There is an old saying that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” The basic idea is that it is very difficult to fight back against an enemy that you do not even know is there.
I think one way Pomo enabled wokies win arguments is that their quest for "self interest" forces us to concede *or* admit cruel truths and be seen to be cruel.
"There's a street person camping outside my front door..."
"Why should that bother you? He has a right* to exist."
Sooner or later, "our" collective irritation is going to be such that it will no longer be embarrassing to state those truths.
*Also, they cheat by invoking absolute concepts of morality when it suits them.
I spoke on campuses and organized pro-Israel clubs through the first decade of the 2000s.
This one issue (Israel) always triggered the post-Colonialists, feminists, etc. They could only see the lone Jewish state through a lens of colonial power and would not debate anything. There were shout downs and riots from Columbia Univ in NY to Concordia in Montreal (https://youtu.be/sYUVsDfapb8).
This was an early preview of similar ideologies that grew across the board at universities in the 2010s and has come to the wider culture. We couldn’t see it then and now the West is suffering for that failure to see.
I think this defining of the two wings is excellent.
Excellent essay. I shared it with all my contacts across many platforms.
Postmodernism is a kind of Gnosticism. You must “know” its labyrinthine “truths” in order to be “saved.” It’s a dualistic faith: either you’re in or out; in the know or not; a believer or an enemy.
Traditional Western values are basically God, home and country. Leftist ideology seeks to abandon God, destroy the nuclear family and instill hate of one's country. This is what must be challenged in a nutshell.
As integral theorist Ken Wilber points out, "the claim that there is no absolute truth ignores that the claim is itself an absolute truth." Realize this and the whole house of cards collapses.
Wilber’s model of social stages shows where postmodernism belongs in the ongoing evolution of human thought and consciousness. It had its usefulness in untying rigid and limited ways of seeing reality. But in the west, it has become decrepit and destructive. Wilber calls this side of postmodernism “the mean green meme.”
Suddenly the politicization and lack of rationale in my conversational community makes sense.
To be honest, I don't see a path to reroute the community. In exposing them, one finds they are quite comfortable with the ends justifies the means, power is all that matters, and they find morality and logic outdated.
This is so profoundly simplistic and ill-informed, it's really quite bizarre.
Post-modernism isn't a coherent theory or approach at all. It includes all kinds of things, from referring to post-industrial type societies to philosophical approaches as diverse as post-structuralism, phenomenology and certain types of linguistic analysis. Sure, some of it can be a bit silly and politically interested. But lots of it isn't.
Similarly, it's not a break with the Enlightenment at all, but a deepening and interrogation of that project. The monolithic oppositions you hereby try and create have no validity at all, and themselves seem to be a politically motivated attack on a wide range of legitimate fields of study based on nothing but your own ignorance. Why write about something you clearly don't understand and haven't engaged with? How is that rational?
If you're genuinely interested in some of the issues involved you could star with Husserl's 'The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology', for instance. Though I'm not sure whether you'd consider him 'woke' or not. 'Woke' itself being a lazy brained term that doesn't really mean what you want it to mean either.
it's impressive you can get this far without understanding that there is no useful distinction between "classical western reason" and what you have labelled "post-modernism".
All philosophers should be honest about stuff like the Munchhausen Trilemma and the fact that philosophy has no other, more fundamental science to fall back on, it is the fundamental science and will always have to justify itself.
acting like this was definitively solved by some person or other seems unscientific.
What you describe as post-modernism would be better understood as a turning of reason on itself, in a form of self-interrogation. It's more interested in the uses and limits of formal reason, and how it might be wielded responsibly and appropriately. As such, it's more a deepening of the Enlightenment project, rather than its abandonment.
Why do you only seem capable of thinking in lazy oppositions?
One day you guys are gonna wake up and realise that you are blaming postmodernism for the ordinary passage of time and the fact that you are only isolated individuals in a vast universe
"The university of postmodernism thinks that all discourse is political anyway, and it seeks to use the university for beneficial rather than repressive political ends."
"without an objective standard of rationality we will have no way to judge between competing ideas of truth or morality, and no way to build an objective standard of truth or morality. This leaves us with utter relativism."
Can we sum this up: Postmodernists have worms eating their brains.
As always, thanks for writing this.
I think one way Pomo enabled wokies win arguments is that their quest for "self interest" forces us to concede *or* admit cruel truths and be seen to be cruel.
"There's a street person camping outside my front door..."
"Why should that bother you? He has a right* to exist."
Sooner or later, "our" collective irritation is going to be such that it will no longer be embarrassing to state those truths.
*Also, they cheat by invoking absolute concepts of morality when it suits them.
Postmodernists make truth claims all the time, for instance the claim that there are no objective truths.
I spoke on campuses and organized pro-Israel clubs through the first decade of the 2000s.
This one issue (Israel) always triggered the post-Colonialists, feminists, etc. They could only see the lone Jewish state through a lens of colonial power and would not debate anything. There were shout downs and riots from Columbia Univ in NY to Concordia in Montreal (https://youtu.be/sYUVsDfapb8).
This was an early preview of similar ideologies that grew across the board at universities in the 2010s and has come to the wider culture. We couldn’t see it then and now the West is suffering for that failure to see.
I think this defining of the two wings is excellent.
Excellent essay. I shared it with all my contacts across many platforms.
Postmodernism is a kind of Gnosticism. You must “know” its labyrinthine “truths” in order to be “saved.” It’s a dualistic faith: either you’re in or out; in the know or not; a believer or an enemy.
Thank you for sharing your research.
Traditional Western values are basically God, home and country. Leftist ideology seeks to abandon God, destroy the nuclear family and instill hate of one's country. This is what must be challenged in a nutshell.
As integral theorist Ken Wilber points out, "the claim that there is no absolute truth ignores that the claim is itself an absolute truth." Realize this and the whole house of cards collapses.
Wilber’s model of social stages shows where postmodernism belongs in the ongoing evolution of human thought and consciousness. It had its usefulness in untying rigid and limited ways of seeing reality. But in the west, it has become decrepit and destructive. Wilber calls this side of postmodernism “the mean green meme.”
Wow, thank you for this illumination!
Suddenly the politicization and lack of rationale in my conversational community makes sense.
To be honest, I don't see a path to reroute the community. In exposing them, one finds they are quite comfortable with the ends justifies the means, power is all that matters, and they find morality and logic outdated.
Out of everyone i find your break downs the most helpful.
It all boils down to being anti white
No it doesn’t
It’s a bit reductive but true
This is so profoundly simplistic and ill-informed, it's really quite bizarre.
Post-modernism isn't a coherent theory or approach at all. It includes all kinds of things, from referring to post-industrial type societies to philosophical approaches as diverse as post-structuralism, phenomenology and certain types of linguistic analysis. Sure, some of it can be a bit silly and politically interested. But lots of it isn't.
Similarly, it's not a break with the Enlightenment at all, but a deepening and interrogation of that project. The monolithic oppositions you hereby try and create have no validity at all, and themselves seem to be a politically motivated attack on a wide range of legitimate fields of study based on nothing but your own ignorance. Why write about something you clearly don't understand and haven't engaged with? How is that rational?
If you're genuinely interested in some of the issues involved you could star with Husserl's 'The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology', for instance. Though I'm not sure whether you'd consider him 'woke' or not. 'Woke' itself being a lazy brained term that doesn't really mean what you want it to mean either.
Man!
it's impressive you can get this far without understanding that there is no useful distinction between "classical western reason" and what you have labelled "post-modernism".
All philosophers should be honest about stuff like the Munchhausen Trilemma and the fact that philosophy has no other, more fundamental science to fall back on, it is the fundamental science and will always have to justify itself.
acting like this was definitively solved by some person or other seems unscientific.
What you describe as post-modernism would be better understood as a turning of reason on itself, in a form of self-interrogation. It's more interested in the uses and limits of formal reason, and how it might be wielded responsibly and appropriately. As such, it's more a deepening of the Enlightenment project, rather than its abandonment.
Why do you only seem capable of thinking in lazy oppositions?
One day you guys are gonna wake up and realise that you are blaming postmodernism for the ordinary passage of time and the fact that you are only isolated individuals in a vast universe
How did pomo departments like gender studies even get established? I'm guessing they were funded by certain interests
"The university of postmodernism thinks that all discourse is political anyway, and it seeks to use the university for beneficial rather than repressive political ends."
"without an objective standard of rationality we will have no way to judge between competing ideas of truth or morality, and no way to build an objective standard of truth or morality. This leaves us with utter relativism."
Can we sum this up: Postmodernists have worms eating their brains.
Worm Ouroboros, more like, because the two concepts contradict each other.
This simply isn't true!