There was a bunch of dense, impenetrable academic word games that seemed to be asserting that all truth is culturally relative.
I don't find gravity or physics to be culturally relative.
Postmodernism is rooted in the notion that there is no indisputable base axiom from which we can build our understanding of the world. It's unprovable assumptions all the way down. The consequences for this, if you accept it (you don't have to, but you're going to have a hell of a time proving you're right), are ENORMOUS and affect virtually every field of human understanding.
In the sciences we tend to start from the assumption that what we measure is real. As a practical matter, that's fine, but there is no sound rational basis for that assumption. It's an unprovable assumption.
All of our value systems (and by extension, our social systems) are founded on unprovable assumptions.
This is the essence of postmodernism, in so many words. There are no sound assumptions. The best we can do is say what follows from one assumption or another, but we can never say which conclusion is right because we can never say which assumption is right.
The implications of this can be particularly disturbing for rule-oriented individuals, but that doesn't make it wrong. It's irrational to claim that some assumptions are better than others without some basis (in which case, they are no longer assumptions).
The fact that no axiom stands by itself does not change the fact that when you subscribe to a set of axioms, you can't deny their consequences. What is rational merely changes, and honestly, the older definition always felt kind of crazy.
Can you show that what we measure is not real? If you can’t prove anything one way or the other, who cares? Why even bother with this line of thinking?
Yes, postmodernism is in a sense very theoretical and I would also say the word itself has been misused or used too broadly in ways, but the essense of it definitely is a step further from the previous default.
Yes, just buy any book on the epistemology of measurement.
Do you realize how nonsensical that question is? I cannot show by measurement that I cannot show things by measurement. It's tautological.
Postmodernism doesn't assert that measurements aren't real. It asserts that we cannot know if they are. It is, in a sense, an extension of epistemological skepticism to its extreme conclusion.
Empiricism solved this issue. You will very quickly learn if your assumptions are wrong by testing them in reality. This is what is meant by "feels over reals" and the opposite. Your assumptions, beliefs, or axioms - no matter how fondly held - will be crushed under the infinite weight of reality.
Modernism is closer to being a parody of enlightenment values.
I mean do you really think that Descartes, who supposedly came up with most of his ideas while sick in bed and staring at a spider on his wall, would think it was a good idea for everyone to get their news from the Facebook news feed?
I don't really buy the postmodernist argument, and more or less agree with Empiricism.
However, I don't think you can dismiss the postmodernist argument. I cannot prove that Empiricism is correct.
> Empiricism solved this issue. You will very quickly learn if your assumptions are wrong by testing them in reality. This is what is meant by "feels over reals" and the opposite. Your assumptions, beliefs, or axioms - no matter how fondly held - will be crushed under the infinite weight of reality.
This is simply begging the question -- whether reality is real. That's not a question you can just skip over if you're claiming to be rigorous in your analysis.
This isn't particularly shocking to anybody familiar with the history of science. Newton's model was wrong but useful, for example. All software is wrong but useful models of the world. (Well, some of it is wrong and useless, but you know what I mean.)
Postmodern analysis comes from different fundamentals, and they do enjoy wordplay. They're also much more concerned with social models of reality, especially implicit ones, and how power affects and is affected by the models in use. Sturgeon's Law applies, of course, but no more so than anywhere else.
It seems to me that the postmodernism movement correctly called attention to social models being somewhat arbitrary and power-based but then (motivated by ideological agendas?) ran with the ball to say this means all cultures are equally worthy (where worthy means "should be promoted").
To use an exaggerated example, I cannot accept that eg an oppressive ultrareligious culture that practices infanticide, genital mutilation and wife beating is equally as worthy as eg a peace-and-love hippie commune. A philosophy devoid of value judgements is just nihilism wearing different pants.
That's a misrepresentation. It's actually fairly interesting where that misrepresentation originated from (hint: it was propaganda from totalitarian movements).
It's a reaction to modernist assumption that "absolute truth" is possible for any question, and in particular, how often that truth _just happened_ to be personal taste of some dude (brutalism (I personally like brutalism) and modernist architecture in general are probably the most obvious examples).
For sure, there have been explorations into pretty much every field, with varying success. In science, though, that relativity is more oriented towards establishing what theories get investigated, than the actual result (for example, how many investigations of liberalism in political science completely ignored the racial aspect of it, and its rather dismal history in that respect, or various - thankfully largely defunct by now - excustions into phrenology, eugenics, and similar woo).
So, modernism isn't "all models are valid." It's "you can't just declare that your model is the bestest because you like it/it's 'simple'/it's 'elegant'/it happens to declare Helvetica to be the objectively best font."
You, sir, are a scoundrel and a heretic.
But no, I think you'll find practitioners of postmodernism are perfectly capable of making value judgments. They just make using different frameworks and different criteria than the the people who came before them.
But isn't relativity all about your frame of reference?
(sorry)