The value of Postmodern thinking

[Magical Realist]

The problem with absolute truths, of the moral kind, the scientific kind, or even the philosophical kind, is that they basically become conversation stoppers. It is as if something is now arrived at that cannot itself be questioned and must simply be accepted. It is as if understanding itself has become reified into an object of which no further understanding is possible and that has to just be accepted as arbitrary and given. We have reached the bottom so to speak of all curious inquiry, at least in that line of thought.

But nothing about reality or language suggests the existence of such a final epistemic terminus. Sellers described it as the Myth of the Given. We are always just arriving on the scene, with all our conceptual abilities and words and rules of logic. As Sartre put it, "Existence before essence." Nothing is closed off and settled. Everything is already in play and open-ended in a truly Godelian sense. Everything that is in the most general sense of just being, from ideas to values to art objects to natural phenomena to phenomenal properties to people to symbols to literature and politics and history and technology to anything else that can be said to just be, is snugly ensconced in an infinite network of other beings. And this to me is the crucial value of postmodern thinking, as the enactment of the pervasive hermeneutical interplay of meanings and patterns and syzygies. As Richard Rorty simply put it:

"There is nothing to be known about anything except an initially large, and forever expandable, web of relations to other things. Everything that can serve as a term of relation can be dissolved into another set of relations, and so on for ever. There are, so to speak, relations all the way down, all the way up, and all the way out in every direction: you never reach something which is not just one more nexus of relations."

The important thing to remember about this sort of meandering and on-the-fly elucidation of Being from the semantic relationships between all beings is that it is not a task to achieve or a goal to shoot for so much as a game to be played and enjoyed for itself. It is creative and iconoclastic at once, unveiling the astonishingly manifold and wide-ranging presence in all things and events of Being itself. There is always a serendipitous element to it, coming upon patterns and metaphors that were just there and waiting to be manifested. This is what keeps it from ending in nihilistic despair. Nothing is absolutely true yes. The metanarrative of hyperrational explainability and abstractive conceptualization is full of holes. But because of this return of the pluralistic, everything is interesting and relevant and meaningfully interwoven with everything else.

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."---John Muir

One of my favorite TV series of all time was James Burke's "Connections". Maybe I can stream it now. He always had a knack at fascinating me by tracing out the enormously complex web of causality and consequence between historical innovations and events, many of which were entire flukes of chance. Here's a pithy little quote from him:

“Writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.”― James Lee Burke

[Syne]

You seem to be conflating "absolute truths" with "objective facts," "universal principles," etc.. None of the latter are unquestionable.
So you would have to, first, show that these are, indeed, unquestionable before you can use that as some sort of validation of postmodernism.

If postmodernism is only concerned with absolutism, fundamentalism, scientism, etc., it is trivially useless. If it is a criticism of things that most people consider open to questions, only then is it worth any kind of discussion... no matter how ill-conceived it is.

[Magical Realist]

Not going to waste my time arguing with you about the meaning of words you know nothing about. I will however attempt to get you up to speed with A I Overviews. Educate yourself about a topic before trying to refute it.

"Absolute truth refers to statements or beliefs that are true for all people, at all times, and in all situations, regardless of individual perspectives or cultural contexts. It's a concept that suggests there are certain facts or principles that are inherently true and unchanging, existing independently of human knowledge or belief.

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

Key Characteristics of Absolute Truth:

Universality: True for everyone, everywhere, and at all times.

Immutability: Not subject to change or modification based on opinion or circumstance.

Independence: Exists independently of human perception or belief.

Knowability: While absolute truths may be difficult to grasp fully, they are considered knowable in principle.

Examples of Absolute Truth:

Mathematical truths: 2 + 2 = 4, or the fact that there are no square circles.

Logical truths: Laws of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction.

Moral truths: Some argue that certain actions, like murder or torture, are inherently wrong, regardless of cultural norms.

Scientific truths: While scientific knowledge is constantly evolving, some fundamental principles, like gravity, are considered to be absolute.

Contrast with Relative Truth:

Relative truth:
.
A belief that truth is subjective and varies based on individual or cultural perspectives.

The difference:
.
Absolute truth claims that there is a single, objective reality, while relative truth suggests that reality is constructed through individual or group interpretations.

Philosophical Perspectives:

Nietzsche:
Some philosophers, like Nietzsche, have argued against the existence of absolute truth, suggesting that all truth is perspectival and shaped by individual "will to power".

Mystical traditions:
Mystical experiences often point to a transcendent, ineffable Absolute that is beyond the grasp of the intellect.

Religious perspectives:
Many religions incorporate the concept of absolute truth, often linking it to a divine source or ultimate reality.

In essence, the concept of absolute truth raises fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and the human experience"

“There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be.”― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo

“The way the world is includes appearances, and there is no single point of view from which they can all be fully grasped!. ”― Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere

[Syne]

Yeah, yeah. Postmodernist morons are those who tell us math is racist.
You fit right in. You've often denied science. Why not math too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_...tmodernism

[Magical Realist]

Postmodern thinking is not without its dangers. How could it not be? In its anarchist radicality it can bring about the very totalitarian and absolutist regimes it sought to take down for example. Or the elevation of groupthink and institutionalized authoritarianism over individual freethinking as we so clearly see with speech police and academically-enforced views over others. That's why I am cautious about adopting it as a label or position. It was never meant to be an ideology or worldview. It was meant to be a way of speaking truth to power and of interrogating the narratives we define ourselves by. Taken to extremes it can result in a total skepticism on just about anything. A habit or inclination to just outright dismiss the needs of humans for meaning and story and absolute truths. That as I pointed out can lead to nihilism or absurdism, even justifying delusional irrationalism as witnessed in such movements as flat earth believers and Holocaust deniers and antivaxxers and QAnon.

Again, it is the methodology and epistemology of it that interests me, not the flawed social and political manifestations of it. I want to know to what extent our reality is constructed by language and the set of propositions and concepts historically passed down to us called "discourse". And I am concerned more for sniffing out new ways we can find rootedness in our own world which seems at times but little more than a rudderless ship in a sea storm, especially with the Internet and social media. What do we really mean by truth and the Good and power and freedom? That's what has always bonded me to Heidegger in his emphasis on an authentic phenomenological encounter thru thinking with what Levinas called The Other. What others still vaguely refer to as God. Factor in my own tentative leanings towards anomalous phenomena and a sort of neo-gnosticism and Taoist mysticism and its easy to see that this is all really just a spiritual quest for me. There is absolutely nothing political about it.

[Syne]

Yes, truth to power, from your victimhood ideology/politics, where the poor or minorities are given moral superiority by dent of their identity alone, hence identity politics.
Your motive is transparent. Now, if you actually engaged in arguments to refute things like objective facts (ala postmodernism), I might think you actually wanted to have an intellectually honest discussion. But touting it like your a fan just sounds like you're happy to find affirmation... which doesn't warrant any discussion at all.

Maybe this thread was only meant to be a blog post.

[Magical Realist]

Yes, truth to power, from your victimhood ideology/politics, where the poor or minorities are given moral superiority by dent of their identity alone, hence identity politics.

Not victimization or identity politics. Poverty is a condition certain people have to live in. Nobody chooses it or brags about it or derives a sense of superiority from it. You've been in poverty before. Were YOU using it as ploy to garner special treatment? To feel sorry for yourself. No..it is just an involuntary and debilitating state to be in. It is no more about moral superiority or identity than PTSD is or autism is or drug addiction is or mental illness is.

OTOH being a member of an oppressed minority can and should be an identity for people to accept. It is a label and a characterization totally imposed on them by society. Something they are that they were raised to feel ashamed of and were looked down on for. They didn't ask to be LGBT or black or Hispanic or disabled or old or obese or red-haired or short. There are no advantages to being a member of a minority in a society always trying to single you out for that and stereotyping you for that and discriminating against you for that. And that is what being a real victim is. If you are so jealous of members of minorities realize that it is itself a socially-constructed classification that denies your normalcy and dignity and humanity. in some cases even inciting bullying and violence against you. Do you really wanna live with that? Why would you think anybody would?

[Syne]

Hence poor or minority, the former being a symptom of classism where the rich are vilified, much like how Republicans are often accused of all being rich.
Since you didn't address it, do minorities not have moral superiority by dent of their identity?

[Magical Realist]

the former being a symptom of classism where the rich are vilified, much like how Republicans are often accused of all being rich.

LOL Oh those poor pitiful victimized rich people, oppressed for just having lots of money. You're a total loon..

Since you didn't address it, do minorities not have moral superiority by dent of their identity?

I've never heard of "moral superiority". Is that another word you made up? How is one human being "morally superior" to another? I thought all men were created equal. Is it just in their genes? Or does being poor actually make them morally superior? How? Why is the crime rate and drug addiction and promiscuous sex so much higher among the poor then?

[Syne]

I said they were vilified due to classism that assumes they are morally inferior. Most people with any money realize that's just jealousy. Very far from being victims.

Victimhood is commonly deemed negative. The dominant account of victimhood argues that leveraging victimhood involves asserting the moral superiority of the weak, leading to an oversimplification of complex political matters into moral binaries of good versus evil.
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...articles.3

Similarly, criminals often engage in victim thinking, believing themselves to be moral and engaging in crime only as a reaction to an immoral world and furthermore feeling that authorities are unfairly singling them out for persecution.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_mentality

Victim stance thinkers also gain a sense of power because they come to believe in their own moral superiority. When they have convinced themselves that negative circumstances in their life have nothing to do with their own actions, it is a quick step to believing everyone surrounding them is morally wrong in comparison.
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...tim-stance

The moral superiority of victims is their own subjective superiority, influenced by the very "subjective truth" and "personal experience" of postmodernism.