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POSTMODERNISM Metanarrative Image-

By- Barbara Kruger Untitled (We Don't Need Another Hero) 1987 Image Refhttps://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/34103/210275.jpeg

Metanarrative provokes answers to questions that ask whether the change in society is good through the use of critiquing it within postmodernism media mediums This image relates to meta-narrative as it represents a female being in a manly position and wanting to be the dominant protagonist by suggesting she doesn't need help from anyone just because she is a woman. her facial expression looks more manly compared to the woman next to her with defined cheekbones which implies she is a manly type of woman as well.

Metanarrative or grand narrative or mater narrative is a term developed by Jean-François Lyotard to mean a theory that tries to give a totalizing, comprehensive account to various historical events, experiences, and social, cultural phenomena based upon the appeal to universal truth or universal values. In this context, the narrative is a story that functions to legitimize power, authority, and social customs. A grand narrative or metanarrative is one that claims to explain various events in history, gives meaning by connecting disperse events and phenomena by appealing to some kind of universal knowledge or schema. The term grand narratives can be applied to a wide range of thoughts which includes Marxism, religious doctrines, belief in progress, universal reason, and others. Lyotard's analysis of the postmodern condition has been criticized as being internally inconsistent. For example, thinkers like Alex Callinicos and Jürgen Habermas argue that Lyotard's description of the postmodern world as containing an "incredulity toward metanarratives" could be seen as a metanarrative in itself. According to this view, poststructuralist thinkers like Lyotard criticize universal rules but postulate that postmodernity contains a universal scepticism toward metanarratives, and so this 'universal scepticism' is in itself a contemporary metanarrative. Like a post-modern neo-romanticist metanarrative that intends to build up a 'meta' critic, or 'meta' discourse and a 'meta' belief holding up that Western science is just taxonomist, empiricist, utilitarian, assuming supposed sovereignty around its reason and pretending to be neutral, rigorous and universal. This is itself an obvious sample of another 'meta' story, self-contradicting the postmodern critique of the metanarrative. Thus, Lyotard's postmodern incredulity towards metanarratives could be said to be selfrefuting. If one is sceptical of universal narratives such as "truth," "knowledge," "right," or "wrong," then there is no basis for believing the "truth" that metanarratives are being undermined. In this sense, this paradox of postmodernism is similar to the liar's paradox ("This statement is false."). Perhaps postmodernists, like Lyotard, are not offering us a Utopian, teleological metanarrative, but in many respects, their arguments are open to metanarrative interpretation. Postmodernism is an anti-theory but uses theoretical tools to make its case. The significance of this contradiction, however, is of course also open to interpretation. The postmodern ideology is notoriously difficult to define. Far from a singular, unified definition, the complexity of what the term “Postmodernism” denotes is itself a reflection of this inherently pluralistic ideology. Contemporary thought has supposed that postmodern philosophy can only be defined in contrast to the modernity which proceeds it, and is thus seen as the natural continuation of modernist rhetoric. Indeed, postmodernity has also been viewed as the rejection of ideas modernism promoted. It was Lyotard who initially defined these ideas as metanarratives and subsequently hypothesised that all aspects of postmodernism stem from the scepticism of them. Whilst Lyotard himself admitted that such a claim was an extreme oversimplification, he is nonetheless correct in describing postmodernism as incredulity towards metanarratives.

To best examine postmodern discourse concerning metanarratives, let us first establish the fundamental components of a metanarrative as Lyotard perceived it. Conventionally a meta or grand narrative, consists of beliefs and practices focused on explaining historical forces and thus offering what is claimed to be a universal truth (Waugh14). Indeed, literary critic Hans Bertens summarises, Those metanarratives or ‘grand’ narratives are, broadly speaking, the supposedly transcendent and universal truths that underpin western civilization Lyotard and other postmodernists take a critical or sceptical stance towards metanarrative in which they include a variety of thoughts from other religious doctrines to Marxism, Freudianism, and others. examples 

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Many Christians believe that human nature, since the Fall (Genesis 3), is characteristically sinful, but has the possibility of redemption and experiencing eternal life in heaven; thus representing a belief in a universal rule and a telos for humankind. The Enlightenment theorists believed that rational thought, allied to scientific reasoning, would lead inevitably toward moral, social and ethical progress. Many feminists hold that patriarchy has systematically oppressed and subjugated women throughout history....