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Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by orwin on Saturday May 11, 2024 @10:49AM (#40328425)
Agree, but i don't think postmodernism can go away. One thing i find fascinating about postmodernism is how antagonistic it is.

As it core, it's deeply anti-metanarrative, and i think that it's main structural characteristic. Which is, in a way, a bit anti-intuition, as we like to understand the world with meta-narratives.

I won't go into politics (basically, all parties create metanarrative, all use postmodernist arguments against each others), but one sign the world is really becoming postmodern is the state of particle physics, where physicists are more and more critical of theories seeking to unite general relativity and quantum mechanics. Once string theory and other "unifying" theories are completely abandoned (probably won't happen, but i'll never know), postmodernism will have become mainstream.

Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by kelseyfrog on Saturday May 11, 2024 @05:48PM (#40330843)
I don't disagree, but post-modernism's anti-meta-narrative and anti-institution sensibilities are a response to the failings of meta-narratives and institutions as they exist within modernism. Specifically the gaps in meta-narratives and institutions in terms of what and who they don't apply to are self-evident and their mere existence is a powerful critique of modernism.

Post-modernism too can't escape critique embodied today in the constellation of meta-modernism's ideas.

Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by zmgsabst on Sunday May 12, 2024 @01:33AM (#40332441)
> Specifically the gaps in meta-narratives and institutions in terms of what and who they don't apply to are self-evident and their mere existence is a powerful critique of [post]modernism.

Postmodernism is precisely as guilty of this — so framing it as a rejection of that concept from modernism seems wrong.

Rather, they just shallowly applied the same failings to different groups and patted themselves on the back for vapid virtue. Which suggests that postmodernism is instead the abandonment of principle for self indulgence — echoed from the artistic (collapse of skill into banal “self expression”) to the political (calling institutional racism by euphemisms such as “anti-racism”).

Postmodernism was nothing but phonies.

Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by kelseyfrog on Sunday May 12, 2024 @04:16PM (#40337264)
I'm still trying to figure out of this critique of postmodernism is coming from modernism or from beyond postmodernism. Any help?
Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by orwin on Sunday May 12, 2024 @09:23PM (#40338973)
I think it's beyond postmodernism, it's not only performative but uneducated :)
Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by orwin on Sunday May 12, 2024 @09:21PM (#40338957)
I have trouble not being harsh here. I will state that your understanding seems common in the Anglo world, for whatever reasons.

Even Britannica's dictionary editor don't seem to have read either Lyotard or Deleuze, and base its definition of a misreading (or mistranslation most likely, but I don't have proofs) of Derrida. Derrida later denied this reading, quite directly in "Twentieth-Century Literary Theory: An Introductory Anthologie", quite early (within the first 80 pages).

Anyway, this 'Rather, they just shallowly applied the same failings to different groups' is nonsensical when talking about postmodernism. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'failings', but the idea of using 'groups' to describe anything is quite ant-postmodernist. To be pedantic, a key idea is that any binary distinction is sustained by its negation, and groups are typical binary distinction.

Honestly I will say it: I didn't read a lot about consciousness, so I tend to ask questions rather than give my uninformed opinion on a thread about Chalmers' last book. I would like that people giving their opinion about postmodernism read a bit before, even if it's only baudrillard (I will still hurt, but at least I won't feel like I have to explain basics I'm not sure I totally master).

Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by zmgsabst on Monday May 13, 2024 @11:04AM (#40344168)
> Anyway, this 'Rather, they just shallowly applied the same failings to different groups' is nonsensical when talking about postmodernism.

In practice, postmodernists failed in precisely the way that I quoted in my post.

You say you’re “having trouble not being harsh”, but your criticism would be more sound if you didn’t seem to have trouble reading — to the point you didn’t read my comment.

> I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'failings',

Eg, here you seem not to comprehend that my comment is replying to the quoted text, and hence means the failings of modernism that were highlighted by the post I replied to (and quoted).

My usage of the word “failings” is to mirror the usage in that post — and you’re ignoring what’s happening in the discussion to feign ignorance for a cheap rhetorical flourish.

> I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'failings', but the idea of using 'groups' to describe anything is quite ant-postmodernist.

My exact point was that postmodernists claim this — and yet, fall into precisely the same group-based policy that the post I replied to said they were opposing.

Ie, that they’re hypocrites.

> I would like that people giving their opinion about postmodernism read a bit before

You’re living down to my criticism: you’re proclaiming some virtue you clearly don’t practice yourself — since you didn’t even read my comment, as evidenced by your failure to reply on the substance.

So your comment has only reinforced my conclusion:

> Postmodernism was nothing but phonies.

Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by jahewson on Saturday May 11, 2024 @10:25PM (#40331948)
Is it just me or is that not an even grander meta-meta-narrative?
Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by ganzuul on Sunday May 12, 2024 @01:33AM (#40332440)
No, it’s a rhetorical dead end because it says that everything has equal value and therefore nothing has value. Developing the idea is impossible because it has done away with the elements of reason.
Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by zmgsabst on Sunday May 12, 2024 @01:28AM (#40332431)
Counter-point:

The countries that adopted postmodernist beliefs collapsed within a few generations because postmodernist ideas are incoherent mindrot incapable of leading to human flourishing — and will be gone in under 150 years from their conception, due to their own defective nature.

In the US, for instance, we’re seeing a rejection of precisely that — and the accompanying collapse of media companies steeped in a postmodern ethos.

Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by soco on Tuesday May 14, 2024 @07:49AM (#40354158)
Do we already have a few generations since postmodernism beliefs were adopted? Or are we trying to be prophets where it suits our argument better?
Re:Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017) by ganzuul on Sunday May 12, 2024 @01:37AM (#40332455)
It uses past art as fuel for its irony and it has run out of fuel.