Postmodernism

[EusebioScrib]

Can someone give me a very simple definition on what Postmodernism is. I get rather lost with what I read about it...too abstract for me.

[LSD]

In simplest terms, from a political perspecitve, postmodernism is the rejection of objective analysis, predicated on the axiomatic assertion that phenomena are intrinsicially subjective.

It's basically postpositivism taken to its logical extreme; a philisophical framework in which reality has no intrinsic existance and all social relationships are inherently interreferential in nature and unrelated to any concrete subsistance.

Idealist bullshit in other words.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LSD, I agree it is idealist rubbish, but it is more than mere subjectivism, and is based on an odd view of language and 'discourse' in general (supposedly derived from the work of Saussure (and others), but also from a mis-reading of Wittgenstein), that not only does it mediate the world to us, it constitutes reality.

'There is nothing beyond the text', and all that c*ap.

Try this Eusebio:

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

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Postmodernism is an amazing movement, and it will surely pave the way for more modern ways of philosophical thinking. I cannot put to words how much postmodernism interests me.

[hoopla]

Play is (8. I think,
In the context of postmodernism, play means changing the framework which connects ideas, and thus allows the troping, or turning, of a metaphor or word from one context to another, or from one frame of reference to another... this play is the means by which the reader constructs or interprets the text, and the means by which the author gains a presence in the reader's mind. Play then involves invoking words in a manner which undermines their authority, by mocking their assumptions or style, or by layers of misdirection as to the intention of the author.

Not so sure about the denial whatever of the narrative - its a self defeating concept (isn't it), thought its heart might be in the right place - totalizing (?) structures and all that.

Not that I know anything about pomo, but play is 8)

[Angelo-Von-Drez]

I still think it's funny that by saying I hate postmodernism, I'm being postmodern.

While Atheism is a religeon about the absence of religeon.
And Anarchy is a law system about the absence of law system.
Postmodernism is an Ideolgy about the absence and rejection of said ideologies.

Well that's at least one element of this movement.

[hoopla]

Originally posted by Angelo-Von-[email protected] 9 2006, 12:47 PM
I still think it's funny that by saying I hate postmodernism, I'm being postmodern.
Don't affirm the consequent. We cannot all be trapped in a postmodern nightmare ;)

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by Angelo-Von-[email protected] 9 2006, 12:47 PM
I still think it's funny that by saying I hate postmodernism, I'm being postmodern.

While Atheism is a religeon about the absence of religeon.
And Anarchy is a law system about the absence of law system.
Postmodernism is an Ideolgy about the absence and rejection of said ideologies.

Well that's at least one element of this movement.
That's not true at all.

Atheism is not a religion. Religions are belief systems that seek to explain the world based on faith. Being an atheist doesn't explain anything- it just states your disbelief in god due to (usually) an absence of evidence. No faith involved.

Anarchy is not a "law system" it's a system of social and economic organisation. And it's not about the absence of laws, it's about the absence of rule-from-above.

Postmodernism is more about challenging dominance and subjectivity. And while I think, carried to its logical extreme it leads to a kind of, almost Buddhist, feeling that "the world is an illusion anyway so why bother to change anything?" it can still be useful. I know I've found pomo theory useful in writing about biomedical dominance in healthcare, but I've never operated from a pomo framework alone.

[RevolverNo9]

I still think it's funny that by saying I hate postmodernism, I'm being postmodern.

No you're not... you're being (funnily enough) anti-postmodern (since, I sense, your post is bereft of irony...).

However, the postmodernists can only help but defeat their own theories, because, inevitably, they do promote a specific approach to textual analysis above other (supposedly equal-standing) methods... their own!

Furthermore - aside from the school's constant hypocrisy, a loyal postmodernist would have to accept another method that claims postmodernism to be invalid. The theory thus implodes.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 09:50 AM

I still think it's funny that by saying I hate postmodernism, I'm being postmodern.

No you're not... you're being (funnily enough) anti-postmodern.

However, the postmodernists can only help but defeat their own theories, because, inevitably, they do promote a specific approach to textual analysis above other (supposedly equal-standing) methods... their own!

Furthermore - aside from the school's constant hypocrisy, a loyal postmodernist would have to accept another method that claims postmodernism to be invalid. The theory thus implodes.
You are taking thethe most extreme form of postmodernism, which does not apply to postmodernism as a whole. Furthermore, for possible answers to your argument:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism#Nihi....2C_and_Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism#Nihilism.2C_Self-consistency.2C_and_Paradox)

[RevolverNo9]

You are taking thethe most extreme form of postmodernism, which does not apply to postmodernism as a whole.

Okay - perhaps. I may allow that the challenge post-modernism presented in the late twentieth century to social-science was important, so as to ward off complacency and induce a healthy scepticism. Furthermore - in its more benevolent, diluted form - it brought attention to hitherto under-studied or ignored areas of research.

Yet the dangers of the approach are all too apparent (as I hope I demonstrated). Take the case of Paul de Man, one of the so-called 'Yale Deconstructionists' (whatever the hell that entails...) : after his death it was revealed that in the early 40's when he lived under the Third Reich he contributed a regular column to Nazi papers and journals, frequently and consistantly demonstrating anti-semitism. Critics were quick to notice (with the benefit of this new knowledge) how his writing and theory on textual analysis allowed him - quite literally - to forget and reinterpret his past, to subvert and change the truth.

Here's a quote from his Allegories of Reading:

It is always possible to face up to any experience (to excuse any guilt) because the experience always exists simultaneously as fictional discourse and as empirical event, and it is never possible to decide which of the two possiblities is the right one. The indecision makes it possible to excuse the bleakest of crimes because, as a fiction, it escapes from the constraints of guilt and innocence.

Derrida, that Holy Roman Pope of Postmodernism, decried de Man's critics as being just plain wrong (which is contradictory as surely their analysis is valid?) and argued (with just as problematic certitude) that the Belgian was actually deomonstrating an ironic resistance to anti-semitism and Nazism - an absurd hypothesis. He concluded, with un-postmodernist uncompromisingness, that it was the judging critics of de Man who were the real Nazis.

Derrida is hardly a 'fringe-member' of the postmodern movement.


Furthermore, for possible answers to your argument:


Hm... I'm not sure the paradox can be resolved ultimately. It can only be conceded and treated with intelligently.