Postmodernism's Themes, Clip 1 (Philosophy of Education Part 14, Section 7) 

@Stephen Deguara I'm happy if you think so. Hicks kind of does the work for me in this clip. He does a decent job of explaining these paradigms of thought as i've come to understand them, but poorly represents their relationship to each other. So i just did the rest. Glad if it makes sense. I think i'm right about it. :)

@Stephen Deguara I once heard postmodernism as being always described or interpreted in one of the following three categories .I found this typology helpful when listening to people speak about it. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but i'll share it. It helps for me to reiterate these things from time to time. 1. Postmodernism is Cultural marxism. Now some people say this is a myth, but there is some truth at the core. Postmodern thought to some extent did emerge out of marxism, and some marxists focused on cultural norms over time to produce some arguments that are now associated with postmodernism. I think this is the most shallow and politically reactionary interpretation, but there is some truth to it, i just don't agree that it can be reduced to this. 2. Postmodernism really flourished amongst the french philosophers in particular and one could equate it to a kind of art movement, like Dadaism. Something at the core is very valuable and makes us look at the world differently, but like all movements you get a lot of fluff. A lot of people simply posturing as sophisticated or trying to out do the last critical theorist. There is some truth to this. This is largely Noam Chomsky's critique. Still, i think it is a very limited view. 3. And this is the interpretation that i think has the most value which is that postmodernism is the cultural attempt to deal with the "Death of God" that Nietzsche pointed to at the turn of the 20th century. The death of our relationship to "shared transcendent truths", for lack of a better term. This disorientation throws all other "truths" under deep scrutiny and creates deep instability. Thus postmodernism is simply natural. This is my view. Existensialism is also a reaction to the death of God, but less political in nature. So you're left with a kind of chicken and egg relationship to the chaos of our times. Is postmodernism the chicken or the egg? It's both. Stephen Hicks would say its the chicken and the chicken should be slaughtered. He is in the first category. But anyway, much has been said on this subject and it can get quite confusing. PM is essential in my view, along with Ancient philosophy and the enlightenment.

For instance that in the world of today we use too much medicine, instead of trying to live healthier. I don't think that post-modernism is what is described here and I would like to see it as something which extends modernism and recognizes its problems. The problems with materialism for instance.

"There is no absolute truth" ironically has to be an absolute. It is a self defeating statement.

There is now a popular right winger who constantly borrows from Post-Modernism; his name is Jordan Peterson. Of course he claims to be a classical liberal or centrist, but he is not fooling me.

thenowchurch That's not what he's doing. If you watch Hicks' video that breaks down PoMo, Peterson attacks most of it's core philosophical structures. Sometimes people slam him for bringing in existentialism which you probably have confused with postmodernism. There's some overlap but they're different. If you were to listen to his lecture "Existentialism and Authenticity" you'd see he's talking about a kind of embodied truth rooted in preprioception and phenomenology. It doesn't conflict or override truth in the religious or enlightenment sense.

Ben Weeks. I am not trying to nitpick, but Existentialism is a major foundation for most Post Modern thinkers. The rejection of meta narratives like Progress and Truth, is also part of it. If you pay attention to Peterson's lectures and interviews you will see that he borrows extensively from both those aspects of PoMo, but rejects out of hand any pro-Marxian or social justice aspects. You must know that he is quite conflicted on God, and Christianity as factual truths. He prefers a William James pragmatic truth concept. He quotes extensively form Nietzsche, and borrows from Heidegger and Derrida, in order to show his intellectual bona fides, but always leads to a apologetic for the status quo, white male hegemony. If anyone is confused , it is Peterson who fails to separate the insightful critique of Capitalism and Alienation by Marx from the violent revolution aspect of Marx. He ends up conflating Post Modern thinkers who use a Marxian critique with radical Marxists. He knows that he does not need to be precise, since his audience just wants to hear that the radical Left is the problem and needs to be stopped.

So he's rejecting meta narratives by doing a 10 part series on why the bible is great? Those are ideas open to everyone. Confusing that with "white male hegemony" is the same thing in reverse of what white supremacists do. It's race essentialism to frame things like that. Only white males are capable of telling the truth? of taking responsibility? Please. Peterson fails to love the insightful critique of Marx? Have you watched Hicks channel? Marx predictions were false prophesies. Billions of people have been raised out of poverty while he predicted the opposite. PoMo and Marx both generally divide people into oppressor and oppressed classes based on identity. In that from a political stand point they are the allies. Yes one is closer to being openly nihilistic while the other claims some semblance of enlightenment rationality. That is the internal division. But so what. Both hate Peterson for not bowing to their idols. Focault just applied Marxian rhetoric to other domains. Yes there are other more obscure, less political postmodern thinkerswho are harmless. But those are not of concern to Peterson as they don't require people to lie, to gang up in ideological herds or to destroy the concept of logos itself to bring about a facile vision of utopia. Gulag Archipelago itself is a critique of Marx with real skin in the game. Most people can see how it just doesn't work as nice as it all sounds. Because his conception of human nature is simply wrong.

"Postmodernism / deconstructionism is simply another name for skepticism, a search for truth". You got it the other way around. I've been reading on postmodern authors for about a year and they openly dismiss "truth" and "objectivity". They think those things are either meaningless pursuits or the power play of Western capitalists, imperalists and fascists. Which of course exposes their underlying "neo-marxism", so to say.