Postmodern Professionals - Essay Example

Mapping the Postmodern Name: Student Number: Course Code: Word Count: Date of Submission: Postmodern Professionals The idea of postmodern professionalism has seen rapid growth and a quite steady emergence. Outside formal organisations, it has continued to become a significant aspect of contemporary business environments. Despite this growth and speedy development of the style of professionalism, little research has been done on such subjects where the work practices of these professionals are not bounded by formal and conventional organisational structures (Jablin & Putnam, 2001), rules and normal ways of practice. Instead, even as the postmodern practitioners maintain their critical strategic roles in organisational contexts, they aims to develop, grow and produce art that is better than the past. This involves stepping over any remaining boundaries that would limit bringing the Avant-Garde to the present. This literature tends to study particular professionals on industrial or inter-organisational arrangements. Consequently, the literature generally incorporates contexts of professionals working independently and interdependence in an industry. Postmodernism in practice has adaptation and reviewing of the past as the key aspects to suit the needs of the present (Holtzhausen, 2000). The Postmodern Western Theatre: Tom Stoppard and David Mamet Tom Stoppard and David Mamet are playwrights and directors in the Postmodern Western Theatre. This institution, technically, responds to the multi-cultural, ironic, cynical, and apparently chaotic social, political, philosophical and arty developments as they roll on from the 20th to the 21st century. As practitioners of the same organization and same industry, Tom Stoppard and David Mamet view the world as a place where the essence of connotation, factual truth and reality are relative and subject to different comprehensions and interpretations. The character of such postmodern professionals is that they are with unconventional belief in optimistic development. They do not perceive the world as a meaningless and illogical place of existence that wobbles on the edge of absolute destruction. The postmodern theatre in which Stoppard and Mamet practice suggests that existence can only be properly conceptualized by living and thinking outside the standard dynamics of human relations and perceptions of space and time (Dozier, & Lauzen, 2000). This implies that the unconventional way of thinking that gives room for possible improvements are the differentiating attributes of postmodern professional from modern professionals. The postmodern western theatre recognizes the two playwrights as smart guys of the industry. Probably this is because they identify as conservative libertarians which is a captivating aspect. Tom Stoppard was born in the communist Czechoslovakia while Mamet is a Jew who was born in Chicago in the 1960s. In relation to his book, The Secret Knowledge: on the Dismantling of American Culture, Mamet became a conservative out of the influence of hi environment and life experience. With a time period of eight year living in Los Angeles, Mamet becomes a conservative and writes article in relation to the same (Galupo, 2011). Therefore, technically, Mamet is somehow a victim of his environment and life experiences which influence his playwriting and director styles in the entertainment industry. Mamet’s situation is quite different when compared to Tom’s situation in terms of the factors that influence their styles of practice as postmodern professionals. A view of Tom’s point of view to style of practice as a film director can only be evidenced by his response to an interview question by Guppy (2013). When asked, in this interview, about the factors that shape his original ideas in his productions, the response was interesting as the block quotation below details. It had to do with mathematics. I am not a mathematician, but I was aware that for centuries mathematics was considered the queen of the sciences because it claimed certainty. It was grounded on some fundamental certainties—axioms—that led to others. But then, in a sense, it all started going wrong, with concepts like non-Euclidean geometry—I mean, looking at it from Euclid’s point of view. The mathematics of physics turned out to be grounded on uncertainties, on probability and chance. And if you’re me, you think—there’s a play in that. Finding an idea for a play is like picking up a shell on a beach. I started reading about mathematics without finding what I was looking for. In the end I realized that what I was after was something that any first-year physics student is familiar with, namely quantum mechanics. So I started reading about that. (Guppy, 2013) Comparatively to David Mamet’s scenario, in an influential two-character drama title Oleanna, he tries to explore the destructiveness of miscommunication and impacts of excessive political correctness. The play is about academic politics, the nature of relationships between a student and a teacher, and the subject of sexual harassment as well. The context engulfs abrupt, interruptive and distractive characters are some of the factors whose collective outcome is a miscommunication. Frequently distracted communications make it difficult for one or all of the discussants to express themselves clearly. Resultantly, the communication becomes personal and even heated up with anger and tensions. More importantly to this context, the content of the book, as John (2000) points out, evidences that Mamet has read and systematically taken the major modern conservative works on board, chronologically from the times of Friedrich Hayek to Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. Other Perceptions on Postmodernism It is easily possible for one to observe the Mamet and Stoppard scenario as a response to the overwhelming influence of absurdist’s nihilistic and modernistic stage dramas. Postmodern professionals have radically brought in a new type of theatre whose emergence in the western world is bringing new concepts to the entertainment industry. The changing theatre characterised with the postmodern style faces up to the decidedly apocalyptic attitudes That modernistic theatrical works present. Consequently, the postmodern western theatre primarily serves, does not only contradict but also deconstructs many, if not all, of the core ideas that modernist theatrical productions of presents. It does this by highlighting the postmodern notion of theoretically alleged truth as unverifiable in the end. The concept behind postmodern theatrical works and productions and basis on which they are suggest that the audience is with the power to decide what is factual and the other that is away from contextual truth in terms of the drama being presented on the stage by the orchestrated plays. In postmodern theatre, for that reason, a variety of new tropes and theatrical concepts replace the typically bleak and minimalistic production style of modernist theatrical productions (McHugh, 2013). Modern ways are basically elementary hold on to current ideologies. Critics of postmodernism are believers of the elementary theories and point out aspects such as mass media, amongst other factors, influence postmodern life across industries and across regions. They also point out that social effects of resisting conformity to social norms, standards of behaviour and routines of professionalism are a characterization of postmodernism (Babbie, 2001). Critics of contemporary drama instigate arguments on as to when the postmodern age of the Western Theatre can be said to have begun. Some of them are of the idea that postmodern theatre could have began with the works of Samuel Beckett, while others argue that Beckett’s plays represent the ultimate conclusion and ultimate step out of the modern theatrical movement. These debates continue to be, which once again put the audience of theatrical productions in a position where they have to decide the truth for themselves. Summary Modernism, postmodernism and post-postmodernism is all in the subset of time in terms of occurrences in professions as they relate to the current needs of humanity. It is difficult to distinguish or separate professional into these categories based on their practices only. This is where a practitioner’s way of thinking and perception of current needs comes in to determine whether they are modern or post modern. Modernism believes conventional and standard approaches as sufficient to meeting current needs of people, in this case, in the literary entertainment industry. On the other hand, postmodernism is characterised by the desire to develop and adopt newer and unconventional ways of solving problems and meeting needs. These postmodern ways and approaches are based on the theories that distrust modernism by breaking blind adherence to standards of modernism. The discussion achieves this conclusion by comparing Tom Stoppard and David Mamet, two professional postmodern practitioners, in terms of their representation of postmodernism in their theatrical productions, as well as in terms of the object-hood of their productions. The discussion also finds that the emergence of postmodern ideology is in a form that literally and literarily attacks the concepts of modern ideologies. Expectedly, modern theorists who believe in standard norms and elementary concepts have responsively launched criticism of contemporary ideas. The argument and heated debate between modernism and postmodernism is continuous, with the consumer of these two having to decide for themselves which one of them to consumer really. References Babbie, E. 2001. The practice of social research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Dozier, D. M.,&Lauzen, M. M. 2000. Liberating the intellectual domain from the practice: Public relations, activism, and the role of the scholar. Journal of Public Relations Research, 12, 3–22. Galupo, S. 2011. David Mamet’s Fatal Conceit. [online] Available at: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/david-mamets-fatal-conceit-005/ [Accessed 21 September 2013]. Guppy, S. 2013. Tom Stoppard, the art of theatre. The Paris Review, [e-journal] 109(7). Available through: The Paris Review database [Accessed 21 October 2013]. Holtzhausen, D. R. 2000. Postmodern values in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 12, 93–114. Jablin, F. M.& Putnam, L. L. (Eds.). 2001. The new handbook of organizational communication. Advances in theory, research, and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. John, H. 2000. How good is David Mamet, Anyway? Writings on Theatre - and why it Matters. New York: Routledge. McHugh, M. C. 2013. Producing Practitioners: A Postmodern Perspective on Training as Social Activism San Diego, CA: Mission Valley. Read More