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Comment by mvhvv

It's interesting seeing this conception of post-modernism 20 years down the track. I think the article almost gets at the point, but overshoots and ends up in navel-gazing territory with:

"Look at the big picture. Don't focus in on two or three things to the exclusion of other things. Keep everything in context. Don't go out of your way to justify stuff that's obviously cool. Don't ridicule ideas merely because they're not the latest and greatest. Pick your own fashions. Don't let someone else tell you what you should like. 'Tsall good."

Post-modernism is not so much about picking-and-choosing and going-your-own-way, but it is about looking at the big picture and keeping everything in context. Importantly it's not about the total rejection of assumption and consistency, but about critically challenging and analysing them.

I think a lot of folks unfortunately continue to approach it in this same way, but in 202X we often make the additional mistake of assuming that the "modernism" that "post-modernism" is rebelling against is our contemporary "modern" society. That often gets misrepresented as a rejection of the enlightenment or some other extreme sounding position, but it's much better understood as a challenge of epistemic certainty and an attempt to break down and understand our ideological assumptions.

parent mvhvv 4 years ago

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