Are post-modernism and relativism both threats to liberty and equality?

[BeBMan]

While I am no relativist myself, I think the criticism on some things labeled "objective facts" is valid or it is as least something worth thinking about it. For example - take something like the idea of "inalienable human rights" - is it an objective fact that we have them, or more a Kantian idea how things should be, a more normative thing?

And in the second case, I don't see that this would make it less valuable for us - objective fact or not it can be still a general goal.

[Dracon II]

Postmodernists (well the sensible ones anyway) don't attack science wholesale. The trend in postmodernity has been a shift in thinking from "critical/universal reason" to "instrumental/practical reason". Thus, postmodernists do acknowledge science's ability to solve problems, but they question the discourse of science, and the enlightenment "project" from which it sprung, and the universalist assumptions that the discourse espouses. Thus, they do acknowledge that reason can be applied to problems, but they question the universality of reason, or reason as a "logos". They also wish to demonstrate that science is embedded in culture and was a product of culture.



I do have reservations with postmodernist theory. The following are scribblings from my notebooks (I was doing a sociology course on postmodernism).

The postmodernists essentially prohibit hermeneutics on any meaningful level and thus imply that social science is futile. If one take's postmodern claims seriously, and applies it to social research, one might as well just sit and watch TV, for in observing social phenomena with an epistemological prohibition on searching for depth, the allegory of the passive observer of projected images becomes a valid one. Postmodernists are the priests of Plato's cave.

Perhaps the postmodernist forgoes questions of origins because it calls ends and conclusions into the mind's view. Perhaps they disavow meaning because they are happily perched in the present, when in fact the only certainty in life is not the present, but the end. There is a teleology, and it calls on us to give meaning. Death is the truth that demands meaning for life.

Perhaps the postmodernist is happy to dissolve the subject because he is always gratified by objects. He needs no meaning because pleasure warrants no meaning. He is the spoilt child that accepts a gift without so much as a "thankyou". He is the great ego, the west. There is no postmodern answer to suffering and thus there is no postmodern in Africa, the slums, or on the deathbed.

Whilst proclaiming the 'death of man' (Foucault), and rejecting anthropocentrism, postmodernists assert that knowledge and reality exist only in discourse, texts and language, which are man made structures. Thus, whilst rejecting the centrality of man, they hold that our knowledge and perception of reality can only ever be anthropocentric and anthropogenetic.

I do think postmodernism does illustrate the complexity of social life, and can demonstrate the limits of social science. But postmodernism carried to its logical conclusions could be quite disastrous.

[Dr Strangelove]

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: everyone is a relativist. No one would apply a fixed "absolute" set of rules to all conceivable situations.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dracon II
Whilst proclaiming the 'death of man' (Foucault), and rejecting anthropocentrism, postmodernists assert that knowledge and reality exist only in discourse, texts and language, which are man made structures.

Since discourse, texts and language can only exist in reality, such a view leads only to an infinitely receeding strange loop.

[MrFun]

First, thank you to any mod who changed the title of my thread.


I thought about replying to several posts individually by quoting them and then having another posted reply for the next one. But it seems that the ones I planned to respond to have the same basic point -- that there are constructive elements of post-modernism and/or relativism. So will just respond to that basic point here.


I have no doubt that some level of questioning and challenging social norms and philosopical concepts/ideas has great value for human societies. Hell, where would humans be today if historically, people never questioned anything or challenged any presumptions?

And I also already understand that science is not perfect. Just because I'm defending science from extreme post-modernism and relativism does not mean that I thus place science on the pedestal of perfecitbility and divnity. I am most certainly well aware that science of all fields have their own feet of clay.

Third, as I understood it, post-modernism is about deconstructing all presumptions of truth and/or objectivity while relativism is more about amorality in that even perceptions of right and wrong are not based on truth -- hence, it's all relative.


I appreciate the thoughts posted by Az, Dracon, Odin, and Bebro.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I've said it once, and I'll say it again: everyone is a relativist. No one would apply a fixed "absolute" set of rules to all conceivable situations.

Yes, to some point we all are -- it's the nature of human thought process. Otherwise, we mind as well all behave like sheep and unquestionably believe in everything everyone tells us.

[Imran Siddiqui]

relativism is more about amorality in that even perceptions of right and wrong are not based on truth

It's more like based on different version of the 'truth'. That there is not one 'truth', but many different ones depending on how you see it.

Oh, and you suck, ungrateful bastard .

[Provost Harrison]

Your opening post looked like it was made by a complaint generator

[MrFun]

I do other things besides sucking but I don't care to share details of my sex life.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
You're opening post looked like it was made by a complaint generator

Your grammar sucks in this instance.

[Provost Harrison]

Bite the pillow and think of England?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by MrFun


Your grammar sucks in this instance.

Typo, pedant

[MrFun]

Typos, grammatical errors -- all the same in my book. And my book is completely authoritative.

[Provost Harrison]

Your book is a dot-to-dot drawing book

[MrFun]

OUCH