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Chapter 1

Understanding the Terrain - Post-modernism and Policing Culture

i) The key features of post-modernism

In identifying the significant themes of contemporary culture it is wise to define in
basic terms the cultural parameters that we seek to explore. In simple terms culture

here is to be understood in its Western, post-industrialised setting. Specifically the
cultural terrain with which we are interested is that which is termed post-modernism.
Post-modernism and post-modernity are terms that are open to wide interpretation

and it is beyond the scope of this work to analyse the different approaches to them in
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any depth . In simple terms however post-modernism can be understood either as ‘a
successor epoch’, or a ‘critical corrective’ to modernism and its grand narratives of
‘truth, human nature, knowledge, power, self-hood and language’ (Graham
2000:107). In post-modernism meaning is undermined and becomes ‘fragmented,

and regionalised, with micro-narratives and local claims to knowledge’ emerging
(CES 2005:78). Hence the defining characteristic of post-modernism is a pessimistic 7

rejection of the inevitable progress proposed by the Enlightenment, in which intuition
replaces rationality, and where universal concepts of truth are usurped by a
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relativism and pluralism that become defined within any particular community (Grenz
cited in Phan 2003:59). This is compounded by a significant shift from external

objective sources of authority to those that are personal, the so called ‘turn to the
subject’ of modernity (CES 2005:16-17).

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Marie McCarthy posits that the post-modern era is demarked by a seismic shift in our consciousness that is
“marked primarily by the growing awareness of the relativity and particularity of every perspective and position.
No longer do we speak of universal principles and laws, valid for all times and places. Instead we look for the
particular historical, cultural, social and familial values that may have contributed to this particular set of principles
and laws being useful in this particular set of circumstances” (2000:194). Elaine Graham contrasts post-
modernism and post-modernity. The former “denotes the cultural, intellectual and aesthetic dimensions of the
postmodern age”. The latter “indicates the sociological, economic and political contours of late capitalism”
(2000:113).
7 A key feature of this pessimism involves the fracturing of the relationship of truth and trust, so that truth is no
longer transcendent but rather becomes a commodity within any particular context so that ‘what is truth’ is
replaced by ‘whose truth?’ (CES 2005:15)
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Within his Bellahouston Park homily (16/09/10), during his Papal visit to the UK Pope Benedict XVI referred to a
“dictatorship of relativism” within contemporary culture “that threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about
man’s nature” (www.thepapalvisit.org.uk).