"Post-modernism"

[The once and future king]

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Postmodernism is basically the idea that everything is a social construct, and that no perspective is inherently favored over another.

It's a knee jerk reaction to the dogma of the 18-20th century, the arrogance of white colonists and the events of World War II. Kind of an intellectual equivalent of a teenager becoming an anarchist just to piss of his parents. I consider it a cancer of the mind that promotes solipsism and erodes the boundaries of truth and objectivity.

As to why you should read it, it's a good case study of the fallacies that can arise in human thought and the dangers of overthinking. If you approach it from the perspective of spotting its flaws, it'll probably make you a clearer thinker.

This wikipedia article is a pretty start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

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Spoken like a true modernist.

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Can anbody convince me to read this stuff? What and why should I read?

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Here's an exemplary first read, Propertarian: a short 1-page essay with footnotes.

Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is to read the brief essay (and probably some of the footnotes), and then address the following:

1) contrast the relative avantages and disadvantages of the following two approaches to deconstructive analysis:

a) the use of subtextual capitalist theory within the context of the dialectic of culture

versus

b) the use of subpatriarchalist material theory within the context of embedded hierarchies.

Which method, would you suppose, is better suited to class analysis with emphasis on the underlying influences of the collective unconscious, and its hidden role in forming class divisions?

2) Given certain similarities between Marx's "postcapitalist culture" and hypothetical implementations of some of the views of Rawls, Dworkin and Walzer (following capitalist deappropriation), in what way would the presemioticist paradigm of reality (see Marx's essay) affect existential efforts to modify class? In what ways might this principle lead to a confounding (yet not necessarily insuperable) effect when combined with certain inherent biases of the collective unconscious?

The short essay, with footnoted authors, is linked to below:

http://www.gingko.ch/cdrom/jwrandom/...ism/index.html

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Anyone want to take a crack at the questions I posed above?

[Jordan Olsommer]

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That would make way too much sense for a postmodernist's word. From the link I gave above:

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The main theme of the works of Rushdie is not discourse, but subdiscourse. Debord uses the term 'presemioticist narrative' to denote the fatal flaw, and eventually the stasis, of capitalist sexual identity.

In the works of Rushdie, a predominant concept is the distinction between creation and destruction. In a sense, an abundance of theories concerning Baudrillardist simulacra may be discovered. Bataille uses the term 'the postpatriarchial paradigm of expression' to denote not narrative, as presemioticist narrative suggests, but subnarrative.

Therefore, several constructions concerning the role of the reader as observer exist. Derrida's critique of Baudrillardist simulacra holds that language has significance.

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"Language has significance"?

How utterly profound.

Its been said many times before, but it bears repeating: when someone really understands something and is trying to explain it to other people, they make it less complicated, not more. More is the sign of someone who is essentially insecure in his proclaimed expertise, and can be identified by such phrases as "capitalist sexual identity." (what the hell does that even mean? Were the people in socialist Russia boning each other significantly more or significantly less than Americans? Was there some army of Maoist transvestites that I was never told about in history class?)

Oddly enough, if you know a farmer you can get a machine that spouts bullsh*t for only a few grand, and it wont even mind if you don't give it tenure.

[Michaelson]

Just for the record, the text quoted by Phil153 above was unwittingly taken from the Postmodern Thesis Generator and is in fact satire rather than the work of an actual postmodern author.

As it states at the bottom of the page: [ QUOTE ]
The essay you have just seen is completely meaningless and was randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator. To generate another essay, follow this link.

The Postmodernism Generator was written by Andrew C. Bulhak using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random text from recursive grammars, and modified very slightly by Josh Larios (this version, anyway. There are others out there).

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Makes it somewhat amusing that the Sokal hoax would be recommended as an appropriate starting point for enquiry into postmodernism.

At least MMMMMM was aware of what he was posting.

But then, this thread is nothing more than self-conratulatory back-slapping so I guess it's neither here nor there.

There's no way I'm going to step in and try to defend 'postmodernism' here, for a couple of reasons. 1) I don't know a great deal about those 'postmodern' authors. And 2) I disagree with much that is argued for in the name of postmodernism.

However, it is disheartening to see people who have clearly made no real effort to engage with certain ideas summarily dismiss them. I can completely understand the frustration people feel when trying to get their head around the incredibly convoluted prose of some of these authors. I can also understand the frustration of trying to make sense of how relativists can justify attacks on "dominant metanarratives" and the like.

However, 'postmodernism' has undoubtedly shaken up the academic world considerably. A lot of what is carried out in its name seems patently absurd, but it has also largely succeeded in drawing attention to absurdities that have dominated western thought since the enlightenment. So often when people antagonistic to 'postmodernism' critique it they ignore this fact and rely on caricatures and strawmen to make their case. This thread is a perfect testament to that fact.

It should also be noted that we're dealing with individual authors who, believe it or not, do not form a part of a homogenous whole. Obviously its easier to discuss if you pigeon-hole them, but it makes it much easier to misrepresent and distort the collective work of those authors to do so. All of a sudden you have "contradictions" because one author's idea is incompatible with another's, and so the whole 'movement' is suddenly invalidated.

I guess all I'm saying is that it would pay many people to be less single-mindedly antagonistic when it comes to 'postmodernism'.

End of rant.

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At least MMMMMM was aware of what he was posting.

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Well, yes--but I was just trying to have a little fun.

[Michaelson]

That's fine, I'm quite a fan of the post modern generator.

It's just a bit lazy to quote from it as proof that postmodernism is intelectually bankrupt, as Phil did after you.

[madnak]

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However, it is disheartening to see people who have clearly made no real effort to engage with certain ideas summarily dismiss them.

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It's disheartening to see people assume that anyone who disagrees with them has "made no real effort" to understand their point of view.

[Michaelson]

Well if that's how you interpret what I had to say then so be it.

But I read over this thread and I just see typically aggressive anti-postmodernist postures. No one really offers anything other than the most shallow of representations of what postmodernism actually is (to the extent it is even possible to speak of postmodernism as a unified theory). Except for a couple of token references to Derrida and Foucault no one refers to specific authors. Even when those names are dropped, there's no real talk of their ideas... I mean, I don't expect academic standards of discussion on a bulletin board, but there's no real regard here at all for what's being discussed. People glance at readers, or second hand accounts, or hear about the Sokal affair and all of a sudden their mind is made up. I used to be exactly the same and many people I know and respect greatly still are. I'm not saying everyone in this thread is, but little has been put forward to suggest otherwise.

Take, for example, the notion that laundry is a social construct. That was latched onto that pretty quickly.

I personally would have thought that postmodernists generally argue that notions of morality, or historic truth, or aesthetic value, or power structures, or 'regimes of truth' etc are socially contingent. I've never heard anyone say that laundry is a social construct. My guess is that the friends who won't do laundry because its a social construct have either been horribly misrepresented here or in fact have no idea what they are talking about. In my experience either explanation would make sense equally.

If people wanted to look they could find any number of particularly stupid ideas put forward in the name of postmodern theory. That's not my point. It's just there seems to be no effort in this thread to even try to provide a fair account of the broad themes of postmodern thinking.

[madnak]

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It's just there seems to be no effort in this thread to even try to provide a fair account of the broad themes of postmodern thinking.

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Such an effort seems almost pointless to me. I don't know that I could coherently describe postmodernism, because my attempts at description would consist primarily of definitions and enumerations of attributes. That doesn't seem like a credible approach where postmodernism is concerned. I think it's impossible to avoid misrepresenting the subject while working from any kind of formal perspective. And I'm not sure how else to proceed.

[Phil153]

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Just for the record, the text quoted by Phil153 above was unwittingly taken from the Postmodern Thesis Generator and is in fact satire rather than the work of an actual postmodern author.

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You're right. This is extremely embarassing.

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Makes it somewhat amusing that the Sokal hoax would be recommended as an appropriate starting point for enquiry into postmodernism.

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Quite the opposite. The whole point of the Sokal Hoax is that postmodern writing is so intellectually bankrupt, that even obvious nonsense can pass for scholarly work worthy of publication. The fact that the Social text editors fell for the prank, although very amusing, is not the main point.

The fact that a computer can generate nonsense so similar to some postmodern works as to fool a casual observer, only adds to my point (while also making me look like a complete idiot).

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But then, this thread is nothing more than self-conratulatory back-slapping so I guess it's neither here nor there.

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I agree. So let's start a discussion about postmodern works you consider worthy of consideration.

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However, it is disheartening to see people who have clearly made no real effort to engage with certain ideas summarily dismiss them.

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Let's hear which ideas are worthy of discussion. When I read things like Irigaray's assertion that fluid mechanics is poorly understood compared to solid mechanics because of sexism within science (men have hard edges, women have fluids), I tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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However, 'postmodernism' has undoubtedly shaken up the academic world considerably.

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But what has come from it? Are we wiser as a whole? Are student in the humanities more capable of understanding and dealing with the world's problems as a result of a postmodern education? Are they more insightful, decisive thinkers or more passive and confused?

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I guess all I'm saying is that it would pay many people to be less single-mindedly antagonistic when it comes to 'postmodernism'.

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There are many perspectives out there, and some of them are actually detrimental. Is there good in postmodernism? Maybe. But does the cost of studying this stuff outweigh the benefits? I argue that it does.