This chapter examines Kazakhstan in the context of the postmodern era, which largely coincided with the period of the country’s regained independence. In Kazakhstan, postmodernity emerged with a significant delay, taking shape primarily in the 1990s. A distinctive feature of this period is that a segment of the population remained—and in many respects continues to remain—mentally and ideologically rooted in the modernist era. This manifests itself in various ways: nostalgia for the Soviet past; acceptance of rigid social hierarchies and the repressive nature of state security institutions as normative; uncritical reverence for authority figures (such as officials, superiors, or academics); deference toward the former metropole; susceptibility to propaganda and slogans of a bygone era; and a lack of critical thinking. The author reflects on the complex and contradictory entanglement of the paradigms of modernity (as represented by the Soviet period) and postmodernity. The resulting conflict between worldviews and visions of the present and future has given rise to many of the negative trends that continue to obscure the contours of Kazakhstan’s near-term trajectory.