To the best I can tell, it's a bunch of idiots trying to [objectively] explain that objectivity doesn't exist.

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Religion: Atheistic agnostic, political independent
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That's because postmodernism is practiced by pseudo-intellectuals. Postmodernism is about not focusing on theories. It's an artistic point of view on life.

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Well from an art perspective it makes some sense - art in general is fairly subjective after all. It's when they try to start saying it applies to anything else that you have to wonder what they're smoking.

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Quote: from radshelb at 5:50 pm on Nov. 9, 2009

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That's because postmodernism is practiced by pseudo-intellectuals.  Postmodernism is about not focusing on theories.  It's an artistic point of view on life.

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Well from an art perspective it makes some sense - art in general is fairly subjective after all. It's when they try to start saying it applies to anything else that you have to wonder what they're smoking.

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I don't agree that art is only subjective.  You can relate to not only others, but to objects as well.  Picasso's abstract paintings are an objective relationship between humans and geometric shapes.

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My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."

To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies

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Post edited at 5:01 pm on Nov. 9, 2009 by Stormblazer

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That's pretty much what I learned about it.

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C'est la vie...

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I can do no more than quote Chomsky on the issue:

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My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."

To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies

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Why then, is the assumption that there is NO objectivity at all? That's what I don't understand.
A singular understanding of truth is quite obviously flawed, but the assumption that truth doesn't exist seems equally flawed.

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I'm not sure exactly how you would like me to go about defining it, though; it's not like postmodernism is a coherent philosophy like existentialism. Postmodernism can be talking about new aesthetics in architecture or it can be the cultural mindset that follows from late stage capitalism or it can be a critique of science and history as Narratives. By nature postmodernism defies coherence or static, unified definition.

That doesn't mean that it's just a bunch of intellectual posturing, though; as much as academics can publish papers that are nothing more than deconstructive games, Deleuze and Derrida and Foucault and Baudrillard did make some very important points, and there's a lot of useful insight that has come up from the broad umbrella of postmodern thought.

Speaking more directly to the concern that you have brought up, I think that there's a very important difference between arguing that objectivity cannot be achieved and arguing that there is no objective truth. Postmodernism will challenge our ability to objectively perceive a universal truth, citing everything from social power structures that define knowledge to the inherently biasing nature of linguistic conception itself, and it will caution us against trying to establish such total truths because of the number of atrocities that have been committed as a result of such Grand Narratives, but I don't think it will deny that truth itself exists. It's just less relevant to the human condition than rationalism would like to believe.

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"Hey, that's not very nice, Mayor--
just because a person's gay doesn't mean he's a fag!"
-Stan

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I mean, I guess I'll stand up and defend postmodernism.

I'm not sure exactly how you would like me to go about defining it, though; it's not like postmodernism is a coherent philosophy like existentialism. Postmodernism can be talking about new aesthetics in architecture or it can be the cultural mindset that follows from late stage capitalism or it can be a critique of science and history as Narratives. By nature postmodernism defies coherence or static, unified definition.  

That doesn't mean that it's just a bunch of intellectual posturing, though; as much as academics can publish papers that are nothing more than deconstructive games, Deleuze and Derrida and Foucault and Baudrillard did make some very important points, and there's a lot of useful insight that has come up from the broad umbrella of postmodern thought.  

Speaking more directly to the concern that you have brought up, I think that there's a very important difference between arguing that objectivity cannot be achieved and arguing that there is no objective truth. Postmodernism will challenge our ability to objectively perceive a universal truth, citing everything from social power structures that define knowledge to the inherently biasing nature of linguistic conception itself, and it will caution us against trying to establish such total truths because of the number of atrocities that have been committed as a result of such Grand Narratives, but I don't think it will deny that truth itself exists. It's just less relevant to the human condition than rationalism would like to believe.

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When postmodernism challenge our ability to objectively perceive a universal truth, does it not presuppose an ability of the postmodern philosopher to perceive a universal truth? Would postmodernism not itself by affected by everything from the "social power structures that define knowledge to the inherently biasing nature of linguistic conception itself"?

If postmodernism can avoid falling to social power structures and avoid the inherently biasing nature of linguistic conception itself, why is this not possible for rationalism or science?

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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When postmodernism challenge our ability to objectively perceive a universal truth, does it not presuppose an ability of the postmodern philosopher to perceive a universal truth?

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Would postmodernism not itself by affected by everything from the "social power structures that define knowledge to the inherently biasing nature of linguistic conception itself"?

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