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entanglingbriarsThis may, or may not, become an ongoing series on postmodernism, critical theory, and other related areas. I don't, can't, and won't claim to fully understand postmodernism, but I feel like my studies have left me with a grasp, albeit shaky, on the subject. We'll start with a definition. Broadly speaking, postmodernism is a distrust of meta-narratives, of the stories we tell about how and why we organize knowledge the ways that we do, about how power structures work, about what it means to be human. Postmodernism isn't necessarily a rejection of those meta-narratives, but it treats them with extreme skepticism due to a hermeneutic about epistemology and power outlined in this excellent essay by Connor Wood (highly recommended reading!).
The impact of postmodernism really can't be overstated, but the result hasn't been the epistemic nihilism that might seem like the logical conclusion of this outlook. Instead, you get two kinds of arguments:
1. Arguments about how society is currently structured and the ways in which power within society manifests.
2. Arguments about alternative ways society can be viewed, particularly through the eyes of historically marginalized groups.
(But there's an obvious contradiction here: a distrust of meta-narratives has to include a distrust of the meta-narratives of marginalized peoples as well. And this, I believe, is where postmodernism fails, which is something I plan to explore in a future essay.)
So why should you care? Well, if you're involved in social justice in any way, including as one of its opponents, most of the arguments in social justice rhetoric about power, privilege, and marginalization come from a postmodern outlook. Postmodernism allowed researchers in the humanities and social sciences to escape the meta-narratives about how society was structured and create alternative meta-narratives, ones that emphasize the ways in which all aspects of society combine to cause and perpetuate oppression.
Because that's the power of postmodernism: it forces you as a thinker to accept the inherent subjectivity of your position. You as a person do not have access to objective knowledge of an objective perspective. Your perspective is inherently colored by your history, social location, and other contexts. I strongly dislike postmodernism as an epistemology, but as a methodology it has serious power. In the sciences, objectivity is attempted through the isolation of data (I may later write an essay on postmodernism and science, but I don't feel like I have the necessary knowledge base to do that at this time), but the humanities don't have data--we just have texts (where text means anything that can be interpreted for meaning). Postmodernism doesn't give us objectivity, but rather denies our pretension to possess it.
Also, you can't escape it. Postmodernism is everywhere. Donald Trump is, in a very real sense, our first postmodern president; he challenges the claims of journalists not by presenting evidence that they have hidden, but by presenting alternative narratives. His supporters do the same (I highly recommend reading this essay by a conservative commentator for an example of how this sort of alternative narrative can be created. Bawer points to facts, but more important than facts is the narrative around Donald Trump he's drawn.
But Dove, you might say, people have been doing that since forever. Postmodernism's only been around for a few decades! And you'd be entirely right. Postmodernism as a theory/method/whatever is young, but it wasn't created wholesale by the collapse of structuralism. It was (always) already a part of how Western people had been thinking since we first recognized the power of rhetoric.
1. Knowledge and truth are largely socially constructed, not objectively discovered.
2. What we believe to be “true” is in large part a function of social power: who wields it, who’s oppressed by it, how it influences which messages we hear.
3. Power is generally oppressive and self-interested (and implicitly zero-sum).
4. Thus, most claims about supposedly objective truth are actually power plays, or strategies for legitimizing particular social arrangements.
To translate, postmodern theories claim that knowledge isn’t really objective. Rather, it’s produced by social discourses, which are inherently normative, or value-laden. As such, there’s no such thing as a neutral statement of pure fact. Even the most seemingly humdrum truth claims are actually tools that help to advance some particular social agenda or other.
The impact of postmodernism really can't be overstated, but the result hasn't been the epistemic nihilism that might seem like the logical conclusion of this outlook. Instead, you get two kinds of arguments:
1. Arguments about how society is currently structured and the ways in which power within society manifests.
2. Arguments about alternative ways society can be viewed, particularly through the eyes of historically marginalized groups.
(But there's an obvious contradiction here: a distrust of meta-narratives has to include a distrust of the meta-narratives of marginalized peoples as well. And this, I believe, is where postmodernism fails, which is something I plan to explore in a future essay.)
So why should you care? Well, if you're involved in social justice in any way, including as one of its opponents, most of the arguments in social justice rhetoric about power, privilege, and marginalization come from a postmodern outlook. Postmodernism allowed researchers in the humanities and social sciences to escape the meta-narratives about how society was structured and create alternative meta-narratives, ones that emphasize the ways in which all aspects of society combine to cause and perpetuate oppression.
Because that's the power of postmodernism: it forces you as a thinker to accept the inherent subjectivity of your position. You as a person do not have access to objective knowledge of an objective perspective. Your perspective is inherently colored by your history, social location, and other contexts. I strongly dislike postmodernism as an epistemology, but as a methodology it has serious power. In the sciences, objectivity is attempted through the isolation of data (I may later write an essay on postmodernism and science, but I don't feel like I have the necessary knowledge base to do that at this time), but the humanities don't have data--we just have texts (where text means anything that can be interpreted for meaning). Postmodernism doesn't give us objectivity, but rather denies our pretension to possess it.
Also, you can't escape it. Postmodernism is everywhere. Donald Trump is, in a very real sense, our first postmodern president; he challenges the claims of journalists not by presenting evidence that they have hidden, but by presenting alternative narratives. His supporters do the same (I highly recommend reading this essay by a conservative commentator for an example of how this sort of alternative narrative can be created. Bawer points to facts, but more important than facts is the narrative around Donald Trump he's drawn.
But Dove, you might say, people have been doing that since forever. Postmodernism's only been around for a few decades! And you'd be entirely right. Postmodernism as a theory/method/whatever is young, but it wasn't created wholesale by the collapse of structuralism. It was (always) already a part of how Western people had been thinking since we first recognized the power of rhetoric.
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Date: 2018-12-19 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 09:08 pm (UTC)