Well I do declare Dean, you sure do get around the South. Why I just loved driving from San Antonio, to Austin, Texas. It was about a two hour scenic drive. I was trying to get a bill passed, and I would sit right outside that majestic Austin, Texas Capital Building reading, The AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN, from cover cover.
Pretty good paper. Austin is a real happening town, full of throw back hippies, super new age technology, tremendous musicians and many various artists. It is a terrific college town and of course very political.
It's beauty made it one of America's favorite cities. If the American Statesman feels at least in their view that postmodernism may be dead, I would agree with there corner of America and they cover a lot of people in the south. It's not perfect science or anything to really bank on yet, but I give it some real thought.
Postmodernism will never die. It has way too much going for it. There. I said it.
What's changing is that people are increasingly realizing that just because there are two sides to a story doesn't mean the arguments have equal merit. There is nothing wrong with being philosophically able to weight the arguments, but the need to actually make a choice in certain cases remains, and being able to see the other guy's point of view doesn't necessarily make you his ally.
I hope not. While I'm by no means a postmodernist, and deplore moral relativism and its ensuing social rot, it offers valuable criticism to modernity, which has gone unchallenged for several centuries in the West. Postmodernists can remind us that scientific progress is not always good. We have invented amazing new medical technology that saves millions of lives -- and horrifying new military weapons that could easily wipe us out.
(I expect to be thoroughly chewed out here, since pretty much everyone in the blogosphere regardless of political affiliation is a Modernist....)
It's axiomatic with me that scientific progress is always good. Knowing more is always better.
Neither "new medical technology" nor "horrifying new weapons" are examples of scientific advances. That's engineering: using the knowledge discovered by science for practical purposes.
Tim, it's nice that you came out of the closet and admitted that you are a Luddite! Heh heh heh.
I just can't get the idea that the advance of knowlege is bad. It's a tool. You can use a screwdriver to fix an ambulance, saving lives, or you can stab the ambulance driver through the heart with it, losing lives.
Does this make a screwdriver "good" or "bad?" Answer: neither, it's a tool.
Which other parts of modernism are bad, Tim? Industrialization, that helped kill slavery and empower women? Assault rifles and modern artillery? The advances in metallurgy, chemistry, and communication that made them possible have done a lot of good for the world, too.
Did you know that the original Intel chip, the 4004, came from the guidance systems for the Minuteman missle? In other words, the modern computer revolution is based directly on the world-killing technology you are afriad of! Chew on that for a while... :))
You really can't separate "good" knowledge from "bad" knowlgedge. It's just knowledge. A tool.
BTW, I move that we strike the phrase "horrifying new military weapons that could easily wipe us out." We seem to have managed pretty damn well for over 60 years, and even now Hiroshima/Nagasaki are the only times a nuke has been used.
If we are about to wipe ourselves out, we're taking our time about it!
Also note that, for all the high-tech weapons of the world, the scariest one is still the good, old-fashioned, Plague...
I don't think postmodernism is dead by a long shot. It's still very big in theological circles, and the left haven't given it up, either.
Well I do declare Dean, you sure do get around the South. Why I just loved driving from San Antonio, to Austin, Texas. It was about a two hour scenic drive. I was trying to get a bill passed, and I would sit right outside that majestic Austin, Texas Capital Building reading, The AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN, from cover cover.
Pretty good paper. Austin is a real happening town, full of throw back hippies, super new age technology, tremendous musicians and many various artists. It is a terrific college town and of course very political.
It's beauty made it one of America's favorite cities. If the American Statesman feels at least in their view that postmodernism may be dead, I would agree with there corner of America and they cover a lot of people in the south. It's not perfect science or anything to really bank on yet, but I give it some real thought.
There are far too many people with far too much invested in postmodernism to just wish it dead. Even communism isn't universally dead yet.
Favorite Onion headline:
"Dadaism Dead: "Victory!" Cry Dadaists"
Postmodernism will never die. It has way too much going for it. There. I said it.
What's changing is that people are increasingly realizing that just because there are two sides to a story doesn't mean the arguments have equal merit. There is nothing wrong with being philosophically able to weight the arguments, but the need to actually make a choice in certain cases remains, and being able to see the other guy's point of view doesn't necessarily make you his ally.
I hope not. While I'm by no means a postmodernist, and deplore moral relativism and its ensuing social rot, it offers valuable criticism to modernity, which has gone unchallenged for several centuries in the West. Postmodernists can remind us that scientific progress is not always good. We have invented amazing new medical technology that saves millions of lives -- and horrifying new military weapons that could easily wipe us out.
(I expect to be thoroughly chewed out here, since pretty much everyone in the blogosphere regardless of political affiliation is a Modernist....)
It's axiomatic with me that scientific progress is always good. Knowing more is always better.
Neither "new medical technology" nor "horrifying new weapons" are examples of scientific advances. That's engineering: using the knowledge discovered by science for practical purposes.
Jerry, agreed.
Tim, it's nice that you came out of the closet and admitted that you are a Luddite! Heh heh heh.
I just can't get the idea that the advance of knowlege is bad. It's a tool. You can use a screwdriver to fix an ambulance, saving lives, or you can stab the ambulance driver through the heart with it, losing lives.
Does this make a screwdriver "good" or "bad?" Answer: neither, it's a tool.
Which other parts of modernism are bad, Tim? Industrialization, that helped kill slavery and empower women? Assault rifles and modern artillery? The advances in metallurgy, chemistry, and communication that made them possible have done a lot of good for the world, too.
Did you know that the original Intel chip, the 4004, came from the guidance systems for the Minuteman missle? In other words, the modern computer revolution is based directly on the world-killing technology you are afriad of! Chew on that for a while... :))
You really can't separate "good" knowledge from "bad" knowlgedge. It's just knowledge. A tool.
BTW, I move that we strike the phrase "horrifying new military weapons that could easily wipe us out." We seem to have managed pretty damn well for over 60 years, and even now Hiroshima/Nagasaki are the only times a nuke has been used.
If we are about to wipe ourselves out, we're taking our time about it!
Also note that, for all the high-tech weapons of the world, the scariest one is still the good, old-fashioned, Plague...
*I'm* still waiting for a return to Enlightenment, which many postmodernists claim to have. Bah.
Good article, Dean!