NP - Poo-pooing PoMo, futility for the feeble minded

[matthew cissell]

Ciao Leute,

I know this pertains to a recent thread that seems to have run its course
and therefore I arrive late to the conversation, but it seems Prof.
Peterson arrived when the party was already over.

Given the state of the world, I was a bit loath to respond. Proto-fascistic
posturing politicians and their corporate fellow travellers throw democracy
to the dogs and enable dictators and strongmen from N. Korea to Venezuela
and Brazil while ignoring the urgent UN environmental report from last week
and wrecking the future of coming generations, all for their 30 pieces of
silver.

And yet when I see Peterson position himself thus and target the Humanities
so broadly, I see it as a move to delegitimize those academic agents that
have long been under attack from the right and I feel the need to respoond.
For what it's worth.

Jordan Peterson seems to be unaware that his nemesis received its post
mortem reports some time ago. He is tilting at the monsters of his mind;
one step from arguing with evangelists proselytizing outside the Uni.
student union. Or Flat-earthers. (Not that surprising since conservatives
rarely have intellects of any real stature - not since Edmund Burke, though
some might add Buckley). Let me explain.

JP is late to the PoMo bashing game. Had he done some research he would
have found early reports of its passing. One of the first came from John
Frow in his essay "What Was Postmodernism" in 1990. Almost 30 years ago.
However, more recently some of the intellectual architects that summoned up
PoMo into the scholastic realm have declared it to be past. See none other
than Linda Hutcheon's "Postmodern Afterthoughts" (2002) or even Andreas
Huyssen's "After the High/ Low Debate" (1999).

Richard Rorty once said (more or less) that there can be no end to
philosophy, just to research paradigms. He's right. When's the last time
you heard someone employ the term elan vital while citing Henri Bergson? Or
what about Sartre who was widely cited in the 50's and 60's? Perhaps now we
are seeing those mandarins of thought so oft cited in the 80's and 90's
being relegated to a different shelf.

I've never gone in for bashing postmodernism, in part out of respect for
those that are so heavily invested in this research paradigm but also
because I saw no need. My own trajectory brought me into contact with
thinkers that simply did not engage with the term in the way that some
thinkers or artists seemed to wrap themselves in the banner of Pomo (think
of Lyotard or Baudrillard in philosophy, John Barthes in literature). Both
Pierre Bourdieu and Roger Chartier managed to keep their distance from the
term in the work that they did. In fact, the whole explosion of
'postmodernism' was always a greater phenomena in the US than in Europe.

(If anyone is interested in looking anew at the issue - the High/ Low
debate as a base for the idea of modernity and postmodernity -  but from
the perspective of intellectual history, one would do well to read
Michaels North's "Reading 1922". He provides powerful documentation and
argumentation that seriously challenges Huyssen's claims in "After the
Great Divide".)

That said, is there a complaint to be made regarding the academic ivory
tower and its orders and proselytes and the rhetoric they employ to
communicate? Yes. All of us have heard or read what amounts to jargony B.S.
by those that have learned to mimic the use of certain terms and concepts
accompanied by a nice name sauce (add the usual Pomo suspects); that is
what made the Sokal hoax possible.

 This is a disservice to the Human Sciences (humanities) and more so to
students who then learn to talk the talk. The effect is that Administration
sees these departments as less than serious or essential to a University -
so where have cuts been felt more deeply and for longer? Not in the MB
programs or STEM careers.

Obviously, I can't provide an answer in a post that is already a bit too
long, but I can say that I am partial to Gerald Graff's idea of "teaching
the controversy" (not to be mistaken with the appropriated version used by
creationists). As long as departments and faculty exist in separate
academic cantons it will be very difficult or even impossible to move
beyond talking past one another or worse throwing academic insults over
theoretical walls.

Hey, maybe Peterson and Zizek can go on the road like Liddy and Leary back
in the day. On second thought... maybe not.

ciao
mc otis