'Postmodernism' as Existential Threat.

[luka]

Are we agreeing that postmodernism is a thing that's been foisted on society by various artists and thinkers then and not simply a condition they're responding to? Seems as though that's up for debate.

this is the right wing take. that it is a kind of sophisticated Jewish trick

 

[version]

Why are you all talking like you are then?

 

[luka]

Why are you all talking like you are then?

im not.

 

[version]

Well, the whole thread seems to be based on the assumption that postmodernism was a choice made by someone and there are alternatives.

 

[vimothy]

you said that rightwingers might share Foucault's view of the good, which I was asked was a discredit to Foucault

if slaveholders and slavery advocates share a view of universal truth with Berlin (or whoever), is that a discredit to him? and/or to the idea of universal truth?

if the idea of universal good can be used in support of slavery, how useful can it be for anyone who opposes slavery?

I dont think its the case that slavery can be justified in terms of a universal good - what's supposed to be the argument there?

 

[luka]

its built into the way we think. we want to a)say, eg slavery, female genital mutilation etc is bad, but we can't find a secure basis for those judgements. that is where we are stuck. that is where we stand in 2020. that's our defining roadblock.

 

[luka]

this is the whole point of the thread. this is why the thoughts we have had are an existential threat. becasue they are irrefutable but entail conclusions we cant endorse. and this carries over into the live political questions particularly interventionsim

 

[luka]

this is WHERE WE ARE. this is why we are stuck.

 

[vimothy]

its the decay of a particular point of moral authority

 

[constant escape]

Are we agreeing that postmodernism is a thing that's been foisted on society by various artists and thinkers then and not simply a condition they're responding to? Seems as though that's up for debate.

Arguably there are artists of varying directions of intensity, some of whom ended up better aligning with the eventual collective trajectory, which doesn't necessarily mean that their intensity caused that similar collective outcome.

Of the set of artists whose intensities ended up heralding the development of the collective, some were more marketable than others, no?

So I think the development of any such meta-narrative into postmodernism is a sort of gradient with critical points, no? A vast incorporeal transformation, or rather a continuum of such transformation, out of which we can ascertain certain critical points, but that doesn;t necessarily mean those points were instantiated in such-and-such moments.

But I generally think that the drawing of a map impacts the extension of that map, and that the map isn't solely determined by the territory as it passes through our senses.

That was a speed post, probably incoherent.

 

[vimothy]

but its not necessarily new, you could make the same arguments at any time - what's different is the purchase that they have IMO

 

[luka]

but its not necessarily new, you could make the same arguments at any time - what's different is the purchase that they have IMO

in that these contracdictions were latent pre postmodernism?

 

[luka]

it was unconscious and are now conscious

 

[vimothy]

exactly, theyre just arguments after all

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I dont think its the case that slavery can be justified in terms of a universal good - what's supposed to be the argument there?

very easily

there were many, many pro-slavery arguments on ethical grounds made in the U.S. before the Civil War

generally on grounds that slavery is some combination of 1) natural 2) better for slaves than freedom

all made by people who nominally believed in a universal morality

 

[luka]

exactly, theyre just arguments after all

but they are not just arguments.

 

[linebaugh]

as in recycles, chops and recombines the past, instead of creating something "new"?

like a direct response to the modernist obsession with newness

I think what I was getting at is that postmodernism (as a condition) seems unable to bring about new ways of living (as you mentioned, modernisms obsession with newness, finding new ways of living re: marxism and etc. being a huge part of that). You can look at the current tumult as a rebellion against this limit, the inability to escape the current moment, in accordance with a rebellion against any specific oppression. (not to undermine the extent of the oppression)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

obviously the arguments (in re slavery in above post) are unsound, but they were certainly made

 

[luka]

they"re road blocks

 

[luka]

you can't pretend these objections have not been raised and you can't steamroller them. you have to think past them.