Modernism to Eleven: Is Postmodernism a Myth?
Anyone who can explain away postmodernism with quotes from William Lane Craig and Spinal Tap deserves abundant kudos, back slaps, shout outs, and props. Go read it and link to it.
A quote of Craig's dismissal of PM with a modernist label is deadly.
"Frankly, I don’t confront many students who are postmodernists. For all the faddish talk, I think it’s a myth. Students aren’t generally relativistic and pluralistic, except when it comes to ethics and religion. But that’s not postmodernism, that’s modernism. That’s old-style verificationism, which says things that are verifiable through the five senses are factual, but everything else is just a matter of taste (including ethics and religion). I think it’s a deceit of our age to say that modernism is dead."
The aricle's conclusion is fantastic...
No one seems to be able to intelligibly define what constitutes postmodernism yet almost everyone thinks they “know it when they see it.” The question, though, is why do we assume that the “extra push over the cliff” is anything but a faster, louder version of modernism? How do we even know that modernism has ended? As Nigel Tufnel’s bandmate David St. Hubbins philosophizes when questioned about the end of the band Spinal Tap:
Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you.
Modernism is like Spinal Tap. It doesn’t end. It just gets louder, faster, and cranked to eleven.
A quote of Craig's dismissal of PM with a modernist label is deadly.
"Frankly, I don’t confront many students who are postmodernists. For all the faddish talk, I think it’s a myth. Students aren’t generally relativistic and pluralistic, except when it comes to ethics and religion. But that’s not postmodernism, that’s modernism. That’s old-style verificationism, which says things that are verifiable through the five senses are factual, but everything else is just a matter of taste (including ethics and religion). I think it’s a deceit of our age to say that modernism is dead."
The aricle's conclusion is fantastic...
No one seems to be able to intelligibly define what constitutes postmodernism yet almost everyone thinks they “know it when they see it.” The question, though, is why do we assume that the “extra push over the cliff” is anything but a faster, louder version of modernism? How do we even know that modernism has ended? As Nigel Tufnel’s bandmate David St. Hubbins philosophizes when questioned about the end of the band Spinal Tap:
Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you.
Modernism is like Spinal Tap. It doesn’t end. It just gets louder, faster, and cranked to eleven.
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