Question about the terms "alternative" and "nu metal"

[playa_playa]

It may seem absurd if and only if you take contemporary as the only definition of modern. However, the definition of modern also includes a general sense of recent times.

As a matter of fact, many universities and professorial types use the term to mean the period between the Renaissance and the contemporary times. As such, if you were to take a course in, let's say, history of modern philosophy[1], you would be taking a course on Kant, Hume, Locke, Berkeley, Descarte et al.

Conversely, had you opted for something like a course on contemporary ethics, you would learn about Heideggar, Jacques Derrida, Rorty, Posner, and the likes. Interesting sidenote here is that contemporary European thinkers are mostly labeled post-modernist vis-a-vis their modern forefathers (people like Kant and Hume), though they may not accept the term wholeheartedly.

So there, you see how intellectual and artistic movements[2] as well as trends can be labeled post-modern. The caveat is that the term modern is designated specifically to a period as opposed to a reference to the contemporary times.

Footnotes
1: In the hard sciences, an example of a modern thinker would be Niels Bohr; whereas an example of a post-modern thinker would be people like Stephen Weinberg, Werner Heisenberg et al.
2: Artistic movements typically associated with modernism include: Expressionism, Impressionism and Realism; artistic movements typically associated with post-modernism include Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, etc.

ps - damn, I can't believe I just made a post w/ footnotes in it.

Originally posted by Xantar
Speaking of terms I don't understand, does anybody know what it means to be "post-modernist?" How can one be post-modernist? I can understand being modernist. That means basically that you embrace the innovations and changes that are happening today as opposed to the old traditions of the past. But "post-modern" means "after modern." How can you be the kind of person that...comes after the present?

I wonder of the post-modernists even know what post-modernism is...