Our new postmodern world comes to us complete with new heroes (ranging between Bill Gates and Madonna) and new legends (such as the sagas of Elvis Presley and Nelson Mandela – to mention the extremes). It also comes to us with great promises (universal education, abundant food sources, new forms of energy) as well as daunting challenges (over population, environmental collapse, virulent plagues). Each of these promises and challenges is global in nature and scope. A level of cooperation between nation-states is required that has never been achieved in either the premodern or modern era.
Conclusions
The challenge of leading into the future begins to come into focus with this analysis of the three cultures and our living on the edge of new order and challenging chaos. We must lead in a new global village and in this village we must look to new strategies and discover new answers, while also honoring the wisdom and values of past eras..As Salmon Rushdie queried in his very postmodern and life-threatening (for him) novel, The Satanic Verse:
How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive extreme and dangerous as it is?
Our emerging postmodern era can indeed be described as an edgy experience. We are poised on the edge of both chaos and new order. As Rushdie suggests, we know something about what is to come, yet don’t know exactly what form the new will take.
