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.

Post-post____ism Post (part I)

Post-post____ism: The Wave of the Future (part I)

Less than half-way into this post, I decided that I didn't want to write anymore, which is also a good sign that nobody would want to read this whole damn thing once it's done, so I'm going to publish it in parts. When I get around to it, I'll write the next part, then most likely one more part, possibly two.

Some people may tell you that postmodernism and the plethora of other post-____isms are dead. Oh, would that they were correct. It may be in decline, but it is still perfectly alive. Even worse, it could easily die but the world would be no better off, because the mindset among scholars of the humanities, and some of the social-sciences, would continue to insist that all analytical works ever in their field must be written within a particular theoretical/philosophical framework. I attack post-modernism as the main culprit because in my experience it is the single framework that has the most adherents, making it the one that is the most difficult to bear. If scholars would stop hiding behind their pet philosophical framework, not only would it make my life much so more bearable, but their works would simply be of higher quality, because they would be more relevant to the world, more unique as products of independent thought, and more accessible without sacrificing quality.

By writing an article, essay, book, or what have you from the unerring perspective of one pre-existing framework scholars are necessarily limiting their viewpoints, making them irrelevant to real world application. Rather than starting by taking a look at the real world and seeing what conclusions they can draw from their observations, they start by putting on their po-mo goggles (or whatever their preferred framework is) looking at the world, then formulating their fresh, unbiased conclusions (so long as they fit within their framework). Now I know post-modernism rejects the ability to perceive actual objective reality, but that doesn't mean they can just give up even trying to be objective and unbiased*. To continue with my point, though, as we all know (except the hardcore post-modernists**), starting with forgone conclusions gives bad results in investigation. It leaves us out of touch with reality, which is reflected in our results. Investigations that do not are not grounded in reality, and results that do not reflect reality are irrelevant. Consequently, those results will not help make the world any better for anyone except profs and grad students worried about their scholarly reputation. Now I'll agree with the post-modernists that nobody has complete access to total objective reality, but I think that objectivity in both perspective and results is a matter of degrees. If you try harder to be objective, chances are your results will be more objective and relevant. Otherwise there'd be no point to even trying, thus ... destruction of the world by global thermonuclear war.


*How to go about trying to approach some semblance of objectivity is not something I'm going to discuss, because this essay would end up being even longer than it already will, and I know already that almost everyone will take a look at this and decide it's way too long.
**I know, I'm basically creating a straw-man here, as well as an ad-hominem by villainizing the post-modernists, but I'm writing this for fun, so I don't care if my arguments are totally air-tight, especially since I don't care to take the time and space to make them so.

When I get around to it, hopefully within 3 days, I'll write about how moving past post-modernism (and other ridiculous preconceived philosophical/theoretical frameworks), post-post____ism if you will (hence the name of this post), will help foster independent thought.