postmodernism is gibberish

[abbielives!]

can anyone explain to me what it is?
(don't use a lot of intelectual terms/philosophical references, it doesn't make you smart it just makes you incomprehensable)

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by abbielives!@May 29, 2007 03:35 am
can anyone explain to me what it is?
(don't use a lot of intelectual terms/philosophical references, it doesn't make you smart it just makes you incomprehensable)
Well.

I remember reading a layman introduction to deconstruction, and although very critical of this type of "postmodern approaches", the author argued that this "incomprehensible language" has a point.

Literary theorists write for other literary theorists, they don't write for laymen. They have very specific definitions for those words, in the same way a physicist would use terms that only other physicists would be familiar with.

A lot of it is rubbish I guess. But still, its not rubbish because of the "weird words" but because of other aspects of it.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 03:47 am


Literary theorists write for other literary theorists, they don't write for laymen.

what the fuck is the point of writing something that no one understands? to feel good about yourself?

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.-marx

[Sacrificed]

Much of the revolutionary left, particularly hardline Marxists, dislike postmodernism (and this is tricky: it's more appropriate to use the term 'postmodernisms' when discussing it), for one of three reasons:

1. Because it shifts the focus of debate away from material productivity and material forces to power, which is elusive and not concrete. Instead of positing a monolithic entity (the bourgeois) as the problem and a monolithic action (revolution) as the solution, it instead examines the effects of hierarchical social power on a microcosmic scale. It's pretty integral to the modern anarchist movement, however.

2. Because it is inherently subjective and anti-essentialist. Its subjectivity is often dismissed by Marxists as something 'liberal', but anti-essentialism is anathema to liberalism - all traditional notions of human rights rely on a human essence for intellectual support. Locke and Foucault are incompatible. Without innate rights, the intellectual underpinnings of capitalism fall.

3. This is pretty rare, but there's always the suspicion that a form of philosophizing more-or-less initiated by Friedrich Nietzsche is a 'cover', of sorts, for fascism. This is one misunderstanding I cannot forgive, since I'm pretty much a Nietzschean.

Though I wouldn't consider myself one, I hold in more with the postmodernists than with traditional Marxists, particularly in questions of ontology and epistemology and historical philosophizing. I reject, for instance, the rather Biblical view of the bourgeois as a great Satan that will be brought to its knees following a final Apocalyptic revolution. I understand power as having primacy over productivity, and I absolutely reject the dialectic in every form. At the same time, however, I understand that my goals and the goals of the Marxists and traditional anarchists are essentially the same, and I refuse to allow ideological disputes to stand in the way of pragmatic praxis.

This is a quick and brutal and not necessarily an accurate generalization, but I hope it helps:

Marxists: material productivity rules all; capitalism creates social division where there should be unity; bigotry is a product of the system of productivity.

Postmodernism: the system of material productivity is but one form of hierarchical social structure; the hierarchy creates division, but unity is unnecessary because men lack a common essence; bigotry is the product of self-reinforcing social structures, of which capitalism is but one of many.

A good meeting place between the two is in the works of Max Stirner. His undermining of the rational, conscious, self-responsible and relatively static cogito is of great importance to the postmodern system, while his politics will appeal to anarchists. Marxists won't like him, though.

[Lark]

I think post-modernism is gibberish.

So is most of continental philosophy.

And so is Marxism. Except maybe Eric Fromm.

[Janus]

can anyone explain to me what it is?

What is postmodernism? (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=59769&hl=postmodernism)
Postmodernism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51915&hl=postmodernism)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lark:


I think post-modernism is gibberish.

So is most of continental philosophy.

And so is Marxism. Except maybe Eric Fromm.

You are right about the first two, but you will need to do more than merely assert the third for it to be acceptable here.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And Sacrificed, you are right about PM, by and large, but I am not too sure Stirner is much of an improvement.

[Sacrificed]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 04:47 pm
And Sacrificed, you are right about PM, by and large, but I am not too sure Stirner is much of an improvement.
I like him, and I find Marx' s attacks on him pretty much entirely unfounded. He was insanely far ahead of his time, after all. Questioning the subject wouldn't become a central issue in philosophy for well over a century after his death. Of the early revolutionaries, he's the only one I can read without becoming absolutely frustrated. Stylistically I prefer his bombast to the sarcasm of a Marx - the final paragraph of The Ego is poetry.

He's not a post-modernist per se - it'd be rather hard to be one before the complete development of modernism - but an anarchist steeped in Bakunin and Kropotkin would probably be able to ease into a study of the subject by starting with him. Just bear in mind that he's not an individualist anarchist and you'll do well by him.

Marx and Stirner stand on two ends of the Hegelian spectrum: the former takes the dialectic process to its logical conclusion, while the latter creates what amounts to nothing less than an anti-dialectical process which would eventually be re-invented and fulfilled in Nietzsche. It depends on your philosophy more than your politics.

If you want to get the 'essence; (there's a bad choice of words if ever there was one) of postmodernism, I'd suggest starting with Stirner, then moving on to Nietzsche, Bataille, and Foucault. The first three aren't always acknowledged as such, but they serve as what amounts to the 'foundation' (and there's another) of the movement.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

We will have to part company on Stirner, a figure rightly lost in the mists of time, in my view. I hope he stays there.

And thanks for this:


If you want to get the 'essence; (there's a bad choice of words if ever there was one) of postmodernism, I'd suggest starting with Stirner, then moving on to Nietzsche, Bataille, and Foucault. The first three aren't always acknowledged as such, but they serve as what amounts to the 'foundation' (and there's another) of the movement.

But, I was studying all this stuff before you were born (when I had to do so as part of my degree); only someone with a loaded shot gun would be able to get me to read it again. Even then, I'd have to think about the options. :)

And, as I noted before, the dialetic is not central to Marx.

[Sacrificed]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 06:33 pm
But, I was studying all this stuff before you were born (when I had to do so as part of my degree); only someone with a loaded shot gun would be able to get me to read it again. Even then, I'd have to think about the options.
That was directed towards the author of the thread. Sorry for that.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fair enough!

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!+May 29, 2007 05:08 am--> (abbielives! @ May 29, 2007 05:08 am)
[email protected] 29, 2007 03:47 am


Literary theorists write for other literary theorists, they don't write for laymen.

what the fuck is the point of writing something that no one understands? to feel good about yourself?

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.-marx [/b]
It isn't stuff "no one understands"...it is stuff that "most people" do not understand. As marmot said, literary theorists write for other literary theorists unless they are specificially writing something for lay people. It is mostly done for the purpose of word economy than anything else, although I suspect a significant amount of it arises from being pretentious bourgeois asses.

Writing things that are incomprehensible to people who are not specialists in a field is not always necessarily bad though. I don't know a whole lot about medical jargon, but I wouldn't want to get treated by a doctor that couldn't for the life of them read a medical journal or comprehend a specific procedure. It's perfectly acceptable for physicsts to use math that are incomprehensible to most people because that math is necessary to explain what needs to be explained.

[bretty]

It's not difficult to understand Foucault for me but I was interested very much in his writing when I read Discipline and Punish and I found it to be very interesting and agreed with a lot of his points regarding the panoptic systems in society.

Further, Sacrificed thanks for that post I enjoyed it and it taught me a few things.

[Idola Mentis]

Joining the chorus to Sacrificed.

Fast lessons from Foucault? Power, used for opression or liberation, never just goes away. Do not trust "liberators" who pretend it can.

"1984" is true in at least one sense - words and the networks of meaning they are part of carry immense power, because they direct and limit the reach of our thoughts, imagination, statments and conscious actions. If you can get away with minting or recasting words, you can shape the way the world thinks.

Material conditions are important - something postmodernists tend to ignore in their "founding" writers. But people act on material conditions directed by their beliefs, which are unlikely to be completely consistent with material reality. (The problem of representation: To make a perfect 1:1 map, you would have to bring in the landscaping equipment.)

The world will not obey that one single perfect model. There will always be ambiguities, points of view, conflicts of opinion stemming from fundamentally different ways of conceiving things.

Some interpreters of the early postmodernists seem blinded bythe apparent potential of these theories as methods of inquiry into how the world works. Foucault wasn't even trying to be consistent from book to book; he saw writing and reading as a way to grow and change. If he hadn't changed his mind by the time of the next book, he'd have failed. His own advice for reading his works was to use them as a "toolbox".

While I can only speak with any assurance about history, at least there, that approach does work. The non-holistic postmodernist, postsrtucturalist and postwhateveritists texts can present some brilliant insights, which can be reused, for example, to supplement and enhance historical inquiries. In fact, as Koselleck tried to show (in Futures Past), getting history right is nearly impossible without relying on a history of what concepts meant in the past - as a correction to anachronisms, a source of questions and to understand historical change.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

Philosphy gives me headaches.

[funkmasterswede]

Originally posted by SovietPants+May 29, 2007 09:46 pm--> (SovietPants @ May 29, 2007 09:46 pm)
Originally posted by abbielives!@May 29, 2007 05:08 am

[email protected]ay 29, 2007 03:47 am


Literary theorists write for other literary theorists, they don't write for laymen.

what the fuck is the point of writing something that no one understands? to feel good about yourself?

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.-marx
It isn't stuff "no one understands"...it is stuff that "most people" do not understand. As marmot said, literary theorists write for other literary theorists unless they are specificially writing something for lay people. It is mostly done for the purpose of word economy than anything else, although I suspect a significant amount of it arises from being pretentious bourgeois asses.

Writing things that are incomprehensible to people who are not specialists in a field is not always necessarily bad though. I don't know a whole lot about medical jargon, but I wouldn't want to get treated by a doctor that couldn't for the life of them read a medical journal or comprehend a specific procedure. It's perfectly acceptable for physicsts to use math that are incomprehensible to most people because that math is necessary to explain what needs to be explained. [/b]
I am just curious why you implied that academia is bourgeois. Is anyone who does not participate in social labour bourgeois? I always saw the definition as a person who has something more to sell besides their labour. But please, clarify the distinction you have made. I am curious to your thoughts.

[p.m.a.]

Post-modernism is a cultural consequence of late-capitalism. It rejects the modernist notion of teleology -- of an orderly progression forward of the world; instead, it embraces atomization of identities, of people, or everything. Kind of like we're all tiny atoms in clumps of self-identities, randomly clashing around with each other. So post-modern academics disregard modernism; post-modern art tends to be irrational, absurd, or fragmented; post-modern music rejects modern conceptions of song structures; etc.

So, of course orthodox and statist marxists reject it as bourgeois absurdism. But you can't simply reject a cultural current -- to do so is un-Marxist. Instead, you can study why it exists, and what it's effects are. Why it exists is a long explanation, and better suited for those more eloquent writers than myself. I'd suggest David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity, Frederic Jameson's Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, or the writings of the Situationist International, which basically predicted a lot of major trends of post-modernism long before they became dominant.

IMO, the most important development of the post-modern era is the technological development of the internet. It is post-modern in that it is decentralized, unrestricted, and chaotic. It does, however, contain within it a networking capability that has the capacity to change the way society is organized. It eliminates the need for hierarchy or bureaucracy by overcoming spatial, temporal, and authoritative boundaries. Instant information from any voice at any time, and current phenomena such as media "piracy" in the west and blog censorship in the east proves that no matter how hard authorities try, the internet is uncontrollable.

This is an example of concrete developments of post-modernism that cannot just be written off as bourgeois jargon. Post-modernism is the dominant cultural force today, but within it we can find evidence that suggests any future cultural development would likely have to negate and abandon notions of hierarchy, and thus capital itself. For example, in this post-modernity, power and exploitation are no longer limited to one nation anymore, but rather a supranational class of privateers. A further logical resolution could be the abandonment of the conception of nation all together, which would necessitate the negation of the notion of power.

For an interesting look at the digital era of capital, and how it has rearranged capital and subsequently class compositions, I'd recommend Cyber-Marx by Nick Dyer-Witheford. Or, if you're interested in post-modern developments of geopolitics and capital arrangement, I'd recommend Multitude by Michael Hardt & Toni Negri, or A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey.

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 02:36 am
Post-modernism is a cultural consequence of late-capitalism. It rejects the modernist notion of the teleology -- of an orderly progression forward of the world; instead, it embraces atomization of identities, of people, or everything. Kind of like we're all tiny atoms in clumps of self-identities, randomly clashing around with each other.
Teleology is hardly modernist and atomization preceded postmodernism. But it is certainly characterized by atomization and fragmentation.


Terry Eagleton has written cogently upon it and those who missed Alan Sokal's magnicent "postmodernist" hoax might look at http://physics.nyu.edu/~as2/

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And then when you have read that Sokal material, you might like to see it taken apart here:

http://math.bu.edu/people/nk/rr/

[BreadBros]

Abbie, I very much recommend a book called "Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" by Frederic Jameson. It is a Marxist text that describes post-modernism and explains it from a Marxist economic framework. Marxists.org has two chapters for free online (here (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/jameson.htm)) but it might be worth it to get the whole book itself if you are interested. The language can get complicated at times, but I don't think the concepts are that hard to understand. Check it out and tell me what you think.

To answer your question in the most basic sense: postmodernity is a cultural epoch, similar to modernism or Romanticism, it is the cultural epoch in which we are currently living in right now. Post-modernism is generally the term used to refer to the high cultural works that most embody this epoch, namely post-modern philosophy/art/architecture, etc.

According to Jameson, the basis of post-modernity is a change in the relation of capitalist production to culture. First of all, culture has expanded to subsume all aspects of life. In other words, culture is not merely the traditional literature, visual art, music, poetry, etc. Instead, both much more mundane aspects of life and more unconscous elements of social life are "cultural-ized" in that we become conscious of them in a greater way.


Yet to argue that culture is today no longer endowed with the relative autonomy it once enjoyed as one level among others in earlier moments of capitalism (let alone in pre-capitalist societies) is not necessarily to imply its disappearance or extinction. Quite the contrary; we must go on to affirm that the dissolution of an autonomous sphere of culture is rather to be imagined in terms of an explosion: a prodigious expansion of culture throughout the social realm, to the point at which everything in our social life – from economic value and state power to practices and to the very structure of the psyche itself – can be said to have become “cultural” in some original and yet untheorised sense.

Secondly, unlike in the modernist period, culture is no longer distinct or separate from capitalist production. Before culture used to be a reflection or commentary on our social and economic lives. Now it is a fundamental part of capitalist economic production. Capital is able to co-opt all elements of culture for itself. Much of capitalist production now consists of cultural innovation, creating continual new cutting-edge forms of culture to keep products fresh and desirable. Capitalism is now also able to co-opt (or "colonize") parts of the past that were distinct from capital and lacked the self-consciousness of being a consumer product. This results in people being less able to communicate sincerely and instead relating via cultural products and an increased use of irony/pastiche. Jameson believes this creates one of the primary negative features of the post-modern age: before we had culture as a sort of "staging ground" from which to attack capitalism, now that this staging ground has been co-opted it remains to be seen what kind of foundation we can use from which to attack capitalism and reclaim what has been lost.

Post-modern philosophy is generally a reflection of this new cultural state. It recognizes that the previous model of social structure has been "muddied" by culture's co-option by capital and attempts to explain new forms of social structure that go beyond the traditional linear/structuralist forms of social analysis. It is also highly skeptical of the idea of objectivity and essentialism, or the idea that things have an inherent distinct existence or definition. Post-modern philosophy is very important because it is a reflection of our cultural epoch. I would not take it for truth, however, as it seems to me to be lacking self-consciousness of itself as the product of economic structure with a dialetically good and bad nature to itself. However, I am by no means a philosophy or post-modernism scholar, so if you want to go in-depth about the post-modernists you will have to look elsewhere :P .

Also, many Marxists hate post-modernism. I think with the layman Marxist its because they simply don't understand what it is and have been told that its wrong by other cadre. With those that do understand it, it varies from people who have the same critique of post-modernism as Jameson to those that thing post-modernity does not exist or is merely one facet of culture. I agree with p.m.a that it is not something we can pick or choose to believe in or not, but rather the dominant cultural logic right now.

Jameson:

But in that case it is only consequent to reject moralising condemnations of the postmodern and of its essential triviality when juxtaposed against the Utopian “high seriousness” of the great modernisms: judgments one finds both on the Left and on the radical Right. And no doubt the logic of the simulacrum, with its transformation of older realities into television images, does more than merely replicate the logic of late capitalism; it reinforces and intensifies it. Meanwhile, for political groups which seek actively to intervene in history and to modify its otherwise passive momentum (whether with a view toward channelling it into a socialist transformation of society or diverting it into the regressive re-establishment of some simpler fantasy past), there cannot but be much that is deplorable and reprehensible in a cultural form of image addiction which, by transforming the past into visual mirages, stereotypes, or texts, effectively abolishes any practical sense of the future and of the collective project, thereby abandoning the thinking of future change to fantasies of sheer catastrophe and inexplicable cataclysm, from visions of “terrorism” on the social level to those of cancer on the personal. Yet if postmodernism is a historical phenomenon, then the attempt to conceptualise it in terms of moral or moralising judgments must finally be identified as a category mistake. All of which becomes more obvious when we interrogate the position of the cultural critic and moralist; the latter, along with all the rest of us, is now so deeply immersed in postmodernist space, so deeply suffused and infected by its new cultural categories, that the luxury of the old-fashioned ideological critique, the indignant moral denunciation of the other, becomes unavailable.

The distinction I am proposing here knows one canonical form in Hegel’s differentiation of the thinking of individual morality or moralising from that whole very different realm of collective social values and practices. But it finds its definitive form in Marx’s demonstration of the materialist dialectic, most notably in those classic pages of the Manifesto which teach the hard lesson of some more genuinely dialectical way to think historical development and change. The topic of the lesson is, of course, the historical development of capitalism itself and the deployment of a specific bourgeois culture. In a well-known passage Marx powerfully urges us to do the impossible, namely, to think this development positively and negatively all at once; to achieve, in other words, a type of thinking that would be capable of grasping the demonstrably baleful features of capitalism along with its extraordinary and liberating dynamism simultaneously within a single thought, and without attenuating any of the force of either judgment. We are somehow to lift our minds to a point at which it is possible to understand that capitalism is at one and the same time the best thing that has ever happened to the human race, and the worst.

The lapse from this austere dialectical imperative into the more comfortable stance of the taking of moral positions is inveterate and all too human: still, the urgency of the subject demands that we make at least some effort to think the cultural evolution of late capitalism dialectically, as catastrophe and progress all together.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by abbielives!+May 29, 2007 05:08 am--> (abbielives! @ May 29, 2007 05:08 am)
[email protected] 29, 2007 03:47 am


Literary theorists write for other literary theorists, they don't write for laymen.

what the fuck is the point of writing something that no one understands? to feel good about yourself?

[/b]
The purpose is to acquire tenure at a university. Do a google search for the "Sokal Incident" to learn more about how obscure and ridiculous most of what "po-mo" is.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 06:10 pm
Abbie, I very much recommend a book called "Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" by Frederic Jameson. It is a Marxist text that describes post-modernism and explains it from a Marxist economic framework.
Jameson's book is full of shit. Better to go to the book he "borrowed" from: Mandel's "Late Capitalism." As you say, Jameson's concepts are easy but they're dressed up in fancy language. That's because Jameson delights in dressing up his vacuity and plagiarism in obscure and complex language. Just the kind of thing Sokal was exposing. Jameson gives all of us Marxists a bad name, and has just the kind of effete, cowardly, pseudo-scholarly style we should avoid like the plague.

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by fabiansocialist+July 10, 2007 06:29 pm--> (fabiansocialist @ July 10, 2007 06:29 pm)
[email protected] 10, 2007 06:10 pm
Abbie, I very much recommend a book called "Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" by Frederic Jameson. It is a Marxist text that describes post-modernism and explains it from a Marxist economic framework.
Jameson's book is full of shit. Better to go to the book he "borrowed" from: Mandel's "Late Capitalism." As you say, Jameson's concepts are easy but they're dressed up in fancy language. That's because Jameson delights in dressing up his vacuity and plagiarism in obscure and complex language. Just the kind of thing Sokal was exposing. Jameson gives all of us Marxists a bad name, and has just the kind of effete, cowardly, pseudo-scholarly style we should avoid like the plague. [/b]
I've never read 'Late Capitalism', so I can't comment on it. If you think his ideas are derivative of Mandel's and his book is "full of shit" then doesn't that imply Mandel's book is also "full of shit"? How is it "plagiarism", anyway? This isn't literature nor a competition for who "thought of it first" or some crap.

Anyway, I didn't think Jameson's book was really "dressed up" in "obscure and complex language". I'm not the most well-read when it comes to philosophy and I had no problem understanding it. It seems to me Sokal was exposing how academia is often more influenced by trends and the right kind of language than meaning or comprehension. Thats considerably different from someone who just writes densely but is actually saying something (which is a much older practice than post-modernism). I think you are needlessly being a bit elitist ("pseudo-scholarly style"). The important part (to me) is that he gets across what he has to say and I think someone like abbielives! who is new to the topic would be the better for reading it. :D

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fabian:


Do a google search for the "Sokal Incident" to learn more about how obscure and ridiculous most of what "po-mo" is.

I am afraid to have to tell you that Sokal is a philosophical incompetent, whose errors of fact and intepretation (let alone of logic) are exposed here:

http://anonym.to/?http://math.bu.edu/people/nk/rr/

That does not mean I agree with PoMo (far from it), but attacking it with the sophomoric ideas found in Sokal and Bicmont (etc) is rather like attacking a tiger with a stick of spaghetti.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 08:04 pm
Fabian:


Do a google search for the "Sokal Incident" to learn more about how obscure and ridiculous most of what "po-mo" is.

I am afraid to have to tell you that Sokal is a philosophical incompetent, whose errors of fact and intepretation (let alone of logic) are exposed here:

http://anonym.to/?http://math.bu.edu/people/nk/rr/

That does not mean I agree with PoMo (far from it), but attacking it with the sophomoric ideas found in Sokal and Bicmont (etc) is rather like attacking a tiger with a stick of spaghetti.
Nor has he ever claimed to be a philosopher (he's a physicist). But his pseudo-scholarly article -- meant as a prank -- was accepted for publication. That is the point. Since I'm working on a new machine now, I've lost my old favorites list, but a google search should allow one to find a "post-modern generator" which randomly combines obscure words and phrases in pseud-scholarly essays.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fabian:


Nor has he ever claimed to be a philosopher (he's a physicist).

Yes, I am aware of that; but he is presuming to pass comment on philosophical ideas that are way over his head -- using arguments in support of realism, for example, that were already looking somewhat jaded when Aristotle was a lad.


But his pseudo-scholarly article -- meant as a prank -- was accepted for publication.

Well, you need to read the other side to this story; that is why I posted that link.


I've lost my old favorites list, but a google search should allow one to find a "post-modern generator" which randomly combines obscure words and phrases in pseud-scholarly essays.

Yes, I know about this too; but you can do that with any area of Philosophy, and much of science, too -- with a sophisticated enough programme.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 08:41 pm
Yes, I know about this too; but you can do that with any area of Philosophy, and much of science, too -- with a sophisticated enough programme.
You won't be able to fool a human expert with randomly generated drivel in physics. Nor in mathematics (I'm a mathematician). Whereas the post-modern generator comes uncannily close to what people like Le Man, Kristeva, and Derrida spout. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a science barbarian. I enjoy Plato and Kant (even though the latter has an obscure style). But these "continental philosophers" I mention above are charlatans. People who can write clearly like Terry Eagleton, David Harvey, and Perry Anderson have something to say. Not these po-mo monkeys (exclude Foucault, Debord, and Baudrillard from this list).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fabian:


You won't be able to fool a human expert with randomly generated drivel in physics.

I said much of science, not all. But Physicists can be fooled by frauds like Sokal.

Check this out:

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

This is in theoretical Physics and mathematics -- so they are not immune.

Remember 'Cold Fusion'?? Another fraud? Maybe, maybe not.

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

Here is a long list of hoaxes in science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hoaxes_in_science

And here is a page that discusses fraud in Physics and mathematics:

http://physicsmathforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=60

This one alleges that String Theory is a PoMo joke:

http://physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?t=47

This should tell you, I hope, that the advancement of knowledge is far more complex than Sokal imagined -- after all, the vast majority of scientific theores are now on the scrap heap. That means that the chances are that any randomly selected theory in science today is wrong, and this can be asserted with a high degree of certainty based on the evidence we have so far.

Moreover, I certainly believe that, for instance, Godel's theorem is a hoax (but an inadvertent one at that), and that Cantorean set theory (transfinite cardinals, etc.) is bogus. So, mathematics is not immune.


Nor in mathematics (I'm a mathematician).

So am I, and the guy who wrote the Essays at the link I provided is a Professor of Mathematics.


But these "continental philosophers" I mention above are charlatans.

I agree, but to go after them with Sokal is, as I said, like attacking a tiger with spaghetti.


Not these po-mo monkeys (exclude Foucault, Debord, and Baudrillard from this list).

I'd put them in the list too, along with all other traditional philosophers (almost bar none).

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 03:19 am
You won't be able to fool a human expert with randomly generated drivel in physics. Nor in mathematics (I'm a mathematician). Whereas the post-modern generator comes uncannily close to what people like Le Man, Kristeva, and Derrida spout. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a science barbarian. I enjoy Plato and Kant (even though the latter has an obscure style). But these "continental philosophers" I mention above are charlatans. People who can write clearly like Terry Eagleton, David Harvey, and Perry Anderson have something to say. Not these po-mo monkeys (exclude Foucault, Debord, and Baudrillard from this list).
LOL, Debord and Baudrillard are both extreme critics of post-modernity. Then again, your definition of post-modernity seems to be based more on the type of language used than what they're actually talking about :lol:.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 03:38 pm
LOL, Debord and Baudrillard are both extreme critics of post-modernity. Then again, your definition of post-modernity seems to be based more on the type of language used than what they're actually talking about.
Err... I don't believe I've yet given any operational definition of "post-modern philosophy." Debord (in his notion of the society of the spectacle) and Baudrillard (in his notion of the hyperreal) are providing analyses of what one might call the "post-modern condition" (if I may borrow from Lyotard). Just doing such analysis doesn't make one a "post-modern theorist" (whatever that might be) as there appear to be other critics (e.g. mainstream Marxists) whom we don't classify as such theorists. The problem is that all definitions in this area become nebulous (and hence provide ample opportunity for pseudo-academic charlatans to ply their trade). When we speak of "postmodern philosophy" are we referring to a particular kind of theorising or outlook? Or a criticism of the world today? Or a bit of both? And whom should we include? An obvious fraud like Derrida? Lacan? Foucault? Frankfurt School theorists like Adorno and Marcuse? Debord and Baudrillard? Zizek? And in any such list, what exactly unites the people on it?

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by fabiansocialist+July 11, 2007 05:11 pm--> (fabiansocialist @ July 11, 2007 05:11 pm)
[email protected] 11, 2007 03:38 pm
LOL, Debord and Baudrillard are both extreme critics of post-modernity. Then again, your definition of post-modernity seems to be based more on the type of language used than what they're actually talking about.
Err... I don't believe I've yet given any operational definition of "post-modern philosophy." Debord (in his notion of the society of the spectacle) and Baudrillard (in his notion of the hyperreal) are providing analyses of what one might call the "post-modern condition" (if I may borrow from Lyotard). Just doing such analysis doesn't make one a "post-modern theorist" (whatever that might be) as there appear to be other critics (e.g. mainstream Marxists) whom we don't classify as such theorists. The problem is that all definitions in this area become nebulous (and hence provide ample opportunity for pseudo-academic charlatans to ply their trade). When we speak of "postmodern philosophy" are we referring to a particular kind of theorising or outlook? Or a criticism of the world today? Or a bit of both? And whom should we include? An obvious fraud like Derrida? Lacan? Foucault? Frankfurt School theorists like Adorno and Marcuse? Debord and Baudrillard? Zizek? And in any such list, what exactly unites the people on it? [/b]
I concede that the term post-modern philosophy is vague. Nonetheless, it seemed like your posts were attempting to argue with the general nature of postmodernism, i.e. extreme relativity, anti-essentialism, etc. So when you label someone who is attempting to analyze postmodernity objectively (akin to calling Marx a "capitalist", because he was analyzing capital...) it led me to believe your perception of who was "po-mo" and who wasn't was based more on language and writing style than on ideas.

But, like you said, the term is vague. If you're asking me for my definitions, well....I would say I would tend to consider "post-modernists" to be those who accept the general features of post-modernity as representing some kind of truth or more accurate reflection of reality. In other words, someone who is a part of reproducing post-modernity. I don't have a name for those who stand outside of it and attempt to analyze or critique it.

I think what unites all of the people on the list is that they are all dealing with the new condition of post-modernity, whereas much of the traditional Marxist establishment has failed to update it's outlook. I think the kind of anger or chastisement of post-modernism is bizarre. Like Jameson says, the moral anger from the right and left at post-modernism is based on the perception that it is but one form of philosophy, instead of understanding it as the dominant logic of culture at this point. I don't see what the point is in pointing out that post-modern philosophers have flaws or failures (although I'd disagree with you that they are "frauds", most of them work in diverse fields, whether it be literature or the social sciences, seems to me that it is far more likely that you are angry at the inaccessibility of their writing instead of at their ideas). This is like pointing out that God doesn't really exist or that previous philosophers have failed at creating a perfect systemic evaluation of the world. Is this news to you? :unsure: In my opinion, post-modernist philosophy is of vital importance, just as analyzing the subjective features of religion is, or just like analyzing modernist or romanticist literature is. As a cultural product it is integrally tied into and a reflection of the economic structure that produced it. In my opinion that is the actual materialist way to go about looking at this, something which most "Marxist" parties and orgs. have utterly failed to do, instead falling into the same trap that the most relativistic of post-modernists themselves have fallen into.

[MarxSchmarx]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 11, 2007 09:35 am
Moreover, I certainly believe that, for instance, Godel's theorem is a hoax (but an inadvertent one at that), and that Cantorean set theory (transfinite cardinals, etc.) is bogus. So, mathematics is not immune.

This is a strange claim. At least Godel's incompleteness theorem, which is what I assume you are referring to, if there was an unsound step in the proof it would have been rectified a long time ago. Having read different versions of the proof I think it is quite distinct from Sokal's paper. If a mathematician lies, the lie should be quickly detected. More so for something that's had as much ink spilled over as something like Godel's incompleteness proof.

What the Bogdanov affair seems to go after is peer review, which is something distinct from what Sokal was going after. With Sokal's case, Sokal himself notes that it wasn't so much that reviewers are lazy or pressed for time, but that the pomo crowd desperately envy the prestige accorded to physical scientists, as well as the recondite nature of the field. Hence, Sokal contends, they obfuscate for the sake of obfuscation, are pretentious about ideas having little intellectual merit, and readily spout on about things they don't know anything about in order to impress people.

Although lazy reviewers don't help any field, Sokal's critique speak to deeper problems besetting fields affected by pomo like cultural studies or, ahem, radical theory. There really hasn't been a comparable broad assault on the intellectual culture of the physical sciences in recent decades that articulates the misgivings other intellectuals have about the field as a whole.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

MarxSchmarx:


At least Godel's incompleteness theorem, which is what I assume you are referring to, if there was an unsound step in the proof it would have been rectified a long time ago. Having read different versions of the proof I think it is quite distinct from Sokal's paper. If a mathematician lies, the lie should be quickly detected. More so for something that's had as much ink spilled over as something like Godel's incompleteness proof.

Not if the mistake was ideologically-motivated --, partly by by Godel's overt Platonism, and partly by Cantor's open mysticism.

This has crippled much of subsequent set theory too.


What the Bogdanov affair seems to go after is peer review, which is something distinct from what Sokal was going after. With Sokal's case, Sokal himself notes that it wasn't so much that reviewers are lazy or pressed for time, but that the pomo crowd desperately envy the prestige accorded to physical scientists, as well as the recondite nature of the field. Hence, Sokal contends, they obfuscate for the sake of obfuscation, are pretentious about ideas having little intellectual merit, and readily spout on about things they don't know anything about in order to impress people.

Well Sokal says this, but that does not mean it is true.

And if you check the Essays at the site to which I linked, you will see how wrong Sokal is on just about everything he says.


There really hasn't been a comparable broad assault on the intellectual culture of the physical sciences in recent decades that articulates the misgivings other intellectuals have about the field as a whole.

I am not sure I understood this. In fact, I am sure I did not.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 12, 2007 12:35 pm
MarxSchmarx:


At least Godel's incompleteness theorem, which is what I assume you are referring to, if there was an unsound step in the proof it would have been rectified a long time ago. Having read different versions of the proof I think it is quite distinct from Sokal's paper. If a mathematician lies, the lie should be quickly detected. More so for something that's had as much ink spilled over as something like Godel's incompleteness proof.

Not if the mistake was ideologically-motivated --, partly by by Godel's overt Platonism, and partly by Cantor's open mysticism.

This has crippled much of subsequent set theory too.


What the Bogdanov affair seems to go after is peer review, which is something distinct from what Sokal was going after. With Sokal's case, Sokal himself notes that it wasn't so much that reviewers are lazy or pressed for time, but that the pomo crowd desperately envy the prestige accorded to physical scientists, as well as the recondite nature of the field. Hence, Sokal contends, they obfuscate for the sake of obfuscation, are pretentious about ideas having little intellectual merit, and readily spout on about things they don't know anything about in order to impress people.

Well Sokal says this, but that does not mean it is true.

And if you check the Essays at the site to which I linked, you will see how wrong Sokal is on just about everything he says.


There really hasn't been a comparable broad assault on the intellectual culture of the physical sciences in recent decades that articulates the misgivings other intellectuals have about the field as a whole.

I am not sure I understood this. In fact, I am sure I did not.
What's Godel's Platonism got to with the structure of his proofs? Many mathematicians are Platonists (including myself); how can that possibly be relevant to the nuts and bolts of the theorems we prove? Likewise for Cantor's theory of sets and cardinals. And in what precise manner has subsequent set theory been crippled as a consequence when Cantor's work on cardinality lies at the heart of the modern subject? Are you really a mathematician?

And instead of providing a number of links to "prove" your point, why not at least provide a synopsis and arguments of your own? This way we know who we're discussing things with. Marxschmarx is making what appear to me to be legitimate points. As Sokal and others have noted, the fact that the PoMo crowd has no real scientific training hasn't stopped them from making weighty pronouncements on the subject and hijacking the vocabulary of science. And this is also what Sokal's spoof paper did, revealing the emperor to be without any clothes.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fabian:


What's Godel's Platonism got to with the structure of his proofs?

It allows him, for example, in his use of Cantor's diagonalisation 'proof', to treat an infinite set as a complete set, since in Platonic heaven it must be complete. That then enables him to use Cantor's suspect moves to show that one infinite set is larger than another, and thus that there are real numbers that are not countable.

And if you are a Platonist, then you are in good company, most mathematicians are (it is, indeed, one of the 'ruling ideas' Marx spoke of). I merely contend that Platonism makes no sense, in mathematics or elsewhere. How you can reconcile it with your socialism beats me.

Your other questions are best addressed on another thread.

If you want the rationale behind this view of mathematics (or a summary of it), you can read it here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-mathematics/


And instead of providing a number of links to "prove" your point, why not at least provide a synopsis and arguments of your own? This way we know who we're discussing things with. Marxschmarx is making what appear to me to be legitimate points. As Sokal and others have noted, the fact that the PoMo crowd has no real scientific training hasn't stopped them from making weighty pronouncements on the subject and hijacking the vocabulary of science. And this is also what Sokal's spoof paper did, revealing the emperor to be without any clothes.

But you were the one who suggested we searched the internet for such stuff; I am therefore somewhat amazed you now take exception to the fact that I had already done this, years ago, and deigned to link to one of its results.

I actually do not want to enter into this debate. I merely wished to say that there was another side to the story, one you will not have heard in all the media hype (the attack on PoMo is all part of the right's attack on the left, hence the other side is never heard -- I do not agree with PoMo, but the arguments used against it are pathetic. Sokal says he is on the left, but his words and deeds suggest different).

The misquotations (Sokal does that), the errors of fact (does that too), the ignorance he shows (buckets of it) are all exposed at the site I linked to, and by a Professor of Mathematics, too.

Now if you want to cling on to a partial and erroneous view of this Hoax, that is your affair, but the good folks here like to see both sides of an argument before they decide. Perhaps you are different.

That is why I posted that link.

You are a newcomer here, but over the last year or so I have dominated most of the discussions in this section, and I do not think that has been good for the younger comrades here, so I have been backing off of late. So, that is why I merely made a short intervention.

I am starting to regret it, however, since it looks like I am beginning to dominate this discussion, too.

And yes I am a mathematician, and I have studied Philosophy to PhD level.

But, I am a Marxist first and foremost, and thus an implaccable anti-Platoinst.

Plato is the arcetypical Idealist, elitist and proto-fascist thinker.

Bear that in mind next time you admit to agreeing with him over anything other than the colour of grass.

[MarxSchmarx]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 12, 2007 06:37 pm
I merely wished to say that there was another side to the story, one you will not have heard in all the media hype (the attack on PoMo is all part of the right's attack on the left, hence the other side is never heard -- I do not agree with PoMo, but the arguments used against it are pathetic. Sokal says he is on the left, but his words and deeds suggest different).

The misquotations (Sokal does that), the errors of fact (does that too), the ignorance he shows (buckets of it) are all exposed at the site I linked to, and by a Professor of Mathematics, too.

Ms. Lichtenstein:

I agree the points about platonism and practicing mathematics belong on another thread, so won't address the

For all its faults, Sokal's attack has done much to publicize the shortcomings of pomo, which Mr. Stolzenberg concedes to some extent in his essays. The fact of the matter is, as fabiansocialist notes, it took a tongue-and-cheek act like Sokal's to publicize and to some extent explicate the doubts practicing social scientists and humanists and have about the state of pomos in their field. Even if Sokal's approached involved a straw-man and his views are naive, the fact of the matter is is that pomo has said so much and contributed so little that is novel. Despite its catalogued failures, Sokal's general point seems well taken by social scientists and humanities scholars. Moreover, if Sokal is guilty of malevolent simplifications, the pomo crowd fares little better in this arena.

Also, all I meant by the "no comparable attack..." statement is that precious few practicing physical scientists (those of the computational persuasion notwithstanding) express dismay at their field the way social scientists and humanists express dismay at the influence of pomo in their own field.

You are correct that the Sokal affair is troubling in that it flirts with a "right versus left" narrative. But I still give Sokal the benefit of the doubt. If for nothing else, as he claimed at the socialist scholars conference (http://physics.nyu.edu/~as2/nyu_forum.html), the left is strengthened and never weakened by a strong commitment to things like evidence and logic. It is far from clear, even after reading Stolzenberg's critique, that the pomo crowd shares this opinion.

Indeed, I think we can agree that whatever the faults of its critics, pomo has strangled radical theory in a way that won't happen to such an extent in the natural or exact sciences.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

MarxSchmarx:


For all its faults, Sokal's attack has done much to publicize the shortcomings of pomo, which Mr. Stolzenberg concedes to some extent in his essays. The fact of the matter is, as fabiansocialist notes, it took a tongue-and-cheek act like Sokal's to publicize and to some extent explicate the doubts practicing social scientists and humanists and have about the state of pomos in their field. Even if Sokal's approached involved a straw-man and his views are naive, the fact of the matter is is that pomo has said so much and contributed so little that is novel. Despite its catalogued failures, Sokal's general point seems well taken by social scientists and humanities scholars. Moreover, if Sokal is guilty of malevolent simplifications, the pomo crowd fares little better in this arena.

I'd like to see where Stolzenberg says that.

And, don't get me wrong; I hate PoMo, but Sokal's attacks on it were pathetic.


Also, all I meant by the "no comparable attack..." statement is that precious few practicing physical scientists (those of the computational persuasion notwithstanding) express dismay at their field the way social scientists and humanists express dismay at the influence of pomo in their own field.

Well this could be the case for all manner of reasons, the most signficant being that there is no general agreement about anything in the social sciences, quite unlike the 'hard' sciences.


You are correct that the Sokal affair is troubling in that it flirts with a "right versus left" narrative. But I still give Sokal the benefit of the doubt. If for nothing else, as he claimed at the socialist scholars conference (http://physics.nyu.edu/~as2/nyu_forum.html), the left is strengthened and never weakened by a strong commitment to things like evidence and logic. It is far from clear, even after reading Stolzenberg's critique, that the pomo crowd shares this opinion.

Indeed, and I agree, so it was a pity he got his facts wrong, used bogus logic and launched his attack from a philosophically naive point of departure.

The left can do without that.


Indeed, I think we can agree that whatever the faults of its critics, pomo has strangled radical theory in a way that won't happen to such an extent in the natural or exact sciences.

Again, I agree, but what is hamstringing physics at the moment is a nearly all-pervasive Platonism -- the reification of baroque mathematical structures explanatory of nothing at all.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Just as an aside, New Scientist says that String Theory is soon to be experimentally testable, so we'll probably have seen the last of it, especially considering the amount of flak it's getting at the moment. There's even that book, The Trouble With Physics, that mocks it, and "Not Even Wrong" saying it's so confused that it can't be comprehended, let alone evaluated.

I must admit I'm a bit relieved that I don't need to try and get to grips with it.

-Alex

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Sounds like dialectics then.... :lol:

Thanks for the NS reference, Burn; I'll check it out later.

Comrade Red might have something to say about this, since he dislikes String (or M) theory with a passion.

[fabiansocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 10:25 am
Just as an aside, New Scientist says that String Theory is soon to be experimentally testable, so we'll probably have seen the last of it, especially considering the amount of flak it's getting at the moment. There's even that book, The Trouble With Physics, that mocks it, and "Not Even Wrong" saying it's so confused that it can't be comprehended, let alone evaluated.

Woit's "Not Even Wrong" contends that the theory isn't falsifiable as it doesn't make testable predictions; every physical theory worth its name has to go out on a limb and make predictions which may not be true, hence showing the theory to be false. This is of course the problem with po-mo: nothing is being said which can be corroborated (in fact, often nothing is being said at all). At least Marx's initial predictions could be tested against what eventually transpired, and we are (hopefully) wiser and more sophisticated as a consequence.

[MarxSchmarx]

Ms. Lichtenstein:



For all its faults, Sokal's attack has done much to publicize the shortcomings of pomo, which Mr. Stolzenberg concedes to some extent in his essays...

I'd like to see where Stolzenberg says that.

I am guessing it was this sentence fragment you referred to when you wanted to know where Stolzenberg says it.

I will of necessity be brief so we don't go too off topic. To be sure, Stolzenberg does contend Sokal was being largely unfair and ill-informed (hence "to some extent"). Yet Stolzenberg reiterates the need for "charitable readings" of the claims of the pomo crowd regarding science. His "reply to the reply" in pgs 117-118 gets at something along the lines of what I was trying to articulate:

... readers of Strong Programme literature need to understand that the notion of ‘social’ that the Strong Programme requires is not the ordinary one or, at least, not the ordinary one as it usually is conceived. We also agree that, whatever the cause, the failure of some readers to understand this has contributed significantly to the misreading of this literature.

I exaggerate for emphasis, but a consistent reading of Stolzenberg would indicate that the use and abuse of "social", at least as directed to non-specialists by the pomo crowd, should be subject to the same criticism Stolzenberg subjects Sokal et al.'s use of terms like "reality", "evidence", etc...

To be fair, whether Stolzenberg draws this conclusion is doubtful. Stolzenberg may restrict himself to note that the "two mindsets" used by practitioners of the "strong programme" in, for example, pg. 86 of his book review, can generate the confusion. Indeed, Stolzenberg doubts whether one can really accomplish this. But on some level, I suspect Stolzenberg himself must have serious misgivings about an academic discipline that requires, and not merely recognizes that, its practitioners are of "two mindsets" about concepts as fundamental as "social" and epistemology.

I may shortchange Stolzenberg's emphasis on the weakness of Sokal's attack, but these do strike me as some recognition of the limitations of the way the strong programme is practiced.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, the Strong Programme (SP) has nothing whatsoever to do with PoMo.

Moreover, many practitioners of the SP are scientists (e.g., Andrew Pickering, Henry Collins and Steven Shapin), some with PhDs in Physics and the like.

And as far as the alleged operation at 'two levels' is concerned, even hard-nosed Physicists do that -- e.g., when they carry out their experiments and write papers (etc) in the ordinary world of colours, solid objects and the like, and when they work with theories which they think cast doubt on the 'objectivity' of the former.

[Oswy]

I've only come across postmodernism in a very limited way as a history student.

There is a major debate involving postmodernism in the historiography of Chartism (a nineteenth-century movement in Britain in which labouring people made a major and sustained effort to obtain political rights). The debate is over Chartism's class content and has been fuelled by historians associated with postmodernism seeking to deny that it had very much at all, if any. Traditionally Chartism has been seen by historians as emblematic of class consciousness in early industrialised Britain but some, like former Marxist, Gareth Stedman Jones, have challenged the class nature of the movement. Some postmodernists have gone a step further and outright denied 'class' as a meaningfully coherent social grouping at all.

I agree with some of the comments that have already been made. Postmodernism is itself a historically situated phenomenon, emerging just as the Soviet states were collapsing and Marxism as a political project being thus cast into doubt. It's no coincidence that many postmodernists are former Marxist, or at least formerly sympathetic to Marxist approaches.

For my part I'd say that postmodernism has its values within limits but at its most radical seems to fall into a black-hole. History theorist Hayden White, possibly the most prominent spokesperson for postmodernism in history, has ran into trouble by finding that he cannot challenge holocaust deniers or trivialisers; the pomo doctrine which denies metanarratives in history prevents any single account from being considered truthful. This is despite the fact that postmodernists in academia are generally left-leaning and see their work as allowing the voices of the previously unheard or victimised being given opportunity - so it's an embarrassing position to be in.

I'm not very well versed in philosophy but I see postmodernism as tending towards idealism, as opposed to materialism, in that it prioritises mental worlds, ideas and language over physical existence and forces of material life. Postmodernism has a strong connection with poststructuralism, itself dependent though radically departing from structuralism (both origincally theories of language). I've recently obtained, though not yet read, a book by V.N. Volosinov Marxism and the Philosophy of Language which represents an alternative, and materialist, theory of human language - an alternative to the orthodoxy of Ferdinand de Saussure's structuralism. I've also obtained Alex Callinicos's Theories and Narratives which is regarded as a forceful defence of Marxist theory and critique of postmodernism - again, still not read.

I have read Matt Perry's Marxism and History which has an excellent critique of postmodernist history. Matt is a teacher at my local university and I might even get lessons with him in September, who knows!

Anyway, this is my initial contribution.