the language of postmodernism

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iambiguous
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Re: the language of postmodernism

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How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
Language is the center of postmodern epistemology. Moderns and postmoderns differ not only about content when arguing particular issues in philosophy, literature, and law; they also differ in the methods by which they employ language. Epistemology drives those differences.
"Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion."

And isn't that basically the distinction I make here? In the course of living our lives from day to day, there are any number of situations in which human beings interact and no one questions what true or not true. It's what we call the either/or world. What can we know about it such that neither modernists nor postmodernists get into squabbles over whether our language is actually closer to the objective truth than the language of others.

Here things get problematic only in regard to discussions that revolve around free will or solipsism or sim worlds or the red pill/blue pill sequence in The Matrix.

Postmodern epistemology? How can that not only really be in reference to the same epistemological limitations modernists confront in regard to "I" when conflicting opposing value judgments. We're all in the same boat here given my own assumptions above and elsewhere.
Epistemology asks two questions about language: What is language’s connection to reality, and what is its connection to action?
Indeed. And now all we need is a context.
Epistemological questions about language are a subset of epistemological questions about consciousness in general: What is consciousness’s connection to reality, and what is its connection to action? Moderns and postmoderns have radically different answers to those questions.
Only here of course we are confronted with that age old conundrum that revolves around human consciousness and autonomy and human consciousness as but one more inherent manifestation of the only possible world. Only here, as well, in my view, moderns and postmoderns are still in the same boat. Neither of them are able to establish definitively how exactly matter itself became conscious of itself as conscious matter once it became living matter.

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iambiguous
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Re: the language of postmodernism

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How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
To the modernist, the “mask” metaphor is a recognition of the fact that words are not always to be taken literally or as directly stating a fact—that people can use language elliptically, metaphorically, or to state falsehoods, that language can be textured with layers of meaning, and that it can be used to cover hypocrisies or to rationalize. Accordingly, unmasking means interpreting or investigating to get to a literal meaning or fact of the matter. The process of unmasking is cognitive, guided by objective standards, with the purpose of coming to an awareness of reality.
And, once again, this part gets particularly problematic when the discussions shift from the either/or world of things that are in fact true for all of us, to the is/ought world where, what might be believed as true by some, is not believed to be true by others. Then the way words can be used to dissemble, dissimulate, misdirect, posture, pose. Language spoken in codes.

For example, the debate over the Great Replacement Theory here in America. While some who support it are flat-out white-nationalists...unapologetic racists...others are racist but the language they use to defend it revolves instead around politics. The Big Brother liberal "establishment" -- Jews by and large -- are bringing in foreigners to keep them in power. Race, they assure us, has nothing to do with it.
For the postmodernist, by contrast, interpretation and investigation never terminate with reality. Language connects only with more language, never with a non-linguistic reality.
Now, my argument is that there is no objective reality in regard to conflicting goods. That the existence of God [or His No God equivalent] is necessary to establish an objective language. And that the whole point of of embracing "the Word of God" on this side of the grave is to attain immortality and salvation on the other side of it.

But: this is the case for both modernists and postmodernists.

Unless, of course, there is the existence of an objective language to resolve conflicting goods. And, if there is, link me to it.

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Walker
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by Walker »

iambiguous just wrote: ...
Looking at it that way, from the outside/in, is much the same as trying to use language from the outside/in … rather than simply using language to report the news from the inside/out. “Inside” references the same place in everyone, as can be verified by anyone who has been close enough to another, for a long enough time, to know what the other is thinking in response to mutually experienced stimuli, at the same time, and also knowing the thoughts are the same.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

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Walker wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 5:19 pm
iambiguous just wrote: ...
Looking at it that way, from the outside/in, is much the same as trying to use language from the outside/in … rather than simply using language to report the news from the inside/out. “Inside” references the same place in everyone, as can be verified by anyone who has been close enough to another, for a long enough time, to know what the other is thinking in response to mutually experienced stimuli, at the same time, and also knowing the thoughts are the same.
Once again, in my view, we will need to discuss this given a particular context. Inside and outside of what...given what set of circumstances?

How might this be applicable to the Great Replacement Theory being kicked around like a political football here in America? Or to the abortion wars? Or to the battles that rage over gun control?

And let me bring this up again:

"In the end it is dishonesty that breeds the sterile intellectualism of contemporary speculation. A man who is not certain of his mental integrity shuns the vital problems of human existence; at any moment the great laboratory of life may explode his little lie and leave him naked and shivering in the face of truth. So he builds himself an ivory tower of esoteric tomes and professionally philosophical periodicals; he is comfortable only in their company...he wanders farther and farther away from his time and place, and from the problems that absorb his people and his century. The vast concerns that properly belong to philosophy do not concern him...He retreats into a little corner, and insulates himself from the world under layer and layer of technical terminology. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes an epistemologist." Will Durant
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Re: the language of postmodernism

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How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
In Jacques Derrida’s words, “[t]he fact of language is probably the only fact ultimately to resist all parenthization.” That is to say, we cannot get outside of language. Language is an “internal,” self-referential system, and there is no way to get “external” to it—although even to speak of “internal” and “external” is also meaningless on postmodern grounds.

Or, sure, note how you yourself "resist all parenthization" given the language you use with or around others from day to day.
Typical "general description intellectual contraption" approach to language. Either that or just plain old pedantry. Obscure didactic jargon expressed in order to sound like some expect a "serious philosopher" to sound. Or to impress others with how "deep" they are.

Come on, be absolutely honest: we use language all the time in our interactions with others in which there is almost never much of a gap between "internal" and "external" meaning. And it's hardly a meaningless distinction. Describing to others our daily experiences is not likely to to elicit puzzled reactions. "You took your children to the zoo, and later celebrated your son's birthday at McDonalds? Well, I don't see it that way at all."

Just how "intellectually dense" can it get?
There is no non-linguistic standard to which to relate language, so there can be no standard by which to distinguish between the literal and the metaphorical, the true and the false. Deconstruction is therefore in principle an unending process. Unmasking does not even terminate in “subjective” beliefs and interests, for “subjective” contrasts to “objective,” and that too is a distinction that postmodernism denies. A “subject’s beliefs and interests” are themselves socio-linguistic constructions, so unmasking one piece of language to reveal an underlying subjective interest is only to reveal more language. And that language in turn can be unmasked to reveal more language, and so on. Language is masks all the way down.
Okay, by all means, let him note a particular set of circumstances that he experienced today, and illustrate this text.

Or why don't you attempt it.

Nope, from my frame of mind, the only time deconstruction becomes particularly applicable is when the discussion shifts from the either/or to the is/ought world.

Not that you took your kids to the zoo, but whether locking animals in cages or enclosures in a zoo is reasonable or unreasonable, moral or immoral.

Not that you celebrated a birthday at McDonalds, but whether fast food restaurants contribute to health problems and obesity in children.

And language is clearly not just a "socio-linguistic construct"...a mask all the way down in our exchanges with others.

Who here actually believes that?

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Re: the language of postmodernism

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How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
For the modernist, the functionality of language is complementary to its being cognitive. An individual observes reality perceptually, forms conceptual beliefs about reality on the basis of those perceptions, and then acts in reality on the basis of those perceptual and conceptual cognitive states.
Technically, of course, that basically sums it up. And, in general, it is applicable to all of us. We all come into this world with the innate capacity to think, to reason, to remember...to "acquire knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses".

That's the biological scaffolding. But what unfolds inside that can vary considerably for each of us. Knowledge of the world around us given what in particular we are taught as children to make of our perceptions, our experiences, our interactions with others. The historical and cultural parameters. Thus the "concept of reality" that we acquire will often come into conflict with the "concepts" of others.

Fortunately, some then note, we have philosophers able to sift through all that "existential" stuff and provide us with the sound arguments we need in order to embody truly rational and virtuous behaviors.

On the other hand, of course, the rest is history.
For the postmodernist, language cannot be cognitive because it does not connect to reality, whether to an external nature or an underlying self. Language is not about being aware of the world, or about distinguishing the true from the false, or even about argument in the traditional sense of validity, soundness, and probability. Accordingly, postmodernism recasts the nature of rhetoric: Rhetoric is persuasion in the absence of cognition.
Okay, I may well be completely misunderstanding what is being conveyed here about the "philosophical" relationship between postmodernism and language and cognition and reality, but there is not a postmodernist out there who does not live in the same either/or world as all the rest of us. And there language definitely connects to reality over and over and over and over again.

And in any number of biological, demographic, circumstantial and experiential contexts there is definitely an existential Self able to be communicated objectively to all other rational human beings. Reality abounds here. Language here is everything about being aware of the world as it, in fact, is...and of easily distinguishing between true and false.

So, sure, enlighten me as to what I am misconstruing here about a postmodern reality.

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Re: the language of postmodernism

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How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
Unmasking and rhetoric

To the modernist, the “mask” metaphor is a recognition of the fact that words are not always to be taken literally or as directly stating a fact—that people can use language elliptically, metaphorically, or to state falsehoods, that language can be textured with layers of meaning, and that it can be used to cover hypocrisies or to rationalize. Accordingly, unmasking means interpreting or investigating to get to a literal meaning or fact of the matter. The process of unmasking is cognitive, guided by objective standards, with the purpose of coming to an awareness of reality.
On the other hand, this is really only relevant in regard to situations in which the masks can be exposed. By, in other words, actually being able to disclose, by using objective standards, the objective truth.

But what if the mask that one wears is only the manifestation of an identity that is basically just the embodiment of dasein. You think that what you believe about the behaviors you choose does reflect the objective truth about yourself. While instead it is actually much closer to the manner in which I suggest that values are acquired: existentially given the life you live out in a particular world understood in a particular way.
For the postmodernist, by contrast, interpretation and investigation never terminate with reality. Language connects only with more language, never with a non-linguistic reality.
That's my point, by and large. If the exchanges revolve almost entirely around worlds of words, then it devolves [in my view] into dueling definitions and deductions. The words never refer back to actual things and people doings things and interacting with each other such that conflicts occur. Conflicts over which words are more appropriate, more reasonable, more indicative of moral or ethical behavior.

I merely note what I construe to be an important distinction between the either/or and the is/ought world. In the former when the words do make contact with the world there is often a way to determine which words really are more appropriate and reasonable. In the latter [sans God] there does not appear to be a way to determine which words are more indicative of moral or ethical behavior.

Still, for the postmodernists, language use in the either/or world is "for all practical purposes" no different than for the modernists.

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Belinda
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Re: the language of postmodernism

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iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 4:04 pm How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
Unmasking and rhetoric

To the modernist, the “mask” metaphor is a recognition of the fact that words are not always to be taken literally or as directly stating a fact—that people can use language elliptically, metaphorically, or to state falsehoods, that language can be textured with layers of meaning, and that it can be used to cover hypocrisies or to rationalize. Accordingly, unmasking means interpreting or investigating to get to a literal meaning or fact of the matter. The process of unmasking is cognitive, guided by objective standards, with the purpose of coming to an awareness of reality.
On the other hand, this is really only relevant in regard to situations in which the masks can be exposed. By, in other words, actually being able to disclose, by using objective standards, the objective truth.

But what if the mask that one wears is only the manifestation of an identity that is basically just the embodiment of dasein. You think that what you believe about the behaviors you choose does reflect the objective truth about yourself. While instead it is actually much closer to the manner in which I suggest that values are acquired: existentially given the life you live out in a particular world understood in a particular way.
For the postmodernist, by contrast, interpretation and investigation never terminate with reality. Language connects only with more language, never with a non-linguistic reality.
That's my point, by and large. If the exchanges revolve almost entirely around worlds of words, then it devolves [in my view] into dueling definitions and deductions. The words never refer back to actual things and people doings things and interacting with each other such that conflicts occur. Conflicts over which words are more appropriate, more reasonable, more indicative of moral or ethical behavior.

I merely note what I construe to be an important distinction between the either/or and the is/ought world. In the former when the words do make contact with the world there is often a way to determine which words really are more appropriate and reasonable. In the latter [sans God] there does not appear to be a way to determine which words are more indicative of moral or ethical behavior.

Still, for the postmodernists, language use in the either/or world is "for all practical purposes" no different than for the modernists.

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Psychoanalysis helps you to not deceive yourself about who you are. Language is mostly stories we tell others and ourselves about ourselves and other matters. Narratives are necessary for us to make sense of the world, and some narratives we learn are more true than other narratives. This is not because the better narratives are more entertaining or more consoling but because they have more practical value for maintaining life. The Dasein needs to have as uncluttered a view as possible of where it finds itself. No Dasein lives in a contextual vacuum. There is no such thing as a contextual vacuum except for hypothetically God.

Dasein is what it is because there is other than Dasein. What is other than Dasein is either chaotic or orderly. Maintenance of life is axiomatic and it follows from the axiom that regularities have been discovered not invented, otherwise we seekers would not still be here.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by Iwannaplato »

Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:16 am
iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 4:04 pm How Postmodernists Use Language as a Weapon
Stephen Hicks
From the Church and State website
Unmasking and rhetoric

To the modernist, the “mask” metaphor is a recognition of the fact that words are not always to be taken literally or as directly stating a fact—that people can use language elliptically, metaphorically, or to state falsehoods, that language can be textured with layers of meaning, and that it can be used to cover hypocrisies or to rationalize. Accordingly, unmasking means interpreting or investigating to get to a literal meaning or fact of the matter. The process of unmasking is cognitive, guided by objective standards, with the purpose of coming to an awareness of reality.
On the other hand, this is really only relevant in regard to situations in which the masks can be exposed. By, in other words, actually being able to disclose, by using objective standards, the objective truth.

But what if the mask that one wears is only the manifestation of an identity that is basically just the embodiment of dasein. You think that what you believe about the behaviors you choose does reflect the objective truth about yourself. While instead it is actually much closer to the manner in which I suggest that values are acquired: existentially given the life you live out in a particular world understood in a particular way.
For the postmodernist, by contrast, interpretation and investigation never terminate with reality. Language connects only with more language, never with a non-linguistic reality.
That's my point, by and large. If the exchanges revolve almost entirely around worlds of words, then it devolves [in my view] into dueling definitions and deductions. The words never refer back to actual things and people doings things and interacting with each other such that conflicts occur. Conflicts over which words are more appropriate, more reasonable, more indicative of moral or ethical behavior.

I merely note what I construe to be an important distinction between the either/or and the is/ought world. In the former when the words do make contact with the world there is often a way to determine which words really are more appropriate and reasonable. In the latter [sans God] there does not appear to be a way to determine which words are more indicative of moral or ethical behavior.

Still, for the postmodernists, language use in the either/or world is "for all practical purposes" no different than for the modernists.

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Psychoanalysis helps you to not deceive yourself about who you are. Language is mostly stories we tell others and ourselves about ourselves and other matters. Narratives are necessary for us to make sense of the world, and some narratives we learn are more true than other narratives. This is not because the better narratives are more entertaining or more consoling but because they have more practical value for maintaining life. The Dasein needs to have as uncluttered a view as possible of where it finds itself. No Dasein lives in a contextual vacuum. There is no such thing as a contextual vacuum except for hypothetically God.

Dasein is what it is because there is other than Dasein. What is other than Dasein is either chaotic or orderly. Maintenance of life is axiomatic and it follows from the axiom that regularities have been discovered not invented, otherwise we seekers would not still be here.
I think I generally agree with your position here - not specifically psychoanalysis.

Iamb seems to present it in either/or terms. With identity you can't know who you really are. Other people might claim the opposite positiong and say they know their real or authentic selves. Both positions are problematic. I think there may also be a conflation between certain and objectivity in his position.

From my experience one can learn things that are behind the mask and find stories/descriptions (and even roles) that fit's one better. The man who has been uncomfortable in his marriage for years and actively suppressing, explaining away his attraction to men (and not to women) can actually, through dialogue, through experiences, through reading, through meeting a gay man and having an open conversation through...(and there are othe rpossibilities of course) come to realize that he is gay. This story of what is going on behind the mask can be felt to be vastly more correct. One can have this kind of experience with many facets of the self. At this point I can imagine the objection that one might change one's mind later. One might, at this abstract level. People are fallible. But it's not either/or. ONe way we can think of this would be how silly it would be to say to all gay men that really, they are just guessing. They might as well have decided their sexuality by tossing a coin (or, today, given the number of sexualities, some multifaceted di from dungeons and dragons). And while, yes, a smallish percentage of those identifying as gay may actually be straight, this is not a dice rolling issue, even with all of today's propaganda.

Also, there are people who are simply better at introspection and at unmasking themselves.

If we say that some people will be wrong, about their gayness, say, and imply there is no way to determine objective truth there or even that there isn't one, this is conflating certainty with objectivity. Many well supported consensus believed concluions are based on percentages. if you repeatedly get a high percentage predicted result, you know something, even if some of the cases are do not fit the prediction.

To some degree knowing yourself and getting behind masks is a skill, and one that can be supported in a range of ways. And we all know people who say, for example, I am not angry and truly seem to believe it, when their fists and jaws have been clenched and they have good reasons to be angry and later they explode in anger and so on. Some people are terrible at introspection. Some people are ok. Some people have worked at this actively for a long time and like other skills have gotten better at it.

Also, if you read his post it implies there is nothing inborn. it is all dasein. Everything in our identity is due to experience. But twin studies of twins raised separately radically calls this idea into question. There a nature aspect also, not just nurture.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by iambiguous »

Iwannaplato wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:09 pm
Iamb seems to present it in either/or terms. With identity you can't know who you really are. Other people might claim the opposite positiong and say they know their real or authentic selves. Both positions are problematic. I think there may also be a conflation between certain and objectivity in his position.
On the contrary, my point [as always] is to make a distinction between the self in the either/or world and the self in the is/ought world.

In terms of your biology, your demographics, the actual empirical/material facts that encompass your life in the world around you, masks might be worn, but there is still an objective truth that can be gone back to. John might present himself to Jane as a bachelor when in fact he has a wife and two kids. Joe might portray himself to others as a Navy Seal when he was never in the military at all.

And when the discussion shifts to the is/ought world, masks can be worn here as well. John make claim to share Jane's pro-choice values...but only because he thinks he needs to in order to get her into bed.

But however we embrace moral and political values, in my view, there does not appear to be an objective truth to fall back on in order to determine what all rational and virtuous men and women ought to think and feel.

Jane may tell John that she has never had an abortion [though she did] because she believes telling him the truth will cause him to abandon the relationship. But however either one of them thinks about abortion as a moral issue, where is the language able to establish whether abortion is in fact either moral or immoral.

Both the postmodernists and those who reject it have access to a language able to be fully connected to the circumstantial facts involved in any particular abortion. But, in my view, sans God, where is the language able to determine the morality of it? Here the modernists and the postmodernists are both in the same subjective, rooted existentially in dasein boat.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by Belinda »

iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:04 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:09 pm
Iamb seems to present it in either/or terms. With identity you can't know who you really are. Other people might claim the opposite positiong and say they know their real or authentic selves. Both positions are problematic. I think there may also be a conflation between certain and objectivity in his position.
On the contrary, my point [as always] is to make a distinction between the self in the either/or world and the self in the is/ought world.

In terms of your biology, your demographics, the actual empirical/material facts that encompass your life in the world around you, masks might be worn, but there is still an objective truth that can be gone back to. John might present himself to Jane as a bachelor when in fact he has a wife and two kids. Joe might portray himself to others as a Navy Seal when he was never in the military at all.

And when the discussion shifts to the is/ought world, masks can be worn here as well. John make claim to share Jane's pro-choice values...but only because he thinks he needs to in order to get her into bed.

But however we embrace moral and political values, in my view, there does not appear to be an objective truth to fall back on in order to determine what all rational and virtuous men and women ought to think and feel.

Jane may tell John that she has never had an abortion [though she did] because she believes telling him the truth will cause him to abandon the relationship. But however either one of them thinks about abortion as a moral issue, where is the language able to establish whether abortion is in fact either moral or immoral.

Both the postmodernists and those who reject it have access to a language able to be fully connected to the circumstantial facts involved in any particular abortion. But, in my view, sans God, where is the language able to determine the morality of it? Here the modernists and the postmodernists are both in the same subjective, rooted existentially in dasein boat.
God or no God , Dasein qua subjectivity is the only possible base for learning and so to progress, to change, to love the context of the self. Dasein may be that of a collective.

Morally, to recognise Dasein as a fact is the only way to justice in the world. Individualism has a history and that too is Dasein; some Daseins think the collective is a better value than the individual. I think individual Dasein is a better value than collective Dasein.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by Iwannaplato »

iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:04 pm
Iamb seems to present it in either/or terms. With identity you can't know who you really are. Other people might claim the opposite positiong and say they know their real or authentic selves. Both positions are problematic. I think there may also be a conflation between certain and objectivity in his position.
On the contrary, my point [as always] is to make a distinction between the self in the either/or world and the self in the is/ought world.
Yes, I understand that from here and in other threads. However the description I am responding to is...
While instead it is actually much closer to the manner in which I suggest that values are acquired: existentially given the life you live out in a particular world understood in a particular way.
That sounds like nuture/experience only. You develop values given your experience(s) (period). I was adding in that nature plays a role.
In terms of your biology, your demographics, the actual empirical/material facts that encompass your life in the world around you, masks might be worn, but there is still an objective truth that can be gone back to. John might present himself to Jane as a bachelor when in fact he has a wife and two kids. Joe might portray himself to others as a Navy Seal when he was never in the military at all.
Agreed.
And when the discussion shifts to the is/ought world, masks can be worn here as well. John make claim to share Jane's pro-choice values...but only because he thinks he needs to in order to get her into bed.
Sure, he might.
But however we embrace moral and political values, in my view, there does not appear to be an objective truth to fall back on in order to determine what all rational and virtuous men and women ought to think and feel.
OK
Jane may tell John that she has never had an abortion [though she did] because she believes telling him the truth will cause him to abandon the relationship. But however either one of them thinks about abortion as a moral issue, where is the language able to establish whether abortion is in fact either moral or immoral.
Right, I wasn't responding to masks and morals, I was responding to masks and identity.
Both the postmodernists and those who reject it have access to a language able to be fully connected to the circumstantial facts involved in any particular abortion. But, in my view, sans God, where is the language able to determine the morality of it? Here the modernists and the postmodernists are both in the same subjective, rooted existentially in dasein boat.
Sure, and while this isn't related to what I focused on that you said, I will mention that, postmodernists are moral relativists.

Some googling to sources produces
In the Post Modern view there are no absolutes of any kind and there are no universal truths nor universal criteria for beauty and nor are there universal principles of the GOOD. Thus, there is a return of relativism in the sphere of morality.
Moral relativism is a special expression or individual case of relativism, the concept of which has not been defined exactly within academia. Postmodern morality learns from history, attacks on all sides with “skepticism”, and doubts everything, showing an obvious tendency toward relativism.
But to me that is all tangential. I was responding to what Belinda quoted in your post and her response. The quote included...
But what if the mask that one wears is only the manifestation of an identity that is basically just the embodiment of dasein. You think that what you believe about the behaviors you choose does reflect the objective truth about yourself. While instead it is actually much closer to the manner in which I suggest that values are acquired: existentially given the life you live out in a particular world understood in a particular way.
You thoughts about what morals you have may be included in your identity, but identity is more complicated. And even if there are no objective morals, you may feel more yourself with certain values over others. The conservative Christian who is actually gay, may feel vastly more himself if he comes to accept liberal values about sexuality. This doesn't mean he is correct and it is objectively true that anal sex between men is good or bad or whatever. But that person may (very likely) feel that behind the judgmental mask about sexualities his own morals and values actually are or feel better as liberal ones.

Though I was talking, and I think it is clear in my post, primarily about identity as a whole.
That one can gain a better sense of who one is and what one wants and what values.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by iambiguous »

Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:16 am You thoughts about what morals you have may be included in your identity, but identity is more complicated. And even if there are no objective morals, you may feel more yourself with certain values over others.
Yes, "I" will always be a profoundly problematic admixture of nature and nurture.

Just look at the abortion conflagration now unfolding in America. Some of what particular individuals believe about the moral parameters of aborting the unborn will revolve around the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein memetically. And yet clearly being born a man or a woman biologically is also a crucial variable for many.

And my point is not that some do feel [and think] that their own moral convictions here are more reasonable and virtuous than others, but how they go about demonstrating that when both sides have reasonable arguments to make.

How does dasein not play a role in their own commitments?
Iwannaplato wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:16 amThe conservative Christian who is actually gay, may feel vastly more himself if he comes to accept liberal values about sexuality. This doesn't mean he is correct and it is objectively true that anal sex between men is good or bad or whatever. But that person may (very likely) feel that behind the judgmental mask about sexualities his own morals and values actually are or feel better as liberal ones.
Yes, but with God on board, those on either end of the moral and political spectrum then have that crucial "transcending font" to fall back on. At least, in my view, if they argue that their own God is omniscient and omnipotent. They may be forced to wear a mask in regard to their sexual orientation around others but "in their head" they have convinced themselves that homosexuality is okay by God so, in regard to immortality and salvation of the other side of the grave, they're "saved".
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by Iwannaplato »

iambiguous wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 6:20 pm Yes, "I" will always be a profoundly problematic admixture of nature and nurture.
ok great, nature's in there too.
How does dasein not play a role in their own commitments?
I am pretty sure I made it clear nurture/experience plays a role.
Yes, but with God on board, those on either end of the moral and political spectrum then have that crucial "transcending font" to fall back on.
Sure, but that's either bad faith, in the Sartrean sense, or being controlled by a book and its 'expert' interpreters. That's hardly winning. Whatever they do in front of your face, they are consciously torn up inside. And then perhaps unconsciously also. I mean, that book doesn't love anyone. And it either makes you small or it's just a facade like all the Christian presidents. It's like saying they fall back on hitting themselves in the face with a hammer. This is not a get of jail free pass or even a Tylenol. It's a psychoemotional girdle, chastity belt and hairsirt.
Though all this has little to do with identity.
At least, in my view, if they argue that their own God is omniscient and omnipotent.
Many seem to think they need to, but it's not inherent in theism, even Abrahamism. Some theolgians a few hundred years ago started playing mathematical dice with God's qualities, despite the Bible, in all it's various parts, is hardly a mathematical text. It's expressive and metaphorical at times and never uses the omni words.
They may be forced to wear a mask in regard to their sexual orientation around others but "in their head" they have convinced themselves that homosexuality is okay by God so, in regard to immortality and salvation of the other side of the grave, they're "saved".
That sounds real comfy.And even the concept of saved, if they are paying attention, can always be lost in a moment, especially if they listen to Jesus' version of the 10 commandments. He's certainly nicer than the old T in some ways, but if you follow the implications of his 10 C no one's getting into Heaven.
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Re: the language of postmodernism

Post by iambiguous »

Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:34 pm
iambiguous wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 6:20 pm Yes, "I" will always be a profoundly problematic admixture of nature and nurture.
ok great, nature's in there too.
Indeed, as I noted on another thread:
Clearly, the place to start in regard to the essential conditions of the self are with those things each and every one of us must have if "I" is going to survive at all: subsistence itself.

I need food. I need water. I need protection from the elements.

And, in needing those things, how much pertaining to your self is going to revolve around attaining them? Yes, that can either be on your own isolated from others or in one or another community with others. But it's not for nothing that two of the most influential thinkers there have ever been are Karl Marx and Adam Smith.

Identity and political economy. The bottom line as it were.
Biology is clearly everywhere here. But then so are all the historical, cultural and experiential memes as well.

And, in my view, this doesn't really change much whether you think of yourself as a postmodernist or not.
How does dasein not play a role in their own commitments?
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:34 pm I am pretty sure I made it clear nurture/experience plays a role.
Then it comes down to a matter of emphasis. How big a role do they play in regard to our own moral and political value judgments? And given that very, very different nurturing experiences can result in very, very different -- often conflicting -- value judgments what then is the role of philosophy in providing us with access to optimal -- wise -- behaviors?

Is a deontological narrative/agenda here even possible? In other words, what are limits of logic and epistemological assessments in regard to "conflicting goods"?
Yes, but with God on board, those on either end of the moral and political spectrum then have that crucial "transcending font" to fall back on.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:34 pm Sure, but that's either bad faith, in the Sartrean sense, or being controlled by a book and its 'expert' interpreters. That's hardly winning.
Yes, Hell is other people because other people tend to objectify us. But more to the point [mine] most people -- the moral and political and spiritual objectivists -- tend also to objectify themselves. And though some might see this as an example of bad faith, those who are able to take that more sophisticated Kierkegaardian leap of faith to God, are still no less the "winners" here.

After all, what they have faith in is that their God provides them with an objective morality on this side of the grave and then immortality and salvation on the other side of it. How is that not a great source of comfort and consolation?

And who is to say that, given the profound mystery of existence itself, it does not come down to a God, the God? Then that more or less blind leap of faith to my God.

Then speculation of this sort...
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:34 pm Whatever they do in front of your face, they are consciously torn up inside. And then perhaps unconsciously also. I mean, that book doesn't love anyone. And it either makes you small or it's just a facade like all the Christian presidents. It's like saying they fall back on hitting themselves in the face with a hammer. This is not a get of jail free pass or even a Tylenol. It's a psychoemotional girdle, chastity belt and hairsirt.
Maybe this more or less accurately describes some on religious paths. But there are many, many more on many, many other paths it does not describe at all. As with others, religious folks can be more or less sophisticated in attempting to explain their spirituality. Not all of them are [in my opinion] fools like Immanuel Can here.
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:34 pm Though all this has little to do with identity.
That would depend on the individual. What does being "torn up" mean to them? And, again, philosophically, what would constitute "good faith" or "bad faith" in assessing whether another is, in fact, "torn up".

After all, few are as "fractured and fragmented" as "I" am in regard to these things. And the one thing I suspect I do share in common with most postmodernists is the assumption that in a No God world, human existence itself is essentially meaningless and purposeless. And that's before the part where "I" tumbles over into the abyss that is oblivion for all the rest of eternity.
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