Postmodernism and intellectual cancer. Cleaning your head of snake oil..

Q/ How do you attack a philosophy that refuses to take a position, refuses to use definitions, and refuses to see reality as real?

A/ Take it apart brick by brick in the hope that anyone suffering from this intellectual cancer can heal themselves ? ( I dunno, I'm not that clever)...

Over this last few day's I've been 'boxing' with @tarazkp ( his words, not mine).

...AND MANY THANKS TO HIM, FOR HE GETS MY JUICES FLOWING!! - Not like that you sicko's...

THIS POST IS ABOUT POSTMODERNISM.

Over the last few 'rounds' with him, I realized that I was unable to get him to define things. Pin him down to a position.
On anything.
And then I realized that postmodernism was rearing it's very, very, ugly head.
(And so, because I'm nice, and I like Taraz - I'm helping and doing my part in ridding the world of intellectual cancer).

Delivered in the 'subtle as a brick' way, that Patriot seems to have some talent for ... Let's continue, shall we...

....While he found my boxing 'silly' (his words not mine), I explained that life is boxing, and everything is competition.. (a boxing match).
Competition is the most natural act of every living organism on the planet, in fact.

It's all one big boxing match.....which got me to thinking....As I do occasionally.... if framing boxing as silly, isn't that also framing competition as silly?
Isn't that saying the act of living is silly?
A bit nihilistic, if you ask me....

By framing natural systems of life itself - as silly - it then raises some very worrying points. Deep and very fundamental issues.

..... I thought some more....as I do....occasionally....
Not only did I think some more, I did a little digging....(and I also do that, now and again)
What I discovered is very depressing and a little bit terrifying.

While I knew a little about postmodernism, I know some more now .
And it's more than a bit shit, really...

If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I would define it as.... (postmodernists hate defining things, btw)

Postmodernism:
A faux intellectual philosophy in which anything can mean anything. Empty of any substance.

Normally found in academia, it has unfortunately been infecting the real world since the late 70's.
A philosophy of zero substance for the insecure intellectual, who can then mentally masturbate, and in doing so, display their intellectual prowess, while avoiding the real world at all costs.
By avoiding the real world, insecurity is never exposed. A self fulfilling, positive feedback loop.
I would posit that 'they' - the postmodernists - have to see themselves like this (intellectually speaking) to validate their own delusion.

^..A self portrait^... of how a postmodernist see's himself intellectually....

People who are not mentally ill, see them more like this...

And here in lies a very big problem.

The cleaning out the cancer that is post modernist thinking.
Ego.
There is no substance to any argument. It is devoid of facts. Empirical data is 'not real',!

If the argument is devoid of facts, then all that is left is a massive ego, trying to force some mirage of reality, onto the world as a validation of their own intellectual strength.

Selling snake oil.
Ego.
Nothing more.

.....here is a segment of the postmodernist process that illustrates everything I've been thinking, perfectly.. ....the latest round of the silly 'boxing match' that I was in with @Tarazkp

full post here...
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@tarazkp/the-stories-we-tell-ourselves

I would love to meme and have a laugh about it.....

....but for some reason the left postmodernist find laughing offensive, or something...

My intention is not to offend - it never is - my intention is to help - it always is...
(although it has to be said, some 'good offense' can be like ripping a plaster of a scab. A very sticky plaster - with a bit more 'stickiness' added. Painful but necessary, my friends, painful but necessary...)

...ah bollocks, I couldn't help myself....

...Here is the reply to a point that I made in the post - which illustrates perfectly the weakness of postmodernism, and how truly dangerous this 'quasi logic' is when trying to apply itself in the real world. (and not the sanitarium of academia).

ME : A lie is not reality. It's the illusion of reality, it doesn't make it real because people believe it.
(look at communistic propaganda )

Taraz : Once people act upon it as if real, it makes it a reality. (A very postmodernist 'logic'< I use the term with sarcasm).

My 'brick by brick' dismantling...

Therefore if something is acted upon it then makes it real? . It becomes real.
So.... if a consensus was reached by the National Socialists Party - the Nazi party - back in 1937, that all Jews were subhuman, ('it', being the propaganda spread, in this case) - and then 'it' is then acted upon, so that 'it' then becomes reality , 'Jews are then subhuman'... 'it' has now become real..
Holocaust, anyone..?

Seriously? That is to be taken as a valid philosophical position, and one to be spread into the real world?

To allow this logic of thought to go unopposed, is to sanction any thought can be seen as real.

_The 'real' element is entirely subjective, and then is entirely dependent on the liar spreading 'the reality', being believed.

Empiricism become irrelevant.
Morals and ethics become irrelevant.
It becomes the playground of the psychopath.
(communism, anyone?)

This is why I see postmodernism as truly a cancer in society, and the sooner it is purged the better.
On the bright side, it soon will be...

Academia and this false 'philosophy' will go screaming into history, as a tragic mistake, and responsible for the destruction of thousands of healthy minds and psyches .. (and defined as a possible mental illness).

The ego likes to be heard though , and when the insecure peacock plumes of the intellectual postmodernist are burned - the petulant - insecure- whimpers of 'victimhood' status, will surely follow.

Postmodernism is Leftism
By Paul Austin Murphy

Professor Stephen Hicks' book, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (2011), is used as a springboard in this piece. In other words, this ain't a book review.

Hicks uses the term “postmodernism” throughout his publication; though he's well aware that many of the philosophers and movements he refers to aren't ordinarily classed as postmodernist. That means that 'postmodernism' is indeed a catch-all term which is used primarily for convenience's sake. Despite that, all the movements and philosophers referred to are postmodernist in a literal sense; even though they aren't seen as being postmodernist in the strictly philosophical sense. More importantly, what united all these seemingly disparate philosophers and movements is that they were all, according to Hicks, left-wing (usually Trotskyist/communist/Maoist/etc.).

In terms of autobiography, Stephen Hicks is a very rare animal indeed: he's a right-wing professor at an American university. He teaches at Rockford University; where he also directs the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.

When Socialism was Discovered to be Dead or Dying

Professor Stephen Hicks's central thesis on postmodernist intellectuals is that they recognised that socialism was dead or dying (in the late 1960s,1970s, and 1980s) and thus decided to do something about it. What did they do? They developed their own distinctive “sceptical” (yet still left-wing!) philosophies. In 1974, for example, Herbert Marcuse was asked whether he thought the New Left was dead. Hicks quotes Marcuse as replying: “'I don't think it's dead, and it will resurrect in the universities.'”

He was dead right about that!

Of course, we can ask Hicks if it really were that simple. Was it really all about revivifying socialism/communism or were there (at least some) other factors involved? Nonetheless, that project might have been in the unconscious minds of these thinkers. Perhaps their upbringings in the theology of socialism left an indelible mark on their psyches; as religious upbringings tend to do.

Philosophy Serves Politics

It can be said that sceptical epistemology, deconstruction, etc. are all means to achieve the political ends which can't be sustained by truth, evidence and argumentation. Thus, if all this is taken as given (as true!), then one's “readings” and epistemologies give one free reign to believe what's required in order to further a political agenda/goal.

If we can be more specific about what postmodernists believe (even if in very broad terms), we can cite the following. Take logic. It's artificial, serves power and is anti-human (Heidegger, Levinas, etc.). Science is theory-laden and “underdetermined by the evidence” (as often said in the philosophy of science). Truth is a “tool of power” (Foucault) and is specific to different “language games” (Wittgenstein, etc.) or “phrase regimes” (Lyotard).

Thus, if, as Fredric Jameson put it (as quoted by Hicks), “all life is political” (therefore all philosophy is also political), then one political tool (if in the guise of philosophy) will be rhetoric (“literature”, in Derrida's case). That means that if no “discourse” reveals the truth (or even attempts to do so, in postmodernism's case), then why not bite the bullet and indulge in an even purer more extreme (philosophical) rhetoric -- even if in a poetic and/or pretentious guise?

Thus, as Hicks puts it, “regular deployments of ad hominem, the setting up of straw men, and the regular attempts to silence opposing voices” aren't only legitimate, they're to be encouraged (at least if you're on the same side). Hicks cites the example of Stanley Fish who “calls all opponents of racial preferences bigots and lumps them in with the Ku Klux Klan”. He also cites the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin. She “calls all heterosexual males rapists and repeatedly labels 'Amerika‛ a fascist state”. (So too does Chomsky!) All this, therefore, is simply a variant on the many Leftists who suffer from Tourette's syndrome when they repeatedly and uncontrollably shout “racist”, “bigot”, “xenophobe”, “Nazi”, etc. at literally anyone who dares to opposes them.

But Why Leftism?

Despite all the above, you wouldn't think (on the surface) that most/all these different philosophers (who rejected truth and reason) would have also flocked to the very same political position -- but they did!
Thus “Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, and Richard Rorty are all far Left”. And “so are Jacques Lacan, Stanley Fish, Catherine MacKinnon, Andreas Huyssen, and Frank Lentricchia”. Of course, postmods may well laugh at what they perceive to be Hicks' lack of discrimination here. So, yes, it's true that all these thinkers were individuals with their own ways of thinking. However, although the parameters they existed within were (relatively!) broad, they were, nonetheless, still circumscribed. That is, “[o]f the major names in the postmodernist movement, there is not a single figure who is not Left-wing in a serious way”. And Hicks concludes that this must mean that “there is something else going on besides epistemology”!

In addition to that, nearly all these intellectuals did indeed begin their lives as outright communists/socialists. Michel Foucault, for example, was a member of the French Communist Party from 1950 to 1953. Jean-François Lyotard was an active member of the Marxist group Socialisme ou Barbarie (Socialism or Barbarism) for twelve years. As for Jacques Derrida, he was a writer for the well-known Maoist Tel Quel journal. (Hicks quotes Derrida as saying: “Deconstruction never had meaning or interest, at least in my eyes, than as a radicalization, that is to say, also within the tradition of a certain Marxism, in a certain spirit of Marxism.”) Richard Rorty's case is less clear-cut, both in terms of political activity and ideological allegiance. Nonetheless, he once strongly supported the American Socialist Party, specifically the union leader A. Philip Randolph.

A Deep Faith in Socialism

What was the root of this deep faith in socialism/communism generally? Why didn't postmods, poststructuralists, structuralists, etc. reject it out-of-hand? Hicks believes that there was a religious (or at least a quasi-religious) reason for this.

Leftists have religious sensibilities. They see socialism/communism as the religion that it is. Hicks, specifically, picks up on the psychological root of their religious infatuation with socialism. He writes:

“You feel that socialism is true; you want it to be true; upon socialism you have pinned all your dreams of a peaceful and prosperous future society and all your hopes for solving the ills of our current society.”

Strangely enough, Richard Rorty confessed his deep faith in Leftism in that he advised Leftists to ignore socialism/communism's bloodthirsty history. Thus Rorty, as quoted by Hicks, said:

“I think that a good Left is a party that always thinks about the future and doesn’t care much about our past sins.”

Source
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/4_3_2017_23_35.html

Further reading..
https://areomagazine.com/2017/03/27/how-french-intellectuals-ruined-the-west-postmodernism-and-its-impact-explained/