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

[David Morris]

This turned up.  Thought it might amuse...

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/10/seemed-like-great-idea-went-wrong

"guy takes his girlfriend to see Jordan Peterson speak, she immediately
tells him she wants to see other people, he doesn't understand why."

On Wed, Oct 17, 2018 at 4:52 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> --
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>