Postmodernism Disrobed

Nature Magazine ^ | 9 July 1998 | Richard Dawkins

[Tomalak]

Geez, a brilliantly inspired attack on a very large section of the left, and you can't appreciate it just because the author happens to believe in evolution.

[Billthedrill]

I don't think so at all. If one examines textual theory, one is faced with a choice: either accept realism or conclude that narrativity is capable of intentionality. An abundance of discourses concerning the role of the writer as participant exist. The subject is interpolated into a neodeconstructivist sublimation that includes consciousness as a paradox. But if textual theory holds, we have to choose between dialectic capitalism and poststructural cultural theory.

The same could be said, of course, about the designated hitter rule.

[ninenot]

WHICH "irony?"

Derrida's or real-world??

[cornelis]

We are experiencing a great rebirth of...irony

If I get your drift--I would rather say it is modern, cynical, and satirical. Modernist, in that this is the preferred language of a specialized club; cynical, in that it has recognized the failure of rationalism, and yet disrespects what is outside of its own specialization; and ubiquitous satire, in that in the end, nothing is sacred. But perhaps it is the height of irony which rejects both the comic "I am a god" and the tragic "I am not a god." The first step for a trick the author seeks in unmasking the sham is to keep our focus on the key question, "what is human nature?"

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

There is the point of view that comedy is Christian.

Postmodernist jargon and gibberish are sort of crying out to be satirized.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Here's one posted from another site, a...ahem... scholarly discussion:"I'm just curious as to how Jameson could be categorized as a post-Lacanian thinker, because everyone seems to always talk about him as a post-Marxist thinker a la Althusser and Lukacs. If anyone could make this clear to me I would really appreciate it."

Even if the term "post-Lacanian" could be assigned some definitive ontological status in a lexicon of avant-garde philosophy, I would still have trouble using it in a sentence and keeping a straight face at the same time. But then such jocular post-Binswangerian somersaulting makes me a little dizzy on occasion. It's hard to keep track of all these neologistic categories. [irony alert]

[cornelis]

Alan Keyes made an astute observation after the 9th circuit pledge ruling in his piece, The Cost of Judicial Tyranny. He basically said that even though the outrage at the ruling was justified, the reactive attitude fosters a satirical vein in the American psyche. It is the irony he points out:

So, the apparent determination of Americans to keep the Pledge, whatever the courts say, means that the judges' decision may actually galvanize and intensify our national resolve against the forces of tyrannical terror – at least in the short term. However, there is a competing challenge before us. The more insidious danger is, ironically, suggested by the otherwise laudable popular rejection of the Ninth Circuit Court's ruling. There is widespread determination to keep the Pledge no matter what the courts say. And in this reaction we may finally be seeing the dangerous fruit of decades of judicial irresponsibility and tyranny, bringing us at length to the point where law abiding American citizens view the formal opinions of the federal judiciary with active contempt. Particularly in First Amendment cases, the federal judiciary has richly deserved the ridicule and rejection being showered on last week's decision.

This same sort of irony is involved in the ubiquitous satire for anything we don't understand. We must first begin to admit that our age is post-modern. As John Lukacs, said, the modern age is over, kaput, terminee.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

We must first begin to admit that our age is post-modern. As John Lukacs, said, the modern age is over, kaput, terminee. 30 posted on 7/7/02 3:07 PM Pacific by cornelis

And avoid equivocation. The ideas of a post-modern (or post-Christian)age, suggested by the likes of Toynbee, Lukacs, Voegelin, or Walker Percy, et al., are in a different paradigm altogether from the anti-foundationalist relativism popular with left-wing academics.

[cornelis]

And avoid equivocation

? Please explain. I'll iterate: satire is your weakest weapon.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Hmmm?

No idea where this is going or what you are taking issue with. If you think irony and satire are the preserve of the anti-foundationalist post-modern mythos, I suggest you post a letter to Swift, Waugh, Chesterton & Co. and inform them.

[cornelis]

I use post-modern in its most general acceptance, what comes after the modern. That should, it seems, provisionally count for every paradigm. In any case, from the authors you have mentioned, there is an academic consensus that rationalism has been found bankrupt.

[cornelis]

If you think irony and satire are the preserve of the anti-foundationalist post-modern mythos

I don't. It is the preserve of the popular American psyche. It is the usual posture toward the burden of history and human nature.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

I see. Thanks for the input. There was another book published recently about "irony" from a Christian point of view which takes a different spin.

[parsifal]

That depends on which kind of reality you are talking about. Self-reflexive reality loops are real in one sense of the word but unreal if the loops are viewed in a topological contextual analysis. Therefore in a topological and non-topological syntax, one person could be thrown for a loop, or lack of a loop.

And the designated hitter is a perfect example of cross purposeful design theory confluence. Is "national" more American than "american", or is "american" more national than "National." This is simply deja vu all over again. parsy the parser.

[Tribune7]

bump

[parsifal]

All of here might appreciate a book, A Critique of Pure Verbiage by R. Englefield. I found this wee blurbie on a net search a minute ago:

Then the joy of unpacking a half-forgotten, neglected, English philosopher:

Critique of Pure Verbiage -- Essays on Abuses of Language in Literary, Religious, and Philosophical Writings

by Ronald Englefield, Ed. G. A. Wells & D. R. Oppenheimer, Open Court Publishing, 1990

I mean the title alone! And for the life of me I can't recall how and when I acquired this wondrous book

Ronald (1891-1975) will rise rise again, I swear.

He entirely screws, oops, disputes all those humorless Krauts (Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and that crowd) with good old Brit, Humean and Russellian commonsense. Well, he's not just knee-jerk anti-German, although he physically fought (mentioned in Dispatch) the Hun from the WW1 trenches in France. He survived this horror, and went on to teach French and German at various schools from 1920 to 1952, never gaining his due recognitions.

He sees much merit in Leibniz and even more in Goethe, and occasionally knocks Ruskin, Ryle, Ayer, even Whitehead!

In his essay on Things, Ideas, And Words we read

"Unfortunately there are certain regions of thought where the most abstract ideas are the principal topic and where in consequence there is no simple imaginative substitute for words. The concrete foundation of a highly abstract idea is apt to be so vast that there is no room for it in the mind of the philosopher, whatever species of symbolic representation he may employ. But just where the idea expands beyond the speculative mind 'Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein'"

["That is just where a word puts in a timely appearance." Goethe's Faust, part 1, line 1996]

He's good on apparent NL paradoxes:

Of the liar who lost her dentures, Englefield posits:

"She speaks without truth and teeth."

[Lester Moore]

There is widespread determination to keep the Pledge no matter what the courts say. And in this reaction we may finally be seeing the dangerous fruit of decades of judicial irresponsibility and tyranny, bringing us at length to the point where law abiding American citizens view the formal opinions of the federal judiciary with active contempt.

"under God,"

If only people would get half as pissed over 25,000 dead, shredded, aborted babies per week as they have over those two words.