Post-post____ism Post (part II)

Part deux. In my last post I said that adhering strictly to one theoretical framework in critical analysis leads investigations and their results to be out of touch with reality, and thus irrelevant. Now I'll talk more about why pomo suxorz, because it discourages independent thought.

One of the things I dislike most about postmodernism is that it enables "scholars" to hide behind a bunch of meaningless jargon, and creates a sort of groupthink atmosphere where everyone just boosts eachother's meaningless crap up. See exhibit A. What you've just given up on reading after the first paragraph of useless jargon is a randomly generated postmodern style essay. Of course a reputable scholar probably couldn't get away with trying to pass one of those off as actual work. But that leads me to my next example. In 1996, physics professor Alan Sokal submited a pseudoscientific(wikipedia) article made up mostly of postmodernist nonsense (and I mean nonsense literally here, not in the sense that all pomo is nonsense) to the journal Social Text. He was testing whether he could get an article published simply by making it sound intellectual, making it appear to agree with the predispositions of the editors (though in reality it's mostly BS), and throwing in a few citations of the editors just to be safe. It turns out he could. And he certainly wasn't the first person to realize that postmodernism is largely nonsensical groupthink. In a somewhat similar situation related here, two computer scientists fed up with all the jargon and BS at an early conference about "cyberspace" decided to lighten up the atmosphere by beginning their presentation with a little lighthearted ribbing at said BS. In their case, they didn't intend to keep up the whole farce until someone cried foul, but considering that they were spitting purely meaningless crap at a bunch of "scholars," you'd think those scholars should have gotten the joke immediately. They didn't. Not until the presenters themselves could no longer keep a straight face.

So if people have been aware for so long of the potential of such strict adherence to some pumped up theory to cause such an atmosphere of groupthink, why do some social science and humanities scholars continue to adhere to some favorite theory, rather than, you know, thinking for themselves? I don't have a definite answer. It's really pretty puzzling. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it makes their lives a little easier. In some cases, I've had instructors and professors who I know will give me a better grade if my work reflects their pet theories exactly. Why risk submitting work that they might not agree with and getting a lower grade? And why put in the extra work to think for myself? I think it's basically the same when these narrow minded scholars get their work published. It's much easier to just find a circle that follows the same ideas as you, and proceed pumping eachother up and helping eachother to get work published, even when it's complete bullshit. And it won't be hard for some younger unestablished prof to get their foot in the door. Just throw together a paper that boosts the ego of a few editors by citing their work and agreeing with their BS theories. Why risk putting your own ideas out there? Other than that from day one we've been tought that the whole purpose of education is not just to fill us with facts, but to get us to think critically for ourselves.

Edit: I've decided to wrap things up here, cause I think I've covered most of the important parts. So here's my conclusion:

In conclusion, pomo obviously sucks. Hard. And like I said before, not just pomo, but anytime someone latches on to some framework and just won't let go. I clouds their judgement. It creates groupthink. It kills a bunch of trees and fills them with meaningless crap that will do nothing to help shape the world into a better place. Also, here's one amusing slightly non-sequitur observation of mine: post-structuralism (practically synonymous with post-modernism) is a freakin oxymoron. Structuralism was based largely on the idea that words are defined by everything they aren't. So here we have post-structuralism that is not even giving itself a real name, just stating that its not structuralism. Annoying! And the same goes for all the other post-isms. Why can't we at least have theories that claim to be something, rather than just saying, "I'm the result of moving past ____." So if you read these last two posts, thanks. Especially for reading this conclusion cause it's all just ranting. So to all my readers (so that's basically Alex, Michael, and Meghan (and Michael probably didn't bother to read all this stuff)) let me know what you think. Or not. Peace out.