Abstract
Postmodern writing has forced psychology to confront a series of problems pertaining to the nature of human consciousness, personal integrity and language. It invites us to re-think notions of undivided and unitary self-hood that have underpinned much orthodox empirical research and theory in the discipline, and it does so in the story-worlds of Progress, Reflection and Opportunity. At the same time as it performs a dispersion of psychological concepts, postmodernism has encouraged a spirit of deconstructive critique and challenge to the modern academic and professional apparatus of the ‘psy-complex’. However, ‘the postmodern’, as a movement of sustained playful theoretical reflection linked to an account of a new cultural context for theoretical research, has now outlived its usefulness. Even the story of ‘the modern’ that postmodernists pitch themselves against misleads psychologists, traditional and critical. The progressive potential of postmodernism has been exhausted, and those who engage in critical theoretical work in psychology need to attend to the ideological assumptions it carries about social relations and structures of power that threaten a radical political agenda in the discipline.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Copyright information
© 2002 Ian Parker
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Parker, I. (2002). Against Postmodernism. In: Critical Discursive Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403914651_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403914651_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-42991-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-1465-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)