Professor Ivor Goodson - Preparing for Postmodernity

As our story will show, there are signs that the search for self-fulfillment is drawing to a close and with it, the era of the authentic self and its accompanying self ethic. The ideal of the authentic self is everywhere in retreat. It has been undermined from within; it has been attacked from all sides; and, in many ways, it simply has been rendered obsolete by history:

• Self-fulfillment has proved to be unfulfilling, since the exclusive focus on the self has left many people feeling anxious and alone.
• The inevitable economic problems experienced by large generations, coupled with the long-term souring of the American economy, have introduced many members of the generation, even the most privileged among them, to limits in all areas of life, including limits on the self.
• Alternative and more inclusive conceptions of the self, especially those introduced into organizations by the influx of women, now challenge almost daily the more traditionally male conception of unfettered self-sufficiency.
• The macroeconomic issues of takeovers, buyouts, and restructurings that have dominated organizations for the past five years have left little room for psychological concerns in the workplace.
• The rise of a genuinely competitive global marketplace linked by instantaneous communications has accelerated the diffusive processes of modernity, further destabilizing the self.
• The centuries-old philosophical bedrock on which all our conceptions of individualism have rested, including the highly psychologized individualism embodied in the authentic self, is being swept away.
• Similarly, the most important developments in contemporary art and popular entertainment are subverting the conception of the artist on which the integrity of personalities who use the artist ideal to solve problems of identity depends.
• The rise of postmetropolitan suburbs, which are neither center nor periphery, and the emergence of organizational networks, which replace older hierarchical structures, have thrust the new generation into concrete ways of life to which the authentic self is increasingly extrinsic (Leinberger and Tucker, 1993, pp. 15-17).

Preparing for Postmodernity

Storying the Self