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Don't get me wrong, I greatly appreciate the fact that you're at least putting effort into sincerely arguing your points. It's an argument I've enjoyed having. It's just that your points are wrong and your reasons for thinking they're right are stupid.

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SBOTD#1: Pre-postmodernism

Started by Cain, January 03, 2007, 09:34:54 AM

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Cain

Post-modern bullshit

What the hell has happened to the world?  Every half awake person must have asked themselves this question at some point.  It seems as if the last 200 years of genuine progress and curing social ills has been thrown out the window, around 1979 coincidentally, given the following examples.

If you don,Äôt think things are that crazy or bad, just think about this for a minute: the dominant philosophy currently on American campuses is that there is no such thing as ,Äúreality,Äù, that in fact reality is a textual construct about which pretty much anything can be said if made to sound obscure and edgy enough.  This isn,Äôt just some obscure philosophical abstraction - right now this is the dominant way of understanding most of the social sciences and literary analysis in general and is filtering down into the public very nicely.

But the insanity is not just confined to rigidly dogmatic American and European academics, this whole stinking planet is infested with those peddling insanely dangerous dreams, from the Mullahs in Iran to the ,Äútheologians,Äù of Deconstruction to the Vatican.  The Age of the Screaming Fanatic is upon us, you will believe or it will cost you your job and credibility, or maybe even your life.  The ideas matter little, because essentially they are all part of the same illness, the malaise that drives people to hate reality and the world around them and to conjure powerful theories to kill it off.  Nietzsche,Äôs Zarathustra talked of them at length, but he was mistaken in attacking Christianity, it was a symptom and not a cause as he believed.  The extent is far greater.

By making you distrust what you know and can prove, be it that evolution exists, that 1300 year old myths are not a good basis for policy or that there are in fact good reasons to resist fascism, they supplant reality with fables and ensnare you in chains.  ,ÄúThe truth shall make ye free,Äù is not just a pithy statement, it,Äôs an axiom that has been remembered in every successful venture.

You may wonder why post-modernism takes as much as my scorn as the reactionary neanderthals of Iran and the American mega-churches.  Its quite simple really, a methodology that was once quite useful at shattering the basis of oppressive and tyrannical ideologies became co-opted by them.  When declaring e=mc2 is a ,Äúsexed equation,Äù is considered a boldly transgressive example of leftist thought, you know your ideology is full of it, and not in a good way.  These theories, undermining the idea of an objective reality at all have made it impossible to tell fact from fiction and so create a meaningful social critique that may lead to some actual progress.

Of course, any sort of critical function is absolutely necessary to distinguish a Discordian from a Cabbage, but one needn,Äôt succumb to stupid notions about the world being a human generated swarm of varying interpretations with no basis to point out that, for example, the foreign policy of America is being run by idiots and criminals, or that the Taliban were knuckle dragging thugs who lived in the 13th century.

The gas chambers of Auschwitz were not a social fiction.  The carpet bombing and slow genocide of Chechnya is not a textual interpretation.  To subscribe to such notions is not only foolish, it is down right insulting, degrading and deadly.  Conservatives will often attack ,Äúliberal relativism,Äù, but then turn around and demand that their bullshit ,Äúcreationism,Äù must be taught because the children "must be exposed to all the theories that are out there", even when they are patent crap, it seems.  Post-modern leftists make sounds approving political and social freedom and in the next sentence praise post Iran for its ,Äúesoteric content,Äù, while the theocratic backed patrols stone adulterers and rape victims.  From the smallest bits of nonsense to national policy, these insanities infect everything.

Funnily enough, while this has always been in the background, to some degree, it really spilled out into the world at large in those crazy days of 1979-80.  In Iran, the oppressive regime of the Shah was dissolved and replaced by a bloodstained monster and religious fanatic from the dark ages, giving fuel to insane zealots over the region.  Margaret Thatcher and her laughably na?Øve ideas of unrestrained ,Äúcapitalism,Äù (read: state backed monopolies operating outside of the law) were suddenly tried on the guinea pig of the UK.  The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, giving the aforementioned zealots some advanced weapons training, a lot of cash, some crazy ideas about bringing down two empires and a lot of serious clout.  Finally, in America, the crowning achievement of the Enlightenment, that  had seized ,Äúthe sceptre from the tyrants hand,Äù and broken free from religious domination, the population voted in an evangelical Christian simpleton, who took the tide of his militant church going moron supporters straight to the White House and made it a dominant political force ever since.

It,Äôs a heady concoction indeed and one can see how all three intermingle and threaten to hand our lives over to obviously insane individuals.  One can promote pretty much anything with post-modernism, which is precisely why the NeoCons in America love it and have gotten away with so much by aping its techniques.  They have used post-modernist ideas in order to not just promote Christianity, but distort and undermine the very meaning of the legal system, which readily explains its degeneration into a Kafka-esque farce where ,Äúrendition,Äù and ,Äúcoercive interrogation techniques,Äù are used, instead of what the average person would call kidnap and torture.  Islamic fundamentalists, in a religious induced fit of a persecution complex then claim they are under threat and try to expand their faith, making Christians paranoid.  And so on, into a self-sustaining loop of mutual mistrust and twisted perception, which will incidentally crush everyone inbetween.

Under all three paradigms, there is no space for the defence of freedom or human rights.  Post-modernism gives us no reason not to kowtow to tyrants and Christianity and Islam, with the Divine Right of Kings and the powers of Caliph and Imam respectively, actively encourage it.  What free thinking and self-respecting individual would ever succumb to such theories?

At the last count, well over 3 billion.

ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞

I like this, but as your doctor, I'd recommend getting more sleep.[/hypocrisy]

The following are my suggestions.


Post-modern bullshit

What the hell has happened to the world?  Every half awake person must have asked themselves this question at some point.  It seems as if The last 200 years of genuine progress and curing social ills has been thrown out the window, around 1979 coincidentally. given the following examples.

If you don,Äôt think things are that crazy or bad, just think about this for a minute: the dominant philosophy Currently on American campuses the dominant philosophy is that there is no such thing as ,Äúreality.,Äù that in fact They claim it's a textual construct about which pretty much anything can be said if made to sound obscure and edgy enough. 

(new paragraph)This isn,Äôt just some obscure philosophical abstraction - right now this is the dominant way of understanding most of the social sciences and literary analysis in general and is filtering down into the public very nicely like a thorazine IV drip.

But the insanity is not just confined to rigidly dogmatic American and European academics.  This whole stinking planet is infested with those peddling insanely dangerous dreams feces, from the Mullahs in Iran to the ,Äútheologians,Äù of Deconstruction to the Vatican: the Age of the Screaming Fanatic is upon us.   You will believe or it will cost you your job and credibility, or maybe even your life.  The ideas matter little, because essentially they are all part of the same illness, the malaise that drives people to hate reality and the world around them and to conjure powerful theories to kill it off.  Nietzsche,Äôs Zarathustra talked of them at length, but he was mistaken in attacking Christianity, it was a symptom and not a cause as he believed.  The extent is far greater.

By making you distrust what you know and can prove, be it that evolution exists, that 1300 year old myths are not a good basis for policy or that there are in fact good reasons to resist fascism, they supplant reality with fables and ensnare you in chains.  ,ÄúThe truth shall make ye free,Äù is not just a pithy statement, it,Äôs an axiom that has been remembered in every successful venture.

***
You may wonder why post-modernism takes as much as of my scorn as the reactionary neanderthals of Iran and the American mega-churches.  Its quite simple really, a methodology that was once quite useful at shattering the basis of oppressive and tyrannical ideologies became co-opted by them.  When declaring "e=mc2 is a sexed equation,Äù is considered a boldly transgressive example of leftist thought, you know your ideology is full of it, and not in a good way.  These theories, Undermining the idea of an objective reality at all have has made it impossible to tell fact from fiction and choked create a meaningful social critique that may lead to some actual progress.

Of course, any sort of critical function is absolutely necessary to distinguish a Discordian from a Cabbage, but one needn,Äôt succumb to stupid notions about the world being a human generated swarm of varying interpretations with no basis to point out that, for example, the foreign policy of America is being run by idiots and criminals, or that the Taliban were knuckle dragging thugs who lived in the 13th century.


The gas chambers of Auschwitz were not a social fiction.  The carpet bombing and slow genocide of Chechnya is not a textual interpretation.  To subscribe to such notions is not only foolish, it is down right insulting, degrading and deadly.  Conservatives will often attack ,Äúliberal relativism,Äù, but then turn around and demand that their bullshit ,Äúcreationism,Äù must be taught because the children "must be exposed to all the theories that are out there", even when they are patent crap, it seems.  Post-modern leftists make sounds approving political and social freedom and in the next sentence praise post(?) Iran for its ,Äúesoteric content,Äù, while the theocratic backed patrols stone adulterers and rape victims.  From the smallest bits of nonsense to national policy, these insanities this IV drip infects everything.

Funnily enough, While this has always been in the background, to some degree, it really spilled out into the world at large in those crazy days of 1979-80.  In Iran, the oppressive regime of the Shah was dissolved and replaced by a bloodstained monster and religious fanatic from the dark ages, giving fuel to insane zealots over the region.  Margaret Thatcher and her laughably na?Øve ideas of unrestrained ,Äúcapitalism,Äù (read: state backed monopolies operating outside of the law) were suddenly tried on the guinea pig of the UK.  The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, giving the aforementioned Iranian zealots some advanced weapons training, a lot of cash, some crazy ideas about bringing down two empires and a lot of serious clout.  Finally, in America,Äîthe crowning achievement of the Enlightenment , that had seized ,Äúthe sceptre from the tyrants hand,Äù and broken free from religious domination,Äîthe population voted in an evangelical Christian simpleton, who took the tide of his militant church-going, moron supporters straight to the White House and made it a dominant political force ever since.

It,Äôs a heady concoction indeed and one can see how all three (recapitulate pls) intermingle and threaten to hand our lives over to obviously insane individuals.  One can promote pretty much anything with post-modernism, which is precisely why the NeoCons in America love it and have gotten away with so much by aping its techniques.  They have used post-modernist ideas in order to not just promote Christianity, but distort and undermine the very meaning of the legal system. which readily explains Explaining its degeneration into a Kafka-esque farce where ,Äúrendition,Äù and ,Äúcoercive interrogation techniques,Äù are used, instead of what the average person would call kidnap and torture.  Islamic fundamentalists, in a religious-induced fit of a persecution complex, then claim they are under threat and try to expand their faith, making Christians paranoid.  And so on, into a self-sustaining loop of mutual mistrust and twisted perception, which will incidentally crush everyone inbetween.

Under all three paradigms (recapitulate), there is no space for the defence of freedom or human rights.  Post-modernism gives us no reason not to kowtow to tyrants and Christianity and Islam, with the Divine Right of Kings and the powers of Caliph and Imam respectively, actively encourage it.  What free thinking and self-respecting individual would ever succumb to such theories waste ?

At the last count, well over 3 billion.
P E R   A S P E R A   A D   A S T R A

Cain

What can I say?  I'm not good unless I'm on a decent chair in front of my PC.  Criticisms noted and will improve.

LMNO

Hmmm...


An excellent job of pointing out the flaws in the extremes of post-modernism, first off.  I loved the angle of the last 30 years through your eyes.

However, it didn't resolve, there was no ju-jitsu.  You took us to the peak, but didn't provide catharsis.

Essentially, and this is gonna sound bad, I know, but this was essentially whining.  Other than a new angle of why the world sucks, I didn't take anything away from it.


Maybe I'm just a dummy.  It's been known to happen.

Cain

I'll admit its a first draft to it.  I don't know the answer either, but pointing out the problem is always a starting point.

LHX

neat hell