Post Modernism?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Can somebody explain this to me? I can't seem to find a clear cut definition of this. So from what I understand it's a rejection of "structures" in favor of a more subjective and less rigid view of things. Is this a reactionary philosophy?

[ralfy]

That's generally the definition, and from what I remember was colored by the view that cybertechnology, etc., would lead to increased globalization, forms of communication, etc.

[Creative Destruction]

i don't think it's reactionary, for the most part, but it engenders a lot bad politics anyway.

[The Feral Underclass]

What's wrong with the Wikipedia article? I thought it was fairly good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

[Redistribute the Rep]

What's wrong with the Wikipedia article? I thought it was fairly good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Too vague

[Црвена]

Postmodernism is in no way reactionary! How is the believe that reason and reality are subjective reactionary?!

[Thirsty Crow]

Postmodernism is in no way reactionary! How is the believe that reason and reality are subjective reactionary?!
Cause it's based on the millenia old idealist mystification, stating something to the effect of a shared social reality being an illusion?

[Црвена]

Cause it's based on the millenia old idealist mystification, stating something to the effect of a shared social reality being an illusion?

Not that reality is an illusion, just that what is true depends on who is looking at it. I'm still a historical materialist as well as a postmodernist.

[Thirsty Crow]

Not that reality is an illusion, just that what is true depends on who is looking at it. I'm still a historical materialist as well as a postmodernist.
These two are mutually exclusive.

For instance, the truth value of proposition has nothing to do with social identity of the person making a statement. And incidentally, this idea that you could speak of true statements in such a way, as dependent on who is it that does the talking, is an extremely problematic position.

[The Feral Underclass]

Too vague

It's a five thousand word+ article that gives a fairly indepth overview of its history, meaning and usage. How is it "too vague"?

Did you actually read it?

[Црвена]

These two are mutually exclusive.

For instance, the truth value of proposition has nothing to do with social identity of the person making a statement. And incidentally, this idea that you could speak of true statements in such a way, as dependent on who is it that does the talking, is an extremely problematic position.

I think that social change (and therefore history since human history is social change) is a process of class struggle and revolution dependent on material conditions. I also don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that truth is subjective and I don't know how these two beliefs, in two different, though related, fields and answering two different questions, are incompatible.

By "who is looking at it," I quite simply mean that people have different opinions and since there is no absolute truth what is true depends entirely on who is thinking that it is true. I don't think anything is more true than anything else, just that what is true to me differs from what is true to you. This doesn't mean that I judge the truth of what people are saying based on social class or anything utterly irrelevant and socially constructed like that at all. All I'm saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder and depends on the opinions of the beholder, not any of the labels ascribed to them by society.

[Thirsty Crow]

I think that social change (and therefore history since human history is social change) is a process of class struggle and revolution dependent on material conditions. I also don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that truth is subjective and I don't know how these two beliefs, in two different, though related, fields and answering two different questions, are incompatible.
What does it mean that truth is "subjective"? We usually use the term meaningfully to say for instance "I like such and such music; taste is subjective". In what way is the truth of the statement that "Water is H2O" - subjective? Is this statement an "absolute" truth?


By "who is looking at it," I quite simply mean that people have different opinions and since there is no absolute truth what is true depends entirely on who is thinking that it is true.

Some religious folks believe Earth is 6000 years old. Does this mean than that it is true - for them - that it is indeed 6000 years old?


I don't think anything is more true than anything else,And this is quite at odds with how Marxists and anarchists go on about the business of assessing particular views and positions - in certain cases at least.


All I'm saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder and depends on the opinions of the beholder, not any of the labels ascribed to them by society.
And this is indeed an incoherent view.

[Slavic]

I think that social change (and therefore history since human history is social change) is a process of class struggle and revolution dependent on material conditions. I also don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that truth is subjective and I don't know how these two beliefs, in two different, though related, fields and answering two different questions, are incompatible.

By "who is looking at it," I quite simply mean that people have different opinions and since there is no absolute truth what is true depends entirely on who is thinking that it is true. I don't think anything is more true than anything else, just that what is true to me differs from what is true to you. This doesn't mean that I judge the truth of what people are saying based on social class or anything utterly irrelevant and socially constructed like that at all. All I'm saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder and depends on the opinions of the beholder, not any of the labels ascribed to them by society.

What kind of truths are you talking about? Because there are subjective and arbitrary truths such as morals.

Then there are absolute truths such as statements of logic, mathmatics, and material.

There is nothing subjective about the components of a rock. The components of this rock are fixed, true, and completley grounded in a reality that is not dependent on the observer.

[Scheveningen]

Then there are absolute truths such as statements of logic, mathmatics, and material. I don't know much about post-modernism so I am just speculating, but it's possible they are considered 'intersubjective': categories that human beings use to describe certain phenomena, but which aren't 'real' properties or something external to the observer.

This isn't exactly a post-modern approach, though. Kant replied to Hume's skepticism on causal necessity in a similar way.

With the 20th century, in general, people started abandoning positivism (which I believe Marx labeled as -the- ideology of the rising bourgeoisie; although his work shows positivist influences, like the idea that communism is 'inevitable' because of historical necessity) and rejecting the existence of absolute 'truths' in any field. But, again, that's modernism, not post-modernism?
Subjectivity doesn't really seem a po-mo invention to me.

[Sinred]

It is a psuedosocialist philosophy that focus on identity politics and since they focus on class as a identity (rather than an economic factor) it got more in common with liberalism than socialism.
Its sorta like turning a nazi uppside down. These people can actually sit and with great entusiasm discuss who is most oppressed of them.
The worst part of it, however, is that it attracts the most loonie part of the left and ends up with sterotypical champagne "socialists". And since everything is subjective in their world, it is impossible to discuss with these people.

[Hexen]

If there is anything you may have overlooked, there is some legitimacy among Post-Modernism in a way on how our society itself is structured for example, the US and the West is predominately Christian therefore our culture follows patterns which are in lined with it for example, we follow the Gregorian Calender, we censor nudity, The 'Traditional' Family structure, in medium Christian under/overtones are most of the time omnipresent (a hero sacrificing themselves, apocalypse, etc) and if there is supernatural dramas for example then we always put Christianity as it's centric cosmology where it's legitimacy is never questioned (for one example in that one episode of "Supernatural" "Hammer of the Gods" A Christian Angel 'Lucifer' slaughters all the other religions Gods with ease) and of course since we live in a capitalist society, we always follow the narrative of a "One Man" hero sort of which is rooted in individualism. Also not to mention the institutionalized racism/sexism/etc which is also apart of societies superstructure too.

Of course though everything else like saying "If our society is structured like that then how do we know that it also effects our reality too?" which is where subjective reality comes in which may sound far fetched and often explored in the realms of fiction (like "Mage: The Ascension" for example) but at the same time, it exists in the realms of possibility as in it's a further step further.

[Slavic]

If there is anything you may have overlooked, there is some legitimacy among Post-Modernism in a way on how our society itself is structured for example, the US and the West is predominately Christian therefore our culture follows patterns which are in lined with it for example, we follow the Gregorian Calender, we censor nudity, The 'Traditional' Family structure, in medium Christian under/overtones are most of the time omnipresent (a hero sacrificing themselves, apocalypse, etc) and if there is supernatural dramas for example then we always put Christianity as it's centric cosmology where it's legitimacy is never questioned (for one example in that one episode of "Supernatural" "Hammer of the Gods" A Christian Angel 'Lucifer' slaughters all the other religions Gods with ease) and of course since we live in a capitalist society, we always follow the narrative of a "One Man" hero sort of which is rooted in individualism. Also not to mention the institutionalized racism/sexism/etc which is also apart of societies superstructure too.

Of course though everything else like saying "If our society is structured like that then how do we know that it also effects our reality too?" which is where subjective reality comes in which may sound far fetched and often explored in the realms of fiction (like "Mage: The Ascension" for example) but at the same time, it exists in the realms of possibility as in it's a further step further.

Society affects our reality only asfar how we see ourselves within it. Most of the examples you provided have no proof that they are indeed true, in fact most of them rely on moral systems to prove that they are true.

The familiy unit is "good" therefore it is true
Nudity is "bad" therefore it is false.

These are flawed arguments since there exists no absolute morality from which to base truthes off of. So in a way, these aspects of reality are indeed subjective and influence by the individual and society, but I wouldn't extend the label of truth, subjective or not, to these aspects.

A truth is something that can be demostrated multiple times with the same result. Methonal combusts at room temperature when exposed to flame. This statement will always be true regardless of the time, individual, or society in which it takes place in. It is not bound to subjectivity and is thus an absolute truth for ever and always.

[Црвена]

What does it mean that truth is "subjective"? We usually use the term meaningfully to say for instance "I like such and such music; taste is subjective". In what way is the truth of the statement that "Water is H2O" - subjective? Is this statement an "absolute" truth?

I think truth is subjective in the same way that taste is. People's tastes differ, people's opinions differ and therefore, since there is no such thing as absolute truth (a belief I agree with agnostics on, and I don't see them being denounced as "reactionary,"), what is true differs from person to person. We can come to a general agreement on things like water being H2O, but for all we know, someone might strongly believe that water isn't H2O and someone may find evidence to the contrary in the future.


Some religious folks believe Earth is 6000 years old. Does this mean than that it is true - for them - that it is indeed 6000 years old?

I do think it is true for these people that the Earth is 6000 years old, and before you all judge me and assume I'm some crazy right-wing individualist, let me explain. I still think that religious institutions are ways to enslave people's brains and want to abolish them. I am perfectly fine with these religious people believing that the Earth is 6000 years old, but what I am not fine with is when this belief makes someone behave in a way harmful to collective society or tries to impose their belief upon others. Religion, I believe, should be a totally individual matter so that a personal and subjective belief doesn't compromise the collective. This is not individualism. I view all social matters as collective and all spiritual matters as individual, and part of the reason why I am a collectivist is that I think right and wrong are subjective and when the law is made by everyone through reaching a general agreement on what is right and what is wrong it is better than when right and wrong are left to an individual's or a pseudo-democracy/bureaucracy's interpretation of them.


And this is quite at odds with how Marxists and anarchists go on about the business of assessing particular views and positions - in certain cases at least.

Well, my views aren't orthodox. I will try to justify my beliefs to people of opposing views, but I think that all beliefs deserve to be considered and thought through even if I personally disagree with them. Even fascism - I DESPISE this ideology and think it's totally rotten, but fascists believe that what they think is right, and although I hate and completely disagree with fascists and every inch of their disgusting beliefs, I don't think that my beliefs are truer than theirs, just that to me mine are true and to them theirs are. Because nothing is absolute.



And this is indeed an incoherent view.

Just clearing up the possible misconception that I think the truth is based on the social label of the person who believes it.

[Dialectical_Materialist]

I think that social change (and therefore history since human history is social change) is a process of class struggle and revolution dependent on material conditions. I also don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that truth is subjective and I don't know how these two beliefs, in two different, though related, fields and answering two different questions, are incompatible.

By "who is looking at it," I quite simply mean that people have different opinions and since there is no absolute truth what is true depends entirely on who is thinking that it is true. I don't think anything is more true than anything else, just that what is true to me differs from what is true to you. This doesn't mean that I judge the truth of what people are saying based on social class or anything utterly irrelevant and socially constructed like that at all. All I'm saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder and depends on the opinions of the beholder, not any of the labels ascribed to them by society.


This is essentially my position.

[Fakeblock]

I think truth is subjective in the same way that taste is. People's tastes differ, people's opinions differ and therefore, since there is no such thing as absolute truth (a belief I agree with agnostics on, and I don't see them being denounced as "reactionary,"), what is true differs from person to person. We can come to a general agreement on things like water being H2O, but for all we know, someone might strongly believe that water isn't H2O and someone may find evidence to the contrary in the future.

That we don't necessarily know the truth doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or that it is subjective. The most basic materialist, and therefore Marxist, premise is that there exists an objective reality independent of human perception. Do you really not see how believing otherwise is idealist?

[Thirsty Crow]

I think truth is subjective in the same way that taste is. And you're completely and utterly wrong. Not to mention that any intellectual argument loses any grounding whatsoever...and indeed that reality ceases to exist altogether in this way.

There are empirical propositions; the truth value of these rests on one thing in the world being so and so, such and such. Taste on the other hand doesn't have anything to do with statements about the world; on the contrary, taste is a set of developed preferences (aesthetic and so on) in a given field.



People's tastes differ, people's opinions differ and therefore, since there is no such thing as absolute truth (a belief I agree with agnostics on, and I don't see them being denounced as "reactionary,"), what is true differs from person to person.What is this absolute truth you're talking about? It seems like nothing but fiction attributed by these peddlers of anything goes to people that claim that X is such and such and that it's false to state otherwise (in the absence of clear evidence)


We can come to a general agreement on things like water being H2O, but for all we know, someone might strongly believe that water isn't H2O and someone may find evidence to the contrary in the future.
No, we can't. Be consistent and apply your generalizing statements (incidentally for a narrative professing the end of grand narratives...it presents its own, and indeed grand one) to water as well. Truth is subjective; therefore if one man opines there's midiclorian in water then this is also true.

Evidence to the contrary in the future doesn't at all matter. You're attributing here to me, implicitly, a view I don't hold - that the chemical composition of water can't ever change. I obviously don't know under which conditions that would be possible so I am not saying any such thing. The point with my position that indeed truth isn't at all "subjective" is definitely not that things in the world can't ever change and that they're fixed for all eternity as they are (I presume this would be an example of an "absolute truth") as it's fairly obvious that they can change - from the mere fact that we know of such changes.


I do think it is true for these people that the Earth is 6000 years old, and before you all judge me and assume I'm some crazy right-wing individualist, let me explain.I have no doubt they believe this to be true.
On the other hand, I know this isn't true.

I also never said anything to the effect of you being a right-wing individualist. I'm attacking the position which is wrong and counter-productive; but I don't make any conclusions as to your politics from that.


I still think that religious institutions are ways to enslave people's brains and want to abolish them. I am perfectly fine with these religious people believing that the Earth is 6000 years old, but what I am not fine with is when this belief makes someone behave in a way harmful to collective society or tries to impose their belief upon others.I completely agree with this position, although I would alter it by adding that such beliefs are a consequence of the particular social function of religion in class society (or more precisely, in modern capitalist society); also that this rests on a complete rejection of science anyway conceived of.

But I'm not talking about that. I'm not discussing religion here as a primary subject matter (except from using this as an example) I'm talking about something entirely different; that odd non-sense that truth is "subjective".


This is not individualism. You were never accused of any such thing.



Well, my views aren't orthodox.I should have elaborated on that point in a better way.

What I was getting at is that such positions as this claiming that truth is "subjective" cannot possible be productively maintained and used by people who a) want to understand the world and b) to change it on the basis of this accurate understanding.


I will try to justify my beliefs to people of opposing views, but I think that all beliefs deserve to be considered and thought through even if I personally disagree with them. Even fascism - I DESPISE this ideology and think it's totally rotten, but fascists believe that what they think is right, and although I hate and completely disagree with fascists and every inch of their disgusting beliefs, I don't think that my beliefs are truer than theirs, just that to me mine are true and to them theirs are. Because nothing is absolute. Truth can't be quantified like that in the way you're trying do do here; okay you might actually take a text and drive it through fact checking and logical analysis to come up with the number of errors in, let's say, two of them coming from such opposed political camps - but this would be in vain.

I don't for a moment think some views, absurd on the face of it (for instance the idea of the collective Volk spirit), deserve such analytical scrutiny on their own, although their social dissemination and historical background might be important to understand. They're mystical ideas.

[Црвена]

This is essentially my position.

Guess we're both dirty reactionary scumbags then... :rolleyes:

[Hexen]

Society affects our reality only asfar how we see ourselves within it. Most of the examples you provided have no proof that they are indeed true, in fact most of them rely on moral systems to prove that they are true.

The familiy unit is "good" therefore it is true
Nudity is "bad" therefore it is false.

These are flawed arguments since there exists no absolute morality from which to base truthes off of. So in a way, these aspects of reality are indeed subjective and influence by the individual and society, but I wouldn't extend the label of truth, subjective or not, to these aspects.

A truth is something that can be demostrated multiple times with the same result. Methonal combusts at room temperature when exposed to flame. This statement will always be true regardless of the time, individual, or society in which it takes place in. It is not bound to subjectivity and is thus an absolute truth for ever and always.

Well the post you've quoted in the last page I never mentioned anything about 'truth' at all but more like how society itself shapes our worldview based on what it's predominated with.

Of course if I was going to mention the 'truth' which according to the context of Post-Modernism, it depends on what paradigm you're using, Methanol combustion at room temperature is true under the natural materialist paradigm but in more supernatural based paradigms, it's caused by spirits. Of course when one asserts their own paradigm as the 'only truth' that's when things become oppressive hence it's where biopower and governmentality come into play there.

This is how the 'truth' is subjective within context according to Post-Modernists which at this point is also where it's start's to become impossible for Materialists and Post-Modernists to debate because Materialists will argue from the basis of their paradigm while Post-Modernists will put that paradigm into a box among many others.

[Thirsty Crow]

Of course if I was going to mention the 'truth' it depends on what paradigm you're using, Methanol combustion at room temperature is true under the natural materialist paradigm but in more supernatural based paradigms, it's caused by spirits. Of course when one asserts their own paradigm as the 'only truth' that's when things become oppressive hence it's where biopower and governmentality come into play there.

I don't think this is the case. Either way, I would not bother with asserting anything like "the only truth is X", but to continue with your example, it's a matter of fact that this supernatural paradigm cannot be used either to verify or falsify the opinion that spirits doing their thing make methanol combustion.

And why is that important at all? It's perfectly fine for beliefs about spirits to serve as a tool but not in the case of the modern society based on advanced production which itself necessitates knowledge (as opposed to belief about) of the natural forces (and in this way + the rise in secular ideology, such beliefs become part of the personal, private sphere). It's a matter of fact that one paradigm as you call it allows for verification, and the other doesn't. The notion of truth is very simple insofar as it relates only to statements about the world which can be checked against the background of that same world. Thus verification is a crucial criterion.

And this leads us to that idea that any and all views and paradigms are equally valid (this forms an important part in many postmodernist writings) - which is false in that it doesn't even ask "for what purpose". This is crucial; a supernatural paradigm won't do you no good in trying to figure out something about the world in order to change it. Therefore it's clear that it is inferior to a naturalist one, but it simply doesn't follow that oppressive practices necessarily flow from such an assessment.


Guess we're both dirty reactionary scumbags then... :rolleyes:
Would you rather I call you names than actually engage with the points you make and criticize them?

I'm a nice guy and if that's what you want, I'll do it.

[TheSocialistMetalhead]

Post-modernism, like modernism, isn't a clear-cut ideology.

I'm personally most familiar with post-modernism in literature where it is characterised by the notion that nothing is certain and that things may not be what they seem.

[Црвена]

Would you rather I call you names than actually engage with the points you make and criticize them?

I'm a nice guy and if that's what you want, I'll do it.

I wasn't being serious there...

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think "post-modernism" is a little itty bit more complex and diverse than it is being characterized as by people here. People are treating postmodernists like they are all some ridiculous caricature of Derrida.

There has been some serious and very valuable scholarship by post-modernists. Sure, postmodernists get it wrong quite often, but everybody does (including Marxists). Of course we should be critical of postmodernists and not simply adopt their conclusions because they are trendy, but likewise we should not reject them out of hand because they sometimes say silly things.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/


That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.
The term “postmodernism” first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard. I therefore give Lyotard pride of place in the sections that follow. An economy of selection dictated the choice of other figures for this entry. I have selected only those most commonly cited in discussions of philosophical postmodernism, five French and two Italian, although individually they may resist common affiliation. Ordering them by nationality might duplicate a modernist schema they would question, but there are strong differences among them, and these tend to divide along linguistic and cultural lines. The French, for example, work with concepts developed during the structuralist revolution in Paris in the 1950s and early 1960s, including structuralist readings of Marx and Freud. For this reason they are often called “poststructuralists.” They also cite the events of May 1968 as a watershed moment for modern thought and its institutions, especially the universities. The Italians, by contrast, draw upon a tradition of aesthetics and rhetoric including figures such as Giambattista Vico and Benedetto Croce. Their emphasis is strongly historical, and they exhibit no fascination with a revolutionary moment. Instead, they emphasize continuity, narrative, and difference within continuity, rather than counter-strategies and discursive gaps. Neither side, however, suggests that postmodernism is an attack upon modernity or a complete departure from it. Rather, its differences lie within modernity itself, and postmodernism is a continuation of modern thinking in another mode.
Finally, I have included a summary of Habermas's critique of postmodernism, representing the main lines of discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. Habermas argues that postmodernism contradicts itself through self-reference, and notes that postmodernists presuppose concepts they otherwise seek to undermine, e.g., freedom, subjectivity, or creativity. He sees in this a rhetorical application of strategies employed by the artistic avant-garde of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an avant-garde that is possible only because modernity separates artistic values from science and politics in the first place. On his view, postmodernism is an illicit aestheticization of knowledge and public discourse. Against this, Habermas seeks to rehabilitate modern reason as a system of procedural rules for achieving consensus and agreement among communicating subjects. Insofar as postmodernism introduces aesthetic playfulness and subversion into science and politics, he resists it in the name of a modernity moving toward completion rather than self-transformation.


Of course, there is an emphasis in post-modernism in critiquing various hidden aspects of the subject (assumptions, historical conditions etc) which support particular truth-claims, the meaning of various statements, and the perspectives which individuals take, but it's a crude understanding to say that the whole philosophy consists of arguing that "everything is subjective".

[Sinred]

I think "post-modernism" is a little itty bit more complex and diverse than it is being characterized as by people here. People are treating postmodernists like they are all some ridiculous caricature of Derrida.

There has been some serious and very valuable scholarship by post-modernists. Sure, postmodernists get it wrong quite often, but everybody does (including Marxists). Of course we should be critical of postmodernists and not simply adopt their conclusions because they are trendy, but likewise we should not reject them out of hand because they sometimes say silly things.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/



Of course, there is an emphasis in post-modernism in critiquing various hidden aspects of the subject (assumptions, historical conditions etc) which support particular truth-claims, the meaning of various statements, and the perspectives which individuals take, but it's a crude understanding to say that the whole philosophy consists of arguing that "everything is subjective".


I agree to some degree. Some postmodernist thinkers are pretty good with some interesting viewpoints.
The problem isnt as much postmodernism as postmodernists.
The later, for some reason, always seems to end up with bashing people with identity politics and putting their energy on critizising sexual, racial and/or gender stereotypes. Class is more of a subjective identy rather than a objectiv economic position.

And if you are white heterosexual male, you can never win a discussion with a postmodernist. Because your point of view comes from a "priveliged" position and cant possible put yourself in the other persons shoes.


P.S In my own personal experience.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think that social change (and therefore history since human history is social change) is a process of class struggle and revolution dependent on material conditions. I also don't believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and that truth is subjective and I don't know how these two beliefs, in two different, though related, fields and answering two different questions, are incompatible.

By "who is looking at it," I quite simply mean that people have different opinions and since there is no absolute truth what is true depends entirely on who is thinking that it is true. I don't think anything is more true than anything else, just that what is true to me differs from what is true to you.

Surely, then, it follows that historical materialism is only true "for you", "for me", "for" people who accept it (and I don't think it is at all clear what a statement being true "for someone" means). That is not enough for our purposes, however, we assume that historical materialism holds regardless of individual beliefs, and our analysis proceeds from that standpoint. Kerensky, Rathenau, Tisza - these people did not believe that historical materialism was true. Nonetheless we explain their actions and the history of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian states using historical materialism. It isn't at all clear how this would be possible if historical materialism was literally false "for" Kerensky, Rathenau and Tisza.


If there is anything you may have overlooked, there is some legitimacy among Post-Modernism in a way on how our society itself is structured for example, the US and the West is predominately Christian therefore our culture follows patterns which are in lined with it for example, we follow the Gregorian Calender, we censor nudity, The 'Traditional' Family structure, in medium Christian under/overtones are most of the time omnipresent (a hero sacrificing themselves, apocalypse, etc) and if there is supernatural dramas for example then we always put Christianity as it's centric cosmology where it's legitimacy is never questioned (for one example in that one episode of "Supernatural" "Hammer of the Gods" A Christian Angel 'Lucifer' slaughters all the other religions Gods with ease) and of course since we live in a capitalist society, we always follow the narrative of a "One Man" hero sort of which is rooted in individualism. Also not to mention the institutionalized racism/sexism/etc which is also apart of societies superstructure too.

With due respect, I think this is a good example of what's wrong with (some varieties of - "postmodernism" is such a vague term) postmodernism - the obsession with words, "narratives" and so on. But that is not how Marxists approach social analysis - we are concerned with the actual material structures that make up society (ideology is of course not unimportant but it, too, must be understood materially - contrast the materialist concept of interpellation with these "narratives"). An obsession with analysing "narratives" leads to a sort of milquetoast democratic politics masquerading as strictest radicalism, as the case of Laclau shows.


We can come to a general agreement on things like water being H2O, but for all we know, someone might strongly believe that water isn't H2O and someone may find evidence to the contrary in the future.

Someone might, but as of now, none has been found, so the only rational option is to affirm that water is H2O. The falibilism of our beliefs - the fact that they could turn out to not be true at any moment - does not mean that is is epistemically responsible to act as if they have already been disproved.


Well, my views aren't orthodox. I will try to justify my beliefs to people of opposing views, but I think that all beliefs deserve to be considered and thought through even if I personally disagree with them. Even fascism - I DESPISE this ideology and think it's totally rotten, but fascists believe that what they think is right, and although I hate and completely disagree with fascists and every inch of their disgusting beliefs, I don't think that my beliefs are truer than theirs, just that to me mine are true and to them theirs are. Because nothing is absolute.

Obviously those fascists who think UFOs from Thule will help them conquer the world for the Aryan race are wrong, otherwise we would be truly fucked. The usual Marxist formulation is that truth is revealed in practice - we say that statements are true because acting as if they're true allow us to successfully engage with the external material world. Now, if I convince myself that water is poisonous, but that bleach is nutritious, I will die. So that belief is obviously not true. Conversely, the rather obtuse equations that make up modern nuclear physics enable us to blow people up in new and interesting ways, so nuclear physics is obviously useful to us.

I don't think political positions are the sort of thing that can be true or false, though. What does it mean to say that fighting for the end of class society is true, for example? It sounds nonsensical.

[markchan]

I think it is better not to ask what post-modernism is before reading some of the so-called postmodern works. It is easy to be understood if you do so. Otherwise, it will make you more confusing.

[Црвена]

And you're completely and utterly wrong. Not to mention that any intellectual argument loses any grounding whatsoever...and indeed that reality ceases to exist altogether in this way.

There are empirical propositions; the truth value of these rests on one thing in the world being so and so, such and such. Taste on the other hand doesn't have anything to do with statements about the world; on the contrary, taste is a set of developed preferences (aesthetic and so on) in a given field.

Empirical propositions can still be subjective. Practical experiences can be interpreted in different ways, and each interpretation is believed by the interpreter to be true. And what someone thinks is real is also a developed preference as an answer to a question - we consider possible answers and truths and choose the one that fits in with the perceptions of the world that we have gathered.



What is this absolute truth you're talking about? It seems like nothing but fiction attributed by these peddlers of anything goes to people that claim that X is such and such and that it's false to state otherwise (in the absence of clear evidence)

Absolute truth is the one correct answer to a given question. Disbelief in absolute truth doesn't necessarily lead to subjectivism, but if there is no one correct answer one is more inclined to think that the answer is different to each person.


No, we can't. Be consistent and apply your generalizing statements (incidentally for a narrative professing the end of grand narratives...it presents its own, and indeed grand one) to water as well. Truth is subjective; therefore if one man opines there's midiclorian in water then this is also true.

I wasn't saying that society being able to come to a general agreement that water is H2O means that this is absolute truth, just that most of society does have the same view of the composition of water. To this single person, there is midiclorian in water...but to everyone else, this isn't true.


Evidence to the contrary in the future doesn't at all matter. You're attributing here to me, implicitly, a view I don't hold - that the chemical composition of water can't ever change. I obviously don't know under which conditions that would be possible so I am not saying any such thing. The point with my position that indeed truth isn't at all "subjective" is definitely not that things in the world can't ever change and that they're fixed for all eternity as they are (I presume this would be an example of an "absolute truth") as it's fairly obvious that they can change - from the mere fact that we know of such changes.

By "in the future," I meant that a second after you read this, someone somewhere might find "evidence," that the chemical composition of water isn't H2O and if people are persuaded by this evidence, what it suggests will become true to them. Proof of any argument can be found at any point in time and what is deemed the correct answer by the evidence can always change, therefore the evidence is open to interpretation and it is up to the interpreter to decide whether they want to trust the seeming proof or not.


I have no doubt they believe this to be true.
On the other hand, I know this isn't true.

How is this certain?


I also never said anything to the effect of you being a right-wing individualist. I'm attacking the position which is wrong and counter-productive; but I don't make any conclusions as to your politics from that.

I wasn't addressing you specifically, I'm just aware that my spiritual views sound individualistic and want to clarify that I am still very much a social collectivist.


I completely agree with this position, although I would alter it by adding that such beliefs are a consequence of the particular social function of religion in class society (or more precisely, in modern capitalist society); also that this rests on a complete rejection of science anyway conceived of.

I don't think there's anything wrong with rejection of science as long as no one tries to force anyone else to reject science, but otherwise I agree.


I should have elaborated on that point in a better way.

What I was getting at is that such positions as this claiming that truth is "subjective" cannot possible be productively maintained and used by people who a) want to understand the world and b) to change it on the basis of this accurate understanding.

People can still have opinions and be subjectivists, we just have to acknowledge that our opinion is not the ultimate answer and that other people will think differently. I think this actually helps me to be open-minded and consider other viewpoints.


I don't for a moment think some views, absurd on the face of it (for instance the idea of the collective Volk spirit), deserve such analytical scrutiny on their own, although their social dissemination and historical background might be important to understand. They're mystical ideas.

I think any opinion that a human being has deserves some sort of thought and consideration. They have said opinion for a reason.

[Thirsty Crow]

Empirical propositions can still be subjective. Practical experiences can be interpreted in different ways, and each interpretation is believed by the interpreter to be true. And what someone thinks is real is also a developed preference as an answer to a question - we consider possible answers and truths and choose the one that fits in with the perceptions of the world that we have gathered.You're obviously confused as to what constitutes empirical propositions.

Interpretation doesn't come into play here really. Take an example of a hypothetical person who was bullied by their boss at work.

Now an empirical proposition here would be "X was bullied by their boss, in such and such a way". The way of corroborating that apart from personal testimony would be via witnesses. Of course it is not that clear cut as with the case of examining natural materials for instance, as bias and prejudice can come into play, but in principle it is completely the same. The resulting difference is that we ought to be more careful with categorical judgements of this kind in relation to judgements about methanol combustion. At one point in the process of examination it might be that our knowledge is of a significantly lesser degree of certainty. But that doesn't and cannot possibly mean that these statements are subjective in that any and all opinion is equally or nearly equally true.

This is an empirical proposition about an occurrence in the world. Nothing subjective about it; it either did happen or it did not, it either happened in an alleged way or in some other way.

Now the interpretation of this experience is of course "subjective" insofar this relates to the way the bullied person talks about this and its consequences.


Absolute truth is the one correct answer to a given question. Disbelief in absolute truth doesn't necessarily lead to subjectivism, but if there is no one correct answer one is more inclined to think that the answer is different to each person.
If someone asked what you end up by adding 2 and 2 - would you ever say 5 or "I refuse this kind of question on the grounds of it asking for an absolute truth"?

If someone asked you what you had for lunch today, would you give two different answers?

These aren't at all ploys used in debate. They're fairly banal examples demonstrating how your handling of the notion of absolute truth is completely useless.


I wasn't saying that society being able to come to a general agreement that water is H2O means that this is absolute truth, just that most of society does have the same view of the composition of water. To this single person, there is midiclorian in water...but to everyone else, this isn't true.There is a basis for this social agreement. It isn't that this is only a useful fiction which is then agreed upon; the basis is the current technique allowing for an accurate insight into the chemical composition of water. And midiclorian is nowhere to be found. Yet a person believes it is there. And still you'd entertain this silly belief.



By "in the future," I meant that a second after you read this, someone somewhere might find "evidence," that the chemical composition of water isn't H2O and if people are persuaded by this evidence, what it suggests will become true to them.I don't think this is likely or even possible. But that's another matter; what I claim here is that you can postulate all sorts of theoretical objects (like midiclorian if one were so nutty to use that fictional device and give it a veneer of a scientific or philosophical concept) but if they are inherently not a candidate for verification - you're barking up the wrong tree. One could spend an entire life time devising ways of empirically proving God's existence but the results are obvious: 1) no success whatsoever and 2) the concept of God would need to be fundamentally changed (just like a friend of mine postulated the possibility of an alien life form creating the universe and everything, yet inhabiting a distant planet; too much Star Trek Enterprise for here, no wonder she adores Q) and therefore you'd end up with something else than you started out with.


Proof of any argument can be found at any point in time and what is deemed the correct answer by the evidence can always change, therefore the evidence is open to interpretation and it is up to the interpreter to decide whether they want to trust the seeming proof or not.
This is a fundamentally ahistorical view of scientific discovery.

Do you really think that even questions of the speed of neutrinos could be posed in antiquity? The answer clearly is no. The conclusion would be that as social organization of production, and with it the technical-scientific capacities, advance certain areas of inquiry open up with possibilities for insight which were previously simply lacking.


How is this certain?
I don't think there's anything wrong with rejection of science as long as no one tries to force anyone else to reject science, but otherwise I agree.Do you really

1) expect of me to summarize the wealth of geological evidence in this thread? This would take days to sort out, more days to write in a coherent way

2) want to claim that it is even remotely possible that this claim might be true?

The second question demonstrates what possible political results flow from your anything goes approach. I for one think it would be completely disastrous for communists to even allow for this ridiculous absurdity to hold, in some misguided quest not to oppress poor religious fundamentalists.

Again, the point you seem to be oblivious to is that your approach here completely destroys any grounding of communist positions in a rigorous and accurate assessments of how things really are apart from all possible flights of fancy. You're sitting on a tree branch while simultaneously cutting it and setting yourself up for a nasty fall.

It is useful for religious fundamentalists to reject a scientific approach (which is born out of a common social experience and practice), but this very much a wrong turn for communists.



People can still have opinions and be subjectivists, we just have to acknowledge that our opinion is not the ultimate answer and that other people will think differently.To make out the most of the political implications, let's discuss the application of this attitude to political struggle.

Of course the bourgeois apologists will think differently. They may at some time argue that capitalist crisis is brought about by sun spots and solar flares (this was indeed claimed back in the beginning of the 20th century; can't remember the name of the guy).

According to you, this should be taken as a respectable position worthy of consideration.

And this is playing into the hands of the political enemy. How? By actually focusing on the specifics of the argument you would be missing out on the chance to show how 1) this view is clearly absurd for this and this reasons and 2) to connect this to the social function of the economic ideology in capitalist society.

In other words, you'd accept a game that is rigged from the very start, to the advantage of your enemy. Even worse, you'd presumably end such a debate by proclaiming that truth is subjective and therefore everyone is right when it is really necessary to expose this bullshit for what it is. Complete and utter bullshit. Not a "subjective truth".

It's necessary to be open minded; but not so open minded that your brain falls out of your skull.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I agree to some degree. Some postmodernist thinkers are pretty good with some interesting viewpoints.
The problem isnt as much postmodernism as postmodernists.
The later, for some reason, always seems to end up with bashing people with identity politics and putting their energy on critizising sexual, racial and/or gender stereotypes. Class is more of a subjective identy rather than a objectiv economic position.


People of all stripes are guilty of this kind of intellectual behavior, including Marxists.

I think criticizing stereotypes is very useful - stereotypes are a fundamental ideological tool of oppression.



And if you are white heterosexual male, you can never win a discussion with a postmodernist. Because your point of view comes from a "priveliged" position and cant possible put yourself in the other persons shoes.


P.S In my own personal experience.I think you might be confusing "postmodernist" with "postcolonialist" ... and no I don't think the core of the argument (at least in its mature form) is that people from a privileged position can't understand at all, it's that they won't understand until they come to critically analyze their privileged point of view.



With due respect, I think this is a good example of what's wrong with (some varieties of - "postmodernism" is such a vague term) postmodernism - the obsession with words, "narratives" and so on. But that is not how Marxists approach social analysis - we are concerned with the actual material structures that make up society (ideology is of course not unimportant but it, too, must be understood materially - contrast the materialist concept of interpellation with these "narratives"). An obsession with analysing "narratives" leads to a sort of milquetoast democratic politics masquerading as strictest radicalism, as the case of Laclau shows.


You are raising a false dichotomy between material analysis and an analysis of personal narrative. Analyzing narratives for instance can help to demolish unquestioned assumptions in materialist analysis (for instance, getting rid of the myth of the "bourgeois homosexual", an idiotic belief which plagued all forms of Marxist-Leninism and stuck around in parts of the left for an embarrassingly long time) by showing how people categorized a certain way actually live their lives outside of the external observer's stereotypes. Anyways, its not like many postmodernists weren't materialists or didn't analyze historical and material conditions rigorously.

I think it can help with ideological work to analyze people's narratives/subjective conditions/perspectives, as we can deconstruct the ideologies of false consciousness that, say, lead the average worker to idolize a middle class life that he cannot reasonably hope to attain. I've seen Marxists of all groups and tendencies just drone on about their critical material analysis to workers who could care less or even viscerally disagree with the content. There seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric and the people whom the rhetoric is designed to convince.

It should be noted that many postmodernists were readers of Marx and the Marxists, and were probably inspired in no small part. While many postmodernists were critical of Marxist analysis, they did not reject it outright and called upon it as an influence nonetheless. Likewise, a Marxist does not need to adopt postmodernism wholesale, but he or she can recognize the good arguments, research, works etc which come out of it (of which there are many)


You're obviously confused as to what constitutes empirical propositions.

Interpretation doesn't come into play here really. Take an example of a hypothetical person who was bullied by their boss at work.

Now an empirical proposition here would be "X was bullied by their boss, in such and such a way". The way of corroborating that apart from personal testimony would be via witnesses. Of course it is not that clear cut as with the case of examining natural materials for instance, as bias and prejudice can come into play, but in principle it is completely the same. The resulting difference is that we ought to be more careful with categorical judgements of this kind in relation to judgements about methanol combustion. At one point in the process of examination it might be that our knowledge is of a significantly lesser degree of certainty. But that doesn't and cannot possibly mean that these statements are subjective in that any and all opinion is equally or nearly equally true.

This is an empirical proposition about an occurrence in the world. Nothing subjective about it; it either did happen or it did not, it either happened in an alleged way or in some other way.

Now the interpretation of this experience is of course "subjective" insofar this relates to the way the bullied person talks about this and its consequences.


I think the strength of some kinds of postmodern analysis would be in, say, analyzing why someone would disregard an act of bullying as "hazing" or something other than bullying. I don't think it's in the universal positive argument that "everything is subjective" so much as the negative argument that certain claims of absolute objectivity can be made problematic. That is not so out of line with Marx's analysis, which, for instance, was critical of the ontological assumptions of "bourgeois science" etc

There is also a historical element to postmodern analysis - for instance, analyzing how people's perspectives and basic assumptions had to change for the emergence of something like modern science, etc.


This is a fundamentally ahistorical view of scientific discovery.

Do you really think that even questions of the speed of neutrinos could be posed in antiquity? The answer clearly is no. The conclusion would be that as social organization of production, and with it the technical-scientific capacities, advance certain areas of inquiry open up with possibilities for insight which were previously simply lacking. Not every postmodernist has an ahistorical understanding scientific discovery (I cant think of any that do). I think the postmodernists are more critical of ideas of teleological certainty and determinacy, not of the fact that history creates intellectual horizons for our understanding. It's a critique of modernity, not history as such.

[Geiseric]

Ultra leftism is somewhat postmodern seeing as it ignores a hundred years of history in order to make arbitrary political decisons, in the image of what they think a marxist should sound like. Occupy was similar but different. The idea that the more inclusive a movement is, the more successful it will be, is postmodern in the other direction from ultraleftism.

The idea that a vision, devoid of material, actually has value is postmodern. Think of any Mike Myers movie, those are perfect examples of postmodernism.

[motion denied]

Ultra leftism is somewhat postmodern seeing as it ignores a hundred years of history in order to make arbitrary political decisons, in the image of what they think a marxist should sound like.

Do you ever say anything worthy or just these empty crazy assertions pulled out of your arse? Shut the fuck up.

Disregard this post (and the poster I'm replying to), sorry for useless post.

[Thirsty Crow]

Ultra leftism is somewhat postmodern seeing as it ignores a hundred years of history in order to make arbitrary political decisons, in the image of what they think a marxist should sound like.
Glad to have this piece of wisdom here.
Dare I ask you to substantiate this assertion? Well, yeah. So do it.


Do you ever say anything worthy or just these empty crazy assertions pulled out of your arse? Shut the fuck up.

Disregard this post (and the poster I'm replying to), sorry for useless post.
It's funny watching him try to make some sense after blurting such stupidity.

@SCM

What I wrote specifically doesn't relate to any particular postemodernist philosopher; nor should it be interpreted as a blanket statement about postmodernism (since it's fairly obvious that this label is all too vague and consequently any and all generalization would need to be carefully specified). I'm simply discussing beliefs with PreteenCommunist who thinks these form a part of postmodernism (if this is actually true is irrelevant; I do however think their views most definitely have a basis in such philosophical theories, most of all in the idea of the fundamental "equality" of paradigms).

[Geiseric]

Spoiler alert: "Left communism" isnt an actual ideology in the real world. It only exists among students and other left intellectual circles. Sometimes in the 30s bordiga and whoever would of held ultra left positions but they didnt identify as left communists. They thought they were ACTUAL communists and called themselves communists. Modern left communism wouldnt gain any ground if people knew the acrual history of the russian and german revolutions. Instead they take an ideological view of both events, claiming the bolsheviks lied to the entire world about what communism is.

Bordiga didnt study the russian revolution, despite being part of comintern and a leader of the ICP, meaning he made the same mistakes as the german communists were goingto make.

[Thirsty Crow]

Spoiler alert: "Left communism" isnt an actual ideology in the real world. It only exists among students and other left intellectual circles. Sometimes in the 30s bordiga and whoever would of held ultra left positions but they didnt identify as left communists. They thought they were ACTUAL communists and called themselves communists. Modern left communism wouldnt gain any ground if people knew the acrual history of the russian and german revolutions. Instead they take an ideological view of both events, claiming the bolsheviks lied to the entire world about what communism is.

Bordiga didnt study the russian revolution, despite being part of comintern and a leader of the ICP, meaning he made the same mistakes as the german communists were goingto make.

You're a fucking joke. Nothing more than that.

The irony is that the likes of the ICC are actually worried for the lack of influence in the younger demographic in Europe; it's an organization that is getting old as odd as that sounds.

Even then it's completely incomprehensible why would in Geisiric's eyes, who once claimed that student organizing is part of the workers' movement, concentration on the student circles be a thing to condemn since it would seem that many Trot orgs base their recruitment drive predominantly there (plus the obvious appeal to labor bureaucrats).
So that's two completely idiotic statements within one sentence. Somehow the real world is something other than the world inhabited by Battaglia Communista and the ICC for instance, and of course only petite bourgeois students latch onto such infantilism.

Right right?

Next on we have the little piece of wisdom that Bordiga would hold "ultra left" positions but not identify as left communist. Disregarding the fact that Bordiga completely exited political life in that time, this is obviously false insofar as the Italian left, the abstentionist fraction did constitute one historical pole which actually developed the class politics known as the communist left. This is where the view of the organizational existence in the form of the fraction came to fruition, and there can be no doubt that the politics of the Italian left were in opposition to the dominant Stalinist current but also to the Left Opposition (manifested later on, and most significantly on the issue of the second imperialist carnage).

And to top it off, there's this complete and utter bullshit that the modern left communists claim that the Bolsheviks lied "about what communism" is. This is completely the opposite of the actual state of affairs as the contemporary organizations claiming political legacy with the communist left are rigorously and unconditionally pro-October Revolution (but our little doorknob here must be simply enraged by the theoretical rejection of "Leninism").
It's a lie, out of sheer individual stupidity and ideological bias, I don't really care. I'd advise anyone here not to take this fool seriously.

And of course, Bordiga never studied the Russian Revolution. Nevermind those books he wrote; but they're not translated so for our little Geisiric it's obvious that they're simply non-existent.

And all of this crap is asserted as an answer to the question how come the communist left can be considered "postmodern". I'm actually amazed at the level of stupidity; honestly, even the hardcore conservative right spouting their crap on the local Croatian forum I frequent are far, far smarter and better informed generally than this. Amazing actually.

[Geiseric]

Left communists believe in the "left wing of capital" theory to describe both lenin and comintern. If you dont, then theres not much to differentiate you from leninists other than you dont believe in united fronts with other working class political groups, and as a whole self determination isnt supported.

[Thirsty Crow]

Left communists believe in the "left wing of capital" theory to describe both lenin and comintern. If you dont, then theres not much to differentiate you from leninists other than you dont believe in united fronts with other working class political groups, and as a whole self determination isnt supported.
Factually incorrect. The notion of the left wing of capital isn't retroactively applied to the CP of the USSR nor to the Comintern.

Anything else sunshine? Some more misinformation, lies, bullshit?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Can somebody explain this to me? I can't seem to find a clear cut definition of this. So from what I understand it's a rejection of "structures" in favor of a more subjective and less rigid view of things. Is this a reactionary philosophy?in general, my impression of Pomo as a philosophy is a examination or rejection of universal or grand understandings of the world. It is not reactionary, though like any other school of thought there are more conformist or more dissident tendencies within. I'd say overall it does tend toward idealism in often favoring symbols or language over material things.

I also think it's really just a phase of modernism, a sort of depressed or pessimistic version. I also think it's more or less run its course.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You are raising a false dichotomy between material analysis and an analysis of personal narrative. Analyzing narratives for instance can help to demolish unquestioned assumptions in materialist analysis (for instance, getting rid of the myth of the "bourgeois homosexual", an idiotic belief which plagued all forms of Marxist-Leninism and stuck around in parts of the left for an embarrassingly long time) by showing how people categorized a certain way actually live their lives outside of the external observer's stereotypes. Anyways, its not like many postmodernists weren't materialists or didn't analyze historical and material conditions rigorously.

I think it can help with ideological work to analyze people's narratives/subjective conditions/perspectives, as we can deconstruct the ideologies of false consciousness that, say, lead the average worker to idolize a middle class life that he cannot reasonably hope to attain. I've seen Marxists of all groups and tendencies just drone on about their critical material analysis to workers who could care less or even viscerally disagree with the content. There seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric and the people whom the rhetoric is designed to convince.

It should be noted that many postmodernists were readers of Marx and the Marxists, and were probably inspired in no small part. While many postmodernists were critical of Marxist analysis, they did not reject it outright and called upon it as an influence nonetheless. Likewise, a Marxist does not need to adopt postmodernism wholesale, but he or she can recognize the good arguments, research, works etc which come out of it (of which there are many)

Of course, when analysing concrete social formations, ideology and consciousness are not unimportant (although a lot of people on the left endow these with an almost mystical power over social processes, usually in order to deflect criticism from their own failings, or to push forward some reformist, populist programme - more on that later). But if we are to be consistent we need to analyse ideology in a materialist manner, a Marxist (not "Marxian" or "inspired-by-Marx") manner. Ideology itself needs to be understood as material, not as "narratives" but the concrete manner in which the behaviour of members of society is structured (again I refer to Althusser's analysis of interpellation). The ideology that paints homosexuality as "bourgeois decadence" is still very much alive on the left, even though the "narrative", as you put it, is long gone (in certain national sections of the left at least).

Now, I'm not sure if a discussion on the literary and academic merits of the various people that have called themselves or been called (by relevant authorities - of course you have people who think Althusser or Merleau-Ponty were "postmodern") - Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and so on. But tell me this: did any of them have anything that could be described as consistent (or semi-consistent) Marxist politics?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Ultra leftism is somewhat postmodern seeing as it ignores a hundred years of history in order to make arbitrary political decisons, in the image of what they think a marxist should sound like. Occupy was similar but different. The idea that the more inclusive a movement is, the more successful it will be, is postmodern in the other direction from ultraleftism.

The idea that a vision, devoid of material, actually has value is postmodern. Think of any Mike Myers movie, those are perfect examples of postmodernism.

OK I'm not going to abuse you the way other posters have, but I can see why they did - to put a long story short, people like Bordiga and people like Foucault, Derrida or Deleuze have very little to do with one another except they're both leftwing. Don't take your critique of leftwing communism/ultraleftism out on postmodermists, and don't confuse the two movements. You're not just building a strawman to destroy it, you're building two strawmen to draw an analogy between them and destroy both.



What I wrote specifically doesn't relate to any particular postemodernist philosopher; nor should it be interpreted as a blanket statement about postmodernism (since it's fairly obvious that this label is all too vague and consequently any and all generalization would need to be carefully specified). I'm simply discussing beliefs with PreteenCommunist who thinks these form a part of postmodernism (if this is actually true is irrelevant; I do however think their views most definitely have a basis in such philosophical theories, most of all in the idea of the fundamental "equality" of paradigms).

Fair enough, although on your last statement I'm not sure if the thesis is that all paradigms are "equal" (there are some who say that but not all) so much as that paradigms must be considered both from within their own point of view and outside of it to be properly critiqued. So when Foucault gives a genealogy of punishment, he gives us the intellectual standpoint that led to the torture of bodies, and the one which leads us to modern forms of punishment, and tries to tell a story of how this change took place. So on the contrary, Foucault seemed more than happy to tear many of these paradigms apart.

As I think you've acknowledged though, it's a diverse body of thought, and there are certainly some more openly relativistic postmodernist thinkers.


in general, my impression of Pomo as a philosophy is a examination or rejection of universal or grand understandings of the world. It is not reactionary, though like any other school of thought there are more conformist or more dissident tendencies within. I'd say overall it does tend toward idealism in often favoring symbols or language over material things.


Perhaps, although I can't think of postmodernists who disregard the relationship between the material conditions and ideology so much as just problematize it.


I also think it's really just a phase of modernism, a sort of depressed or pessimistic version. I also think it's more or less run its course.Well, it doesn't help that all the big names in postmodernism are dead, but we see their language being incorporated by contemporary thinkers like Judith Butler (her terrible writing style aside, she can't be dismissed as irrelevant)

[Thirsty Crow]

Fair enough, although on your last statement I'm not sure if the thesis is that all paradigms are "equal" (there are some who say that but not all) so much as that paradigms must be considered both from within their own point of view and outside of it to be properly critiqued. So when Foucault gives a genealogy of punishment, he gives us the intellectual standpoint that led to the torture of bodies, and the one which leads us to modern forms of punishment, and tries to tell a story of how this change took place. So on the contrary, Foucault seemed more than happy to tear many of these paradigms apart.

In all honestly I actually think Foucault shouldn't ever be lumped in with the rest of the "post-structuralist" vanguard. I've had multiple goes at Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality and can't honestly see why would, for instance, Derrida and Foucault be placed in the same intellectual project. I think his work is at the intersection of the history of ideas and social history of a kind - very far from philosophy in general though it does present some views about power which could be viewed as generalizing and kinda...philosophical.

Anyway, any time you see me talking about postmodernists you can take it for granted that I'm talking about those peddlers of "anything goes" and ideas about the fundamental equality of..value or what have you of different paradigms of "knowing" (thus refusing the useful distinction between knowledge and belief).


Now, I'm not sure if a discussion on the literary and academic merits of the various people that have called themselves or been called (by relevant authorities - of course you have people who think Althusser or Merleau-Ponty were "postmodern") - Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and so on. But tell me this: did any of them have anything that could be described as consistent (or semi-consistent) Marxist politics? Why does this matter when we're talking about a philosophical theory?

The question about such stuff is how productive and useful are its postulates, procedures and hypotheses for understanding the world.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Why does this matter when we're talking about a philosophical theory?

The question about such stuff is how productive and useful are its postulates, procedures and hypotheses for understanding the world.

Not just for understanding the world, but for acting in the world - the proof of the pudding is in the eating and all that. And we already know that milquetoast liberal-democratic, or even pro-religious (Foucault) politics are a dead end, so obviously there is something wrong with theories that lead to such politics. Conversely we assume that consistent Marxist politics are something useful (otherwise we would not be Marxists), so it is interesting to see if philosophical theories can lead to such politics (and it is my contention that no philosophical theories can).

[Thirsty Crow]

Not just for understanding the world, but for acting in the world - the proof of the pudding is in the eating and all that.
Understanding the world can be separate from acting in the world, although you could claim that understanding is also a kind of an action. But I could as well read a book on my own and come to understand something about the world without ever engaging with other human beings and therefore not really interacting (as my understanding thus can't have any effect of any other person).


And we already know that milquetoast liberal-democratic, or even pro-religious (Foucault) politics are a dead end, so obviously there is something wrong with theories that lead to such politics.
You're assuming what needs to be proven. That theories lead to politics.
As a working hypothesis, a hunch, this suffices, but you can't say that "obviously there is something wrong with theories" which lead to such politics. It isn't obvious at all.


(and it is my contention that no philosophical theories can).I actually agree that no philosophical theory can lead to communist politics. But I'm assuming we would disagree on why we think so. Actually, I don't think philosophical theories logically lead to any politics, although as ideological worldviews they might, I dunno, suggest an array of possible political positions if one would associate them with their own fancy philosophical worldview.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Understanding the world can be separate from acting in the world, although you could claim that understanding is also a kind of an action. But I could as well read a book on my own and come to understand something about the world without ever engaging with other human beings and therefore not really interacting (as my understanding thus can't have any effect of any other person).

I don't think understanding is an action - it's not something you do (but it's not something passive, something you have either - I would say it's how you do something, even if it's just talking) - but it is always connected to the possibility of an action. I say that I understand something because I suspect I will be able to successfully engage the world because I have acquired certain dispositions to act in such and such manner (I'm very bored, sorry for the horrible prose). Furthermore, I can never be sure (well, I can never be sure, period, but I can be sure even less) I understand something until I engage it on practical terms.

Will reply to the rest later.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

In all honestly I actually think Foucault shouldn't ever be lumped in with the rest of the "post-structuralist" vanguard. I've had multiple goes at Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality and can't honestly see why would, for instance, Derrida and Foucault be placed in the same intellectual project. I think his work is at the intersection of the history of ideas and social history of a kind - very far from philosophy in general though it does present some views about power which could be viewed as generalizing and kinda...philosophical.


This is a fair point, especially considering Foucault's own desire not to be characterized simplistically as a post-structuralist, etc. As for whether or not he is a philosopher, I would consider him as participating in multiple disciplines at once.

Derrida is a different creature altogether, and I'm not so well versed in his thought, but I think much of his work was in the analysis of literature, culture, grammar/language, media, and the content of different philosophical works and was not so much an attempt to equate the epistemic standpoint of neolithic man with the understanding of contemporary scientists, say. He certainly seems to have seen some paradigms as more problematic than others. If anything, the critique I hear more often of Derrida has nothing to do with relativism and more to do with how obscure his writing style is. He was something of a Marxist too.



Anyway, any time you see me talking about postmodernists you can take it for granted that I'm talking about those peddlers of "anything goes" and ideas about the fundamental equality of..value or what have you of different paradigms of "knowing" (thus refusing the useful distinction between knowledge and belief).


I'll keep that in mind, although perhaps a better term would be "naive postmodernists" or something to that effect.


Not just for understanding the world, but for acting in the world - the proof of the pudding is in the eating and all that. And we already know that milquetoast liberal-democratic, or even pro-religious (Foucault) politics are a dead end, so obviously there is something wrong with theories that lead to such politics. Conversely we assume that consistent Marxist politics are something useful (otherwise we would not be Marxists), so it is interesting to see if philosophical theories can lead to such politics (and it is my contention that no philosophical theories can).

I think it is very intellectually sloppy to characterize Foucault as "pro-religious" simply because of his overly giddy reaction to the Iranian revolution. Of course one is fair to take issue with his views on that event, and it is fair to tie it to aspects of his theories. It's not at all fair though to reduce his politics to some reporting he did at one particular point of his life and assume that all of his theoretical contributions can be tied to it. Imagine someone discrediting Marx because of his "anti-black" politics based on his obviously racial insults towards Lassalle.

Likewise, Marxist theory allowed for people to come to the moronic belief that homosexuality was bourgeois. Surely we don't think that this characterizes the essence of Marxist thought or Marxist thinkers in general. I think we need to be very careful how we draw connections between a theorist, his theories, related theorists, and particular stances he and his followers took across a career.

[Geiseric]

Factually incorrect. The notion of the left wing of capital isn't retroactively applied to the CP of the USSR nor to the Comintern.

Anything else sunshine? Some more misinformation, lies, bullshit?

But you maintain that the fSU was state capitalist, am I wong?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

But you maintain that the fSU was state capitalist, am I wong?

Who cares? This thread is about postmodernism, not LinksRadikal's politics, and I don't think you've actually established any kind of link between them. You can always start a new thread on state capitalism in the fSU and talk about it there.

[Thirsty Crow]

But you maintain that the fSU was state capitalist, am I wong?
Neither wrong nor right. I wouldn't categorically state that the fSU represented a state capitalist regime. My current knowledge is insufficient for me to be able to claim such a thing.

On the other hand, I would categorically claim that the fSU represented a class society and that the usual designation "workers' state" makes not one iota of sense.

Now can we get back on track with the topic at hand?

[Thirsty Crow]

To revive this thread a bit, here's the "confession" by Alan Sokal after the famous "affair" with his mock text being actually published in one magazine with definite ties to some themes in this complex of postmodernism. It's well worth the read and is fairly concise:

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html