'Postmodernism' as Existential Threat.

[padraig (u.s.)]

alrite

what I see is - no society has ever unanimously agreed on a shared universal morality or conception of the good

so how is anyone to say their particular version of the good is truer than anyone else's?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

much historical work has been done on the Enlightenment as a period where reason was used to justify slavery (Kant was one of the worst offenders)

and of course Foucault's work on the treatment and conceptualization of the mentally ill

 

[vimothy]

but the idea of universal truth might open up a space for a critique of slavery

 

[vimothy]

or the oppression of women, or whatever

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but the idea of universal truth might open up a space for a critique of slavery

I'd say the same thing back to you that you did about Foucault

is it a problem that the same idea of universal truth can be used to both critique and support slavery?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

doesn't the fact that the exact same idea can be used to support two diametrically opposed things itself argue against universality?

 

[luka]

yes, here you have one of the many hard probelms in that its very very hard to find value outside of the self and yet we want to

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

how is your universal truth better than my universal truth? how does either of us know which one is more true?

 

[luka]

this is a real crunch point

 

[vimothy]

I'd say the same thing back to you that you did about Foucault

is it a problem that the same idea of universal truth can be used to both critique and support slavery?

how so?

 

[version]

Well, a supposedly prestigious journal printed a paper that was intentionally written as a nonsensical pisstake. The implication is that the whole field is a nonsensical pisstake. I don't really see how that fact can be sidestepped.

You can sidestep it by presenting the Sokal affair as ethical hacking.

 

[linebaugh]

baudrillard is the most based in the original spirit of the term, see The Gulf War Did Not Take Place

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

how so?

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?

 

[version]

aren't we seeing the grand narratives re-assert themselves via conspiracy, cummings runs the UK, etc? like we want a simpler strongman trump type leader on the one hand and a complex QAnon scenario behind the scenes

Did they ever go away? That there are no grand narratives is a grand narrative itself.

 

[linebaugh]

postmodernism as an existential threat is weird because it can also be viewed as a preserving limit, the cycling of the past at the expense of the future

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the cycling of the past at the expense of the future

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

like a direct response to the modernist obsession with newness

 

[luka]

this is a very real quandry which is exactly why we as individyals and as a culture are stuck. this is very very hard. k-punk tried to get through it by saying rationality was found within the self. if we can only locate it within ourselves. which is, i think, inadequate.

 

[version]

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.

 

[luka]

this is a very real quandry which is exactly why we as individyals and as a culture are stuck. this is very very hard. k-punk tried to get through it by saying rationality was found within the self. if we can only locate it within ourselves. which is, i think, inadequate.

what you are relying on here is everyone running the same OS

 

[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?

of course we/re not. no.