# Difference between Existentialism and Post-Modernism



## jwithnell

In its practical outworking, what would you say is the difference between existentialism and post-modernism? It seems to me, that there is nothing new under the sun, except that existentialism had a bigger influence in the realms of scholarship and the fine arts while post-modernism is "from the masses."


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## Peairtach

Existentialism arose in a modern context.

There is the existentialism of Soren Kierkegaard who was a Christian of some description, and then there is atheistic existentialism.


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## jwithnell

Yes, I was not precise enough in my OP. I'm thinking of the later, atheistic existentialism typified in Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre.


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## Peairtach

I think the atheistic existentialists tried to "wrestle" with the sad conundrum that they believed they found themselves in because they believed that reason pointed to a meaningless world, without God, of potential despair, whereas the postmodernists sought to show that modern Man's confidence in reason was misplaced.


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## Rufus

Dostoevsky was an Existentialist before Existentialism existed, at least that's what my English teacher believed. He also was a Christian in the Russian Orthodox tradition.


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## jwithnell

> whereas the postmodernists sought to show that modern Man's confidence in reason was misplaced.


Don't you think this was the trend from about Hegel on through the existentialists who finally gave up?


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## John Bunyan

What is the major difference between a christian existentialist and any other christian?

I would also say that no one is really postmodernist, they just like to pretend they are (so they are not even crazy, but fake crazy - I heard this somewhere else, don't remember where )


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## Philip

jwithnell said:


> In its practical outworking, what would you say is the difference between existentialism and post-modernism?



Post-modernism tends to focus on community-created meaning and morality whereas existentialism tends to focus on extreme individualist meaning and morality.

So, for instance, the "man with no name" from Sergio Leone's _Dollars_ trilogy is an existentialist hero: he subscribes to no morality but his own and refuses to force his morality on anyone else. He is an _uebermensch_.


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## jwithnell

> Post-modernism tends to focus on community-created meaning and morality whereas existentialism tends to focus on extreme individualist meaning and morality.


 That makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

On another thread, someone provided a link to an article that suggests we've moved beyond post-modernism to "pseudo-modernism." An interesting read.


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