Okay, this isn't quite the right word to describe the situation here, but it reminded me of a great sociology class I took in Turkey. We were talking about how the old world order had collapsed and a new one was emerging. After WWII there was a long peace and prosperity that gave everyone an optimism which led to modernism. Scientists were optimistic about how their field was progressing. Politicians were happy with the progress in their countries and the world was all sliced up into nice national boundaries. Everything was very logical and it seemed that things were surely getting better than before.
However, with the end of the Cold War, the failures of the UN, the discovery of rather ambiguous phenomenon in science, physics and anthropology; people started to realize that there was not always an easy universal answer to every question that would make life great for everyone. Modernism was nice, but it was too easy and the world's problems would not be solved so quickly.
Modernism has many meanings in art, anthropology, science, and politics, but in general people have abandoned its ideology and are now lost in a world with no neat patterns. So what do we call the contemporary era? To correspond to the pre-modern era, some people simply call the nineties post-modern. However, some people (for instance, Albert Borgmann) don't believe that modernism has died, it has only moved to a higher level: hypermodernism. This era is characterized by a new frenzy of activity by those hanging on to the theory of "progress." Not only do people still believe in the idea of neatly separated "nations", but we are even subdividing them into smaller pieces to better suit the interest of the peoples within. This is not post-modern, it is hypermodern. And one part of this is hyperconsumerism which is today's topic.
I am sure that I managed to confuse a few people, but I just wanted to prove to myself that I still remember the theories that I learned two years ago. It is very interesting stuff. I, personally, would like to believe that mankind IS getting somewhere in the struggle for knowledge and happiness. I am still looking for the universal answers, even if modernism is dead. How about you?