3 ms·

I agree that secondary sources do a better job at explaining the ideas than the originals. I did read Discipline And Punish though and got through it fine. My u

I agree that secondary sources do a better job at explaining the ideas than the originals. I did read Discipline And Punish though and got through it fine. My understanding of the text mapped well to the Philosophize This podcast on the topic. It would be exhausting to read his whole body of work, though. Same goes for any of the post-modernists. I guess they might have argued that they were venturing into new intellectual territory and that language wasn’t well-suited to what they were trying to explain, but if that’s the case then that’s just elitist BS in my eyes. The secondary sources prove that you can explain these ideas in plain language just fine. Didn’t mean to imply that you were critiquing deconstruction. I bring it up because in my experience the major complaint around these authors is that they seem to just tear down the “grand narratives” of the past without showing the way to a better future. I think this is the main problem on campuses right now. I for one can definitely say that was my college experience. I left with the clear impression that a lot of ideas I had grown up with were BS, meanwhile my ideas on how to build a better future were vague at best.

0815test 7y ago
> the major complaint around these authors is that they seem to just tear down the “grand narratives” of the past without showing the way to a better future. IME the main complaint is that they seemingly operate from a standpoint that the work of "tearing down the grand narratives" can itself be a "grand narrative", a "theory" of its own. We shouldn't be surprised when this doesn't work very well! The fact that they aren't "showing the way to a better future" (unlike, e.g., pragmatists who can be just as skeptical as postmodernists when it comes to all-encompassing grand stories!) is really a symptom, not the main issue.

0815test 7y ago

> the major complaint around these authors is that they seem to just tear down the “grand narratives” of the past without showing the way to a better future. IME the main complaint is that they seemingly operate from a standpoint that the work of "tearing down the grand narratives" can itself be a "grand narrative", a "theory" of its own. We shouldn't be surprised when this doesn't work very well! The fact that they aren't "showing the way to a better future" (unlike, e.g., pragmatists who can be just as skeptical as postmodernists when it comes to all-encompassing grand stories!) is really a symptom, not the main issue.