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Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

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I keep seeing this retort but I never see anyone explain where those who criticize postmodernism are wrong nor do I see a clearer explanation of postmodernist ideas. I just see content-free dismissals like "middle-brow" and re-iterations of similar word salad to the link posted here.

Tell me on what basis a postmodernist would argue against a Klansman.

IMHO pomo is the humanities' analog to what string theory is in physics or cryptocurrency hype is in tech: a trendy cancer that hijacked the minds of a generation and doesn't deliver anything.

It doesn't even deliver progress in the area of social justice. All the progress in social justice was made by previous generations of civil rights leaders and movements who were absolutely not postmodernists, cultural relativists, or believers in any strong form of identity politics. Social justice started to retreat culturally precisely when pomo and hard identity politics (a closely related ideology) took over academia: the 70s.

I mean liberals and other modern intellectuals have been asleep at the switch so long that monarchism is making a comeback. That's analogous to seeing measles outbreaks among anti-vaxxers.

Postmodernism is not a coherent philosophy so much as a reaction to the failures of positivism (i.e. everything can be scientifically justified). That's part of the reason you don't see clear explanations of postmodernism, because it's a vague nebulous cloud of things that are roughly related, rather than a singular school of thought. In that same vein, it doesn't make sense to talk about how a hypothetical "postmodernist" would respond to a klansman. Many different people would have radically different responses, ranging from complete condemnation, to contextual condemnation, to (rare) equanimity.

I don't intend this dismissively, but so much of your post suggests fundamental misunderstandings of what postmodernism is that it's difficult to have a discussion. Personally I found it easier to engage with understanding PM from the anthropology side, where they don't get as much into the ridiculous language used by the philosophy and the lit. people. Here's a simple introduction that goes over most of your questions in understandable terms without being insultingly simplified: https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/postmodernism-and-its-cri...

I'd say I disagree with almost all of: "(1) an elevation of text and language as the fundamental phenomena of existence, (2) the application of literary analysis to all phenomena, (3) a questioning of reality and representation, (4) a critique of metanarratives, (5) an argument against method and evaluation, (6) a focus upon power relations and hegemony, and (7) a general critique of Western institutions and knowledge (Kuznar 2008:78)".

I would say:

(1) That's "flat Earth" silly.

(2) Also very silly and oddly chauvinist.

(3) Not sure how to interpret this. If the claim is that there is metaphysically no objective reality, then all claims are false including the claim that all claims are false. If it's interpreted as an encouragement to question our model of reality, then it's a non-point since that's what all intellectuals and scientists do already.

(4) This has merit but is by no means unique to postmodern thought.

(5) This is silly. How then can you criticize Western culture? Doesn't that take a method and imply some kind of evaluation?

(6) I agree completely, but this is also not unique to postmodern thought. In fact I would argue that challenges to power as a rationale or argument for truth is a central feature of enlightenment thought, which is why virtually all modern progress in social justice was made prior to pomo coming into vogue. The only exception is gay rights, and that was on the inertia of the civil rights movement and using the same narratives and arguments.

(7) What were the enlightenment and the Protestant reformation if not major criticisms of central aspects of Western culture by members of that culture? From what I've seen most intellectuals in most cultures primarily criticize their own culture since that's what they know and is what is most relevant to them. If the point instead is to argue that only Western culture can be criticized, that insane.

There are two possibilities here: either this is as asinine as it appears, or there are good ideas but they are being communicated very poorly to the point that they are incomprehensible. Both are failure modes for any school of thought.

Furthermore I would add that if you follow these sorts of ideas to their logical endpoint you end up a reactionary, not a progressive. The primary argument of the reactionaries is and always has been the futility of human knowledge and reason. It's so obvious that I've even wondered if Derrida et. al. weren't crypto-reactionaries attempting to Trojan horse academia with reactionary metaphysical premises, though this verges dangerously close to oddball conspiracy theory territory. It's more likely that they were either crackpots or were misunderstood by essentially everyone. Maybe something was totally botched in the French-English translation of their ideas and the badly translated version stuck.

It's a student guide written for other undergrad anthropology students, so we should read it in that light and make affordances for imprecise language and a lack of generality.

In that light, what is it describing postmodernism for? Simply put, it's a [set of] frameworks through which to analyze the kinds of things anthropologists work with. This an important because many of the issues you're seeing are the direct result of trying to extrapolate beyond this academic heritage.

So from an academic anthropology standpoint:

1. Is definitely not flat earth silly. To give some context, prior to PM in the 70s, anthropologists were doing silly things like measuring the amount of food on the table every day and how many knives were in the cupboard. That's nice quantitative data, but it doesn't really tell you much about culture or human behavior. Thinking of language and text as fundamental aspects of culture and behavior is much better, though I personally have some quibbles with that focus.

2. Specific to anthropology and a bit of academic vogue here.

3. Remember that this is an academic framework for analyzing academic things. In anthropology, sometimes people all see the same physically impossible thing, or see different things despite observing bthe same physical events, etc. To deal with this, sometimes it's useful just to view things as if people are in different realities and observing different things. It's not a claim on the real underlying epistemology.

4. Virtually everything academic from the last 40-50 years has been influenced in some way by post modernism. Bit of a Seinfeld effect here.

5. They have a section later about methodologies of postmodernism. Yes, it's a bit ironic.

6. Same as 4, but you're right that it's not unique. Doesn't have to be.

7. This is specific to academia, which was (and largely still is) made up of very much Western derived institutions. Specifically, this is about things like "maybe the structure of our institutions leads us to certain types of research design and valuing certain types of information over others" and "maybe other ways of organizing academia / research / knowledge might also lead to useful results". It's not to suggest the only target for criticism should be Western institutions, merely that they're not the only way to do things and might be improved.

As for whether the ideas of PM are being miscommunicated, sure, I'm open to the idea. But there are also millions of people in academia who do get it. Since we all know academics can be remarkably stupid, it's not an intelligence gap. Maybe it's just something that doesn't make sense without practical experience in the kinds of problems it's designed to help?

Okay, yours is the first answer that made any sense. It's also the first time I've ever seen anyone claim that postmodernism is specifically speaking to anthropologists about how to approach anthropology. In that context it's at least not absurd, especially if counting cutlery was what it was addressing. All the statements I listed make quite a lot more sense if given that context.

The reason I'm a bit peeved in these replies is that I do have a powerful sense that the humanities in academia have lost their relevance by going down a path that is increasingly insular, alienating, and unproductive, and that this has had a role in ceding the cultural ground to reactionaries, fascists, and other kinds of actively destructive irrationalists. That's why elsewhere I make the analogy to string theory, a fad that seems as if it's been fruitless and has derailed physics.

In short I've blamed pomo for why there is a resurgence of racism, reactionary ideology, and stuff like the anti-vaxx movement. Not only does this stuff result in an intellectual class that speaks gibberish that nobody but them understands, it also at least superficially sounds as if it's legitimizing the idea that "all opinions are of equal merit." That means if I don't want to vaccinate my kids because Alex Jones said so, my opinion is equal to that of an epidemiologist because cultural relativism.

Edit: I realized there's a more pointed way of saying what I said above: I am not sure you can try to argue that all cultures are equivalent and equal without implicitly asserting the same about all ideas within one's own culture. This is because cultures and boundaries between them are fluid. So if it isn't possible to criticize cultures, it's also not possible to say that Richard Spencer's ideas are worse than Martin Luther King's or that Alex Jones' opinion on vaccination should not be equal to that of an epidemiologist. Nothing is true and everything is permitted.

My observation has been that the left prototypes nonsense and then the right deploys it at scale. So the left first pioneered relativism and critiques of reason and evidence, but it's the right that has run with these ideas and used them to re-legitimize racism and lead a renaissance of interest in traditionalist monarchy. Maybe the left should stop prototyping nonsense to begin with if for no other reason than to stop giving weapons to those who ought not have them. It's the same reason you don't give plutonium to ISIS. I truly do not believe that dullards like Richard Spencer or Pat Buchanan have the capacity to originate a cultural zeitgeist any more than ISIS can build an enrichment centrifuge, but they sure can use the final product if it's handed to them.

I'm not going to say you're wrong. A number of very loud voices have argued essentially that about broader academia. However, I think it's an argument essentially captured in the term "ivory tower", which began being used for academics in the 1800s. It's a pretty old argument.

Personally, I think it's exactly the opposite issue. Academia became too involved in social conflicts and found itself in the crosshairs. Think about what else was happening in the 70s-80s? Lots of social unrest, especially involving young students advocating radical ideas. What easier thing to attack than their radical schools, teaching them that reality doesn't even exist?

But more to the point, let's assume your argument is true. Academics can't really go back to the positivist position. Many of those results were trash. We don't want to stay with postmodernism either. It's not total garbage, but math is way easier to verify than some dude's stupid interpretation of some other dude's random babbling. Plus, you can make computers do math really fast. You can't make a computer analyze text in a postmodernist framework (yet). So, over the past 30ish years what you'd probably want to see is what's been happening: Academics finding a bunch of middle ground between the two where they can still be productive, without losing the human side of PM.

I am willing to entertain the idea that postmodernism has been misunderstood, but I still consider that a bit of an indictment. If a few people misunderstand you, it's their failure. If everyone misunderstands you, it's your failure. Even worse the misunderstanding here is extremely destructive. It's a misunderstanding that enables the worst of the worst of the intellectual landscape.

I feel like some people wear "nobody understands me" as a badge of distinction. This is wrong. If nobody understands you, you're a poor communicator.

> I think it's an argument essentially captured in the term "ivory tower", which began being used for academics in the 1800s. It's a pretty old argument.

I suppose it is an old argument, but I don't think that invalidates it. I think it's always been true and what we're seeing is the gradual unfolding of the consequences. Of course I still do believe that the ivory tower has become more tower-like in recent years, especially in the humanities. Why is Jordan Peterson so popular? Where are the public intellectuals who are not crackpots or misogynists to answer the deep life questions of all these disenchanted people who otherwise flock to people like him?

Science and engineering papers are impenetrable too, but those at least yield end products that have results in the world outside academia. At the most base level academia can always petition for their continued existence on the grounds that they are necessary to maintain military superiority. That's a narrow rationale, but if all else fails it's not wrong and it at least grounds academia in society somehow.

I think academia has to either come down from the ivory tower or the tower will fall when the masses inspired by a tweet by the first American Emperor lynch them all for promoting vaccination.

I agree that we can't go back to the positivist position, but it's also not clear to me that positivism is wholly wrong. It seems to work really well in certain domains. What we need is to examine the domains where it doesn't work and decide if we need to refine it, expand upon it, or realize that its domain is in fact limited and come up with new methods for other domains. "Anti-method" is not a method, so that's not an answer. That's giving up on the question.

Great link. Thanks.

That list of "Rosenau’s Guidelines for Deconstruction Analysis", though... I get that Rosenau is a critic, but wow, does he ever make deconstruction sound like bad-faith, deliberately obscure, intending to impede actual understanding, and a complete waste of everyone's time in the name of trying to grab attention for one's self. And, I suspect, in many cases the criticism is very much on point.

I have a much less nuanced view of "postmodernists" [1]; without fail, every single person I know who's really leaned into any form of "postmodernism" and would describe themselves as such is depressed, nihilistic, and functionally not very useful. They typically don't participate in things I think are fundamentally necessary for society (namely food production and distribution, construction, medicine, and law), and many are also anti-natalist. On the whole I find that their social circles are filled with self-aggrandizing narcissists. (Not unique to philosophy, of course.)

I realize that criticizing a theory based on its adherents is puerile, but I can't help but notice that on the whole I find everything that comes from "postmodernists" to be distasteful and damaging to the "uneducated" person's mental well-being. Their architecture is bleak and divisive; their music is grating and non-melodic; their art is challenging and uncomfortable, and their philosophy is bleak and depressing.

[1] = I have put "postmodernists" and "postmodernism" in quotes because it seems pretty difficult to actually define what it is and who believes in it.

> I realize that criticizing a theory based on its adherents is puerile

I disagree that it's puerile. I think looking at the makeup of the adherents of an ideology and the result it seems to have when played out is very important and meaningful. Ideas have consequences, and observing them tells you a lot about the ideas. Anything can sound good in isolation and if presented in the right way.

A major reason that I reject the pomo line of thinking is looking at its outcome: a broad retreat of enlightenment and post-enlightenment thought and liberalism ever since it came into vogue, and the corresponding resurgence of reactionary and totalitarian ideologies in that same time period. It's clear to me that it's either pure nonsense or if there is some good idea in there it is being communicated so poorly it is having no beneficial effect.

Personally I think part of the reactionary resurgence is that in comparison to pomo word salad reactionary ideology sounds sane, reasonable, and relevant. They've set the bar really low, especially when it comes to relevance. I have never read any pomo tract that could possibly have any relevance to anyone who isn't a cloistered academic with a desire to write and echo similar tracts.

Can you name some musicians, artists, architects, philosophers? What are you talking about? This post is hilarious, you’re acting like studying French philosophy is doing fentanyl or something.

Certainly. A classic example of a "postmodern" composer is John Adams, whose magnum opus could be considered the piece "El Nino", which modern critics have compared to Handel's "Messiah". I encourage you to listen to the "El Nino" front-to-back. During Handel's "Messiah", many audiences developed a tradition of standing during the Hallelujah chorus and singing along in four-part harmony; the piece, even at the time recognized as a triumphant achievement of one of the best living composers, could be easily participated in by the everyman, as long as they could carry a tune.

Is the El Nino as approachable? Does it marry the general non-studied audience with the music of the most-trained (in that case Handel, in this case John Adams)? Even looking at some of the farther out-there modernist composers, who came before the postmodernists (Charles Ives, Schoenberg, Cage, Shostakovich), you can see that they're writing bizarre, anti-melodic rejections of music that audiences have traditionally liked (read: music that audiences can hum after they're done listening). Charles Ives's father taught him to sing in one key and play in another, and said that children in the future would be whistling tunes in semi-tones.

And who have they inspired? People like Steve Reich and Phillip Glass. Listen to Four Organs and let me know if you think that we should reject the melodies of the past as the antiquated drivel of delusional Euro-supremacist royalists in favor of what the modernists, postmodernists, and the "post-post-modernists" have to offer us. If you think I'm exaggerating, you don't know enough academic musicians. (I do, however, freely admit that there are plenty left who appreciate both the old and the new; not every modern musician claims that we should cease playing Beethoven altogether. I myself like bits and pieces of each of the composers I've just named; the attitude I am criticizing is not that their music should exist at all, but more the attitude of the people I know who claim that their music should replace the earlier composers.)

I have many friends who have professionally studied music, and the more obtuse and obsessed with "new sounds" they get, the more insufferable and critical of historically popular music they become. It's as if they're deliberately driving a wedge between the musically non-educated and the musically educated. This wouldn't be too much of an issue if it hadn't started to spread into other fields that the public has no control over, like architecture, on which I could write another comment of equal length, although with somewhat less authority because I only personally know a few architects, whereas I've been studying music as an amateur and interacting with professional musicians for 20 years.

What I find most ironic is that these stalwart critics of western tradition, architecture, philosophy, and music, are the first to embrace the traditions of other cultures. Some of my acquaintances will spend an entire visit to Chicago complaining about the reductive and inequitable American architectural tradition, or criticize the cathedrals and castles of Europe, and then turn on a time and talk about how beautiful the palaces, mosques, and temples of the Middle and Far East are. It's maddening.

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