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Author
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Topic: Postmodernism: What exactly is it?
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Olympe
Just Got Here
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posted 12-04-2001 07:44 PM
  
I've heard the word "postmodernism" thrown around a lot, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks. "Postmodern" is used (generally by people on the right), semi-insultingly, to describe those like Susan Sontag who oppose the war on terror and can see the terrorists "point of view". I've heard that this "postmodernist" movement, whatever it is, is prevalent in certain universities, but I majored in biology so I wouldn't know much about it. From what I've gathered, it's a philosophical viewpoint that places great emphasis on moral and cultural relativism, the idea that people can never really understand each other particularly if they're from different cultures, and social influence on behavior. But I really don't quite get what it is, and typing "postmodernism" into google.com hasn't really helped much, so I was wondering: 1)can you folks, since you're interested in philosophy, describe it and 2)what do you think about it? From what I've heard, it sounds kind of flaky, but like I said, I've heard very little. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 01-14-2002 10:18 PM
I haven't replied to this one in so long because, honestly, it's a tough one for me to tackle; 'postmodernism' is one of those terms that's so hard to pin down because many of the people who use it have an agenda of some sort.In philosophy, 'modernism' often refers to the period of the 1500s-1800s, when the Enlightenment and scientific revolution were getting underway. (This is why Descartes, Locke, etc. are often referred to as 'modern philosophers,' with 'contemporary' sometimes being used to describe philosophers of the late 1800s and 1900s.) Many of the thinkers of this age were trying to articulate the truth as it 'really is' -- to find the one set of rules, standards, whatever that describe how the universe works. They felt that not only was the universe stable enough to have such rules, human minds were constructed in such a way that we could discover them. The truth was out there, waiting to be found. Now, broadly, post-modernism would be what came after that -- namely, the idea that maybe things weren't so simple. Maybe the universe isn't quite so stable -- maybe some of the rules do change from time to time. Maybe there ARE no hard and fast rules. And maybe human perception and interpretation invariably lends some degree of subjectivity to our beliefs and propositions, so that there's no way to articulate a universal truth that everyone would accept. Under this broad definition, pragmatists are certainly post-modernists, so I definitely fall in with that crowd. It's possible to be a relativist and not say 'anything goes' -- to say that while sometimes there are no answers or truths, sometimes there are. The trick is in figuring out which is which, and it's a trick I don't think anyone's really mastered yet. But we're working on it. There is a more narrow sense of postmodernism that plays up the subjectivity and the barriers to cultural exchange and understanding. These postmodernists emphasize flux and instability and so on; these are the folks that often get caricatured and in my opinion occasionally even degenerate into self-caricature. I think that extreme relativism is ultimately self-defeating, but that doesn't seem to stop a large number of people from publishing papers and books. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 01-19-2002 11:26 AM
quote:
I think that extreme relativism is ultimately self-defeating, but that doesn't seem to stop a large number of people from publishing papers and books.
It seems to me that the thing about relativism is, once you get started on that road, it's really easy to roar out of control. Relativism kind of feeds on itself, and once you start thinking that a hard and fast set of rules is impossible to have in one situation, it's easy to think, "Well, maybe here too..." I'm not arguing against it. I just know that if you're making an argument that uses as a tool some sort of moral or cultural relativism, it's easy for someone to come back at you with a slippery slope. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 01-23-2002 01:05 AM
I'm not sure the slippery slope is really a valid fear in many situations, and I definitely don't think it's a valid fear in a broad situation like this where you're coming up with a description of how the world works. Slippery slope is only an issue where you don't have a thought-out, articulated principle in place, and you're relying on similar but not identical precedents to guide you in making a rough judgment.That said, I don't think the form of relativism that I support lends itself to such a problem, in discussing the general principle, because I explicitly acknowledge the possibility of different circumstances when I articulate the principle. All I'm saying is that the universe might be something like a multiple choice test. Sometimes you have to pick just one answer. Sometimes you have to pick 'all of the above' or 'none of the above.' Sometimes the question is worded in such a way that 'b' and 'c' are both correct answers. Sometimes the question is worded in such a way that you can't pin down any one answer. The trick is that we don't have a set of instructions to tell us which question is which, so we have to try and figure it out on our own. So we have to try and reason that out from the evidence at hand, and debate it issue-by-issue. | |
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