When someone uses terms like "post-modernism" — you can stop reading or listening — and probably retain a clear conscience

08 September 2019

Moronic blitherering make me ill — especially from pseudo-academic types

Consider the following definition of and justification for "post-modernism" — from Nick Pemberton:

[P]ostmodernity . . . means . . . courtesy of Urban Dictionary:

“A term that you keep on hearing about in college and have to look up on Wikipedia. Basically says “fuck it” to the search for any intellectual conclusions.”

“The idea that there is no objective meaning, only subjective meaning, the meaning one brings to a thing, irrespective of the intent of the author, or of the Author, or of reality.”

Intellectuals who have fundamentally misunderstood postmodernism have claimed that it represents nothing . . . .

What postmodernity claims is that there is no truth precisely because the individual subject has a cultural/historical context . . . .

[W]hen postmodern folks claim subjectivity it is not that they are saying nothing, it is that they are acknowledging both their own flaws and the need for constant interrogation of the facts laid out before us.

The idea that one must come to a conclusion in order to find truth is actually the definition of fascism.

[H]opefully, this at least establishes the urgent need to abandon the very concept of objective truth.

Objective truth is anti-democratic.

There is no such thing as an unbiased statement that has not been shaped by elements of power or hierarchy.

There is no such thing as a random statement, and there is no such thing as a true statement.

Preserve us from semantic obscurity

No mildly intelligent organism should use the term "post-modernism".

The phrase is irrationally imprecise on its face.

In most people's lexicons, what is modern is now.

Thus, anything that comes after this present moment is post-now. Post-modern.

Given that Time, in our human experience, never stops — post-any-moment cannot be precisely defined by using "modern" in its definition.

Someone with definitional intelligence would have named Pemberton's brand of "postmodernism" — "contextual subjectivity philosophy" — or something semantically similar.

Pemberton's vacuous statements justify my dismissiveness

"Objective truth is anti-democratic."

That's probably true. Is that a vice?

Whoever said that the concept of truth was intended to be democratic?

And why attack it on grounds of its failed inclusivity?

If an ignoramus thinks that the planet is flat and gravity is not a force — should we pay him or her any attention at all — when addressing the planet's shape or gravity's physical influence on the structure and "actions" of the Universe?

"There is no such thing as a random statement . . . ."

There very arguably is.

If I attach a randomly jumbled words into "statements"— and attach those statements to individual numbers in a random number-generator — I will have doubly "randomed" Mr. Pemberton's purportedly impossible happening.

"There is no such thing as a true statement . . . ."

Yes, there is.

Hordes of them.

For example, if we are standing (unadorned) at the edge of a 100 foot high castle turret — and I tell you, "Nick, if you step forward off this wall, you will fall" — that is a provably true statement.

Just as a statement would be equally accurate, if I calculated the power and trajectory required for us to send a rocket-borne satellite around the moon.

Pemberton concludes his essay with gibberish

He says that:

To ask the subjective truth . . . naturally invites the Other in, and reminds us not that there is no objective truth, but there are always many sides unheard in its effects.

Until every side, at every time is heard, by everyone, can the truth ever be known, or can it only be thrived [probably meaning "strived"] for?

The only lie is to say that truth has already been found.

Such is the tyranny of Mr. Trump as he attempts to replace democratic education with the adoration of authority.

Oh, come on.

Does "everyone" really need to hear everything for some of it to be true?

The moral? — Philosophy and definitions become dangerous, when left to formulation by foolishly inclined folk

We arguably should spend more time on the process of lousy argument identification in school.

PeteFree.com

When someone uses terms like "post-modernism" — you can stop reading or listening — and probably retain a clear conscience