9/11 was the final nail in the coffin of post-modernism, writes Michael Barnes. “No matter which side one takes in these post 9/11 conflicts – which could make the culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s look like child’s play – the rantings of late 20th-century postmodern relativists seem as quaint and distant today as the prattlings of Victorian sentimentalists. The absence of a seductive replacement for postmodernism has left public intellectuals – can we use that word in a daily newspaper these days without smirking? – with a renewed respect and affection for the paramount movement of the 20th century: modernism.”