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Foucault and the Postmodern philosophers of the 70s started this, with a new epistemology that ties language use to our perceptions of reality, and also the ide
by mancerayder 6y ago
Foucault and the Postmodern philosophers of the 70s started this, with a new epistemology that ties language use to our perceptions of reality, and also the idea of how marginalized people remain marginalized. You see, the power matrix operates daily and we are all involved. We perpetuate real world problems with problematic language, we are told.
Change the language, change the outcome, came the activists of the 90s and 2000's. This stuff somehow spilled out of literary theory in academia and started becoming a political force for understanding power dynamics. You can get a taste below, where the commenter is comparing black and white concepts, and how we view one as good and another as bad.
Do these folks (like the commenter below) have a point? Yes, sure. But submit your point to the marketplace of ideas instead of trying to force people's hands through censorship. Not everyone has to buy social constructivism. We're allowed to believe that racism has material and economic causes, and changing it has minimally to do with language. So no, don't make me change my git default branch or the way I talk.
- skissane 6y ago> Foucault and the Postmodern philosophers of the 70s started this Nobody can know for sure, but I suspect if Foucault were still alive, he'd likely be rather critical of a lot of contemporary social justice activism.
- mancerayder 6y agoI don't claim to be a Foucault scholar but I've heard that claim. The postmodernists were, and to some extent I can sympathize, hostile to grand narratives. Especially given the end of religion and in the middle of the Cold War, who can blame them. Even the attack on Western Enlightenment ideals is at least interesting to discuss But as you say the whole thing is a giant metanarrative times ten, and these language police types are running over everyone who gets in their way. It's making so many people nervous, I think it has a shelf life. What scares me more is the open embrace of postmodern social theory by corporate America. That will lead to a backlash that makes me even more nervous.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]