Do you guys buy this stuff? I'm taking a Cultural Theory class right now, and, to be honest, it sort of sounds like a constant stream of jargon.

Man, I'm getting really tired of talking about how power structures define the images we see in the media and advertising.

However, I might be missing out on something. I'm open to it, but, at this point, very skeptical of its validity.

Crap or Not Crap?

I've voted Crap, but there is a lot more to it than your post describes. It's an important intellectual thread...it's still the operative framework of most of the humanities and arts (allowing that you include poststructuralism and critical theory in as part of postmodernism)

Like any topic a philosophy major encounters, you've got to give it a chance and understand it on it's own terms.

Only then will you have earned the right to call it Crap.

After talking at length with a person with a master's degree in semiotics (okay, I was only awake half the time), and reading miles and miles of lifeless, meaningless dribble that has no real purpose, I realized it has many similarites to other meaningless things that I actually like that have no real purpose. It's just that you have to be someone who likes to have your head deeply embedded into your ass to like it.

So after all my time wasted in forming an opinion, I want my time back. If you don't like wading through 800 newly minted words with to capture what 5 well chosen words can, go ahead and vote "Crap."

This is fun!

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewto ... +modernism

Not a fan myself. I majored in history which is the arch-enemy of post-modernism.

Doesn't PM theory remove the possibility of critical perspective? If so and there is no such thing as fact then we might as well believe the theories of Holocaust deniers over the more established schools of history.

I thought a lot of Theodor Adorno's writings were hysterical crap.

Historians tend to treat PM as it deserves by ignoring it and going about their business.

Richard J Evans' book "In The Defense of History" is a good primer on the weaknesses of PM.

CRAP!

There are a lot of different threads within the overall heading of postmodernism, to the point where the term itself is pretty much meaningless.

crap. there are probably some valid observetions but the way postmodernistic writers choose to present their thoughts is unbearable for me. i've recently read "the gulf war did not take place" by the very famous baudrillard. i think 5 pages would be more than enough to fit what this guy wanted to say in this book. rest was just total mumbling. same goes to spirit of terrorism.

NOT CRAP.

Postmodernism is much maligned these days, but i think as a theory it is still very relevant today. If it were not for postmodernism, the social sciences would still, to a large extent, be reliant on modernist theorys such as crude Marxism, postivism, etc.

Personally, i think Baudrillard is brilliant. One of the few truly engaging writers on philosophy/social theory.

galanter wrote:I've voted Crap, but there is a lot more to it than your post describes. It's an important intellectual thread...it's still the operative framework of most of the humanities and arts (allowing that you include poststructuralism and critical theory in as part of postmodernism)

Like any topic a philosophy major encounters, you've got to give it a chance and understand it on it's own terms.

Only then will you have earned the right to call it Crap.

I wasn't trying to describe all of its aspects. I was only trying to bring up a new poll.

And I do understand it on its own terms. I've read the material. I've talked about it with people.

It's Crap.

CRAP


Dissolute, obscurantist, and worst of all, circular. Post-modernism has no forward momentum. It's just constant demolition, then picking through the rubble for any pieces big enough to be demolished again. Bleh.

I will give a small WF because chairman makes a good point. Po-mo (forgive me; I'm just lazy) did at least provide a stepping stone past cruder critical theories, if only because it has inspired such a backlash.

Consilience across the humanities and the sciences will eventually make postmodernism officially obsolete instead of just functionally decrepit.