Postmodernism for Rationalists

[gepr]

HTML:
https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
PDF:
https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

> • Postmodernism at its best
>
>   · Not dogmatic and ideological
>   · Focuses on human values
>   · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints
>   · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps
>
> • Postmodernism at its worst
>
>   · Used to push shoddy political agendas
>   · Cargo cult ideology
>   · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
>   · Results in existential loneliness
>

--
☣ gⅼеɳ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Glen ☣-

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

Best of Times:

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.
    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?
    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?
    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

Worst of Times:

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.
    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).
    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.
    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

Fire away!
 - Sieve

HTML:
https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
PDF:
https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological
  · Focuses on human values
  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints
  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas
  · Cargo cult ideology
  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
  · Results in existential loneliness

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Frank Wimberly-2]

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

Frank

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

Best of Times:

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.
    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?
    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?
    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

Worst of Times:

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.
    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).
    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.
    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

Fire away!
 - Sieve

HTML:
https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
PDF:
https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological
  · Focuses on human values
  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints
  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas
  · Cargo cult ideology
  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
  · Results in existential loneliness

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Prof David West]

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

dave west

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

Frank

Frank Wimberly

Phone [phone]

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

Best of Times:

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

Worst of Times:

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

Fire away!

 - Sieve

HTML:
https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
PDF:
https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological
  · Focuses on human values
  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints
  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas
  · Cargo cult ideology
  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
  · Results in existential loneliness

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Frank Wimberly-2]

This stimulated a memory.  When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity boys ever.  I transferred to Berkeley that year.  When I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and a florid Hippie.  I recently did a search and discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders.  Some people are like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.

Frank

On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

dave west

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

Frank

Frank Wimberly

Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

Best of Times:

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

Worst of Times:

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

Fire away!

 - Sieve

HTML:
https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
PDF:
https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological
  · Focuses on human values
  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints
  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas
  · Cargo cult ideology
  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
  · Results in existential loneliness

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Sorry.  As usual I am playing catch up in this argument.

 

What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology?  Praying to whatever might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky? 

 

And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

This stimulated a memory.  When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity boys ever.  I transferred to Berkeley that year.  When I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and a florid Hippie.  I recently did a search and discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders.  Some people are like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.

 

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

 

dave west

 

 

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

 

Frank

 

Frank Wimberly

Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

 

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

 

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

 

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

 

Best of Times:

 

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

 

Worst of Times:

 

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

 

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

 

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

 

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

 

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

 

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

 

Fire away!

 - Sieve

 

 

 

HTML:

https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html

PDF:

https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological

  · Focuses on human values

  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints

  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas

  · Cargo cult ideology

  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior

  · Results in existential loneliness

 

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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[Steve Smith]

Nick -

 What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology?  Praying to whatever might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky? 

I tend to think of Cargo Cult thinking as (naively) conflating form with function, of invoking the "form" of something with the hope/assumption that the function will follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

I think I hear in this presentation that it is being used mostly to describe the rhetoric of *some* PoMo followers who might salt their language with erudite sounding terms, hoping the results won't be challenged.  Similar to the way Newage practitioners use "laser", "vibrational energy", "crystal", etc. to try to imply scientific foundations for their ideas.  Or closer to home the way our extended group can be accused of "Complexity Babble" for lacing our explanation of things with words like "emergent" or "chaos" or "attractor" for similar purposes.  

I think the key concept is to invoke something you have seen to be effective in one context without understanding it's mechanism and thereby completely missing the mark in your own application.

I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming named after this term as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming

- Steve

 

And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

This stimulated a memory.  When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity boys ever.  I transferred to Berkeley that year.  When I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and a florid Hippie.  I recently did a search and discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders.  Some people are like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.

 

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

 

dave west

 

 

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

 

Frank

 

Frank Wimberly

Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

 

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

 

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

 

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

 

Best of Times:

 

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

 

Worst of Times:

 

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

 

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

 

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

 

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

 

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

 

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

 

Fire away!

 - Sieve

 

 

 

HTML:

https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html

PDF:

https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological

  · Focuses on human values

  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints

  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas

  · Cargo cult ideology

  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior

  · Results in existential loneliness

 

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Ah, Steve.  I might have known that Feynman would have something to do with it.  Wikipedia, ob cit:

 

The metaphorical use of "cargo cult" was popularized by physicist Richard Feynman at a 1974 Caltech commencement speech, which later became a chapter in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, where he coined the phrase "cargo cult science" to describe activity that had some of the trappings of real science (such as publication in scientific journals) but lacked a basis in honest experimentation. Later the term cargo cult programming developed to describe computer software containing elements that are included because of successful utilization elsewhere, unnecessary for the task at hand.^[22]

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 9:23 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

Nick -

 What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology?  Praying to whatever might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky? 

I tend to think of Cargo Cult thinking as (naively) conflating form with function, of invoking the "form" of something with the hope/assumption that the function will follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

I think I hear in this presentation that it is being used mostly to describe the rhetoric of *some* PoMo followers who might salt their language with erudite sounding terms, hoping the results won't be challenged.  Similar to the way Newage practitioners use "laser", "vibrational energy", "crystal", etc. to try to imply scientific foundations for their ideas.  Or closer to home the way our extended group can be accused of "Complexity Babble" for lacing our explanation of things with words like "emergent" or "chaos" or "attractor" for similar purposes.  

I think the key concept is to invoke something you have seen to be effective in one context without understanding it's mechanism and thereby completely missing the mark in your own application.

I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming named after this term as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming

- Steve

 

And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

This stimulated a memory.  When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity boys ever.  I transferred to Berkeley that year.  When I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and a florid Hippie.  I recently did a search and discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders.  Some people are like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.

 

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

 

dave west

 

 

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

 

Frank

 

Frank Wimberly

Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

 

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

 

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

 

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

 

Best of Times:

 

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

 

Worst of Times:

 

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

 

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

 

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

 

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

 

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

 

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

 

Fire away!

 - Sieve

 

 

 

HTML:

https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html

PDF:

https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological

  · Focuses on human values

  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints

  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas

  · Cargo cult ideology

  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior

  · Results in existential loneliness

 

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve writes:

< I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming named after this term as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming   >

Cargo cult programming is like the link below, starting at 4:20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZAPwfrtAFY&feature=youtu.be

That is, not just imperfect, but worse than nothing.

Marcus

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[Steve Smith]

Nick -

Yes!  Thanks for putting this on the table...  your calling this out made me aware that I was almost assuredly introduced to the concept in Feynman's "Joking" memoir.  At the time, I remember feeling vaguely (condescendingly) superior to the subjects of the anecdote.  

Our current populist "magical thinking" is a bit less understandable (forgiveable), however...   but still worth understanding as best we can how to turn that around... but painful to watch.

- Steve

Ah, Steve.  I might have known that Feynman would have something to do with it.  Wikipedia, ob cit:

 

The metaphorical use of "cargo cult" was popularized by physicist Richard Feynman at a 1974 Caltech commencement speech, which later became a chapter in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, where he coined the phrase "cargo cult science" to describe activity that had some of the trappings of real science (such as publication in scientific journals) but lacked a basis in honest experimentation. Later the term cargo cult programming developed to describe computer software containing elements that are included because of successful utilization elsewhere, unnecessary for the task at hand.^[22]

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 9:23 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

Nick -

 What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology?  Praying to whatever might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky? 

I tend to think of Cargo Cult thinking as (naively) conflating form with function, of invoking the "form" of something with the hope/assumption that the function will follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

I think I hear in this presentation that it is being used mostly to describe the rhetoric of *some* PoMo followers who might salt their language with erudite sounding terms, hoping the results won't be challenged.  Similar to the way Newage practitioners use "laser", "vibrational energy", "crystal", etc. to try to imply scientific foundations for their ideas.  Or closer to home the way our extended group can be accused of "Complexity Babble" for lacing our explanation of things with words like "emergent" or "chaos" or "attractor" for similar purposes.  

I think the key concept is to invoke something you have seen to be effective in one context without understanding it's mechanism and thereby completely missing the mark in your own application.

I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming named after this term as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming

- Steve

 

And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

This stimulated a memory.  When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity boys ever.  I transferred to Berkeley that year.  When I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and a florid Hippie.  I recently did a search and discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders.  Some people are like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.

 

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

 

dave west

 

 

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

 

Frank

 

Frank Wimberly

Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

 

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

 

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

 

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

 

Best of Times:

 

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

 

Worst of Times:

 

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

 

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

 

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

 

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

 

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

 

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

 

Fire away!

 - Sieve

 

 

 

HTML:

https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html

PDF:

https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological

  · Focuses on human values

  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints

  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas

  · Cargo cult ideology

  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior

  · Results in existential loneliness

 

 

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[Steve Smith]

Marcus -

Cargo cult programming is like the link below, starting at 4:20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZAPwfrtAFY&feature=youtu.be

That is, not just imperfect, but worse than nothing.

An aphorism by a former LANL Colleague:
    "sometimes the most you can do is nothing"

I think that was *his* response to some of the "magical thinking" we were often subjected to by upper management...  being told "you have to" and "but you can't" all in the same sentence.

Thanks for the link... it lead me to a mini-binge on John Oliver.   He seems to be the "go to" for comedic news for my Nephew's generation (22), and not really that far off from my own's pairing of Stewart and Colbert.

As for the style of (uber-naive) programming described by this term, I suffered alongside fellow students 40 years ago who all but "shuffled" their card decks and resubmitted them to the batch system, hoping that miraculously that would make their program start working.   100 Monkeys typing would have done as well?   Many years later, as a mentor for aspiring Computer Programmers (engineers/scientists usually without significant formal education in CS) I found myself noticing that the ubiquity of existing and easily accessed code (thank you Internet) lead them to do a LOT of cut and paste programming that didn't even begin to have a basis in rationality... If I'd only known to call it Cargo Cult thinking and offer them Feynman's anecdotes.  

This reminds me a *little* too much of my own experience as a toddler when my father was trying to help me "make" a birthday or mother's day present for my mother and I wanted desperately to make a "vase" out of one of those long, narrow balloons by cutting it in half.   To give my father credit, he tried to talk me out of it for a while and then finally allowed me to "give it a go".   I'm not sure precisely what I learned through that exercise, but it stuck with me.   I think that was how I dealt with some of my more stubborn students... letting them throw their spaghetti against the wall until they got tired enough of the (lack of) results to listen to me and to think the problem through...  none of those students went on to be very successful as I remember.   Perhaps I should have just put them out of their misery?

This opens the question implied by "we all go through a natural naive period", which is "when is it reasonably time to have transcended that?"  I have no reason to expect the Donald Trumps (or most politicians) to transcend their own naivete...   in many cases it was likely their willful ignorance that got them where they are.  The challenge on the table today (IMO) is how to refactor our system of governance (and it's various mechanisms) to NOT select for willful ignorance in our representatives (and most of the electorate)?

- Steve


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[Nick Thompson]

Steve,

 

For somebody who knows as little about physics as I do, I probably spend too much time being grumpy about Feynman.

 

Is quoting Feynman on Cargo Cults in Programming an example of itself? 

 

CF Magritte

 

Ce n’est pas une pipe.

 

Sorry.  Now I am just being goofy.

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2017 10:04 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Cargo Cult

 

Nick -

Yes!  Thanks for putting this on the table...  your calling this out made me aware that I was almost assuredly introduced to the concept in Feynman's "Joking" memoir.  At the time, I remember feeling vaguely (condescendingly) superior to the subjects of the anecdote.  

Our current populist "magical thinking" is a bit less understandable (forgiveable), however...   but still worth understanding as best we can how to turn that around... but painful to watch.

- Steve

Ah, Steve.  I might have known that Feynman would have something to do with it.  Wikipedia, ob cit:

 

The metaphorical use of "cargo cult" was popularized by physicist Richard Feynman at a 1974 Caltech commencement speech, which later became a chapter in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, where he coined the phrase "cargo cult science" to describe activity that had some of the trappings of real science (such as publication in scientific journals) but lacked a basis in honest experimentation. Later the term cargo cult programming developed to describe computer software containing elements that are included because of successful utilization elsewhere, unnecessary for the task at hand.^[22]

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 9:23 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

Nick -

 What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology?  Praying to whatever might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky? 

I tend to think of Cargo Cult thinking as (naively) conflating form with function, of invoking the "form" of something with the hope/assumption that the function will follow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

I think I hear in this presentation that it is being used mostly to describe the rhetoric of *some* PoMo followers who might salt their language with erudite sounding terms, hoping the results won't be challenged.  Similar to the way Newage practitioners use "laser", "vibrational energy", "crystal", etc. to try to imply scientific foundations for their ideas.  Or closer to home the way our extended group can be accused of "Complexity Babble" for lacing our explanation of things with words like "emergent" or "chaos" or "attractor" for similar purposes.  

I think the key concept is to invoke something you have seen to be effective in one context without understanding it's mechanism and thereby completely missing the mark in your own application.

I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming named after this term as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming

- Steve

 

And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists

 

This stimulated a memory.  When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity boys ever.  I transferred to Berkeley that year.  When I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and a florid Hippie.  I recently did a search and discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders.  Some people are like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.

 

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but  Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.

 

dave west

 

 

On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.

 

Frank

 

Frank Wimberly

Phone <a href="tel:%28505%29%20670-9918" target="_blank">[phone]

 

On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen ☣-

 

A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to Rationalists?

 

Actually I found it somewhat interesting...  and was (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.

 

As for the summary you included here from the presentation:

 

Best of Times:

 

    A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but that may have been partly projection and partly the selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.

    2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological statement?  PoMo seems to be centered (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely "self" as in "self-centered"?    I'm not trying to say that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement of that)?

    c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?  I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements with thermal excitation?

    IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least challenging?) of his observations.

 

Worst of Times:

 

    0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas...  I observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more than anything.  I think I'm (well?) past judging it by that early introduction, but I think the author cited here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the Alt.Right these days.

    II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult...  and it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend it...   elevating correlation (free association)  to the level of causation.  Ignoring the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function duality.  I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).

    c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not... it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.

    Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture? 

 

PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.

 

But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)

 

From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:

 

Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,^[6] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,^[7] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8] and a “waning of affect”^[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]

All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).

 

I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):

 

As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.

The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.^[25]

 

Fire away!

 - Sieve

 

 

 

HTML:

https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html

PDF:

https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf

I appreciated these 2 slides:

• Postmodernism at its best

  · Not dogmatic and ideological

  · Focuses on human values

  · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints

  · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps

• Postmodernism at its worst

  · Used to push shoddy political agendas

  · Cargo cult ideology

  · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior

  · Results in existential loneliness

 

 

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[gepr]

FWIW, I view existentialism as a re-grounding of meaning, onto "what it's like" to be human (or any thinking thing).  Postmodernism is simply the realization that meaning *can* be re-grounded at will.  It focuses less on fixing/fixating on humans and more on our ability to change what we're fixated on.  It just so happens that humans are masters of re-grounding.  So, lots of postmodern stuff ends up being about humans and how/that they re-ground.

Read this way, existentialism is completely antithetic to postmodernism.

On 11/18/2017 07:53 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

--
☣ gⅼеɳ

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[gepr]

FWIW, I view existentialism as a re-grounding of meaning, onto "what it's like" to be human (or any thinking thing).  Postmodernism is simply the realization that meaning *can* be re-grounded at will.  It focuses less on fixing/fixating on humans and more on our ability to change what we're fixated on.  It just so happens that humans are masters of re-grounding.  So, lots of postmodern stuff ends up being about humans and how/that they re-ground.

Read this way, existentialism is completely antithetic to postmodernism.

On 11/18/2017 07:53 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism?   I take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live it.

--
☣ gⅼеɳ

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[gepr]

I don't know anyone who still claims to be (or think as) a postmodernist.  The temporal context implied by "post-" simply indicates a stage we've gone through, not a centralized, coherent way of thinking.  The transition referred to by "postmodern" simply indicates that we lost our *assumed*, fixed, foundation.  Modern had a firm, fixed footing.  We lost that and now we'll always be post modern.

Attempts to replace the previous (modern) footing with some new, unitary, coherent foundation have been successfully resisted.  But it seems to me like we're arriving at a constraint-based way of thinking.  Yes, *within* some set of constraints, there's plenty of semantic wiggle.  The constraints circumscribe a set of equivalent re-groundings.  But it's clearly nonsense to re-ground to something outside the constraints.  I.e. we're approaching something modelable by things like Kripke semantics.  Given a language, some things make sense and others don't.  Change languages and what makes (versus what doesn't make) sense changes.

If we get to the point in science where we can seriously talk about consciousness, then perhaps that will provide a new, fixed, grounding for meaning.  But until then, perhaps our best bet is to categorize types of language(s) and types of sentences in those languages to further constrain the wiggle room that postmodernism originally pointed out.


On 11/18/2017 10:15 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to rationalists?).   It's (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent) drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.
>
> But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?   Post-Postmodernism?  MetaModernism?   A plenitude of *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)
>
> From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:
>
>     /Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,//^[6] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-6> //a metaphysical skepticism or //nihilism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism>//towards a “//grand narrative <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_narrative>//” of Western culture,//^[7] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-7> //a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)//^[8] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-8> //and a “waning of affect”//^[9] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-9> //on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia./^/[10]
>     <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-10>/
>
> All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names referenced there.   Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism?   I don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).
>
> I also find something interesting in this description of metaModernism (same source):
>
>     /As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to, among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability./
>
>     /The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's //metaxy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaxy>//, which intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.//^[25] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-25> /

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