Modernism is the thought process that there is such as a thing as ultimate truth which is brought up through this grand narrative concept. On the other hand, postmodernism acts as the break away from the above idea; this leads to postmodernism being based on lies and piling more on top. This is very similar to the basis of the Bokonon religion in Cat's Cradle when at the very beginning of the novel it is introduced with the statement that, "all the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies." Therefore, both concepts have now been based not on the truth, necessarily. Yet, how powerful is any truth or lie if there is no grand narrative to stream it along? Postmodernism kind of let's go of the idea of needing a grand narrative to provide answers. But, what meaning can you withdraw from any answer if there is no narrative behind it giving it meaning? When Newt is talking about a cat's cradle he calls the kids "crazy" because there is literally "nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands." "No damn cat, and no damn cradle." Here, Newt shows how he did not have that narraative to go behind what a cat's cradle is. The father's name who currently escapes me, tried to teach his kids one time that messing with a string creates a cat's cradle and they believe; in fact, many people do. Without the narrative holding it up to this image it falls down to nothing but messing around with a piece of string. Back to the Bokonon religion, which is based on a string of lies, actually "became the one real instrument of hope" for these people since "truth was the enemy" "because [it] was so terrible." Maybe it is hard for us to imagine how everything could be a lie from another person but that is what the set up for Bokononism was. Society had lost it's faith in everything and moreover believing in any narrative before, such as ones that came from the government, that they needed something new to emense themselves in to make-believe their lives once more. This purposely set up religion that was outlawed so all who joined could be "rebels" was the remedy for soceity's thoughts processes just so they could live on. Knowing other "rebels" were out there thinking the same thing as you was enough mental adrenaline to push these people to live their life's. People are said to be put into a karass, yet they are not allowed to know who is in the same one as them. They live to only serve the Bokonon with really not much knowledge of anything else. This connects to postmodernism because these people are told lies that they follow, given just was statements to obey but with no explanation, the narrative does not really exist anymore.