" or "

metanarrative In social theory, a metanarrative (also master narrative, or meta-narrative and grand narrative; or ) is an overarching narrative about smaller historical narratives, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (a ...

s"), and postmodernity was intent upon their destruction (

deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understand the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from ...

); supermodernity operates extraneously of meta-truth. Instead, attributes are extracted from objects of the past based on their present relevance. Since attributes are both true and false, a

truth value In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or '' false''). Truth values are used in ...

is not necessary including falsifiability. Supermodernity curates useful attributes from modern and postmodern objects in order to escape nihilistic postmodern tautology. Related authors are

Terry Eagleton Terence Francis Eagleton (born 22 February 1943) is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Eagleton has published over forty books, ...

''After Theory'', and

Marc Augé Marc Augé (; 2 September 1935 – 24 July 2023) was a French anthropologist. In an essay and book of the same title, ''Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity'' (1995), Augé coined the phrase " non-place" to refer to sp ...

''Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity''.

Bibliography

* S. Charles and G. Lipovetsky, ''Hypermodern Times'', Polity Press, 2006. * S. Charles, ''Hypermodern Explained to Children'', Liber, 2007 (in French). * R. Colonna, ''L'essere contro l'umano. Preludi per una filosofia della surmodernità'', Edises, Napoli, 2010 (in Italian). * F. Schoumacher, ''Eidolon: simulacre et hypermodernité'', Paris, Balland, 2024.

External links

Gilles Lypovetsky interviewed by Denis Failly for his book "le bonheur paradoxal"
{{Criticism of postmodernism Modernity Criticism of postmodernism

Hypermodernity

Supermodernity

See also

Bibliography

External links