What are you

[A_Wanderer]

Are you Po-Mo or just Mo.

Postmodernism promotes an entirely different worldview with entirely different presuppositions that traditional, naturalistic secular humanism (modernism).

Modernists see reality as possessing universal and absolute truths. Human reasoning is the key to apprehending these truths, and it depends on the laws of logic. Hence, logical inferences are valid, legitimate, and trustworthy; truth is objective and attainable. (cold logical me falls in this category, secular humanist and of a scientific persuasion wanting to see the betterment of manking through progress and fighting ignorance with science (the candle of the demon haunted world) ~ to the most hardcore postmodernists if there is no such thing as fact then I dare you to drink H2SO4 while thinking it is H2O, I do not think that ignorance of the fact will change the logical outcome).

Postmodernists, on the other hand, see truth as wholly pluralistic and relativistic. They reject the concept of a universe where reality can be apprehended entirely through rational process--human reasoning. There is no universal or absolute truth in any area of knowledge, including science, history, psychology, sociology, ethics, and religion.

Postmodernists believe that truth has its source in human ideas and experiences, as interpreted through individual cultures, rather than in a source outside human thoughts and feelings--such as God. They assume that contradicting beliefs can be true at the same time--as they must, if truth depends on people, and people have different opinions on what is truth.

 

[blueyedpoet]

I have always thought that postmodernism is kinda not into definitions...to classify myself as either, or I am proving that I am indeed modern. Perhaps even this line of thought proves that I am what i wish not to be.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Actually you are right, the concept of a mutually exclusive choice must surely be mind boggling to those of such a bend thus biasing the result, in a statistical way of course

bring me your engineers and scientists ~ the mathematicians and computer programmers.

The most insufferable are those who profess pure anti-science, using their own "progressive" political beliefs to justify ignorance

Patriarchy includes a dualistic world view based on the male/female dichotomy. This dualistic ordering of reality is also hierarchical: the principle of male over female, mind over body, culture over nature, and so on. Male, mind and culture are exercising hierarchical control over female, body, nature. Reality is perceived as a machine rather than a living organism. In Western thought the principles of hierarchy, domination and control are deeply inscribed in patterns of thinking and therefore appear "normal", "natural" and "neutral". These patterns of thinking are often shared by men and women alike.

Mainstream science is a product of patriarchy. Mainstream science is customarily portrayed as universal, value-free and neutral in its pursuit of truth that is deemed valuable for all. For feminists, however, the production of knowledge is a social activity embedded in a certain culture and world view. Science aims to explain reality, but the experience of this reality, of one's perception and interpretation of it are a product of human thought determined by culture. Feminist critics of science have pointed out that Western science as it has developed since the Enlightenment period is determined by political, economic and social conditions based on a patriarchal order. Women were not only excluded from the actual activity of doing science, but they were defined as being closer to nature, feelings and emotions and therefore unfit for reason.

Dualism, in the masculinist hegemonic thinking that marks the production of Western science, is a system of exclusion of "others". For example, the values and wisdom of indigenous peoples are considered as primitive, a barrier to progress. Feminists have criticized scientific discourses as an account of the world that systematically devalues every category that is other than the male, Western, bourgeois self: women, children, other races, foreign cultures, handicapped people and nature.

Some have pointed out that science is not used to explain reality but to produce, control and normalize it. The connection between power, knowledge and truth thus becomes clearer. Scientific discourse is the outcome of a network of power relations, structures and procedures that determines which statement is to be assigned the status of a scientific truth and which is not.

Based on: "Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development. Towards a Theoretical Synthesis", Braidotti, R. et al. ZED Books/INSRTAW London 1994

A bunch of bullshit radical feminist and leftist twaddle attacking the very idea of objective investigation because it just so happened that white males contributed so much to it. Dragging in the concept of indigenous cultural practices not being considered scientific or worthy of equal footing by these "hegemonic white men" it's just so bloody draining. I cant even tell if thats a joke the stuff is just really awful.

This entire concept that science is only one of many equally valid interpretations of the universe is PC effluvia. Observation and inference, hypothesising and testing, method and peer review ~ investigating the facts is most certainly a better way to learn about the universe than sitting around worshipping tribal God images ~ and it is precicely this that makes science wrong, it becomes incompatiable with their own political beliefs and is therefore an enemy to them; science should never be about consensus rather about the facts. This type of anti-intellectual sludge wrapped around in deliberately confusing terminology is weak ~ I am all for using technobabble when neccessary but to deliberately cloud these piss weak arguments with words that simply bamboozle readers; thats annoying. Curse these nihlistic bastards and all of their postmodern marxist feminist deconstructionalist tripe and give everybody science and maths textbooks.

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/1998/schrag.html

http://www.dhushara.com/book/renewal/voices2/femsci.htm

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

 

[A_Wanderer]

Ah, the world is safe again, but for how long.

Farewell to a Fad

by Barbara Ehrenreich

[Published in The Progressive, March 1999, pp. 17-18.]

Before we bury postmodernism, let us praise it -- for a nanosecond anyway, because this was surely one of the least lovable fads to hit American campuses since drinking-till-you-barf. You know, I hope, who I'm talking about.

They favored menacing all-black garments, accessorized with a knowing smirk.

They considered themselves members of the left -- in fact its theoretical avant garde -- but their idea of activism never went beyond "deconstructing" some stray "text" for latent biases.

In the end, they didn't even have the grace to concede that they'd been beaten, insisting instead that there never was any postmodernism anyway, just a few "postmodernisms" here and there.

Credit for squelching this peculiar trend goes largely to one man, NYU physicist -- and it should be mentioned, leftist -- Alan Sokal. Three years ago, he submitted a parody of postmodernist thought to the postmodernist journal Social Text, which article purported to mock, in true postmodernist fashion, the silly old "dogma" that "there exists an external world," asserting instead that "physical `reality'" is just "a social and linguistic construct." The Social Text editors, thrilled to have a physicist defecting to their side, published the piece. In short order, the hoax was revealed and, to what should have been the terminal mortification of pomos everywhere, found its way into the New York Times.

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

 

[verte76]

I am basically a postmodernist in historical thought, because I was taught this in school. This didn't keep me from having to take two courses in Western Civilization, two in American history, English and American literature, and other mainstays of a liberal arts education. The Victorians are considered modernists. They were caught in a contradiction. On the one hand, they thought all of the facts would make the need for further research obsolete. On the other hand, they were rather sloppy about their "facts". In my view they based too many of their "facts" on sentiment, or mere opinions. I wish melon would post in this thread, he agrees with me on this.

 

[nbcrusader]

Based on the absolute/relativist aspects of the definitions, I would say I am a modernist.

Relavitism is a self-defeating philosophy.

 

[hiphop]

I´m neither a modernist nor a post modernist. Such categories are useless.

I am myself. But I may have to lose myself.

 

[melon]

Postmodernism was said to have been born in the construction of the World Trade Center (or in the wake of the 1968 Paris demonstrations). I would say that postmodernism died in the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

And good riddance. It is good on an intellectual level. We cannot deny that we are inundated with lots of messages on a regular basis and the ZooTV tour was a visual application of postmodernist theory, but is also very defeatist and highly cynical. The 1968 demonstrations in Paris were supposedly the birth of postmodernism, because, supposedly, they learned the folly and illusion of change and social activism. Hence, it was better to give up completely, rather than work for something "futile."

My approach, nowadays, is modernist, and I work to mold the future to something better.

Melon

 

[melon]

to the most hardcore postmodernists if there is no such thing as fact then I dare you to drink H2SO4 while thinking it is H2O, I do not think that ignorance of the fact will change the logical outcome).

Postmodernists, on the other hand, see truth as wholly pluralistic and relativistic. They reject the concept of a universe where reality can be apprehended entirely through rational process--human reasoning. There is no universal or absolute truth in any area of knowledge, including science, history, psychology, sociology, ethics, and religion.

Postmodernists believe that truth has its source in human ideas and experiences, as interpreted through individual cultures, rather than in a source outside human thoughts and feelings--such as God. They assume that contradicting beliefs can be true at the same time--as they must, if truth depends on people, and people have different opinions on what is truth.

To be fair, I think this to be a sloppy interpretation of postmodernism that many people are guilty of. Postmodernism rejects "Truths" (metanarratives) with a capital "T," not "truths" as in "facts." H2SO4 would qualify as a "truth," because it is a concrete fact. However, postmodernists tend to be skeptical of things like history and do openly reject the idea of "absolute Truth," arguing that all "Truths" are man-made and subject to human bias. Hence, they are "subjective."

In short, things like math and science (subjects that deal in "truths") should not be victim to postmodernist wrath. Things like history, religion, literature studies...those things are subject to postmodernist wrath, because there is always the question of the biases of the person who wrote the history book, the biases of those who set the theology, and the biases of those who interpret literature.

In other words, postmodernism's inherent cynicism makes it really think about "bias."

Melon

 

[verte76]

Postmodernism was said to have been born in the construction of the World Trade Center (or in the wake of the 1968 Paris demonstrations). I would say that postmodernism died in the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

And good riddance. It is good on an intellectual level. We cannot deny that we are inundated with lots of messages on a regular basis and the ZooTV tour was a visual application of postmodernist theory, but is also very defeatist and highly cynical. The 1968 demonstrations in Paris were supposedly the birth of postmodernism, because, supposedly, they learned the folly and illusion of change and social activism. Hence, it was better to give up completely, rather than work for something "futile."

My approach, nowadays, is modernist, and I work to mold the future to something better.

Melon

Wow. Can I change my vote? Yeah, I'm going to pull a flip-flop. I'm not running for dog catcher............

 

[blueyedpoet]

people not wanting to classify themselves or wanting to "change" are fitting the postmodern type to a T