Post-Postmodernism: Mapping Out the Zeitgeist of the New Millennium

Abstract

At the turn of the millennium, many theorists questioned the survival of postmodernism and, although it is true that their statements were not supported by a general consensus, the new century brought with it an intense debate on the subject. With this in mind, the aim of this article is to map out the taxonomy of the alternatives to postmodernism proposed by several theorists during the first decade of the twenty-first century in order to understand their nature. This article analyses an extensive corpus of theories, to arrive at the conclusion that this period was an interstitial moment of change whose direction seemed to be heading towards the recovery of a much-nuanced unfinished project of modernity, as advocated by Jürgen Habermas. This attempt at debunking postmodern relativism was thwarted by the social dissatisfaction generated by the bank bailout of 2008 and the ulterior intensification of neoliberalism. However, the subsequent attempts to define the zeitgeist of this cultural phase that followed postmodernism started to dwindle. The desired recovery of this unfinished project responds to a need for univocity that, during the 2010s, leads to a hyper-neoliberalism sponsored by populism and constructed on a kind of reactionary post-truth.