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Postmodern Nightmare

  
  

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StarWhisper
20:25 / 21.09.06
Ever since I discovered postmodernism I have felt a comingling of pretentiousness and nonsensical pedantry issue forth from my confused and nihilistic mind, or at least thats how it feels (*sigh* If I had one dollar for every slack jawed, blank stare...) Is there a remedy for this that anyone could recommend or at least an opinion on, or insight into how is best to approach this tricky and barely tangible subject?
 
 
grant
21:22 / 21.09.06
The next step is actually choosing a perspective and defending it validly and with an open mind.
 
 
Jesse
21:54 / 21.09.06
I don't know. Figure out where you're at, ethically and otherwise. Is there somewhere you can go from here? What's the next step? Stop sitting there with a critical eye and go out into the world with a critical eye. Start searching.

Suggested readings:

Otherwise than Being by Emmanuel Levinas
The View from Nowhere by Nagel
 
 
alas
23:40 / 21.09.06
Jane Tompkins' now classic essay "Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History" is helpful in articulating an ethical and grounded approach to life with an awareness of the insights of postmodern thought. It's a good read, too.
 
 
Lurid Archive
07:50 / 22.09.06
I quite like that essay, though I've never really understood the contortions that the author feels she needs to go through. That is, I've never quite grasped the need to assert that all facts are only within a perspective, yet it is ok to call a fact false and in almost all ways behave as if facts *aren't* perspectival if we talk about morally crucial events like genocide.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
11:41 / 22.09.06
Wouldn't this go a little better in Convo?
 
 
Jesse
12:04 / 22.09.06
I dunno. I think it's kind of appropriate for this section, actually.
 
 
Foust is SO authentic
22:56 / 22.09.06
What exactly are you worried about? It seems to be the old "no statement is better than any other statement" kind of reletivism, but you only specifically reference moral statements.
 
 
StarWhisper
15:58 / 23.09.06
It seems to be the old "no statement is better than any other statement" kind of relativism

I don't really understand what this means. Perhaps because I am layperson I have been ensnared by some horribly simple cliché? Please explain?
The reason I specifically reference moral statements is because, when faced with relativism I wondered how it is possible to condone or condemn an act as being right or wrong if you take as a premise that a viewpoint which conflicts with your own is equally valid. I find it frightening and interesting as to how this affects the moral grounding of myself as an individual, others as individuals and the organisations that exist within our society.
I also think there may be a contradiction towards the end of the essay recommended by alas. Thank you for recommending it, its definitely worth reading.

Being aware that all facts are motivated, believing that people are always operating inside some particular interpretive framework or other is a pertinent argument when what is under discussion is the way beliefs are grounded. But it doesn't give one any leverage on the facts of a particular case.

I believe this statement to be false in regard to the individual bias of whoever is said to be stating a fact.I don't agree it doesn't give one leverage over facts.


I think this is what is meant by 'all facts are perspectival.'
Also, yes I agree that from one point of view that a contradiction of decisive moral choices and relativism is irreconcilable, I believe the author of this essay is writing self consciously and understands this. In effect making the point that when it comes to morality, relativism is, to a degree, beside the point.


The next step is actually choosing a perspective and defending it validly and with an open mind.

Yes, entirely. I agree... Although, so far the only perspective I have found agreeable is that I decline to choose one.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:40 / 24.09.06
Lots of folks have been here before

You're in good company!
 
 
Foust is SO authentic
12:22 / 24.09.06
Re: "no statement is better than any other statement" -- What if I were to make two contradictory statements? Or a nonsense statement? Is one just as good as the other? "The sun is both pink and purple." Is that sentence just as valuable, or equal with in any way, with "the sun is yellow"?
 
 
HCE
13:59 / 24.09.06
Relativism's not the same as postmodernism, and postmodernism's not an ethical system so much as a set of strategies for textual analysis, text being a rather broad term -- right? Or no? I'm not at all certain.

But to your question -- do you have a pressing need to know what's right in some ambient sense rather than what's right in a particular situation? I don't believe there really is any sort of moral equation that yields a proper or correct answer each time. The problem you're having is built in to life, I think. If there's anything to get from postmodernism it's perhaps that there isn't a fixed right/wrong answer -- that some interplay between the two is more honest, though not as easy.
 
 
petunia
18:48 / 24.09.06
I wondered how it is possible to condone or condemn an act as being right or wrong if you take as a premise that a viewpoint which conflicts with your own is equally valid.

Why condone or condemn an act as being right or wrong at all? Your sentence here already shows that you have your own viewpoint, so why don't you just stick with what you have?

Practice:

Instead of saying 'that act was soo wrong - they're a very bad person', try saying 'that act pissed me off - it makes me angry with that person' and (for added points) 'i think they're a fucker'.

Doing this, you manage to step off the carousel and start to hold a bit of honesty. Instead of pretending there are moral acts, just get on with there being acts, which you can choose to judge or interpret in any way you wish.

Yes, a lot of people choose to hold to an agreed system of interpretation, and this is, as you have said, equally valid, but if you don't want to stick with it, don't.

It might be fun to find a perspective to stick to. You might find that taoism gives you your kicks, or that ayn rand tells you your truth, or you could just fumble through.

Is there any real need to decide if an act is 'right' or 'wrong'. Do you have to make a decision about how you feel about something? If you have to make a decision, i'd be tempted to say you might not be actually connecting with your own responses to an action. If you don't know your own responses, how could you ever start to make a decision anyway?

Perhaps you are expressing confusion at having realised there is no objective guide to morality (none that is available to people who aren't in the clergy, at least), but that there are still millions of people who act as if there were. It seems difficult and unsettling to deal with these people because most of society works on terms of good/evil right/wrong allowed/banned and so on...

But (and this is, of course, my own set of interpretations) these people are still just working in terms of 'ugh, that makes me angry' 'ooh, i like that' and so on; they just shield these expressions of self-identity behind objective standards. Why? Power, agression etc. the usual.

You feel on the one hand that you should have a set of moral belief, but on the other hand you feel that it would be untenable to do so. One 'fact' is messing with a desire. So you could choose to assume that this current state of moral relativity and discomfort is a problem, and go to find a set of moral standards you can hold as yours, or you can stick to the situation, have a look at your desire for moral comfort and think about your other options.

Of course, neither is 'right'.
 
 
nighthawk
21:25 / 24.09.06
.trampetunia: I'm all for a critique of transcendent values, but you seem to be talking as though people lived in some sort of weightless vacuum:

you can choose to judge or interpret in any way you wish...but if you don't want to stick with it, don't...It might be fun to find a perspective to stick to...Is there any real need to decide if an act is 'right' or 'wrong'. Do you have to make a decision about how you feel about something?

I mean it all sounds rather wonderful - dancing between perspectives and frameworks as we see fit - but I'm not sure it matches up to people's lives

I see two separate claims here. (1), that there are no objective or transcendent criteria on which to base one's morality: God's decrees, eternal Ideas in a Platonic heaven, Kantian Law in the kingdom of ends - take your pick. (2), that people are free to adopt any perspective they wish, that 'right' and 'wrong' are meaningless or misleading.

I don't see how 2 follows from 1; in fact I don't see how 2 is true at all. To use a fairly mundane example: suppose I have a friend who works in a restaurant. Everyday she is run off her feet, working in a loud and stressful environment for shitty pay, subject to the whims of an abusive and aggressive manager and a steady stream of customers. Imagine we're sitting in the pub together after she's finished her shift, and she tells me that its just fucking wrong that anyone should have to do what she does every single day so that they can live.

Now imagine I tell her "Hey, you can choose to intepret all that however you want. Why don't you go into work tommorrow and interpret everything that happens as good? Actually, why settle for that even. How about if each hour of your shift, you switch perspectives - after all, if you don't want to stick to one, then you don't have to. In fact, why make a decision at all - there's no real need! It might be more fun if you didn't..."

She'd tell me to fuck off, and rightly so I think. I appreciate that you were talking about judging particular acts, but I think that example still holds good. My friend is right in her judgement, and it doesn't matter if there's no transcendent criteria, no Word of God backing her up. To say that this is just her 'perspective', that her judgement is rooted in her anger, seems to be both true and irrelevant. I know exactly what her judgement implies, and I also know that she's right, not 'right'.
 
 
ibis the being
01:26 / 25.09.06
Mark Hauser, a scientist known for his studies on animal cognition, has just written a book called Moral Minds which posits that there is an ingrained sense of or instinct for morality in all humans. You can read an interview with him here if you're interested. The review of his book in the NY Times claims that he didn't present his argument convincingly in the book, but even so I find his idea intriguing. In the excerpt below he talks about how and why evolution might have selected for moral instinct in humans.

First, it is possible that the moral instinct was originally selected due to its fitness consequences for maintaining social norms, some of which may have evolved long before humans emerged on earth. That is, the moral faculty provides a set of principles for cooperating, for punishing cheaters, for determining the conditions in which helping is obligatory, and so forth.

Second, it is possible that some of the computations that underlie our moral instinct evolved for reasons that are not specific to morality but were subsequently co-opted or adopted for morality, and then subject to a round of selection. For example, take the fact that many moral decisions are based upon whether an action was intended or accidental. If someone harms another, it is essential to assess whether the harm was intended or the result of an accident. If accidental, was it due to negligence? Though the intended/accidental distinction is critical to our moral evaluations, the ability to distinguish these two causal factors appears in non-moral situations: Though I am a fairly good tennis player, sometimes I hit a winner because I really aimed for a particular spot inside the line, and sometimes I accidentally hit the spot. The consequence is the same: I hit a winner.

Early in human development, children appear sensitive to these hidden psychological causes, appreciating that not all consequences are equal. They appreciate that the means of achieving a particular consequence matter for both moral and non-moral situations.
 
 
grant
16:10 / 25.09.06
When faced with relativism I wondered how it is possible to condone or condemn an act as being right or wrong if you take as a premise that a viewpoint which conflicts with your own is equally valid.

"Valid" means it's logically sound. The components each proceed one from the other, descending from an articulated set of presuppositions. (If A=B, and if B=C, then A=C.)

"Right or wrong" (it seems to me) have more to do with your presuppositions, and better tested in real-world effects. If I believe this, then this, this, and this follow. Does that outcome please me? (Does it provide the greatest good?)

The valid argument & open-mindedness are just ways to discover what might follow from whatever presupposition, and to adjust presuppositions to accomodate unforeseen effects.
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:43 / 25.09.06
Valid can be used in that sense grant, but I very much doubt that it is common with moral arguments. While it is true that a moral argument can be logically invalid, the vast majority of moral arguments simply don't adhere to anything like a formal logical framework. So many of the terms one might want to reference (good, suffering, happiness) aren't really that well defined and the conclusion of a moral argument often depends on the particular interpretation and emphasis one wants to bring to the discussion; that is, the content of a moral judgement point is rarely logical in nature. So I'd assume that calling a point of view "valid" is some more complex judgement involving all those elements - certainly, thats the way I would use it myself, and one which I think is closest to standard english usage.
 
 
petunia
19:08 / 25.09.06
nighthawk - I think you are misinterpreting my position, but on a rereading, i can see that i don't put myself particualarly clearly. Apologies.

My friend is right in her judgement, and it doesn't matter if there's no transcendent criteria, no Word of God backing her up. To say that this is just her 'perspective', that her judgement is rooted in her anger, seems to be both true and irrelevant. I know exactly what her judgement implies, and I also know that she's right, not 'right'.

I'm not sure i understand what you mean by this. Do you mean that your friend is right simply because this is what she feels; that as self-chosen, her morality is inherently right? If this is the position you take, then yes, it is irrelevant to give cause for her moral position, as the cause has no matter.

I pointed out the link between anger (or other emotions) and morality because a lot of people use morality as a tool - as a method to disguise their chosen positions as God-given or True, rather than their own relative sets. In this sense, 'right and wrong' are misleading - they convey an imaginary power and haul it as true.

When i say that we can choose how we interpret actions, i don't think i'm saying anything particularly novel or difficult - i simply mean that we are resposible for the way we interpret the world. If we couldn't choose, it wouldn't be interpretation.

Obviously, if i am to say that we interpret the world in a moral sense, then i have to mean 'moral' as in a transcendental sense - we give the world around us certain qualities that are not evident in things, but are somehow true of them.

As there is no way we can 'point to' transcendental factors, they are pretty useless when it comes to debate. I cannot conceive of these things as anything other than a kind of framework that we impose over the world. This framework seems rather arbitrary and, as such, chosen. We can choose whatever framework for the world that we like.

This statement alone can lead to a 'boy in a bubble' ideal of people being able to fully choose how they see the world. This may be true, but i think a person who could do so would be a pretty extreme example. The norm is a set of worldviews which are informed, changed and constrained by determining factors such as our society and language.

However, i don't think anyone could say that the moral views of society are totally restricting of one's personal views. There is a constant process of interaction between our own preferences and desires, and those of society's.

So there is my desire, and there is the desire of each other person. If this meeting of desires (and the subsequent agreements and disagreements of desire) are what is meant by 'morality', then i feel it is perfectly valid to ask my question: 'Why choose a morality?'

Why is it necessary to take my reaction to something (for instance, desire for something) and make that reaction 'moral' (say it is a good thing)? When we say something is right or wrong, do we essentially say that we like or dislike it and that we wish it were the same or different? Why don't we say this?

These are genuine questions. I find the whole moral realm rather confusing. I think that many moral words are so loaded through theur historical use that it would be better to drop them, but i am not totally sure what language would be like if we were to do so. I hate that these words conjour a 'way things should be' and that they are used with so much power, for so little actual meaning, but i'm not quite sure how to express this point well.

I think my position is actually rather similar to yours (as i have read it) - our own positions, desires and preferences are inherently right, because they are the ones we have. However, still think we have chosen them, that we have made them. Every act we commit is a choice and every choice forms who we are and what we think.

I'm just suspicious of the desire to take our personal reactions and build upon them to create moral worlds. I wonder what the desire behind this action is, what it serves us.

Is this any clearer?
 
 
nighthawk
20:40 / 25.09.06
Its not so much your analysis of morality that bothered me - I find it an ambiguous topic myself. It was more the way you phrased your post. I was trying to show that the lack of transcendent values does not mean we're stuck in a subjective free for all.

I'm not sure i understand what you mean by this. Do you mean that your friend is right simply because this is what she feels; that as self-chosen, her morality is inherently right? If this is the position you take, then yes, it is irrelevant to give cause for her moral position, as the cause has no matter.

Not exactly, no. I'm not really fussed about her morality being inherently 'right' just because its hers. Like how I can't be wrong about a wall seeming orange to me, or it seeming to me that I'm in pain, right? Maybe that's true, whatever. I'm more interested in the way she understands her situation, the conclusion she reaches and the language she uses.

I chose her as an example because certain objective facts about her situation mean that she cannot thrive as an individual. She did not choose these facts, nor did she choose the negative effects on her health and well-being; it doesn't really matter how these things seem to her - the effects are material and objective, so far as I can see. With enough imagination she could perhaps 'interpret' them however she wanted, but realistically she's limited by the concrete reality of her situation - its materiality and effect on her body, if you like. Reflecting on it, she tells me that its wrong that she has to do what she does to survive.

My response was more focused on what you said in your first post, but in the your reply you say:

I cannot conceive of these things as anything other than a kind of framework that we impose over the world. This framework seems rather arbitrary and, as such, chosen. We can choose whatever framework for the world that we like.

Now I can understand that seen 'objectively', from a bird's eye view as it were, there is nothing inherently good or bad about my friend's situation. But I don't think she's 'imposing' her evaluation on it, that the framework is arbitrary or in anyway 'chosen'. She outlines the way things are and its effect on her. In order to do so, she is obviously making a value judgement(this is bad not good, these effects are bad for me and not good for me, etc), and speaking from her own 'perspective' (where else could she judge from, she's immersed in the situation), but so what? I think her assessment is correct in any meaningful sense of the term, directly related to her situation, and in no way aribtrary. (It could also be incorrect, incidentally - if she thought that her situation was good because her hard work was ensuring her a place in heaven, I'd say she was wrong).

So when you say:

Why is it necessary to take my reaction to something (for instance, desire for something) and make that reaction 'moral' (say it is a good thing)?

I wonder how else my friend is to assess her situation, if she can't call it good or bad? Should she just outline how things are and leave it at that? Comfort herself with the fact that inherently/objectively things are neither good nor bad? Of course you can qualify it by saying that its only good or bad for her..

Maybe this is where it becomes interesting: when she tells me that noone should have to do what she does. This seems like a universal claim, right? She's talking about the way things should be. I think there's things to say here about shared material interests, a moral community etc, but I'm pretty tired right now so I'll have to pass. Still you can see that I know exactly what she means when she claims the situation is wrong, no? What else could she say - this situation is wrong, but only for me, so don't worry about it. No, she is telling me things should be otherwise.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in a very roundabout way, is that evaluative language and ideas about right and wrong are essential for understanding the world and living our lives. I agree that we should hesitate before reifying our evaluations into something eternal, objective, divine, etc. But I don't think this makes them aribtrary, nor that we can adopt any perspective or interpretation we like.
 
 
nighthawk
20:41 / 25.09.06
Incidentally I probably won't have internet access for the rest of the week, so if I don't respond again its not because I've left the discussion.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
00:15 / 26.09.06
I'm failry ignorant of the source material in a discussion like this, despite several attempts to familiarize myself with it. I have decided to call my state of ignorance Beginner's Mind and count it a strength.

Is it common to, or is there any traction in, describing this critical relativity in terms more similar to, you know, actual physical relativity? That is, to say that a given moral precept is relative is not to squander or dismiss its moral value. It still has value relative to other values. Most values that we encounter in normal human experience are pretty stable, just as most matter is pretty stable. You can still operate within the moral framework that you find most comfortable*.

Also, how does this language apply to actual physical facts like, say, the atomic weight of carbon?

*Sort of like this: I used to work at a commercial nursery where we sold trees. People would drive their trees home in the back of a truck. But trees aren't designed to zip along at 60 mph. It strips off the leaves and snaps the branches and can put the tree into a state of shock that very much resembles mammalian system shock; you have to wrap them in burlap to protect them. Could a moral system be like this? And what are the implications of that?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
00:20 / 26.09.06
Most values that we encounter in normal human experience are pretty stable

That is, moral relativism doesn't let people off the hook when they behave immorally. It takes a lot of "energy" to sufficiently alter the "mass" of a moral "object" enough to change its "state". Is this at all clear?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
00:45 / 26.09.06
Also, is it possible to be right or wrong about the nature of postmodern critical theory?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
00:45 / 26.09.06
I am perfectly serious. Stop laughing at me.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
01:09 / 26.09.06
Qalyn, what is postmodern critical theory, to you? Questions like being right or wrong might not make any sense until you define an object of investigation. Then they still might not make much sense, but them's the breaks.
 
 
whistler
10:58 / 26.09.06
I don't think that we've addressed the concept of 'postmodernism' well enough to be able to talk about it (if indeed we are talking about postmodernism; if we're actually talking about moral relativism perhaps we could change the title and I'll ask to move the below somewhere else).

This is quick and dirty definition of 'postmodernism' as I understand it. I think that the idea of moral relativism can be connected with the postmodern abandonment of meta-narratives or overarching theories (your basic common-or-garden religious or political dogma). Lyotard reckons that rather than trying to impose or work with all-encompassing explanations, it's desirable to seek explanations on a smaller scale, that are more adequate to describe specific situations while not being widely generalisable.

This is my version of a dilemma around postmodern approaches: Scepticism about any claim that one particular perspective, moral, religious or political, can explain all situations seems very sensible to me. This kind of scepticism is important in trying to reach some form of liberatory stance wherein realities and 'truths' are seen as contingent and culturally/historically specific. The kernel of value in this for me is an idea of knowledge as done and made rather than floating somewhere, pre-existing, waiting to be 'discovered'.

However if we rid ourselves of metanarratives altogether, I worry that we'll end up without an ideological leg to stand on. For example, I read Baudrillard's postmodernist approach to images in the media as treating images as randomly floating simulations that are void of any particular content in terms of the 'real' or for that matter, the ideological. My problem with this is that I think that images do tend to carry a certain cultural load. If I treat them as empty simulcra and get rid of metanarrative (such as Marxist-Feminist theory, for example, which might suggest that media images tend to carry and conceal a particular message about gender which is synonymous with capitalist/patriarchal power) it's suddenly really hard to find a platform from which to 'do' ideological criticism of media representations.

To get back to moral relativism: I think that within postmodernism an ideological 'emptiness' voids morality as a concept. A moral framework is possibly much the same thing as a metanarrative - so in my opinion, trying to fit the paradigms (postmodernism and moral values) together won't work. Where I end up with this is that it's desirable to nurture more mess and less absolutism. Lyotard's idea of 'little narratives' and Bruno Latour's advocacy of 'hairy, entangled states of affairs' over 'a universal Science' seem to offer ways forward here.
 
 
Jesse
13:13 / 26.09.06
If I treat them as empty simulcra and get rid of metanarrative (such as Marxist-Feminist theory, for example, which might suggest that media images tend to carry and conceal a particular message about gender which is synonymous with capitalist/patriarchal power) it's suddenly really hard to find a platform from which to 'do' ideological criticism of media representations.

It may be "hard" to find these platforms because I think, quite often, these theories create platforms which they can stand upon. When you cast doubt upon them and really expose them to a genuine deconstructive critique, I think you find that these metaphysical platforms are simply willed into existence by those wishing to do theory. They're little more than the hopes and prayers of a person that enjoys doing criticism.

Ultimately, I think these overarching systems are more than problematic--they are inherently false, products of the overactive imagination of a hopeful structuralist. To claim some sort of ability to step outside of the system and assert some grand, over-arching construct (an oppressive patriarchy, for example, or a universal Althusserian ISA) is absurd, especially when you simultaneously claim that these systems are inescapable.
 
 
Saturn's nod
14:40 / 26.09.06
Ultimately, I think these overarching systems are more than problematic--they are inherently false, products of the overactive imagination of a hopeful structuralist. To claim some sort of ability to step outside of the system and assert some grand, over-arching construct (an oppressive patriarchy, for example, or a universal Althusserian ISA) is absurd, especially when you simultaneously claim that these systems are inescapable.

But, don't most people agree that we are* biological human beings on a small blue planet, the ecological systems of which the actions of our species are stressing close to tolerance? It may be possible for our species to act concertedly in order to make possible a reasonably long-term survival of our species, but it would take an unprecendented co-operative movement. Is that system in any way escapable? Or absurd?
 
 
grant
15:42 / 26.09.06
So I'd assume that calling a point of view "valid" is some more complex judgement involving all those elements - certainly, thats the way I would use it myself, and one which I think is closest to standard english usage.

I was taking the strict definition of "valid" as an important element in deconstruction, which is sort of the tool from which a lot of meta-narrative stuff is built. Is it not?
 
 
grant
15:46 / 26.09.06
In other words, I think there's a game being played with "valid" that's part of the point.

I could be wrong, though.
 
 
whistler
20:20 / 26.09.06
It may be "hard" to find these platforms because I think, quite often, these theories create platforms which they can stand upon. When you cast doubt upon them and really expose them to a genuine deconstructive critique, I think you find that these metaphysical platforms are simply willed into existence by those wishing to do theory. They're little more than the hopes and prayers of a person that enjoys doing criticism.


Jesse, how can marxist feminism be said to have been 'willed into existence' in any way that is less valid than the overarching version of postmodernism that you propose? While it may be tempting to try to sweep the messy, ideological crumbs from the infinitely blank expanses of the all-encompassing postmodern tablecloth, doing so would be a denial of the ideological contexts and content of 'postmodern' cultural forms themselves. (My approach is one of academic feminism as is playfully described by Saturn's Nod here. )

It's difficult to find a platform from which to mount an ideological challenge to postmodernist forms, if one uncritically accepts postmodern terms but as an ideologue, I don't. To be clear, postmodern cultural forms like the juxtaposition of genres and bricollage bring me as much joy as the next woman, but I see the uncritical use of potently commodified, sexualised images of women alongside a detached, 'ironic', intensely apolitical voice in publications like FHM as problematic. The FHM 'version' of postmodern culture is far from a blank simulation and has been theorised as a potential trojan horse for the kind of hypercapitalist, patriarchal hegemonic discourse I think it's important to oppose.

To be clear, I don't mean to say that it's possible to make straightforward assumptions about cultural cause and effect (there's a mini-article about some of these debates in which David Gauntlett explodes some meta-narratives without letting go of ideology entirely here ) but I do think that FHM, the 'lith and Women's Weekly, for example, are ideologically and culturally discrete from one another. They are politically and historically situated texts. My main concern is that the ideological situatedness of perspectives is acknowledged and discussed.

This is why Latour's 'positive constructivism', which opens the possibility of exploring multiple socially constructed 'truths' seems so much more hopeful to me than the ideological void of postmodernism.
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:10 / 27.09.06
In other words, I think there's a game being played with "valid" that's part of the point.

Oh, I see. Hmmm...maybe, at times. I hadn't noticed it that much myself, but I may be being too much of a purist about this, since it is certainly true that people use terms like "logic" in an obviously ideological way, and subsequently dismiss what is said as having anything to do with logic....but I can see how that might be missing the point.
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:24 / 27.09.06
Couple of points about morality.

Why is it necessary to take my reaction to something (for instance, desire for something) and make that reaction 'moral' (say it is a good thing)? - .trampetunia

It isn't necessary, unless you are interested in the well being of other humans (and animals). In which case, while you may not frame your point of view as moral, the process by which one expresses principles is essentially indistinguishable from morality. You aren't forced to do so, but it is pretty hard - and, imo, not at all laudable - to avoid taking any kind of position which would seem like morality to another.

As there is no way we can 'point to' transcendental factors, they are pretty useless when it comes to debate. I cannot conceive of these things as anything other than a kind of framework that we impose over the world. This framework seems rather arbitrary and, as such, chosen. We can choose whatever framework for the world that we like.

This is true, in a sense, but I'm also surprised at how people who say this sort of thing aren't also completely astonished at the uniformity of these factors. OK, societies and cultures have a lot of differences, but if the moral framework were truly arbitrary then why hasn't there been much more difference? I find the evolutionary psychology model plausible (if not really supported), so thats where I am coming from and I think that we tend to implicitly accept that humans have basic needs and wants, which it is right to respect, while making a very big deal out of the differences we do see. This is rather like the phenomenon where a northern italian will describe the vast difference with the south of italy, whereas to many outsiders the noticeable differences are outweighed by the many similarities.
 
 
StarWhisper
13:42 / 01.10.06



Whistler what you wrote makes a lot of sense. That a narrative which conflicts with your needs (to be validated, seen as an equal etc) should be resisted looks like a great platform to start from in terms of finding a moral grounding or forming an opinion.

I don't see the difference between Latours positive constructivism and a post-modern theoretical vacuum. I don't know the difference between multiple social truths and relative perspectives.
Haven't got round to the David Gauntlett article yet though.

To an extent is it possible to say that every classification is absurd and the product of an (overactive) imagination if you take classification as the operative word here.
- Although things must operate as common sense (meta-narrative) dictates most of the time.
Thinking about the statement ‘the sun is both pink and purple’, although a nonsense statement, it makes sense, or rather has a meaning and a context in which it makes sense, that is, within a narrative such as this one.

The sentence is both meaningless and meaningful?

Seems that if this is just a problem of the way in which words are used and understood then it is still relevant to morality in post- modern theory.


If this is the case? Then to say you are doing anything for any reason without placing what you mean into a framework of other meanings or interpretations makes it largely irrelevant?

I really wish I could get to post here more often.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:13 / 03.10.06
'Post Modern' is very problematic.

Art and architecture - more simple: a period coming after the modernist one, in which the ideas of various modernist schools are rejected, updated, melded... etc.

Sociology - that stage coming after 'modernity', an era whose precise characteristics depend on who you talk to, and whose end may or may not have come. Modernity may or may not have a spatial location - it may be that there are places where it simply hasn't arrived yet, and it's only proponents who would wish to claim that it has. In which case 'postmodernity' becomes... distant. Or it may be that postmodernity is the condition of mingled developmental stages, or the condition of not having developmental stages as you understand there is no teleological progression, no distinct eras except in human taxonomies... and so on.

Then there's the textual analysis someone mentioned earlier, and a bunch of other ways of thinking and critiquiing/criticising/theorising... the problem comes when all these are lumped together into a very large ball of conflicting and re-mixed, abstracted, embedded, (mis)/(dis)-applied (de)contextualised (re)/(de)constructedness.

Reading this thread, everyone seems to be way ahead of me, so I'll stop there. The point being... when it gets too much, get off the bus and have a cup of coffee or a cold drink. Eat. Read a book which you just plain like. Kick a ball or smell a flower. Find yourself again before you go back in. I find the perspective helpful.
 
  

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