> If I'm a real good skeptic, why should I assume you exist? Perhaps you shouldn't.
But that's not really PoMo. PoMo would say that you *should* assume that I exist since you a) percieve me as existing and more importantly b) you (seemingly) have an interest in the proposition "Trent Shipley exists in some meaningful sense." > If you are arguing that there is no absolute certainty, that's certainly > true. But, given all this, why bother studying any humanities. We avoid asking that question.... > Why isn't > one subjective experience as good as another? Politics. > > 3) Not withstanding #1 and #2, the perceived relevance of problems in > > *any* > > > field of inquiry are very subjective. Problem relevance must always be > > understood in a social context as a political-economic problem. > > To be polite, that's pure bunk. What usually happens with arguing with a > PoMo is that they won't even thinking of looking at data before it is > subjected to such a tortured analysis that anything they want can be > proven. That is rather the political point of PoMo. To contend with a PoMo you must understand a PoMo. The grand-daddies of PoMo are Foucault and Derrida. Foucault wanted to open a space for pleasure. Now Foucault was a flaming queer. But more than that he was a sexual criminal who indulged in depraved sadism to the point that when diagnosed with aids he took a holliday at the baths. In short, the was a narcissistic mass murderer. I don't know if he was a pedophile but some of his work justifies pedophilia. Derrida was a NAZI collaborator. His work on deconstruction is strongly oriented toward excusing that guilt. (Haven't read much Derrida.) The point of PoMo is not to *prove*. It is to destabilize common sense understandings of reality so that the PoMoers political agenda has room to gain purchase. While PoMo in a weak form or as raw theory has an epistomoligical basis, PoMo itself is overtly political. > As far as I can tell, PoMo folks follow the Marxists in having > theory trump data. Nooo. Maxists are ultimately postivists. Their position may be right or wrong, but they are part of the family of science. PoMos are nihilists with utopian agendas. You undermine their postion by finding their political angle. They make than very difficult by making it hard to pin down their politics. Foucault was a master of this. You have to examine his biography and all his work to discover his agenda. Even then, you would never have gotten that witty genius to openly admit to any diagnosis of any political agenda on his part--may he rot in hell. > Let's take an argument from history. For a PoMo person, the Southern > Apologist (I forget the proper name) viewpoint that states rights was the > main motivation for the South would be just as valid as the now prevalent > view that preserving slavery was the main motive of the South in the Civil > War. There is no need to analyze source data, because the original intent > of the author doesn't really exist. Yes on the first level of analysis a States Rights appologist or revisionist is unimpeachable from a PoMo perspective. One attacks the thesis on the basis of moral assumptions, linguistic constructions, and political applications of the resulting narrative(s). States Rights would be "discredited" not so much as "wrong" as bad for me. > > 3b) It follows that while it might be that a given > > truth-statement-per-subjectivity may in some sense be regarded as a > > qualified > > > universal truth, the relevance of the said truth, and above all the fact > > that > > > the question that led to the truth was even posed must be understood not > > only > > > as subjective positions, but more importantly as *interested* > > points-of-view. > Well, its true that no one is truly objective. But, there are better and > worse fits to data. No matter what the narrative in the Soviet Union was, > Lysenko genetics didn't work. Yes. Subjective utilitarianism is allowed in PoMo. Lysenkoism isn't so much untrue as politically and economically unproductive from a PoMo perspective. Your postion boils down to Lysenkoism is bad for you. > > 3c) Being the *result* of interested subjectivities, any finding (no > > matter > > > how universally acceptable as fact or truth) is unlikely to be Pareto > > optimal. It produces relative winners and losers. > > Well See. Now we are getting somewhere. For example Lysenkoism was good for Lysenko and maybe for Stalin. > > 4) All of the above apply to themselves. Therefore, if you disagree > > with > > me > > > you are not exactly wrong, rather you are just a cretenous philistine > > totalitarian @#$%er who needs to read more good artsy-fartsy literature > > and > > > *much* less science fiction. > > IMHO, that's the essential point of PoMo. No matter what data I bring to > the table, it is ignored as only valid in the political-social system in > which I am trapped. So, there is really no advantage for the people of > Europe in having the United States instead of the Soviet Union win the Cold > War. The statement that most people who lived in East Germany say they are > happier now is simply part of the narrative of the dominant system, and has > no real meaning. No. Former East Germans report their subjective preference. That definitely can strengthen a PoMo case. A counter argument might be that their subjective impression of "better" is in fact produced by a delusional false-consciousness and a malleable subjective moral compass. Your rejoinder would be to question your interlocutors political interest and moral compass. And that is ultimately how the argument went all through the cold war anyway. > > However, items in family #3 should be regarded as behavioral science > > fact. They are pretty much a cynical, real-politic description of how > > inquiry works--and more importantly how it gets funded. They should be > > very important for any scholar or professional who is serious about > > self-criticism > > > or social responsibility. Chemists and mathematicians are hardly exempt. > > But, even though the Soviet Union funded Lysenko genetics to the hilt, it > still didn't work. Yes. But that is an extreme case. Remember, PoMo can go a *long* way to explaining why Lysenkoist projects got funded and how they finally got de-funded, somthing more subtle and interesting than "Lysenkoism didn't work very well." For an economist or sociologist "Lysenkoism is dead wrong" is simply an interesting datum. More appropos, why is Monsanto distributing its genetic research money the way it does? Who is served and disserved by that set of decisions? What (if anything) do we want to do about it? How do me-and-mine go about getting what we want vis-a-vis Monsanto given the resources at our interest group's disposal? > A weak understanding of Po Mo does have validity: the warning that none of > us is totally objective is a reasonable one. For example, the viewpoint > that one always interprets scripture, that it is impossible to be purely > objective. However, I don't think that means that there is nothing but > subjective intepretation involved. If there was, there would be no need to > study at all, just read and get what you want out of it. > Indeed, PoMo > people have to do a _very_ elaborate dance which makes it even harder to > talk with them when they have to explain why it humanities professors are > needed in a PoMo world. Using PoMo on PoMo that is obvious. PoMo PhDs want cushy jobs where they can buttress their femi-nazi politics by promulgating PoMo. The dance is to keep you (and more importantly themselves) from figuring that out.
