a little postmodern primer
a little postmodern primer
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The medium is the message -- Marshall McLuhan
Since the aforementioned author of this quote is a pet of postmodernism (and most people here are not), I leave a brief word in explanation of how I have been using it here.
McLuhan came up with this phrase in response to his studies and analyses of the technological, media-driven age in which we live, but it was picked up in the general postmodernist gathering of postmodernist ideas as a signal moment.
In this sentence, traditional distinctions between form and content are meant to be obliterated. The medium -- in other words, the carrier (form) of whatever message (content) is being delivered -- is not only just as important as what is being said, but becomes the content itself. In this manner, say the postmodernists, the focus for any authority for the message-content no longer rests in this disembodied content, but in the person/media/package that is delivering it itself.
This moment has been so signal to our age that it birthed the modern notion of "validity" and the equally compelling force of context. No longer do we judge the actual message being delivered anymore because we must now focus on the context that delivers it to understand it at its depths. It also means to make a direct assault against original notions that the veracity of thought can be conveyed without taking the living context of the thinker into consideration.
In this manner, the words (message) of an 8-year-old child (medium) can be deemed as valid as those of a 70 year-old philosopher, because they are genuine (truthful) to the whole package and delivery system. In other words, we cannot go about judging the truth or validity of anything without first knowing the context from whence it came. In doing this, notions of any universal truth applicable to all is also dissolved.
. . . not just pedantry here -- I'd like to know what you think of this. It says that what is truer than the thing being said is the thing saying-it.
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The medium is the message -- Marshall McLuhan
Since the aforementioned author of this quote is a pet of postmodernism (and most people here are not), I leave a brief word in explanation of how I have been using it here.
McLuhan came up with this phrase in response to his studies and analyses of the technological, media-driven age in which we live, but it was picked up in the general postmodernist gathering of postmodernist ideas as a signal moment.
In this sentence, traditional distinctions between form and content are meant to be obliterated. The medium -- in other words, the carrier (form) of whatever message (content) is being delivered -- is not only just as important as what is being said, but becomes the content itself. In this manner, say the postmodernists, the focus for any authority for the message-content no longer rests in this disembodied content, but in the person/media/package that is delivering it itself.
This moment has been so signal to our age that it birthed the modern notion of "validity" and the equally compelling force of context. No longer do we judge the actual message being delivered anymore because we must now focus on the context that delivers it to understand it at its depths. It also means to make a direct assault against original notions that the veracity of thought can be conveyed without taking the living context of the thinker into consideration.
In this manner, the words (message) of an 8-year-old child (medium) can be deemed as valid as those of a 70 year-old philosopher, because they are genuine (truthful) to the whole package and delivery system. In other words, we cannot go about judging the truth or validity of anything without first knowing the context from whence it came. In doing this, notions of any universal truth applicable to all is also dissolved.
. . . not just pedantry here -- I'd like to know what you think of this. It says that what is truer than the thing being said is the thing saying-it.
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- Kevin Solway
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Re: a little postmodern primer
In that case what you are saying here is not universally true. Therefore, according to you, it can be false. Since it can be false, why bother to say it?Pye wrote:In doing this, notions of any universal truth applicable to all is also dissolved.
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Re: a little postmodern primer
P.S. I suppose we could say that notions of any kind of truth are not applicable to, say, a rock, in the sense that a rock can't have any notions of truth.Pye wrote:. . . notions of any universal truth applicable to all is also dissolved.
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Ok. I couldn't work out why you posted it. . . . Guess I've been out of academia for too long. I naturally figure that if somone is going to use that many words, it must be intended as "informative". :-)Pye wrote:Kevin, in case you missed this post as informative rather than asserted, I am not the one to argue this with. I perform this same trick you (repeat) here upon every student who starts their thinking with "there is no absolute truth . . ."
I've never been able to comprehend how academics can give so much credence to ideas that are obvious nonsense.
When I was studying philosophy at Uni I refused to ever use references in my essays, on the grounds that all the classical references didn't deserve to be repeated.
Postmodernism is full of so much garbage I can't make any sense out of it at all.
For example, the above sentence seems completely meaningless to me.In this manner, the words (message) of an 8-year-old child (medium) can be deemed as valid as those of a 70 year-old philosopher, because they are genuine (truthful) to the whole package and delivery system.
"Truthful to the whole package and delivery system."
What the hell does that mean?
Ultimately the "whole package and delivery system" is the whole of Nature, the Totality.
But the whole of Nature doesn't judge things to be truthful or untruthful, genuine or non-genuine. So far as Nature is concerned, things just are.
Let's say a liar tells a lie. It is a genuine lie? I suppose so.
It simply doesn't mean anything to say that the lie is truthful to the whole package and delivery system.
And that's the problem with postmodernism so far as I'm concerned. It doesn't say anything.
And speaking of "work", all these academics have been doing absolutely nothing for years at the public expense.
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:) Well it does seem to make you lose your usual equanimity and only see red . . . .
Kevin writes:
Try it on a different way. Ask yourself how many times you judge the value of statement based upon where it comes from, rather than the statement itself. If you think poorly of the source (e.g. postmodernists, women, people who post in blue font [I don't necessarily mean you-you]), then you are going to move this source to the forefront and shunt its content aside. It produces thinking like, "Well, that's a woman speaking; what do you expect?" or "You're a postmodernist; you can't possibly be in possession of the truth," or even "That thinking is coming from a neo-conservative group, so that context explains the nature of the thinking," etc. etc.
How do you avoid this sort of reaction, Kevin? How do we work around this aspect of what the postmodernists are saying?
*[edit: here it is interesting to note the relationship between this postmodern thought and Kierkegaard's idea that truth is the particular, the individual . . . . ]
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:) Well it does seem to make you lose your usual equanimity and only see red . . . .
Kevin writes:
More or less that what is said belongs entirely to who is saying it and no one else. I meant truthful in this sense of belonging-to, as it only (say the PM's) possible can.*For example, the above sentence seems completely meaningless to me.
"Truthful to the whole package and delivery system."
What the hell does that mean?
Try it on a different way. Ask yourself how many times you judge the value of statement based upon where it comes from, rather than the statement itself. If you think poorly of the source (e.g. postmodernists, women, people who post in blue font [I don't necessarily mean you-you]), then you are going to move this source to the forefront and shunt its content aside. It produces thinking like, "Well, that's a woman speaking; what do you expect?" or "You're a postmodernist; you can't possibly be in possession of the truth," or even "That thinking is coming from a neo-conservative group, so that context explains the nature of the thinking," etc. etc.
How do you avoid this sort of reaction, Kevin? How do we work around this aspect of what the postmodernists are saying?
*[edit: here it is interesting to note the relationship between this postmodern thought and Kierkegaard's idea that truth is the particular, the individual . . . . ]
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Steven Coyle
Logical Ego Death
Pye,
I never thought I'd find post-modern material interesting. (likely because I took the medium as the meaning). Hey, the way I see it, this is a quantum leap in human potential. What I see here is humanity unconsciously furthering Socrates' dialectic reasoning. By opening up to the context of one's environment, a person is able to expand the confines of logic, and embrace their inner daimon (a revert to before the Socratic method) - in the process, establishing a direct dialouge with the psychology of the medium via the message.
Kevin,
I'd argue that a rock is truth. Because, through the creativity of the soul (anima and animus), a rock is no longer an inert object in three dimensional space, but a potential messenger of your own innate truth.
It's Zen!
I never thought I'd find post-modern material interesting. (likely because I took the medium as the meaning). Hey, the way I see it, this is a quantum leap in human potential. What I see here is humanity unconsciously furthering Socrates' dialectic reasoning. By opening up to the context of one's environment, a person is able to expand the confines of logic, and embrace their inner daimon (a revert to before the Socratic method) - in the process, establishing a direct dialouge with the psychology of the medium via the message.
Kevin,
I'd argue that a rock is truth. Because, through the creativity of the soul (anima and animus), a rock is no longer an inert object in three dimensional space, but a potential messenger of your own innate truth.
It's Zen!
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In that case I think we should leave the word "truth" out of it.Pye wrote:More or less that what is said belongs entirely to who is saying it and no one else. I meant truthful in this sense of belonging-to, as it only (say the PM's) possible can.
We can just say that a conscious person knows what they themselves mean. They might mean to tell the truth, or they might mean to lie, or they might mean to speak nonsense.
I would agree that we can never know what other people intend by their words.
For example, a person might say "The ball is red" and they might actually mean "I'm off down the shops", or somesuch.
It is important to understand things in their full context to the best of one's ability. If a person is indeed a postmodernist, then in all likelihood they are speaking nonsense. No error there. But that supposes that you are correct in judging them to be a postmodernist who hasn't seen the error of their ways.[. . .] "You're a postmodernist; you can't possibly be in possession of the truth," [. . . ]
How do you avoid this sort of reaction, Kevin? How do we work around this aspect of what the postmodernists are saying?
Personally, I never assume that I know what anyone else is saying. I simply do my best to try and decrypt what they are saying using all the tools at my disposal.
If I ever say to someone "I agree", it means that I agree with what I have understood them to say, even though what they intended to say might have been unrelated to what I understood.
Likewise, to a postmodernist I might say "I disagree" - which means I disagree with what I think they are saying. It might be that from their end they meant something other than what I understood, but I can only do my best to decrypt what they are saying. . . . and the convoluted manner in which they choose to express themselves make that very unpleasant to do.
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Hi Steven. You're not alone in such a response of possibilities within postmodernist thought. And you're damned candid admitting what you haven't known about it, and better still, this phrase I could have sworn was there and gone missing -- "when thoroughly understood."
Let me just clear up one more thing. 1. There is the age in which we live (named "postmodern," situated historically after the last-named age {"Modern"} and described by the things that have made an appearance in human thinking different from the prior age -- a value-neutral descriptive term). 2. And then there are people (postmodernists) who have seen the unfolding of this age and have taken up its phenomena as positive forces (a value-laden thing).
I am not a postmodernist, but I live in the post-modern age. We all do. The former is prescriptive (being a postmodernist and wanting to go with these things) and the latter is descriptive (describing what is happening to human thinking in our age). Personally, I think there is a lot of non-thinking happening in our age, but I also think the descriptions of what is happening are compelling and hard to ignore. In this manner, I am bypassing the nature of the medium and trying to work with the content of its thought (distinctly un-postmodern).
Your rock-as-truth is a perfect example. I know some people who have waxed forth in this postmodern way to imagine this trend away from a single-source of authority for the world into a billion sources of authority, wherein we can take in, perhaps eventually, the experience of all other things. In this, some postmodernists have remained hopeful that the distinction between Self and Other will slowly erode away . . . .
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Hi Steven. You're not alone in such a response of possibilities within postmodernist thought. And you're damned candid admitting what you haven't known about it, and better still, this phrase I could have sworn was there and gone missing -- "when thoroughly understood."
Let me just clear up one more thing. 1. There is the age in which we live (named "postmodern," situated historically after the last-named age {"Modern"} and described by the things that have made an appearance in human thinking different from the prior age -- a value-neutral descriptive term). 2. And then there are people (postmodernists) who have seen the unfolding of this age and have taken up its phenomena as positive forces (a value-laden thing).
I am not a postmodernist, but I live in the post-modern age. We all do. The former is prescriptive (being a postmodernist and wanting to go with these things) and the latter is descriptive (describing what is happening to human thinking in our age). Personally, I think there is a lot of non-thinking happening in our age, but I also think the descriptions of what is happening are compelling and hard to ignore. In this manner, I am bypassing the nature of the medium and trying to work with the content of its thought (distinctly un-postmodern).
Your rock-as-truth is a perfect example. I know some people who have waxed forth in this postmodern way to imagine this trend away from a single-source of authority for the world into a billion sources of authority, wherein we can take in, perhaps eventually, the experience of all other things. In this, some postmodernists have remained hopeful that the distinction between Self and Other will slowly erode away . . . .
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Re: Logical Ego Death
Yes, we can say that literally anything is truth. We can say that a lie is truth and that untruth is truth.Steven Coyle wrote:I'd argue that a rock is truth. Because, through the creativity of the soul (anima and animus), a rock is no longer an inert object in three dimensional space, but a potential messenger of your own innate truth. It's Zen!
But in doing so we have to be beware that we don't destroy the concept of truth.
In my view postmodernism seeks to destroy the concept of truth (ie, as it contrasts with untruth).
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Steven Coyle
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Steven Coyle
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Kevin writes:
Postmodernism (as an -ism) comes in many configurations, but I've not seen a one of them running around like a nihilist tearing at everything and declaring there is no such thing as truth. I think you have this confused with a general illness of the age, and granted, a postmodern one. I guess it's alright to dump all your dissatisfactions with the current state of human thinking into the category of postmodernism, but you have probably misrepresented a lot of what the people who are trying to think their way through this age are doing.
A great many of their think projects have to do with the notion that no single human being can be in possession of the full truth until they are standing everywhere at once. And many of them see this move toward context and validity as a way to get there.
I assume from your enlightened, spiritual experiences that you are able to stand everywhere at once, so I am not taking after you here for that, but rather your understanding of postmodernism -- as an -ism -- itself.
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Kevin writes:
Your view might not be as informed as it could be. I do not know a single postmodern thinker who would fall into that logic trap that both of us illustrated above.In my view postmodernism seeks to destroy the concept of truth (ie, as it contrasts with untruth).
Postmodernism (as an -ism) comes in many configurations, but I've not seen a one of them running around like a nihilist tearing at everything and declaring there is no such thing as truth. I think you have this confused with a general illness of the age, and granted, a postmodern one. I guess it's alright to dump all your dissatisfactions with the current state of human thinking into the category of postmodernism, but you have probably misrepresented a lot of what the people who are trying to think their way through this age are doing.
A great many of their think projects have to do with the notion that no single human being can be in possession of the full truth until they are standing everywhere at once. And many of them see this move toward context and validity as a way to get there.
I assume from your enlightened, spiritual experiences that you are able to stand everywhere at once, so I am not taking after you here for that, but rather your understanding of postmodernism -- as an -ism -- itself.
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Pye,
From my perspective at the moment, I don't know which is more absurd - the idea that Absolute Truth (or "full truth") can only be obtained unless you are "standing everywhere at once", the idea that postmodernists actually take this goal seriously and are spending their lives working towards it, or the idea that a move "toward context and validity" will somehow achieve it.
None of this makes any sense. Please clarify.
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What is an example of an absolute truth which is upheld by postmodernist thinkers?I do not know a single postmodern thinker who would fall into that logic trap that both of us illustrated above.
What does any of this mean? I don't think I understand a word of it.A great many of their think projects have to do with the notion that no single human being can be in possession of the full truth until they are standing everywhere at once. And many of them see this move toward context and validity as a way to get there.
From my perspective at the moment, I don't know which is more absurd - the idea that Absolute Truth (or "full truth") can only be obtained unless you are "standing everywhere at once", the idea that postmodernists actually take this goal seriously and are spending their lives working towards it, or the idea that a move "toward context and validity" will somehow achieve it.
None of this makes any sense. Please clarify.
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- David Quinn
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Pye wrote:
I can't say the same for the postmodernist because is impossible to be a rational human being and a postmodernist at the same time, given that the very underpinnings of postmodernism are irrational.
This doesn't mean we should instantly dismiss everything that a postmodernist says, as he would still be capable of making rational statements, at least on occasion. However, these rational statments would be unlikley to have much depth, as he would need to keep well away from challenging the foundations of his own postmodernism. They would be more in the variety of: "There appears to be a banana in that bowl", or, "A person can only have his own opinions", or some such banal thing.
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If a person is rational, then this will shine through (to me at least) regardless of whether they write in blue font or they are a woman.Ask yourself how many times you judge the value of statement based upon where it comes from, rather than the statement itself. If you think poorly of the source (e.g. postmodernists, women, people who post in blue font [I don't necessarily mean you-you]), then you are going to move this source to the forefront and shunt its content aside.
I can't say the same for the postmodernist because is impossible to be a rational human being and a postmodernist at the same time, given that the very underpinnings of postmodernism are irrational.
This doesn't mean we should instantly dismiss everything that a postmodernist says, as he would still be capable of making rational statements, at least on occasion. However, these rational statments would be unlikley to have much depth, as he would need to keep well away from challenging the foundations of his own postmodernism. They would be more in the variety of: "There appears to be a banana in that bowl", or, "A person can only have his own opinions", or some such banal thing.
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Here's what I'm thinking, David. I'm thinking there is no amount of my time that would move you or Kevin past the [seeing red] reaction to anything that even whiffs of postmodernism, so I pass. It's really rather going to prove the point that we living in the postmodern age tend to think that the medium is the message, even with your (grudging) admission of a possibility here:
Yes, for instance, Zen sounds pretty banal like this sometimes to some people's ears, too.
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Here's what I'm thinking, David. I'm thinking there is no amount of my time that would move you or Kevin past the [seeing red] reaction to anything that even whiffs of postmodernism, so I pass. It's really rather going to prove the point that we living in the postmodern age tend to think that the medium is the message, even with your (grudging) admission of a possibility here:
David writes:This doesn't mean we should instantly dismiss everything that a postmodernist says, as he would still be capable of making rational statements, at least on occasion.
.However, these rational statments would be unlikley to have much depth . . . They would be more in the variety of: "There appears to be a banana in that bowl", or, "A person can only have his own opinions", or some such banal thing
Yes, for instance, Zen sounds pretty banal like this sometimes to some people's ears, too.
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- David Quinn
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Come on, Pye, you can't just dismiss my skepticism towards postmodernism as a case of "seeing red". I've asked you some questions and I'm interested to hear the answers. If there is anything rational or worthwhile in postmodernist thought, then I want to hear about it.
I do think that the postmodernist movement has benefited the world by challenging the old religious belief-systems from the past, and it has more or less destroyed theology. It has also helped people broaden their perspective on things by stressing the subjective nature of their perceptual realities. So these are plusses. Are there any other plusses?
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I do think that the postmodernist movement has benefited the world by challenging the old religious belief-systems from the past, and it has more or less destroyed theology. It has also helped people broaden their perspective on things by stressing the subjective nature of their perceptual realities. So these are plusses. Are there any other plusses?
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Fair questions, David. Like the departing Elizabeth, I'd probably better serve my time to point you to some good sources, if I can find them on line. Meantime, my week stuck to the desk with schoolwork (and genius at my elbow) is drawing to a close. If I can locate electronically* something worthwhile, I'll bring it back in. Clearly you have put some reasonability towards this as shown in your comments directly above.
*Since a lot of the stuff is not old enough to be in the public domain, it is hard to find ready publication on the internet.
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Fair questions, David. Like the departing Elizabeth, I'd probably better serve my time to point you to some good sources, if I can find them on line. Meantime, my week stuck to the desk with schoolwork (and genius at my elbow) is drawing to a close. If I can locate electronically* something worthwhile, I'll bring it back in. Clearly you have put some reasonability towards this as shown in your comments directly above.
*Since a lot of the stuff is not old enough to be in the public domain, it is hard to find ready publication on the internet.
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Pye wrote:
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You can't even begin to compare the two. A Zen Master doesn't have any irrational attachments to preserve and so he is free to speak truth on all levels, from the most profound to the most dangerous to the most obvious to the most banal. A postmodernist, by contrast, has to confine himself to the banal because the foundations of his entire world-view are shaky and won't hold up under scrutiny.DQ: However, these rational statments would be unlikley to have much depth . . . They would be more in the variety of: "There appears to be a banana in that bowl", or, "A person can only have his own opinions", or some such banal thing
P: Yes, for instance, Zen sounds pretty banal like this sometimes to some people's ears, too.
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- Kevin Solway
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I've had a look at the Wikipedia article on Postmodernism and it seems to be the consensus that there is no definition of what postmodernism actually is.
It looks a lot like plain nihilism and relativism to me.
A quote from that page: "It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism"
On the whole, the article on postmodernism has little more meaning than postmodernism itself, since its subject material is non-existent.
It looks a lot like plain nihilism and relativism to me.
A quote from that page: "It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism"
On the whole, the article on postmodernism has little more meaning than postmodernism itself, since its subject material is non-existent.
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Well, wikipedia certainly illustrates the problem. Postmodernism is not a philosophy a such, perhaps in that way very similar to 'nihilism', like a philosophy can be 'nihilist'. Certain thinkers have been branded postmodern or to be contributing to the 'postmodern' movement, but that's mostly it. Certain 'postmodern' writers even condemn postmodernism! But by analyzing it somehow participate to the process, like a snake devouring itself.
This was in my view best phrased by 'postmoder' thinker Baudrillard, the only one I really found worth reading so far.
This was in my view best phrased by 'postmoder' thinker Baudrillard, the only one I really found worth reading so far.
I observe, I accept, I assume, I analyze the second revolution, that of the 20h century, that of postmodernity, which is the immense process of the destruction of meaning, equal to the earlier process of appearances. He who strikes with meaning is killed by meaning.
The dialectic stage, the critical stage is empty. There is no more stage. There is no therapy of meaning or therapy through meaning: therapy itself is part of the generalized process of indifferentation.
One must be conscious that, no matter how the analysis proceeds, it proceeds toward the freezing over of meaning, it assists in the precession of simulacra and of indifferent forms.
- 'On Nihilismn' - Jean Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulation
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Many of these descriptions of the age go this way (the ponderous Frederick Jameson comes to mind), and it is not difficult to look around and see the shifting, if not obliterated sources of assumed authority for any meaning -- in daily life, as well as in humanity's most cherished traditional beliefs. The postmodern thinking I've found interesting is the stuff that is attempting to think through this age, to ask after it as evolutionary phenomena and to posit or envision what this shift in human consciousness may be conspiring to produce.
Of course, fears for the lost values of the next generation have existed all throughout recorded history. Perhaps some thinkers here share this woe. Myself I would rather look at it non-hysterically; to ask in an interested way what, if any, direction human consciousness now takes, as when Nietzsche's madman asks "Whither are we moving . . . What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun . . . ."
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Many of these descriptions of the age go this way (the ponderous Frederick Jameson comes to mind), and it is not difficult to look around and see the shifting, if not obliterated sources of assumed authority for any meaning -- in daily life, as well as in humanity's most cherished traditional beliefs. The postmodern thinking I've found interesting is the stuff that is attempting to think through this age, to ask after it as evolutionary phenomena and to posit or envision what this shift in human consciousness may be conspiring to produce.
Of course, fears for the lost values of the next generation have existed all throughout recorded history. Perhaps some thinkers here share this woe. Myself I would rather look at it non-hysterically; to ask in an interested way what, if any, direction human consciousness now takes, as when Nietzsche's madman asks "Whither are we moving . . . What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun . . . ."
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Pye wrote:
Talk about lofty.
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I see no reason why a truly wise person cannot "stand everywhere at once" if such an idea represents specifically the complete comprehension of all that is universal; aka understanding the nature of reality.A great many of their think projects have to do with the notion that no single human being can be in possession of the full truth until they are standing everywhere at once. And many of them see this move toward context and validity as a way to get there.
I assume from your enlightened, spiritual experiences that you are able to stand everywhere at once, so I am not taking after you here for that, but rather your understanding of postmodernism -- as an -ism -- itself.
Talk about lofty.
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