Is post-modernism inherently contradictory?

[Corax]

Just wondering.

[keithschnak]

Yes, I think that in a lot of respects it is. I also don't think it's that productive to invoke the "c word" as a condemnation of post-modernism, as I don't think very many post modernists would care about the c word. It's like calling an atheist ungodly.

[Brendo]

Yes... or is it? What is "contradiction", really?

[AhhAlegra]

-- You're talking without saying anything.
-- No, you're talking without saying anything.
-- You are the one who is talking without saying anything.
-- Look out for the potted plant!

- Ionesco, "Foursome"

[patio11]

There is no potted plant, there is only the discourse of the potted plant.

Patrick McKenzie

[Brendo]

Why must you oppress me with your stucturalist assumption of a "subjective"-"objective" dichotomy?

SOme of us don't fit into your little box, Jed.

Ya' know why?

Because maybe there is no "box"!

Ha!

Ha?

[Brendo]

"..."

*Note* That last quote was ironic... or was it?

[scooter]

Look out for the potted plant!


By placing the plant in the pot instead of the pot serving as a base for the plant, you assume a power relationship. That same relationship could not exist outside of the lines of discourse. By placing your discursive schema unto the plant you assume the centrism of your own discourse, while simultaneously forcing the plant to become a peformative agent within the same. Of course, the irony is that the plant has no will of its own as it has no language, and can not even negotiate its way out of the path of the power of the pot, and your sick, demented, and twisted ways.

You warped and psychotic plant potter assmunch.

S
BTW: I actually dig POMO. Just not potted plants.

[Liz]

Potted plants-how bourgoise...
Don't you know that potted plants are simply the manifestation of your regressively sublimated desires for industrial society to be destroyed by the natural forces it subverts through fragmentation and alienation?
Mankind's collective wish/fear for/of death at the hands of our own excessive consumption and hedonism is held tentatively at bay by the organizations and structures we create to care for our potted plants. How would you express your death wish in a world without potted plants? Or Post-structuralism?
Damn, I wonder if I can write a 30 page paper about potted plants and post-structural philosphy?

[AhhAlegra]

Dude, you guys are scary, take it up with Ionesco and the other Theater of the Absurd guys.

[jatkins]

I'd use the word "dumb." That is, the postmodernism I have been exposed to in debate rounds. This may or may not resemble actual, philosophical postmodernism. Is the "normative conclusions = illegitimate" school of thought generally postmodernist? Or is this just people misidentifying their kritiks?

My first response ever in a round to a kritik attacking normative conclusions (in a point of information): "I'm sorry, did you sign up for some other event? This is debate. What were you looking for?" I'm ashamed to say I lost that round.* And deservedly so. The judge dropped us at least in part because of the rudeness of that point.

*This shame would not differentiate that particular moment from the rest of my life.

[keithschnak]

I think postmodernism is more than just challenging assumptions--I would say that most forms of philosophy do that in one way or another. In my (limited) understanding, postmodernism means rejecting all claims of Truth.

[jatkins]

Originally posted by tutakai
Well, even under that definition of post-modernism it is still contradictory and incoherent to ask the judge to sign a ballot based on your arguments...

You see, this was the reason for which I gave the response that got me in trouble. DEBATE is about taking COMPETING IDEAS and determining WHICH ONE IS RIGHT. The very POINT OF DEBATE is denied by post-modernism under this definition.

One can challenge assumptions through classical dialectic. Socrates engaged almost exclusively in challenging assumptions. Post-modernism, as I have seen it, does not challenge assumptions. It says that assumptions exist, and that their existence does one or more of the following 1) Destroys the human capacity to communicate objective truth, 2) Destroys human agreement on consensual subjective truth that isn't really "objective" truth anyway, and/or 3) Destroys the possibility of objective truth existing in the universe whatsoever since the nature and existence of all things is inherently derived from what we believe about those things, and what we believe is, for the aforementioned reasons, inherently flawed.

Here are a couple of responses I'm toying with but need to pare down.

1)They freely assert their postmodernism position, so as ethical debaters, they have to live with all of the ramifications of it. It is unethical to assert two contradictory positions, because to do so subverts the truth in favor of persuasive advantage. So the opp must give up either their postmodernism kritik or their disadvantages (disadvantages are normative claims about "good" and "bad"). They cannot claim that our ads are normative and illegitimate and that their disads are not.

2)The Judge must fill in the blank space in this sentence: In my opinion, the better debating was done by --blank--. The postmodernism assertion denies debate. It is inherently not debate. Because it denies all points of reference it is infinitely regressive and thus not debatable. It is the anti-debate. And I would argue that unless you literally disbelieve the reality of everything that exists and assume nothing to be true (in which case you have either reached Buddhist enlightenment or are an eggplant), you must agree that certain things are different, and that philosophical concepts have opposites, and that opposing concepts are, by definition, not the same as each other--that they are, rather, as dissimilar as two concpets can be--and that thus, the anti-debate that is postmodernist analysis must be counted against the "debate value" of the opposition case. This seems complicated, but it's actually simple: If one is evaluating somebody on how good they are at keeping other people alive, one would agree that the person who provides food and medical care to their patients is superior to the one who murders them with a hatchet.

[scooter]

"That is, the postmodernism I have been exposed to in debate rounds. This may or may not resemble actual, philosophical postmodernism. Is the "normative conclusions = illegitimate" school of thought generally postmodernist? Or is this just people misidentifying their kritiks"

**Response: No, that's not postmodernism. From what I have seen for the most part in the explanation of most (not all, just most) rounds, that's not postmodernism. That's called crap. It does no justice to the complexity and richness of the field.

1) It's grounded in the biases of the post-modern "analyst" more often than it is grounded in anything genuinely present in the text or, Richard Ashley forbid, the authors' actual intent (most debate "kritiks" are just dressed-up appeals to the judge's presumed biases also);

**Response: Differ. What is the end product? The ability to analyze the "thing" or the discourse by which we come to arrive at the conclusion of that definition? Which one matters? I find the analysis of the importance of the discourse that sorrounds the eventual rendering of "the meaning of the text" to be quite worth while (yes, Foucauldian concepts, do indeed lend themselves to such an anlaysis of the intersection of language and power, in much a richer meaning than just "Power :: bad; Foucault :: Ban-Roll-On head-- I can say that, we look like each other now). That is, if one is defining the "worth" of analysis to only be the text, than yes, postmodernism (as noted in the terms of Cultural Studies, see Goldberg) may not work. But for those concerned with the aspects of how dialogue creates and then recreates meaning as the text itself (see Shotter) it is rich and detailed stuff-- stuff that illustrates a lot about communication. That focus on the process of communication is a vital part of an analysis, and does indeed teach us about some elements of ontology, or at least how communication creates reality/the Self (see Berger and Luckman). Further, I don't think that the intent of a piece is procluded as a major factor just in POMO; didn't Kors Campbell actually-- and repeatedly-- call for not focusing on such an issue, and I don't believe that she identifies or would be regarded as POMO).

2) While post-moderns claim to examine others' assumptions, they are quite forceful in their refusal to examine their own (or the judges), thus calling into question whether their real motivations are intellectual expansion or instrumental exploitation of shared normative assumptions

**Response: I don't know about judges as (see above) I have to see POMO really addressed in a round. I do believe that a postmodern scholar (see Thich, Collier, Nakayama, hooks, Butler, and many others) do actually recommend doing what you note. I would suggest that "The Postmodern Self" by Shrag (?) investigates the importance of investigating the assumptions that we ourselves take for granted (thus, when Ringer notes that we reconsider, even if one identifies as Queer, what it is to be Queer and how one arrives at that determination)-- thus at least some POMO authors do indeed suggest such a process of analysis. Simply, Jason, personally, I find myself and see other identified POMO communication scholars doing so, but it may just be me.

3) Even if we grant out the content of their "analysis", post-moderns rarely if ever provide a suggested alternative with any degree of specificity -- empty phrases like "rejecting normativity" or "imagining a better world" only highly the lack of actual content to any alternative. In particular, post-moderns always refuse to provide any insights on how to "reject" the things that are so subtle and embedded that they escape any but the post-modernist's attention. In the debate world, many kritiks can be revealed as counterplans premised on a non-unique normative disad but without an actual, like, counterplan on how to address it.

**Response: I do agree with that contention. I do think that there have been some clear advances made in the terms of sexual politics and POMO (even,some noting, that the performance and discourse surrounding Transgendered folk links to POMO, or at least a Queering of the discourse); these same fields are more apt to note the importance of applied and direct action as, well, it's prime and current to do so (see Vaid for some examples of such). But yes, the applied portion has been noted to be missing from the POMO discourse.

In short, I find it a rich and complex field, full of possibility, esp. in terms of sexuality (of which I would think that Jason agrees to some extent with his referencing of Foucault) but that applied portion (as noted above) is a bit a sticking point. Then again, what is your definition of applied, one could ask, as discourse itself is a form of an applied function of discovery and investigation.

S

[GabeRosenberg]

It seems to me that the question "What does postmodernism say about..." seems to creep up on this and other boards every so often. I always find them intriguing to read.

I'm always interested to find the wide range of thinkers who we choose to regard as "postmodern" despite the fact that many are critically and fundamentally at odds with each other. Deconstructionism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, and post-colonialism all seem to me to have distinct meanings--though they are undoubtedly related--but they are readily conflated under the single heading. To those who issue the question and those who criticize and defend postmodernism, I have to wonder: why do you use that term and what do you mean by it?

Keithshnak, for example, regards postmodernism, apparently, as rejecting all claims of Truth. I assume, perhaps falsely, he is averring to Lyotard's famous definition of postmodernism as incredulity towards all grand narratives. On the other hand he also, according to his post in this thread's sister thread, sees it as licensing "doing whatever you want." This is a peculiar interpretation given Lyotard's explicit rejection of that idea--Just Gaming and the Postmodern Condition both advance a tangible, if flawed, theory of ethics--and misunderstands quite fundamentally what Lyotard meant by the phrase.

Jatkins, on the other hand, believes the definition to relate to willingness to reject all normative assumptions, which, I think, is something a little bit different then rejecting all claims of Truth. This too might accurately describe some postmodernists--as it apparently describes some reportedly postmodern critiques in debate rounds--but it surely doesn't describe, for example, Foucault. I agree that many simplistic readings of Foucault paint his contribution as saying "power = bad," but he explicitly forswears this interpretation on several occasions. Equally inexplicable is the belief that "postmodern" thought licenses all behavior, when any number of "postmodern" thinkers spend much of their time trying to build ethical systems.

All of the indictments on this thread--included therein Keith, Jason, and John--fail to locate specific theorists, but instead critique the vague and amorphous blob of "postmodernism." Frankly, I don't find the term "postmodern" particularly helpful and think that it is becoming progressively less helpful. I wonder if critics of postmodernism would be willing to give specific textual examples of their indictments. I may be asking a bit much: Jason is critiquing his colleagues and John is critiquing kritiks he's heard, so it’s difficult for them to give textual examples. Nevertheless, I think "postmodernism" is as much an easy scarecrow as it is an easy way to fake critical thinking, and would urge everyone to be specific to particular thinkers when they indict such, as Scooter has suggested, a diverse and complex body of thought.

I'm also interested by Jason's experience in the academy. I don't doubt his claims, but I find his experience to be substantially different then my own. Of the 15 first-year PhD students in my class, only three of us, I would say, are particularly interested in "theory" (by theory, historians generally mean what I think this discussion has chosen to classify as "postmodern" theory). I can count 6 who are actively disinterested and dislike theory. Of the 6 professors I've been exposed to, 2 were particularly theory savvy, 2 were largely neutral, and 2 were actively opposed to theory (one wrote the comment "try English" on a paper that he felt was too theory laden).

Nor is theory ubiquitous in historical literature. I work with the history of sexuality and the law, so many of the texts I use are quite theory-heavy, but even the... ahem... seminal Americanist text--"Intimate Matters" by D'Emilio and Friedman--uses Foucault only in passing. Carolyn Dean, Lynn Hunt, and Jan Goldstein have all observed that Foucault is frightfully underused in historical studies despite his (and I agree here) remarkable relevance to the field. Meanwhile, the contributions of Lyotard, Derrida, and Baudrillard, for example, are almost entirely absent from historical works. Postcolonial theory has made productive contributions to gender and, shockingly, (post)colonial histories, but it is rarely folded into mainstream American or European works. Civil War and Early Republic studies--the crown King and Queen of Americanism--have remained almost completely impervious to theoretical discussions.

In any case, I mention this just as an aside to Jason's descriptions of the academy as the postmodern beast. I think the dominance of theory may be, in some ways, largely contingent on discipline and department. But I could easily be wrong.

Gabe
Doctoral Program in History
Brown University

[scooter]

"Especially in debate rounds."

On that Jason, with little exception, I totally concur. Not sure why the presentations of POMO are so, well, lacking for the most part, but it just seems that they indeed are as such.

Having noted, it really is a wonderful field, but yes, I also make the assumption from a communication scholar's, GLBT/Q identity researcher position; outside of that realm, I have no idea (although I would argue that Gabe's point on the role of Foucault in understanding history should rightly be applied. Damian the Regicide definitely made me think about the history of France's reigh-- even of Terror-- in a new light).

S

[AWDownz]

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I have feeling Corax might have had a paper due on this question of pomo and wanted some free ideas.



[edit] This is Bill (TheRealUSC) I forgot Chris was still logged on from the debate office.

[thedancingbear]

no

[lucid]

yes

[scooter]

define "free."

s

[syphos]

Symbolic Irony: Living life in Four Beats

Beat One: Automation

Four hours have passed and that is all that I allow myself to sleep.
The alarm slowly seeps into my sub-consciousness
I understand that National Public Radio wants me to be awake
I lie in bed for ten minutes as I become self-aware -
willing to move.
Turn on the computer,
Hunt and gather my clothes,
The news is a loud speaker and I internalize their maxims
Delay, I am late.
I am always late,
by ten minutes.
It doesn't matter.
The punctual will be on time,
their teeth grinding as they realize, envious
that I have ten more minutes of sleep than they did,
or ten more minutes of preparation.
The bagel and Chai is evidence of the latter.
It's okay, they are not working yet.
Work lasts for four hours,
I work for twenty minutes.
Lunch - it’s quick, then class.
I sit and watch a movie.
The movie prescribes its reality and I know it is wrong.
My framework and experiences knows that the sixty minutes of preaching at the television altar has a sterilized presentation.
I cannot project my views.
I can project symbols of my views and they will clash with the altar.
They will clash with a thousand cascading symbols that are promoted by the walls, the leader, the disciples, the audio, the video, my self, her voice, your voice, our voice, and the deafening roar of intersecting silence.
I am diligent and silent.
I take notes.
Class lasts for three hours and I feel as if I have nothing material to show for it.
Weber starts whispering vague thoughts into my ear and I resolve to be productive.
I begin writing and producing for mass consumption further symbols that will be interpreted and shown (either as battle wounds or trophies) to others.
They are meaningless,
but it is my calling.
A calling without meaning that continues to go without challenge.

Beat Two: Intellectual

I wake up after four hours of sleep and slowly digest NPR.
I encounter the words and the days of events in a medium that can be consumed by many and will equip for today's work.
To verify nothing has gone terribly unnoticed, I visually scan the news as my audio comfort blanked confirms the day's headlines.
Irony;
representing the other - as the other - exists merely to reinforcing a view point that ought not exist,
and the fragmented reality holds shards of truth that, sadly, codify identity in a manner we can relate to.
You laugh, I laugh,
the laugh is sad because the advocacy exists.
I go on to mind numbing work, after getting my morning Chai tea to give me that stimulating boost, and find ways to diverge from my assigned task by the capitalist classes.
There is no class in itself anymore.
I merely construct the class for itself and hope that consciousness can permeate the ethereal and become reality.
I find tasks other to work and justify them as necessary to my development.
I write, you read, we end and I make an argument, you respond.
This is our interchange,
it is frustrating, you are so idealistic.
Why can't you see it my way - it's simple
I have no way.
Oh, but the prism of representation causes more friction than blending and we, though some respect might be shared, will go on to merely self destruct through intellectual masturbation.

Beat Three: Social

I don't let myself go to sleep because I am talking to you on the phone.
I want to forge something out of the airy nothing and make it meaningful. There is no meaning you say, but I want to disprove you as your existence is evidence, in my mind, contrary to your rationalization.
I look at the clock and decide I must go,
I sleep for four hours.
I get up and listen to the news for any relevant social trivia or engagement I can pursue.
Can you believe HE did that? What else do you expect from THEM.
Our identity is codified in opposition and I foster a sense of community premised on negation.
Chai is a symbol of my class's access to wealth and its reach around the world, I get it to show I belong to a sleep-deprived community that uses stimulates to artificial negate the demands of the body.
Oh, you can relate? Good, because I am you.
Work involves the normal talk. Computers become the focal point as we all work on them. This binds us together as we talk about the latest technology and what we want to do with our leisure time.
We don't actual have this time.
We sleep on borrowed time.
Class occurs and I play my role as student and I facilitate conversation.
The professor is right, but we must show that we are here to learn so we engage the issue from the opposing side.
This creates a fracture of distrust or binary opposition to me, but then you understand that I don't advocate my philosophy.
Comrades we become for those three hours and we know that we are in this together.
I am in it alone. You are alone.
Together, we have shared struggle, understanding.
I then don my activist cap and go parade with the latest posters for my latest events.
I am in multiple circles.
All my circles have collapsed and have little variation,
but if we have multiple labels
then we are multiple things. We are all things we would like to be, and prove ourselves to our peers.
They don't care.
Only those in the collapsing and collapsed, circled, network reify our work as meaningful.
We walk and talk.
What is wrong with the world? I will change things!
I perpetuate the normative existence for a sense of identity and belonging.

Beat Four: Consciousness

I wake up at with four hours of sleep and wonder why I didn't go to bed early.
NPR talks and I listen to drown this beat.
The activities that prevented sleep were inconsequential and so is everything else.
I go on.
The computer is on and it feels like a disruption in my life, but I have come to depend on it to facilitate the three other beats of waking.
This one only exists for a moments of time when automation betrays me.
I stand in line for coffee and start looking at the posters for the upcoming campus events.
I should go to that, but my work will prevent it.
That seems interesting, but I will sleep - no, I will be distracted, but I will pretend that I will go to sleep
On time,
this time.
In between work and class, the lunch break allows reflection and I realize that nothing was accomplished at work, but my inactivity is rewarded with cash.
Nothing will happen at class, I know what I need to from those places for me to live happily now.
I am tired and the thought is sluggish to start being critical.
I don't need to be critical, but it serves to externalize a view of myself to others.
Is this a positive view? It doesn't matter.
We walk and discuss life, the event as we poster, and figure out where I am headed from here.
It comes and goes.
We are here,
I am there.
I exist only in reflection of you,
my identity as part of the other off-beats,
but mostly, fluid.
The shard of reality that you see me,
is a fragment of the last step to this dance.
Each person who comes into contact with me has their own shard,
And if I become a nexus,
Then your two pieces will melt together and form something more obscure,
More accurate, less real.
This glass is a liquid.

Beat Five: A New Rhythm
I merely serve to throw off the tempo,
and discredit the label.
I serve no other purpose than,
for you to bat your eye!

[Arabian Knight]

Originally posted by Corax
Just wondering.

Yes Sam, to use structure (the ballot) to fight structure is a Performative Contradiction.

[syphos]

I forgot about this explorative narrative, it makes me miss UPS and Chai tea.

[boredguy8]

Gabe's reply is very good.

[world_dictator]

Shoes? Fuck shoes!

[travo]

In response to Gabe's post, the mere fact that Theory is synonymous with postmodern theory serves to demonstrate the unfortunate conformity forced on academia. There are other theories, in fact, there are theories that sit quite opposed to pomo. I myself identify with structuralist notions far more, and it always galls me that pomo seems to claim all of "theory" as its domain. I personally feel like the age of pomo has passed, just like so many ages have passed before it. And it sure has taken long enough.

Edit to add - I didn't realize this thread was a hella old bump. Sad...

[syphos]

[travo]

Dude, I was merely participating in the discussion. I hadn't intended to troll, and I'd say I was less harsh than many towards pomo. Now look what' you've done, you've made me cry. Trolls don't cry, Mike. Trolls don't cry...

[travo]

I was basing this off Gabe's post, if you paid attention. I'll quote -

I'm also interested by Jason's experience in the academy. I don't doubt his claims, but I find his experience to be substantially different then my own. Of the 15 first-year PhD students in my class, only three of us, I would say, are particularly interested in "theory" (by theory, historians generally mean what I think this discussion has chosen to classify as "postmodern" theory). I can count 6 who are actively disinterested and dislike theory. Of the 6 professors I've been exposed to, 2 were particularly theory savvy, 2 were largely neutral, and 2 were actively opposed to theory (one wrote the comment "try English" on a paper that he felt was too theory laden).

Nor is theory ubiquitous in historical literature. I work with the history of sexuality and the law, so many of the texts I use are quite theory-heavy, but even the... ahem... seminal Americanist text--"Intimate Matters" by D'Emilio and Friedman--uses Foucault only in passing. Carolyn Dean, Lynn Hunt, and Jan Goldstein have all observed that Foucault is frightfully underused in historical studies despite his (and I agree here) remarkable relevance to the field.

In any case, I mention this just as an aside to Jason's descriptions of the academy as the postmodern beast. I think the dominance of theory may be, in some ways, largely contingent on discipline and department. But I could easily be wrong.

Gabe
Doctoral Program in History
Brown University

Did somebody say punk-out? I think somebody did.