Postmodernism is supposedly a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as* presence*, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.
Tony could be seen as replaying the liar's paradox here. To admit to hypocrisy may be to admit the truth. For some postmodern writers, one has to go further than any set of analytic rules and recognise madness at work and restriction of dialogue to safe metaphors like Freud's Oedipal family, when the world of real desire is very different (quite a few writers were gay). Skepticism, over many centuries, has taught a kind of suspension of judgement to a point when one works with many different arguments. Humour can often be the only thing left after rigorous doubting, a kind of self-depreciation in the face of conflicting evidence and themes. Those of us who 'know nothing' still know how to jibe "and even this is to know more than them, those who claim to know everything". This doubting process, in science, comes to at least a temporary end in crucial experiments that anyone, in principle, can demonstrate. This is rarely the case in ordinary living. Descartes had it that we could undergo these difficult skeptical processes with faith in a warm, benevolent god. It would be good to feel such a presence, but I don't. He had the instruments of torture to contend with for that matter. There is a presence of thinking on god without ancient fable, much as there are ways of thinking on economics without the dominating manners of neo-classical fantasy. The admission of perplexity is something of a start, but has something of the vulnerability of sensory deprivation. I am interested in the still mystical point of argument resolution after doubt that is not merely conviction, superiority.or promises so vague they are empty. On Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 9:12:31 PM UTC, facilitator wrote: > > Of course Allan! My narcissism is baptized in hypocrisy. > > I espouse to walk in the light and yet there are plenty of "Neighbors" I > don't treat better than myself. I claim spiritual superiority and yet find > myself in constant need of attitude adjustment. I want world peace but > have done little to push that round peg into all of the square holes I have > encountered. Maybe only 1 out of three times do I turn the other cheek. > And, I am definitely superior to most of the people I meet in this life. > My spirit is ill equipped to take on a higher plane of existence. > > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
