Opinion of Postmodernism

[Del Tachi]

Horrible Philosophy

[DC Al Fine]

Horrible Philosophy

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Horrible Philosophy

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Whatever PoMo is, it isn't really 'a philosophy.' Anyways, this is an impossible question to answer, because you need to define what you mean by PoMo and what sort of context you have in mind.

[John Dibble]

When a computer can generate papers on your philosophy on a whim and it can't be distinguished from one written by a person, either computers have become self aware while we aren't looking or your philosophy is likely a load of pretentious crap.

Postmodernism Generator

[The Mikado]

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

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Actually this is a better reaction to this 'question' than mine.

[Del Tachi]

Whatever PoMo is, it isn't really 'a philosophy.' Anyways, this is an impossible question to answer, because you need to define what you mean by PoMo and what sort of context you have in mind.

Postmodernism is the modern school of thought, becoming prevalent during the mid twentieth century, that is mainly a reaction against the more scientific and objective philosophies of 19th century Modernism.  Postmodernism rejects the existence of universal metanarratives, and argues that values such as truth and reality are relative to different cultures, groups or individuals.  Thus, at its very core, postmodernism sees "truth" as merely a social construct that is subject to change.  Ever since becoming the predominant theory of Western thought around the year 1940 A.D., it has shaped several different faucets of society including art, music, philosophy, political science, economics, religion and many others.

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My main critique of postmodernism is that does nothing to advance intellectual debate because it does not contribute to rational or empirical knowledge.  Also, its proponents use it as an umbrella term to the extreme, and its expansion as a term to cover all types of Western thought produced by our contemporary landscape is ludicrous.  Its the one word that means nothing, yet supposedly means everything at the same time

[Filuwaúrdjan]

19th century Modernism?!?!!

Modernism - which was something far more important than a philosophy - was a rejection of the 19th century and all that it was seen as having stood for. Modernism is James Joyce, tower blocks and T.S. Eliot; Le Corbusier, Cubism, motorways and Schoenberg.

Reading on, I see further howlers. Postmodernism as the 'predominant theory of Western thought since around the year 1940 A.D.'

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Anyway, if it makes you feel better, then poststructuralism (you used the word 'metanarrative', so I'll assume that that's your real target. But it still isn't a philosophy), and other forms of obscurantist academic postmodernism have become terribly unfashionable over the past decade or so. But, of course, they were never dominant.

[DemPGH]

Well, what I know about it (and I'm dipping into the nostalgia file) seems to indicate that it was largely a movement within the artistic community, and it may even mean something different depending upon the field one is in. And it may have begun earlier in some fields than others, like the Renaissance. I would say I think good people came out of PostMo, or maybe got lumped in with it, like Hunter S. Thompson (and maybe he wasn't a Postmodernist, I don't know, I just enjoy his writing). But then again, I don't know the degree to which a lot of people are sitting around saying, "Look how Postmodern I'm being." Some of that might be invented in retrospect. I think some of those movements might be more accurately described as general moods.

And Postmodernism actually might be a philosophy, or at least a mindset, if one of its tenets is to say absurd things like, "there is no universal truth." Whoever would say that I presume has not heard of gravity, or Newton's laws? Or the chemical and physical processes that produce the elements? How about Kepler's laws? When someone says something like that I'm out the door, usually laughing. Because to say there is no such thing as a universal truth is really to say that there is no such thing as a law, and there are laws. And so at that point in time we're in the realm of werewolves and vampires, because I'm not sure what's being contributed to knowledge.

In the end I think there are probably aspects of Postmodernism that would appeal to artists and writers in an era that's post-conventional. And that's what it seems to be: post-conventional. As in, we're smashing conventions. Fine. So the arty folks can smash their conventions all they want, fossils and Kepler's laws still work just fine for others.

[traininthedistance]

So the arty folks can smash their conventions all they want, fossils and Kepler's laws still work just fine for others.

General relativity : modernism :: 11-dimension superstrings : postmodernism

But, seriously, what do you mean by "postmodernism"?  Do you mean the artistic movement (which is far from homogeneous), the literary movement (again far from homeogeneous), various assorted strains in philosophical, sociological, and/or theoretical thought that arose after WWII (of which there zillions), are you using it as a description of what our pluralistic and pastiche-filled wider culture just happens to be like?

There is no such monolithic thing as "postmodernism"*, there are only various postmodernisms.

* It is perhaps the case that one of the few threads tying all of these postmodernisms together is a skepticism that you can even have anything so monolithic. 

[Insula Dei]

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Yeah, sort of.

[DemPGH]

So the arty folks can smash their conventions all they want, fossils and Kepler's laws still work just fine for others.

General relativity : modernism :: 11-dimension superstrings : postmodernism 

Ha! That's pretty good, actually, although string theory doesn't actually fit with the other three because it's just so darn controversial and some even say isn't science at all but something that approaches fantasy at the very far end of theoretical physics.

Looking at relativity in the light of Modernism would be interesting. History of science folks might best enjoy that. I can't imagine the literary community would, although newer school folks might not object to it as much.

So the arty folks can smash their conventions all they want, fossils and Kepler's laws still work just fine for others.

But, seriously, what do you mean by "postmodernism"?  Do you mean the artistic movement (which is far from homogeneous), the literary movement (again far from homeogeneous), various assorted strains in philosophical, sociological, and/or theoretical thought that arose after WWII (of which there zillions), are you using it as a description of what our pluralistic and pastiche-filled wider culture just happens to be like?

There is no such monolithic thing as "postmodernism"*, there are only various postmodernisms.   

Okay. I'm no specialist on this, but what I meant was that perhaps there is more or less a general mood in the arts that gets applied differently in the different disciplines, producing your plural postmodernisms. Which is fine, because in the arts there is that liberty. You know, for centuries there's one way to write a poem, then we throw it out and go with something new. What it all means and how it all fits together is for literary folks, historians, and philosophers to figure out. It's expression that's probably tied to cultural changes and developments.

Postmodernism could perhaps mean anything, like God, love, and so on. That surely doesn't help it.

Science is more than expression and these philosophical nuances, though. If postmodernism ever set in in the sciences, we'd just decide to throw out Occam's razor alongside Francis Bacon and just, by God, go with our intuition. And that would be a catastrophe. So I think there is something about PostMo that's monolithic, maybe not in the sense of a "mission statement," but there has to be, or there wouldn't have been such appeal to reinvent the wheel across the arts.