Please go to Puritanism and work your way backwards.

Post-Modernism

Pictured above: A pipe.

Ah. Post-modernism. My least favorite -ism. Why, you may ask? Because it makes no sense. I don't mean it doesn't make sense like modernism made no sense. No, modernism had the foresight to just be vague and artsy. Post-modernism is like that, but pretentious. They think that no definite terms, boundaries, or absolute truths exist. In fact, truth was subjective, and so different to every person. Well here's an absolute truth for you: That's stupid.

That's a picture of Miss Piggy in a wedding dress. It will always be Miss Piggy in a wedding dress. I just disproved post-modernism for you. Your'e welcome.

I do have to give the post modernists credit for one thing: they weren't as dark as some of the other -isms. They thought that if we were all going to die, we might as well have fun while we're doing it. Normally I'd support that, if their idea of fun wasn't so awful. For, you see, they believed that the lines between high art and low are don't exist. So for them, Veggie Tales and the Sistine Chapel are on the same level.

That's such an insult to Veggie Tales.

In addition, they didn't believe in the linear progression of time. The past, present, and future were all intertwined. You could never know just where in a story you were. Well, newsflash guys: We have calendars and watches. You can accurately measure time. Just calm down guys. Post-modernists were full of crazy ideas like that, And I think we may still be in the post-modern era. I can't tell. Post-modernists can't tell where something begins or ends, so apparently they just don't know when to stop.

2 stars, because they loved music, so points for that.

Existentialism

Romanticism, but somehow less happy.

World War One sucked. In addition to killing 16-20 million young men, the ones who survived were very bitter and ended up giving us existentialism. Maybe the war should've done its job better and gotten those soldiers instead. Because I know I badmouthed romanticism, but existentialism makes romanticism look like silky anteaters.

You're welcome for telling you about these.

They believed that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible for what we do and for who we are and how we deal with the world and how the world is. Okay, that seems fair enough. We decide who we are as human beings, because there are no absolute traits that define us as human beings. Okay, still going good. But then they tell you that because your actions are the only ones that you can control, everything that happens to you is directly your fault. Okay...what? 

This is more or less how existentialists view the world.

Weren't these the same people that were pissed off at being shipped overseas to die in a war? Were they pinning the blame for that on themselves? Because one of their tenants was that everybody is responsible for themselves as an individual, and so I'm just supposed to assume that everyone's a jerk to me because of stuff I did? That's not fair.

They did have some liberating ideas about deciding who you are in the future for yourself. They believed that you should have an image of who you want to be in the future, and you should spend your life striving to meet that goal and become that person, because you could die any day now.

Imagine Ernest Hemingway reading the secret and making a vision board,

But this knowledge is risky, because if you could die any day now, what's to stop you from living it up and robbing a bank? Well, they did say that people needed to have restraint. Because people have limitless potential, they have limitless freedom to do as they want. There's a lot of responsibility that comes with that power. It's impossible to have the power without the responsibility, because to deny one is to deny the other. This is why there was the "code hero," an individual who acted with endurance and precision under even the most dire of pressure, despite the knowledge that one day a loss is inevitable.

He gets it.

That's why I can't hate existentialism. Though it has its flaws, at its core it is a solid idea. It believes that existence precedes essence, and I think that's a good metaphor for its existence. It exists, and so it's created a great sort of atmosphere to thrive in. You just can't think too hard about it.

3 stars, because I get to choose whatever I want.

Honorable mention: Modernism

What?

Normally, I'd explain modernism here. But I can't. I just physically can't. You can't describe modernism. Nobody can. Really, the only consistent thing about it is that it exists, and even that is up for debate. It's a writing style, a philosophy, an art style, and probably fifty other things ranging from dish soap to flowers.

This picture probably explains more than I could.

Naturalism

This is why people hate science.

Naturalists studied human nature. Not because they wanted to, mind you, but because actual nature didn't really care about people, so the naturalists took it upon themselves to study the nature of humans to create a broad statement that would apply to every person in existence. How generous of them. They came up with what's called determinism. Determinism works by having the genetics of a person at birth not just dictate for height and eye color, but for literally everything the person will ever do ever. How they live, who they like, what they do. All genetics.

She tried to tell us.

People I actually respect were part of this movement, and that kills me. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution supports the idea that the behaviors that we exhibit as individuals are in some part due to ages of genetic modification. Karl Marx argued that the social hierarchy determined how we would all live and act. And Sigmund Freud conducted behavioral studies that determined that things that happen to us when we're very young can have a great impact on us in the future. Basically, we had no control over our lives, everything was decided by a random set of factors. We were just rag dolls, tossed about in the winds of fate.

We're no better off than Raggedy Ann.

Naturalism arose reflective of the struggle to survive. Times were somewhat dark for Americans (what with the Great Depression and whatnot), and so people wanted gritty literature to match. And match it did. Naturalist stories often talk about awful people and end badly for everyone involved. This is because characters are portrayed as "realistically," so naturally they're all self serving jerks. But then, at the same time, there was nothing tragic about naturalist stories, because the things that happened in them were doomed to happen from the start. So getting upset over them would be illogical. Naturalists are bitches.

Oops, sorry, heredity.

I give them one star, because genetics told me to.

Realism

For something simple, it's really complicated.

You'd think that I'd like realism. And you'd be right, to an extent. While all of the -isms up to this point had been concerned with emotion, with nature and the unseen, realism was all about the facts. Fact: Realism turned out to be boring. It was no longer about the potential that humans held, it was about the things that they had done. Which, okay, I can get behind that, take an objective look at our past to help us truly understand our present, okay. It was very cause and effect oriented, as opposed to abstract ideas and stories. Basically, they took a look at real life people, and examined how they lived.

Over a century later, this idea would go horribly, horribly wrong.

This isn't very interesting to read. Say what you will about romanticism, at least it could keep your attention. When I read something by a realist I feel like I'm reading absurdly long exposition to a hopefully more interesting story. For all that I dislike the realists, I have to admire their conviction. They believe in showing the way of life as it is, and dammit, they are going to. Even if they have to spend 50 pages describing the exactly how the butter was made. This is somewhat odd, as they also believed in verisimilitude, in which everything is just outright stated. Realist writing is a bunch of short, concise statements that described exactly what was going on in the lives of people who didn't have much going on in their lives. They believed in showing what was called "local color," which showed the culture or lifestyle of the people in a region.

The term "local color" being somewhat ironic in the South.

This is a good way to live your life I guess. Not everyone has to be the hero, or the chosen one, in fact few of us are. The problem is…that isn't very interesting to read. Sure, tropes and cliches are annoying and sometimes cheap, but they're used because they're effective. Elaborate plot twists, deus ex machina, vampires, these are all things that are unrealistic, but are put into stories because authors know we enjoy reading them.

Realism came about in a time of rapid change. Religion was falling out of favor due to science, the industrial revolution was rendering people quickly obsolete, slavery had been abolished, and people were feeling frightened that their way of life was being threatened. I guess having everything written down in simple, easy to read, realistic statements made them feel better. Like they wouldn't be forgotten. And I can respect that. Just keep it the hell away from me.

Three stars, because while it's boring, it's also not damning me to Hell.

Bonus: Anti-Transcendentalism

I couldn't have said it better myself.

While I have to give transcendentalism points for at least trying to seem different from romanticism, I have to give anti-transcendentalism points for keeping it real. It is what it sounds like. The reverse of transcendentalism. And they were real guys. If people were born good, then why were there so many bad things in the world?

Explain this, transcendentalists.

If there was an upside, there had to also be a downside. Transcendentalism just kind of brushed all of the bad happenings in the world under the rug, but anti-transcendentalism isn't gonna let that happen. Anti-transcendentalism is gonna call transcendentalism out on its sh*t. They thought that nature was important too. To them, nature was vast and incomprehensible, but it wasn't all roses. It could be bad too. Just like people.

Let's all take a moment to remember that botflies exist.

5 stars, because they hate transcendentalism too.