zlacker

> Unlike many comments here and on other websites it's not hysterical, or hyperbolic or contaminated with self-referential post-modernist bullshit.

Lobster brain claims another. I have to say that one of the most overlooked forms of anti-intellectualism in modern life is the immediate discount of anything that uses even remotely complex terminology or looks in the general direction of critical theory.

>>ianlee+(OP)
It's not anti-intellectual to reject a philosophy that is based in the rejection of the very concept of truth and reality. Post-modernism itself is anti-intellectual, as it's a philosophy that individualizes experience while dis-individualizing responsibility. It rejects both empiricism and rationalism to choose the unhappy middle between the both, elevating anecdote above experiment, emotions above rationality.

"Critical theory" isn't even a thing and barely even intersects with post-modernism, although I suppose it shares some philosophical leanings. It's just a repackaging of Marxist ideals applied to other demographic groupings besides class, and it's just as easily disproven.

Edit: Thanks to whoever downvoted me, because they had nothing worthwhile to say in response. Rejection of objective truth is a core principle of post-modernism, you can ask the post-modernists yourself if you like, they'll agree. Meanwhile speaking the truth earns you hate since the rise of post-modernism.

>>tristo+89
Don't make posts about post-modernism or critical theory on HN. They are always, inevitably down-voted regardless of position and will earn you the ire of the mods.

>>tristo+89
Post-modernism is not related marxist economic theory it is an art movement that rejects the possibilty of a unified narratve, rather than the concept of "objective truth". Embracing absurdity is not anti-intellectual per se.

>>thatca+gt
From memory, it's absurdism that embraces absurdity, referring to the conflict between the human tendency for meaning attribution and the inherent lack of universal meaning. Absurdism is more comparable to existentialism and nihilism. Postmodernism has infinite truths; it values subjectivity and relativism. Truth or knowledge are whatever is pragmatic to the beholder. It can be opposed to the more traditional positivist perspective, that upholds objective truth. Something objectively true can be true or false for the postmodernist. Fields like medicine or engineering seem to stick to a neo/positivist philosophy, thankfully. Imagine building a bridge when opinions can be worth more than objective laws. Adhering to postmodernism has been convenient for politicians, e.g. to spin issues in one's favor or to adopt policy founded on "science" for hidden reasons.

>>Der_Ei+2k
I find these claims of the HN mods getting angry at people for posting certain viewpoints baffling. I've been browsing this site for a while and I've never seen that happen, and the only mod actions I've seen are against people who were deliberately trolling, flame-baiting or insulting other users. If your experience of posting about post modernism involves mods getting angry at you, it is far more likely that those posts involved those things than any kind of ideological censorship.

>>thatca+gt
My understanding is that in different fields different things are called postmodern, and not all of them are in/about art-in-the-usual-narrower-sense-of-the-term .

>>dmerks+QF
Postmodernism is a stage of development after modernism not a definable philosophy of life. I would argue that strategies for dealing with uncertainty using statistics would be post modern era science and that sort of analysis is often required to comply with "objective law" which is typically defined subjectively using community standards and judgement. It sounds like what you're refering to is moral relativism.

Modernism used paradox as a concept, ie. one meaning or the other is true but both cannot be, post modern reacts against that allowing for multiple similtaneous meanings. These paradigms are are discovered in different fields at different times.

>>tristo+89
>"Critical theory" isn't even a thing

Weird. I wonder why there's a Wikipedia article for something that's "not even a thing"[0].

> It's just a repackaging of Marxist ideals applied to other demographic groupings besides class, and it's just as easily disproven.

Can you cite a single critical theorist who simply transposes class analysis to "other demographic groupings"? The theorists I've read actually stray pretty far from the concept of class conflict, and they do not construct, for example, "gender conflict" or "race conflict" out of the "ideals" such as class conflict. Is there any evidence for your claim at all? Or are you claiming that any analysis of conflict between demographics is simply a repackaging of class conflict?

You fail to recognize the specificity of the idea of class conflict, and why it can't be "repackaged" as an abstraction. As an abstraction, all you're left with is "societal conflict", but nobody would deny that there is some conflict in society of some kind. The concepts of economic exploitation, alienation, historical and current primitive accumulation, base and superstructure, etc. are all core to class conflict analysis, but from what I've read, few if any of these are present in the literature on race and gender.

And while we're on the topic, can you point to which "easy disproofs" you're talking about as they relate to class conflict or "other demographic" conflicts? Ironically, the same critical theorists you claim "aren't a thing" were the same ones to argue against the traditional conception of class conflict (e.g. Marcuse).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory

>>thatca+JY
Postmodern philosophy is very much a thing, and arguably the most important part of Postmodernism. I think Derrida, Foucault, and Baudrillard would be disappointed to hear you say that there's no such thing as a defined Postmodern philosophy for life.

The philosophy is all about subverting epistemic certainty and rejecting the very concept of objectivity. Moral relativism isn't unique to Postmodernism, but it's a critical underpinning. As is the idea to reject objective truth.

You're arguing that I do not know what I'm talking about, except this was actually my field of study. I am very familiar with all aspects of Postmodernism and as I said before if you ask the Postmodernists they would agree with my assessment, although I'm sure they'd have more positive things to say than I do.