2020-09-15 Cynical Theories

1 Postmodernism

Principles

knowledge - we are all solipsists

politics - society properly viewed is a pure power game

Themes

blurring of boundaries

e.g. sexuality

power of language

> In practice, deconstructive approaches to language therefore look very much like nitpicking at words in order to deliberately miss the point. - p. 41

cultural relativism

No critique of one culture by another is legitimate, rather it is assumed to be motivated by a will to power.

loss of individual and universal

As per Mike Nayna "we are merely playthings of the power gods", thus not individuals in any meaningful way. Universal concepts like "human" and "truth" are Trojan horses for power grabs.

Postmodernism is widely thought to have died out by the mid 80's, but that just marked the passing of its high deconstructive phase. Rather it evolved into an activism focused applied postmodern phase.

2 Postmodernism's Applied Turn

The high deconstructive phase ended much as an overly virulent virus dies out, by too quickly killing its host and by failing to jump out of academia.

Theory

A set of beliefs about what knowledge is. Knowledge isn't about a culturally neutral objective understanding of reality (which Theory believes to be impossible). Rather knowledge is a construction of language exclusively intended to support the oppressive power of its possessors. The morally right stance to knowledge is to tear it down by any means necessary in service of the oppressed.

The applied postmodernists modified Theory to assert that certain oppressed identities are in fact objectively oppressed and that for moral reasons, their knowledge should not be subject to deconstruction.

Bedrock principle

As the Enlightenment deconstructed Catholicism, it needed a rational bedrock to replace faith in the Church as a basis for belief and philosophy. In 1637 Rene Decarte wrote in "Discourse on the Method":

> Je pense, done je suis

later translated to Latin as

> Cogito, ergo sum.

as a response to the radical skepticism the Enlightenment released into the world.

The postmodernists have done something similar in response to the radical deconstruction they employ.

> I experience oppression, therefor I am ... and so are dominance and oppression. - p.52

Identifying (and deifying) the oppressor-oppressed systems in the world has become the applied postmodern project. Dissolving the false narratives of oppressive language without dissolving the identities of oppressor/oppressed themselves is the needle the applied postmodernists attempt to thread. This attempt began with post colonialist, then feminists, then the other oppression studies disciplines.

Kimberlie Chrenshaw preserves the oppressed saying there is an important difference between a "black person" and a "person who happens to be black".

Recently fat and disabled studies have adapted a radical postmodern epistemology asserting that negative views of obesity and treating the disabled as "lacking" something is itself evidence of oppression.

The Turn

From a descriptive "is" to a proscriptive "ought". The high deconstructive phase described a nihilistic reality, the applied phase proscribed a moral duty to social justice activism. The method is via control of discourse. With the applied turn, the postmodern based social justice world view has been reified. Not per se, but in its manifestations in grievance studies. Many now accept that white supremecy and patriarchy are supernatural substrates of our world.