Rethinking postmodernism

[Chris]

If postmodernism wasn't such a "naive intellectual fetish which spiralled out of control, romanticising suspicion, sensationalism and irrationalism," it might have stood the test of time as a critique of modernism, as laid out in RETHINKING POSTMODERNISM:

As a philosophy, and a scholarly and artistic method, — postmodernism was highly critical of ‘metanarratives’ or methods of reaching holistic truths through science, empirical inquiry and readings of history mainly developed during the Age of Enlightenment and/or the Age of Reason in the 18th and 19th centuries. postmodernism is seen as an attack on modernism.

The emphasis on reason, science, democracy and the capitalist system during the era of Enlightenment is often seen as the main catalyst which propelled the Western world towards modernism, which is often explained as a mindset, attitude and a movement. Modernism looked at modifying and readjusting traditional modes of political, social, economic and theological beliefs in accordance with modern ideas of progress.

In this context, modernism dominated Western politics and the arts across the 19th and much of the 20th century. It created powerful narratives to explain economic, social, military and political progress as the result of scientific advancements, free enterprise, individualism, secularism, and a linear reading of history, in which humans continuously evolved and modified their need to innovate and invent and thus dominate the planet and its resources.

Interestingly, both capitalism as well as socialism/communism were products of modernism, and so were the thriving Western democracies as well as modernist authoritarian regimes....

[donttread]

If postmodernism wasn't such a "naive intellectual fetish which spiralled out of control, romanticising suspicion, sensationalism and irrationalism," it might have stood the test of time as a critique of modernism, as laid out in RETHINKING POSTMODERNISM:

OK. Several board members have called me an idiot but you are the only one who makes me feel like one with your understanding of so many perspectives. Thanks a lot! LOL
So this may be off base but could some of the backlash against the reasoned and empirical be because it sometimes claimed to know what did not know? Or it's tendency to be bent to the truth of those citing it?

[Chris]

OK. Several board members have called me an idiot but you are the only one who makes me feel like one with your understanding of so many perspectives. Thanks a lot! LOL
So this may be off base but could some of the backlash against the reasoned and empirical be because it sometimes claimed to know what did not know? Or it's tendency to be bent to the truth of those citing it?

The only criteria people should judge each other on is whether you're being sincere.

As for postmodern critique of modernity, of science and reason and such, here is postmodernist Thaddeus Russell doing his best to undermine science because it gets things wrong. He ignores the fact that the aim of science is not proving things, but falsifying hypotheses. His claim to truth is narrative that's interesting. It's a long debate but evidence of what postmodernism is.

[donttread]

The only criteria people should judge each other on is whether you're being sincere.

As for postmodern critique of modernity, of science and reason and such, here is postmodernist Thaddeus Russell doing his best to undermine science because it gets things wrong. He ignores the fact that the aim of science is not proving things, but falsifying hypotheses. His claim to truth is narrative that's interesting. It's a long debate but evidence of what postmodernism is.

Much of what passes for science today isn't. Joke humanities papers have won awards! But science certainly has it's place. With all your learnings why is it that people can't see grey? Why can't something be good to a point or in one situation but meaningless or even bad in another? That is after all the way of the natural world. Sun is good, but so is rain. Food is needed for life yet too much can kill.
Serious question, I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

[Chris]

Much of what passes for science today isn't. Joke humanities papers have won awards! But science certainly has it's place. With all your learnings why is it that people can't see grey? Why can't something be good to a point or in one situation but meaningless or even bad in another? That is after all the way of the natural world. Sun is good, but so is rain. Food is needed for life yet too much can kill.
Serious question, I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

That's certainly true in the area of health and foods with what can only be called fads coming and going faster than you can keep track. Salt's bad for you, salt's good for you. Sugar's bad, but so are sugar substitutes.

Why, because science only has discovered so much.

Why not follow custom and tradition since that seems to have worked?

[donttread]

Much of what passes for science today isn't. Joke humanities papers have won awards! But science certainly has it's place. With all your learnings why is it that people can't see grey? Why can't something be good to a point or in one situation but meaningless or even bad in another? That is after all the way of the natural world. Sun is good, but so is rain. Food is needed for life yet too much can kill.
Serious question, I'd like to hear your opinion on that.

Perfect example in the guys opening arguments. Were dissidents and "amoral" people locked up? Sure. Was science misused? Absolutely No doubt it happened , especially for "moral", reasons and science does get some stuff wrong. On the other hand having seen full blown psychotic breaks I can tell him and Eric Goode for example that mental illness is very real.
Homosexuality on the other hand only met the criteria for mental illness because of the brutish way society handled it. In a very real sense society was the one with the mental illness, not the gay dude. I personally believe it is the other way around with trannies judging by an unbelievable suicide attempt rate.
Anyway, science is good until it becomes your religion. a gross over simplification but it holds much truth. Real science expects to be questioned , but politics does not.

[Chris]

Thaddeus Russell also spends one part of his argument condemning the scientific racism behind the eugenics of the Progressive Era and how it ended up used by Hitler and the Nazis. But then the idea that evolution can be controlled the way you breed dogs is misguided, and still is as the Chinese experiment with designing genes.

[donttread]

That's certainly true in the area of health and foods with what can only be called fads coming and going faster than you can keep track. Salt's bad for you, salt's good for you. Sugar's bad, but so are sugar substitutes.

Why, because science only has discovered so much.

Why not follow custom and tradition since that seems to have worked?

Wouldn't that lock us into huge periods of stagnation? Like the 190,000 years of H&G. And if so would that be bad?

[Chris]

Wouldn't that lock us into huge periods of stagnation? Like the 190,000 years of H&G. And if so would that be bad?

Not really. As new situations arise, you have to apply old law to it thereby creating new law.