I think it's fair to say that _most_ pomo is pretentious bs. Some of it is good stuff, though, and I would definitely include Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida as having made some valuable contributions. I agree with bill that the substance is pretty simple, but I've noticed in trying to explain some of the simplest ideas from pomo that people strongly resist these ideas even when they are stated clearly -- especially when they are stated clearly. In my view, people like Derrida are saying something about language (and 'science' in the wider, European sense) that is roughly similar to what Marx said about the commodity in the section on the fetishism of the commodity in Capital. "A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties..." Try to explain the fetishism of the commodity to someone who believes *religiously* that market exchange is the primordial foundation of all civilization. I think it's intellectually liberating to realize that received ideas are not the product of some iron-clad, inexorable natural processs but, in many cases, are the enshrinement of some pretty silly imaginings and mental errors. It can also be intoxicating. The tower of post-modern babble probably owes as much to this intoxication as it does to tenure envy and post-tenure anxiety. "All that is solid melts into air..." Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
