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A Critical Examination of Postmodernism Based on Religious and Moral Values Education

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International Education Studies; Vol. 8, No. 9; 2015 ISSN 1913-9020 E-ISSN 1913-9039 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education A Critical Examination of Postmodernism Based on Religious and Moral Values Education Nooshin Forghani1, Narges Keshtiaray1 & Alireza Yousefy2 1 School of Educational Sciences, Khorasgan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran 2 Medical Education Research Centre, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran Correspondence: Narges Keshtiaray, School of Educational Sciences, Khorasgan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran. Tel: 98-913-311-5701. E-mail: [email protected] Received: February 23, 2015 Accepted: March 28, 2015 Online Published: August 26, 2015 doi:10.5539/ies.v8n9p98 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v8n9p98 Abstract Postmodernism, born under western secular conditions, has the following characteristics: it emphasizes pluralism and relativism and rejects any certain belief and absolute value; it conflicts with essentialism, and considers human identity to be a social construct; it rejects the idea that values are based on developmental realities and also rejects the essential influence of human actions on human destiny. Using a descriptive method, this research will provide a critical examination of postmodernism based on moral and religious values education. In educational goals, postmodernism emphasizes the institutionalization of pluralism, the strengthening of self-organized morality in learners and in educational principles, avoiding dogmatism, fighting against systematicity and emphasizing on individual freedoms. In educational methods, it emphasizes learner-centered discourse, serious attention to the marginalized people, and the denial of pattern-based ability. Postmodernism, despite enjoying a series of strong points, such as “fighting against globalization”, “fighting against scientism” and “emphasizing dynamism”, has many weaknesses too. The most important one of them is the intellectual failure and an overt contradiction with thought, ignorance of certain realities and knowledge, and the existence of intrinsic and constant values. Keywords: postmodernism, education, values, meta-narratives, relativism, pluralism 1. Introduction Postmodernism is one of intellectual currents that had the greatest prominence in and effect on various areas including education in the contemporary era. Since this thought appeared out of the age of information, it was not limited to the West but extended to various regions across the globe including Islamic countries. As a result, today, not only is it a serious topic in scientific circles, but it is also a serious topic in various political, social, educational, and many other areas. Nevertheless, postmodernism is not a systematic school of thought whose intellectual framework and educational implications can be precisely and definitively expressed, but as the nature of this movement requires, it constantly changes form and contains different trends. Thus, there is controversy in the definition of postmodernism and its relation with modernism regarding a precise determination of its pioneers and branches and its educational implications in particular. 2. The Nature of Postmodernism 2.1 Postmodernism = Post-Modernism A number of experts believe that due to the fundamental differences between modernism and postmodernism, “postmodernism” is in fact “post-modernism” which means a novel movement that appeared after modernism. While modernism emphasizes realities and the discovery of realities, postmodernism emphasizes the instability of everything and the creation of realities. Modernism believes in certainty, necessity and meta-narrative, while, in postmodernist view, under no circumstances should any mention of these categories be made. Particularly in the area of values, moralities, politics, and education no mention should be made of universal and constant theoretical foundations. Values are relative things that differ from culture to culture. Therefore, the postmodernism movement is actually the era after modernism and a type of transition from it. Some supporters of this version of postmodernism believe that it was initiated by Richard Rorty’s writings (Rahnama, 2009; Poosshafei, 2009; Shoarinezhad, 2009). 98 www.ccsenet.org/ies International Education Studies Vol. 8, No. 9; 2015 2.2 Postmodernism: A Part of Western Modernity Given the essentials of the fundamental and humanist commonalities and the growth of these two ideas, some people argue that postmodernism is a part of modernity that, with a critical approach to some of its claims, has been somehow differently reproduced or restructured. Therefore, postmodernism, being a special prospect on the criticism, explanation, and extension of modernism and in contrast with modernism, negatively emphasizes on wholeness and meta-narratives and by doing so, it wants to create a balance in it and modifies the humanist moralities dominating the West in more moderate ways. According to Gitlin , if modernism has destroyed the older unity and itself is collapsing, then postmodernism is fascinated by modernism’s remainders and is a parasite of it (Ozmen, 2007). In the view of these people, although the birthplace for this thought was France and its most prominent characters are Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, philosophers like Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and other philosophers like Sandrys Peirce, William James, and John Dewey of the 19th century pragmatism philosophers, are, in a sense, among the postmodernism founders. The reason is that some postmodern thoughts especially the criticism of modernism and taking a stand against it are obvious in their thoughts. Therefore, although postmodernism has serious and fundamental differences with modernism, it does not mean that it ignores it but rather they have common features in their senses and nature. In fact, postmodern feeds on modern ideas and thoughts and while rejecting some modern elements, accepts many other of its elements (Ozmen, 2007; Poorshafei, 2009). 3. The Nature of Values Education Postmodernism has not entered into values education in a definite way and because of not offering any proven theories; it attacked values education for its systematic and dependence on certain beliefs and values. Therefore, a comprehensive and preventive definition of values education cannot be expected from this school of thought. But since this thought has intentionally or unintentionally changed into an ideology with special philosophical fundamentals in various areas of ontology, epistemology, anthropology and axiology, then values education can be discussed from special postmodernism viewpoints. 4. Philosophical Fundamentals of Postmodernism View of Values Education Talking about values education in this school would be a contradiction. More contradictory than that would be talking about philosophical fundamentals of values education due to the fact that a school of thought that is fundamentally against foundationalism and its identity consists of meta-narratives is apparently indifferent to such matters. But since philosophy can only be rejected by philosophy, then postmodernists have unwantedly and against their own claims, admitted some philosophical fundamentals. In investigating and criticizing their view of values education, attention to these fundamentals is of utmost importance. Therefore, in the following, we will briefly describe the most important philosophical fundamentals of postmodernism. 4.1 Fundamentals of Ontology No trace of proven ontology topics can be found in the works of postmodern thinkers and these thinkers are fully against these topics. Ontology topics are not important for them, and negligence of metaphysical topics is one of the principles of postmodernism. Therefore, the interpretation of ontology about postmodernism is neglectful and it should not be used by its general meaning. 4.1.1 Reality as a Constructed Matter and Not as an Objective One Denial of objective reality that is independent of human minds and, instead, a belief in realities as inter-mind and social constructs are of postmodernism fundamentals. In postmodernists view, all creatures have a constructed and ever changing identity causing them to lack any constant identity. Facts are constructible and not discoverable. For this reason, in the postmodern philosophical ideas, philosophical causality, necessity, and totality give their place to luck, incident, and fortune. (Farmahini, 2010; Nodings, 1995). 4.1.2 Pluralism Denial of pre-experimental, definite, and everlasting realities is the belief in pluralism. Thus, in different areas including ontology, pluralism is considered as one of the most important postmodern philosophical fundamentals. More than any other school, postmodernism conflicts with “totality” and its related topics and considers it to be fully nonexistent even in human mind. Therefore, they reject any totality and universal values. Postmodernism rejects any constant and singular reality because of its post-constructivist background and it also rejects any parallelism or similarity (Farmahini, 2010; Ozmen, 2007). 99 www.ccsenet.org/ies International Education Studies Vol. 8, No. 9; 2015 4.1.3 Materialism Postmodernism considers humans as the center of all realities, knowledge, and values, and rejects any belief in paranormal and metaphysical truth. In this school, any discussion about the singular and eternal existence of the God or other singular
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