4 ms·

I've been mourning postmodernism and wondering at the cause of death and at what has or will replace it. I think postmodernism has the answers to much of what p

I've been mourning postmodernism and wondering at the cause of death and at what has or will replace it. I think postmodernism has the answers to much of what plagues society today, and in fact I wonder if the plague may be due to its loss. In a world of overwhelming information and especially fake information, a strong belief in the "elusiveness of meaning and knowledge" and of doubt in anyone possessing an ultimate truth, and the high degree of skepticism that results, would seem essential - a pre-Internet philosophy that seems tailor-made for the Internet era. Instead, people seem to be embracing ideology (ultimate truths), self-importance (another ultimate truth, rather than 'ironic self-awareness') and whatever claims can be insisted upon rather than supported through reason and fact; they are abandoning skepticism and reason, and the project of the Enlightenment entirely. I would ask what they see as the solution to this flood of lies and deception, but I'm afraid their answer will be that they don't care.[0] I was at a lunch with someone I hadn't spoken to in years, an English lit academic whose PhD was about a post-modern author; one of their co-workers sat between us. I mentioned reading something related to their dissertation; to my surprise, my friend was clearly embarrassed; they said 'I don't read those things any more'. Other PhDs I know have abandoned intellectualism as fervently as the 'psuedo-modernists'; they buy into the ideology and fake news du jour too. If not them, then who? (When I mentioned this to a sympathetic academic, they said 'they aren't intellectuals; they're just a medieval guild'.) I want to ask: Why did academics and intellectuals abandon post-modernism? Why has everyone else? How can they knowingly lie to themselves and accept the misinformation as truth? What do they think will replace it? How do they intend to solve these problems without it? [0] To avoid redundancy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17361122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17361122

scarecrowbob 8y ago
I generally know what you're talking about; it meets with my experiences with fellow academic refugees. I quite a Lit PhD well into my dissertation and writers like Lyotard figured heavily in my MA thesis. But there's not a lot of use in talking about anything like this stuff in general conversation. Groups of people get exposed to something a little bit, someone smugly tells them that the emperor has no clothes, and it quickly becomes more enjoyable for them to use that tiny bit of smugness to dismiss rich and useful lines of thought. At a certain point, there isn't much to say to people who have developed an allergy to certain kinds of terms, analysis, and lines of thought.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > Groups of people get exposed to something a little bit, someone smugly tells them that the emperor has no clothes, and it quickly becomes more enjoyable for them to use that tiny bit of smugness to dismiss rich and useful lines of thought. Sure, you can see it on HN. But I expect more from experts in their own domain. Perhaps that's why I'm disappointed. > At a certain point, there isn't much to say to people who have developed an allergy to certain kinds of terms, analysis, and lines of thought. I do disagree with this. In that scenario, people are following the herd like sheep; it's not a result of strong beliefs. Among sheep, one leader can change the direction of things, at least to an extent.
  - scarecrowbob 8y ago
    "Among sheep, one leader can change the direction of things, at least to an extent." Well, I am skeptical that people are that easily led... I feel that it's more the case that they respond to what they need and so if what you're providing doesn't line up with their (possibly dysfunctional) view of the world your ideas will fall on deaf ears. It's not like these ideas in their functional forms have ever been widespread beyond artists using them as a post hoc justification for why their work resonates with the popular mood. As to your first point about "experts in their own domain"... I believe that most of the folks who care about these ideas are probably neither in academia nor have much access to popular discourse. There are plenty of threads to pickup in this world where the intellectual work is still ongoing, but the people in academia mostly don't consider these ideas useful because (among many reasons) they destabilize their already unstable position in the economy. My dissertation director was way more interested in a very conservative approach to history than in unpacking language, and he was, I think, fairly representative of the people in the field: if you're interested in theoretical concerns, then you're almost definitely going to be either unemployed or become unemployable as an academic or an intellectual. It's really tough for my cohort to afford to write while paying off student loans working at Barnes and Nobles or adjuncting a 5/5 at some JC. At the same time, I personally have the time to write, but I'd rather focus on playing music because it's a lot more relatable for most people. You might consider someone like Mark Fisher (kpunk) to be the kind of person I am thinking of when I say that theory in the university is a rough endevor. I'm in the middle of reading his "Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?" and I think it addresses this, so maybe pull the PDF and take a skim. His personal mode of addressing the issue (he eventually killed himself) is probably not super healthy, but at the same time I am not sure that there really is much else that is actionable here.

scarecrowbob 8y ago

I generally know what you're talking about; it meets with my experiences with fellow academic refugees. I quite a Lit PhD well into my dissertation and writers like Lyotard figured heavily in my MA thesis. But there's not a lot of use in talking about anything like this stuff in general conversation. Groups of people get exposed to something a little bit, someone smugly tells them that the emperor has no clothes, and it quickly becomes more enjoyable for them to use that tiny bit of smugness to dismiss rich and useful lines of thought. At a certain point, there isn't much to say to people who have developed an allergy to certain kinds of terms, analysis, and lines of thought.

forapurpose 8y ago
> Groups of people get exposed to something a little bit, someone smugly tells them that the emperor has no clothes, and it quickly becomes more enjoyable for them to use that tiny bit of smugness to dismiss rich and useful lines of thought. Sure, you can see it on HN. But I expect more from experts in their own domain. Perhaps that's why I'm disappointed. > At a certain point, there isn't much to say to people who have developed an allergy to certain kinds of terms, analysis, and lines of thought. I do disagree with this. In that scenario, people are following the herd like sheep; it's not a result of strong beliefs. Among sheep, one leader can change the direction of things, at least to an extent.
- scarecrowbob 8y ago
  "Among sheep, one leader can change the direction of things, at least to an extent." Well, I am skeptical that people are that easily led... I feel that it's more the case that they respond to what they need and so if what you're providing doesn't line up with their (possibly dysfunctional) view of the world your ideas will fall on deaf ears. It's not like these ideas in their functional forms have ever been widespread beyond artists using them as a post hoc justification for why their work resonates with the popular mood. As to your first point about "experts in their own domain"... I believe that most of the folks who care about these ideas are probably neither in academia nor have much access to popular discourse. There are plenty of threads to pickup in this world where the intellectual work is still ongoing, but the people in academia mostly don't consider these ideas useful because (among many reasons) they destabilize their already unstable position in the economy. My dissertation director was way more interested in a very conservative approach to history than in unpacking language, and he was, I think, fairly representative of the people in the field: if you're interested in theoretical concerns, then you're almost definitely going to be either unemployed or become unemployable as an academic or an intellectual. It's really tough for my cohort to afford to write while paying off student loans working at Barnes and Nobles or adjuncting a 5/5 at some JC. At the same time, I personally have the time to write, but I'd rather focus on playing music because it's a lot more relatable for most people. You might consider someone like Mark Fisher (kpunk) to be the kind of person I am thinking of when I say that theory in the university is a rough endevor. I'm in the middle of reading his "Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?" and I think it addresses this, so maybe pull the PDF and take a skim. His personal mode of addressing the issue (he eventually killed himself) is probably not super healthy, but at the same time I am not sure that there really is much else that is actionable here.