is postmodernism a totalitarian narrative? In other words, can an argument for a diversity of discourses be a dominating discourse? I'd say: only if you're doing it wrong. — Kenosha Kid
The 'postmodern condition' was coined to describe the fall of metanarratives after the two world wars (or between them, depending on what you count). The story goes something like this... — Kenosha Kid
That is precisely the value of Pomo to me: to make scientists (and others) better aware of the permanent presence of cultural a priori and biases in their own mind, as unsaid, unarticulated présuppositions, as these permeates their work more that they sometime should. Hence I am also totally in favour of diversity at school, work and politics, including in my own work. — Olivier5
On the contrary, your red lumpy legs indicate that mosquitoes like you quite a lot. — Olivier5
In MoDo, reason is inadequate yet indispensable. — 180 Proof
MoDo – gradual / radical essays in (attempts at) emanicipation from cultural-socioeconomic enchantments, mystifications, reifications, etc – is also the problem of (with) MoDo — 180 Proof
My question for the apologists: What has p0m0 proposed in philosophy that e.g. atomists, skeptics, kynics, freethinkers, anarchists, fallibilists, critical rationalists or absurdists have not already proposed more clearly, cogently and also that is less co-optable – commodifiable – by late capitalism (i.e. Neoliberal "post-truth" populism)? Asking for an old friend. :cool: — 180 Proof
Then why do they want to change me?!? — Kenosha Kid
I think a lot of people think of postmodernism as post-everything social constructivists WHO ARE RUINING EVERYTHING when a) they're not nearly free enough from their own metanarratives to qualify and b) postmodernism is first and foremost a description of the present in context of the past, and only after that a prescription (can't be a totalitarian proscription) for the future. — Kenosha Kid
- As if postmodernist would be.a) they're not nearly free enough from their own metanarratives to qualify — Kenosha Kid
Put this another way: when some school of philosophy becomes popular enough, a lot of mediocre and simply bad academicians jump on the bandwagon making it stupid.I believe that any school or tradition of philosophy that captures enough of the public's and academia's attention is liable to degenerescence over time, due to too much security and not enough challenge. Power corrupts. — Olivier5
As an aside, I also think it's interesting to see what system most convinces you, evidence aside. Which is to say that things like idealism, physicalism, skepticism, determinism etc., can't be refuted (or confirmed) by evidence, only evaluated based on reasoning. — Manuel
My own diagnostic is more pessimistic: I believe that any school or tradition of philosophy that captures enough of the public's and academia's attention is liable to degenerescence over time, due to too much security and not enough challenge. Power corrupts. Money, or automatic tenure too. German idealism, English analytic philosophy, 'French theory', they all fell victim to their own academic success. — Olivier5
CLS made it quite rock-'n'-roll — Kenosha Kid
(my translation from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000005546 -- see also https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-2010-4-page-485.htm for an article by Wiktor Stoczkowski on the topic)And it is here that we touch the absurdity of declaring one culture superior to another. For, insofar as it stands alone, a culture could never be superior [because its development would slow down very much] ... But - as we said above - no culture is alone; it is always given in coalition with other cultures, and this is what allows it to build cumulative series [i.e. cumulative history].
Today's 'metanarrative' is that the West is (by default) wrong and guilty, and other cultures are always right and wonderful. All the while, Western capitalism is destroying the planet and our common future, and those academics who meekly condemn the West bask in the limelight of it's self-disgust and enjoy the comfort Western culture provides... — Olivier5
As an ideology, modernism is non-dead in the sense that there are still some folks who believe that science, technology and western democracy will save us from the doom they themselves engendered (climate change). And other folks pretend to believe it because the narrative suits their short-term interest. So modernism a zombie idea, like communism or christianism.Seems to me modernism never finished... — Manuel
Yeah, in other words, MoDo hasn't attained its "final vocabulary" (Rorty's p0m0 – no shit, big whup) yet, and isn't this (contra pre-MoDo 'scriptural infallibility' & 'scholastic dogma') what makes MoDo MoDo? Hey Derrida et al: nothing significantly new in "your texts" about texts, just interminably prolix, tedious, anti-philosophical jabberwocky in several (neoliberal) languages. A few decades of p0m0 hustling at MoDo's expense seems to have mostly played (sold) itself out ...Seems to me modernism never finished... — Manuel
Lévi-Strauss was therefore fighting at UNESCO for the rights of the 'primitive' to be left alone by Western civilization, to be protected from it (including from UNESCO itself). He prophetized that globalization - if it was to result in one unique world culture - would kill human creativity, precisely because he saw exchanges between different culture as positive.
The paradox he highlighted in his argument was that ethnocentrism is universal. Each culture believes it is 'special' and 'better' than the others, at least in certain ways. And each culture tries to preserve itself, while incorporating interesting elements from other cultures. This is not a bad thing. Rather, it is the sine qua non condition for future creativity, for the historical agency of nations and cultures. — Olivier5
Today's 'metanarrative' is that the West is (by default) wrong and guilty, and other cultures are always right and wonderful. All the while, Western capitalism is destroying the planet and our common future, and those academics who meekly condemn Western cultures bask in the limelight of their self-disgust and enjoy the material comfort they provide... It's downright obscene. — Olivier5
Right, PM is just a passing moment in the self-reflective sub-processes of modernism, or better, modernity. — Janus
Are you basing the second paragraph on your understanding in the first? Because it doesn't follow. CLS wasn't appealing to an innate ethnocentrism in isolated groups; he was compelling external societies to keep away for the sake of diversity. — Kenosha Kid
CLS, Race et culture, 1971Toute création véritable implique une certaine surdité à l’appel d’autres valeurs, pouvant aller jusqu’à leur refus, sinon même à leur négation. Car on ne peut à la fois se fondre dans la jouissance de l’autre, s’identifier à lui et se maintenir différent. Pleinement réussie la communication intégrale avec l’autre condamne, à plus ou moins brève échéance, l’originalité de sa et de ma création.
That's the obscene bit, not the destruction of the planet? — Kenosha Kid
There was a pessimistic vibe in CLS -- and a prescient one at that, having 70 years ago predicted ecological doom by way of overpopulation and overdevelopment -- which optimist humanists tended to hate, not see, or misrepresent. — Olivier5
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