Not exactly. What happened at first was that Marxism—which, in the early 20th century, became the dominant mode of thought for Western intellectuals—was based on rationalist materialism, until it was empirically shown to be wrong by some of the largest social experiments mankind is capable of running. The question for intellectuals who were unwilling to give up Marx after that time was how to save Marxism from empirical reality. The answer to that was postmodernism. You’ll find that in most academic departments today, those who identify as Marxists are almost always postmodernists (and you won’t find them in economics or political science, but rather in the english, literary criticism and social science departments). Marxists of the rationalist type are pretty much extinct at this point.
I broadly agree, but you’re basically talking about the dynamics that resulted in postmodernism becoming an intellectual fad, devoid of much of its originally-meaningful content. Whereas I’m talking about what the original memeplex was about—i.e what people like the often-misunderstood Jacques Derrida were actually trying to say. It’s even clearer when you look at Michael Foucault, who was indeed a rather sharp critic of “high modernity”, but didn’t even consider himself a post-modernist (whereas he’s often regarded as one today). Rather, he was investigating pointed questions like “do modern institutions like medicine, psychiatric care and ‘scientific’ criminology really make us so much better off compared to the past when we lacked these, or is this merely an illusion due to how these institutions work?” And if you ask Robin Hanson today, he will tell you that we’re very likely overreliant on medicine, well beyond the point where such reliance actually benefits us.
postmodernism becoming an intellectual fad, devoid of much of its originally-meaningful content. Whereas I’m talking about what the original memeplex was about
So you concede that everyone you’re harassing is 100% correct, you just don’t want to talk about postmodernism? So fuck off.
Not exactly. What happened at first was that Marxism—which, in the early 20th century, became the dominant mode of thought for Western intellectuals—was based on rationalist materialism, until it was empirically shown to be wrong by some of the largest social experiments mankind is capable of running. The question for intellectuals who were unwilling to give up Marx after that time was how to save Marxism from empirical reality. The answer to that was postmodernism. You’ll find that in most academic departments today, those who identify as Marxists are almost always postmodernists (and you won’t find them in economics or political science, but rather in the english, literary criticism and social science departments). Marxists of the rationalist type are pretty much extinct at this point.
I broadly agree, but you’re basically talking about the dynamics that resulted in postmodernism becoming an intellectual fad, devoid of much of its originally-meaningful content. Whereas I’m talking about what the original memeplex was about—i.e what people like the often-misunderstood Jacques Derrida were actually trying to say. It’s even clearer when you look at Michael Foucault, who was indeed a rather sharp critic of “high modernity”, but didn’t even consider himself a post-modernist (whereas he’s often regarded as one today). Rather, he was investigating pointed questions like “do modern institutions like medicine, psychiatric care and ‘scientific’ criminology really make us so much better off compared to the past when we lacked these, or is this merely an illusion due to how these institutions work?” And if you ask Robin Hanson today, he will tell you that we’re very likely overreliant on medicine, well beyond the point where such reliance actually benefits us.
So you concede that everyone you’re harassing is 100% correct, you just don’t want to talk about postmodernism? So fuck off.