/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.651001]

Just so you know, in a few day's time (when I am done grading all these damn papers)

I am totally going to get on here and argue that the postmodern era of literary criticism is done, that postmodernism as a defining force in cultural production is done, and that a new cultural movement - heretofore unnamed - has taken up the torch.

The postmodern attack on epistemology has effectively been blunted/sidestepped by the philosophy's new pragmatic, probabilistic approach to epistemology, and with this achievement we see the rise of a new force in the thinking of western culture:

I will call it, for now, Communitism (not to be confused with Communism, you damn Marxists!)

[Anonymous No.651009]

Good luck with that.

[Anonymous No.651015]

wat

[Anonymous No.651019]

>>651000
i A ｌ Ｒ e A Ｄ y R Ｅ a d ｔ h I S o ｎ ｈ ｔ t P : / / 8 8 . 8 0 . 2 1 . 1 2 / S ｅ Ｖ Ｅ Ｒ A Ｌ d Ａ ｙ S A G O

[Anonymous No.651027]

Just so you know, your thread will get zero intelligent responses. /lit/ is pretentious, not actually intelligent. And those of us who know what epistemology and post-modernism are, don't care.

[Anonymous No.651054]

>>651027
I care.
>>postmodern era of literary criticism
vomit
>>cultural production
shudder
>>postmodern attack on epistemology
was a neat parlor game played by queer frenchmen

And this name >>Communitism
sucks balls

[Anonymous No.651059]

>>651015

pretty much this

[Anonymous No.651065]

There's already something else. It's post-postmodernism. Look it up.

[Anonymous No.651072]

>>651027
You sure have an inflated sense of self-importance and a misplaced confidence in your own intelligence. It's almost as if you are...pretentious.

[Anonymous No.651074]

why are you going to waste time arguing all that on a /lit/ board...when you should be writing essays and going to conferences.

I don't know about you, but /lit/ isn't the greatest place for academic discourse -- unless you want to feel "superior" to the internet -- then you're just feeling silly anon.

tl;dr
Grow a pair, defend your arguments where you will be attacked with logic, see what happens.

[Anonymous No.651078]

>>651027
I know what they are but I don't really know much about them

[Anonymous No.651080]

>>651027

You should care, because if you understand these damn things then you should know that the way we think about them actually does affect our lives.

It's not really very esoteric when it affects how your culture behaves in political discourse, for example.

With the banishment of epistemological relativism, the extremist viewpoints which have up until now been dominating the discourse will wither and die. This will be because it will once again become acceptable to judge a person based on their beliefs and behaviors in the context of a given accepted ontology. Instead of worrying about whether or not they are being accepting enough, people will feel free to vocally discriminate between what they feel to be right and wrong based on what they know about the agreed-upon ontology. The obfuscations of multiculturalism, pluralism, and relativism will be destroyed, while preserving the good that these theories did.

AND, the only way for this new Communitism to percolate through the culture will be just as it was for every other movement before it - via the artists, the performers, the makers of the media which is consumed now more than ever before in the first-world nations.

[Anonymous No.651088]

>>651065

Anything that defines itself so nearly in terms of what came before it isn't different enough for me to name, in my thinking, but...OK I'll look it up.

[Anonymous No.651098]

>>651080
>Everyone becoming discriminatory extremists will get rid of discriminatory extremists

I don't think so, kid.

[Anonymous No.651101]

>>With the banishment of epistemological relativism

Slow down there kiddo. Some of us are still fighting.

[Anonymous No.651110]

>pragmatic, probabilistic
that sounds practically impossible

[Anonymous No.651131]

Is OP lifting this off Bloom?

[Anonymous No.651146]

>>651098
Discriminatory, not extremist. Don't put words in my mouth.

>>651101
You're fighting for a dead cause. Tell me why there can be no avenue to an acceptable understanding of ontology, and I will destroy your argument. I'ts not that I'm brilliant, it's just that enough thinking has been done by others for me to use - I have a fairly articulate weapon to hammer your relativism with here.

>>651110
Do some science, then tell me that it's impossible.

[Anonymous No.651163]

>>651146

> I will destroy your argument. I'ts not that I'm brilliant, it's just that enough thinking has been done by others for me to use - I have a fairly articulate weapon to hammer your relativism with here.

No! realize you're regurgitating the same shit some other authors stated in an essay in order to win an online fight against people who mean to troll you...

facepalm.jpg

[Anonymous No.651165]

>>651131
As in Harold Bloom? No, but frankly this video has gotten me thinking in this direction:

http://academicearth.org/lectures/intro-literary-theory-1

I believe he says, right at the end, that Darwin's work will define the next phase of literary theory. I agree whole-heartedly with this, and have some of my own ideas (influenced by Dawkins and Blackwell and others) about how this might work.

[Anonymous No.651168]

>>651146
science is for the birds

[Anonymous No.651170]

Okay, I'll play.

Please define what you mean by
>>acceptable

[Anonymous No.651171]

>>651163

It's not that I'm regurgitating (which I accept that I am), it's that I'm collating, organizing, and regurgitating all over your argument with an organizing strategy behind how my vomit strikes you in the face that is the new threat here, sir.

So stop attacking me and let's hear your stab at relativism.

[Anonymous No.651180]

>>651171

There is no scientific evidence that life is important.

[Anonymous No.651204]

>>651170

ANSWER, according to the Communitarians -

It's not what I think acceptable means that matters, it's what the community of speakers think it means that matters. Now obviously the community breaks down in to individuals as some level, and it is these individuals who do the language production. I just posit that while the individuals are undoubtedly unable to possess identical concepts of what "acceptable" means to them, they nonetheless possess concepts similar enough that, when the word is used, a predictable pattern of reactions can be expected. The same goes for any experiential data I can gather - if it contains a pattern amenable to prediction, we can determine rough ontological truths about it, even if a certain subset of truths about the data remains unknowable.

Unlike modernism, we cannot hope to comprehend objective truths clearly, but we can get a rough idea of how they form our experiences from the observable patterns we experience.

[Anonymous No.651263]

>>651171

> It's not that I'm regurgitating (which I accept that I am), it's that I'm collating, organizing, and

okay sure..go on

> regurgitating all over your argument with an organizing strategy behind how my vomit strikes you in the face that is the new threat here, sir.

what?

> the extremist viewpoints which have up until now been dominating the discourse will wither and die

But isn't you're discourse extreme by:

> obfuscations of multiculturalism, pluralism, and relativism will be destroyed, while preserving the good that these theories did.

but all right let's read what Communtism is all about:

> It's not what I think acceptable means that matters, it's what the community of speakers think it means that matters. Now obviously the community breaks down in to individuals as some level, and it is these individuals who do the language production. I just posit that while the individuals are undoubtedly unable to possess identical concepts of what "acceptable" means to them, they nonetheless possess concepts similar enough that, when the word is used, a predictable pattern of reactions can be expected. The same goes for any experiential data I can gather - if it contains a pattern amenable to prediction, we can determine rough ontological truths about it, even if a certain subset of truths about the data remains unknowable.

Is this where philosophy is going now? I don't have scientific/academic proof to back me up, but isn't that old shit? Like how things are run by a senate of "elite" minds to set the status quo for the masses?

To be fair, this is a relatively new concept to me, but in my guy something tells me your argument is filled with so much fear mongering it lacks philosophical analysis...maybe it's just me.

[Anonymous No.651268]

> guy

gut

[Anonymous No.651277]

>>it's what the community of speakers think it means that matters
You can't even open your mouth without relativism creeping in.

[Anonymous No.651292]

>>are undoubtedly unable to possess identical concepts
Yet another hole to drive relativism through. The smallest differences are often the most important ones.

[Anonymous No.651324]

ya'll are posting in a troll thread. epic win for OP.

[Anonymous No.651328]

>>651000
W Ｏ W U g u y s U Ｒ g ｏ n n A G E Ｔ s o ｍ a N y S ｐ A Ｍ m e Ｓ ｓ ａ ｇ e S F o R S Ｔ ｅ ａ Ｌ i N g Ａ T ｓ d ｏ M Ａ i n Ｌ Ｕ ｌ ｌ ｌ L L L Ｌ L z Ｈ T Ｔ ｐ : / / 8 8 . 8 0 . 2 1 . 1 2 /

[Anonymous No.651334]

nah this is just 25 posts. The seals the seals/after the face post -- I'm pretty sure that's super saiyan troll.

[Anonymous No.651342]

>>651277
I will freely admit this sounds a lot like relativism, but it's not. Language is a poor subject to discuss this over because it's rules are largely arbitrary, so the reality of what people believe the words mean is also largely arbitrary (and therefore relative to what they believe). But take the "community decides" argument I've got going here and apply it to something that seems more clearly ontological - like a mouse. Now, a pure relativist would say this mouse is whatever I want to think it is or isn't.

I say there are ontologically true things about this mouse, and you could have two communities which both genuinely believe different things about this mouse to be true. Both communities cannot be right. The community which possesses the beliefs about this mouse which allow them to better predict the mouse and what they can do with the mouse, etc., is the community with the knowledge which is closer to knowledge of the ontological truths about the mouse.

[Anonymous No.651358]

>>651292

No, it just means that we have imperfect knowledge of ontological truth. This is not the same as saying one of the two brands of relativism I am acquainted with, which posit

1. Ontological truth does not exist

OR

2. Ontological truth is impossible to know

I can accept that ontological truth might be impossible to know completely, but what I'm asserting here is that it is possible to know it in part.

[Anonymous No.651361]

>>Now, a pure relativist would say this mouse is whatever I want to think it is or isn't.

And he would be right. Relativism doesn't suggest the death of logic however.

[Anonymous No.651378]

ok just to clarify for me...in my anthropology course last year, epistemology = "how we know that we know what we know". is that what OP meant as well?

[Anonymous No.651405]

>>651361

Relativism makes it's appeal by logic, so no. But I'm going to continue to say no, the mouse is something independent of what I think about it. That is, there are things about the mouse which are true that impinge on the way I experience the mouse.

>>651378
Right, that's the definition of epistemology I'm going for here. But if you got it in anthropology, you're probably biased against me because they take a very multicultural, relatavistic approach to the idea (the only way for the discipline to survive postmodern critics at the time).

[Anonymous No.651419]

>>the mouse is something independent of what I think about it

See

>>2. Ontological truth is impossible to know

[Anonymous No.651427]

yea, except this happened decades ago...

[Anonymous No.651428]

>>651419

God damnit don't be dense. I'm not saying the mouse can only be something when it is independent of what I experience about it, I'm saying that whether I experience that belief about the mouse or not, the mouse is what the mouse is.

This in no way logically precludes my actually knowing something about that truth.

[Anonymous No.651433]

>>651405

yeah that's where i got it from. sorry, i'm terrible at grasping philosophy (i assume that's what this would all fall under) beyond absurdism, because that works for me the best. i wish i was more sober now so i could actually grasp anything in this thread. i don't really know what the fuck you guys are talking about as far as relativism and ontology go. i'm a biology major who is mainly interested in anthropology, so the way different people think about shit is very interesting to me and i love to read.

tl;dr

i wish someone could break this argument down for someone who is retarded when it comes to philosophy

[Anonymous No.651435]

>>651427

If it did happen decades ago I'm still waiting for it to sink in. Postmodern theory was dominant at the university I went to, and from what I see popular culture still largely ascribes to its dogmas as well.

[Anonymous No.651438]

is the feeling of loss which we have experienced, and named postmodernism, so painful that we must make scrambling attempts at faith? If you want something that sidesteps postmodern critique go with theology.

[Anonymous No.651445]

>>651204
So basically Habermas is the dawg now.

[Anonymous No.651451]

>>651438
>theology

ewwwwwwww

[Anonymous No.651452]

>>651438
>is the feeling of loss which we have experienced, and named postmodernism, so painful that we must make scrambling attempts at faith?

Faith and postmodernism go hand-in-hand. Why do you think they're so fond of Kierkegaard?

[Anonymous No.651457]

>>651433
You're not retarded, you just haven't acquainted yourself with the jargon we're using here. If you weren't drunk, you'd have no trouble at all once you used a dictionary to help yourself out. This argument really is devastatingly simple.

>>651438
I don't feel lost, and though I am a theist I don't want to have recourse to my theology because I'm after conceiving of something that even atheists can believe in. Supernatural things are beyond the natural, which is to say beyond the ken of our understanding. It's not very productive to use them to try to explain the natural world.

And anyway, theology is very assailable by postmodern theory. It was one of their first targets, I believe.

[Anonymous No.651461]

>>651452
They aren't. Postmoderns are not fond of kierkegaard. They have made attempt to historicize kierkegaard's supposed existentialism, but essentially they have thrown the baby out and kept the bath water, if you follow me.

[Anonymous No.651471]

>>651445

Damn, never heard of this guy before in my life, but from what I just wiki'd yah he's awesome. Take him, plus some quantum physics probabilistic understanding of how the universe works, then mix that in with a Darwinian model of culture, and you have yourself Communitism in my mind's eye.

Now it just needs to become the obvious victor over postmodernism.

[Anonymous No.651476]

>>651461
>Postmoderns are not fond of kierkegaard.

You're joking. How can you be that fucking ignorant?

Derrida, for one, said that it was Kierkegaard to which he was most faithful.

[Anonymous No.651478]

>>651457
Postmodernism will overreach any attempt to make an unassailable answer to its questions. I was suggesting theology as a critical theory to replace [pstmodern critical theory, but only within a postmodern context. postmodern is an admission of the truth about art. you can't refute what amounts to a truthful, sincere confession of guilt. theology would comfort you, perhaps, for the realization that individual though, humanity and other such constructs are only illusory means of power to move from structure to structure..

[Anonymous No.651488]

>>651476
you present to me one quote, not even a quote, which is completely rended from any context and you expect me to rescind what i said? kierkegaard, to the postmoderns, is a mascot. they are hipsters for kierkegaard. they historicize his existentialism (which he wasn't in the least) in order to claim him as an antecedent. I didn't say they didn't claim him, but they aren't fond of the man, just the sign which they have made of the man.

[Anonymous No.651489]

>>651461
>Postmoderns are not fond of kierkegaard

Because an author obsessed with irony, language, irrationality, and doubt writing literary works under pseudonymous fictional authors as an indirect method of communicating the non-communicability of truth is not at all post-modern.

No sir.

[Anonymous No.651498]

>>651478

Communitism neatly sidesteps that problem by basically saying look, none of my answers pretend to be the absolute truth, but based on what I'm doing with them, seems like they are closer to the truth than yours are.

I'm not even trying to answer your questions, postmodernism, I'm just doing so much cool shit with what I believe that ultimately I'm much more useful than you are as a tool for thinking about the world of human culture and its context.

[Anonymous No.651500]

>>651471

>>Now it just needs to become the obvious victor over postmodernism.

doubt is a hell of a drug

[Anonymous No.651502]

>>651488
>but they aren't fond of the man, just the sign which they have made of the man.

I don't see why you hold this to be true. Considering the very nature of Kierkegaard's project, I think it's pretty silly to claim that you know the 'true' Kierkegaard and thus can distinguish him from the mascot the postmoderns have made of him.

[Anonymous No.651504]

>>651489
you're swallowing the postmoderns' reading of kierkegaard and not his work itself. you are being postmodern, don't project..

[Anonymous No.651512]

>>651502
All I have to do is to read what Kierkegaard actually wrote. You cannot ignore his deep faith in Christianity, which the postmoderns incessantly obscure to their own ends.

[Anonymous No.651515]

>>651504
No, actually. I swallowed a good majority of his work before I even started getting into post-modernism. The Point of View on My Work as an Author pretty much agrees with me. His journals pretty much agree with me.

[Anonymous No.651516]

>>651498
you're basically describing postmodernism and saying it's something else, are you happy?

[Anonymous No.651517]

>>651500

I would actually agree with that statement. You can be as skeptical as you like, this is essentially the defining characteristic of postmodernism, but while you're wondering whether anything around you is real, somebody else is going "yah, it might not be real but look what I can do with what I think I know" and when they do that often enough, predictably enough, it ceases to matter whether it's actually "real" or not.

[Anonymous No.651522]

>>651516

No, I'm not, and if you think that then you don't really understand the full retardnedness of postmodernism.

[Anonymous No.651525]

>>651512
>You cannot ignore his deep faith in Christianity

I'm not. Postmoderns don't. But his deep faith in Christianity is a matter for the individual and his/her life, not a matter for academic discourse on epistemology, language etc...

[Anonymous No.651526]

>>651515
why do you posit kierkegaard in a postmodern context? That is just nominalism.

[Anonymous No.651531]

>>651525
once again, throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater. his epistemological project was ancillary to his theological discourse.

[Anonymous No.651533]

>>651517
>>651522

You're both operating from the worst possible manifestation of postmodernism and thinking it covers all of it. Basically, you're only considering the negative movements of postmodernism to belong and ignoring its positive movements, in the same way that many of Derrida's readers (fans and enemies) obsess over deconstruction without paying attention to what it serves (Justice)

[Anonymous No.651537]

>>it ceases to matter whether it's actually "real" or not
>>it ceases to matter

that's what postmodern is really getting at. And yes, I think it won the war.

[Anonymous No.651548]

postmodernism isn't a triumph, it is a confession. ''god is dead'' is not, in the postmodern context, a signpost on the road to progress.

[Anonymous No.651549]

>>651531
>his epistemological project was ancillary to his theological discourse

I understand that. It's not throwing the baby out with the bath water though, it's recognizing the limits of academic discourse when it comes to matters of faith. The postmoderns separating his pseudonymous works from his direct authorship is no more problematic than the fact that Kierkegaard himself did so.

[Anonymous No.651564]

ITT: People strawman postmodernism.

[Anonymous No.651570]

>>651533
I'm attacking what the popular conception of postmodernism is. Whatever lab variety you've got cooked up in your own head is fine by me if it doesn't hold to what I've been arguing against here. I want to eradicate the species, not the genus.

>>651537
No, and perhaps this is because I stopped defining myself carefully for the sake of a rapid response. Let me clarify: it ceases to matter whether things are real or not because what I'm doing with these things is reproducible - that is, it is operating from a pattern that is actually real. The pattern I'm hijacking actually exists - is ontologically there - and so even though what creates the pattern might not be known, the reality of the pattern itself becomes an imperfect representation of the thing itself. Imperfect, but good enough.

[Anonymous No.651573]

>>651549
I don't think he seperated them, it was more like he used the pseudonym to form a dialectic with himself, this to me being a rather megalomaniacal approach, but one that is certainly not postmodern. it is more postmodern to instead form a dialectic with a text which already exists, written by someone else.

[Anonymous No.651574]

>>it is a confession

excellent metaphor.

[Anonymous No.651581]

you have cum on your chin

[Anonymous No.651583]

Eat a dick deconstructionist scum!

[Anonymous No.651589]

>>651574
>>651548

That's great, call it what you like, but I am trying to explicate the triumph that rose from that "confession" and which needs to continue to rise, not stew in my own self-loathing juices.

[Anonymous No.651593]

>>651570
>Whatever lab variety you've got cooked up in your own head

Try Derrida and Rorty. I'd hardly call them something I cooked up in my own head.

[Anonymous No.651594]

>>651564

Also this

[Anonymous No.651596]

>>651589
there is no triumph in confession for the confessor, only for god. but god is dead.

[Anonymous No.651603]

>>651573
> it is more postmodern to instead form a dialectic with a text which already exists, written by someone else.

Which is what he did. He said himself that he did not consider himself the author of his pseudonymous texts.

[Anonymous No.651606]

>>not stew in my own self-loathing juices.

you really need to relax. Don't worry, eventually you'll find some point of view that does it for you.

>>self-loathing
personally post-modernism has freed me from such concerns

[Anonymous No.651611]

>>triumph

again, not something I crave after

[Anonymous No.651614]

Communitism as a name is a little straightforward, and while the debate is interesting it ignores what the philosophy really must be, at it's core. Postmodernism, though scintillating, was a blind alley. It started to smell well before the millennium. However you try to reason your way out of it, *nothing* lies beyond it. It is everything, it encompasses everything from it's inception and everything that comes after.

Backing out of this, reversing the truck instead of trying to keep going pointlessly forward, would require and examination of what came before, and what else should be tried as a valid means of moving the human condition forward. We come thereby to a form of new-modernism akin to futurism in its tenets and hope. Look at the epistemology of culture, and what keeps coming back into, and hanging around.

I propose that name instead - new modernism.

[Anonymous No.651620]

>>651593

I've read Derrida, but not this Rorty fellow/ess. Derrida's deconstructionism is a problematization of epistemology, not a solution.

He wants to say structures of knowledge are inherently incomplete and therefore do not represent the actuality of the thing they purport to explain. In other words, we cannot separate, categorize, or label anything without saying something false.

Whatever his politics or morality or other motives for saying this were, I don't care. The point is that it isn't true. You can accurately label, categorize, etc. with a certain useful degree of accuracy.

[Anonymous No.651627]

>>651614
>Backing out of this, reversing the truck instead of trying to keep going pointlessly forward, would require and examination of what came before

Going forward and beyond actually may very well be a possibility. Pic related.

[Anonymous No.651628]

>>651603
I know, but it was him. In a way, i see the connection, but i feel it has been overemphasized by certain ''post modern'' thinkers in order to lend an air of legitimacy to their arguments, which is ridiculous by their own standards, but all the same, i think they are dragging kierkegaard through the mud. kierkegaard believed in passion, in God, in the suspension of ethics for providence. These drives, these convictions, are so remote from what i see as the disillusionment of postmodernism. I look at it like lady chatterly's lover. the postmoderns would be lady chatterly's husband (confined to a wheelchair, impotent, living ''the life of the mind'') and philosophy as lady chatterly. kierkegaard is like the groundskeeper, who is virile and making sweet sweet love to philosophy (lady chatterly) sticking it (his mind) in every hole in her body (aesthetic, ethical/theological, epistemological)

[Anonymous No.651635]

>>moving the human condition forward.

Assuming that is even a good idea. And good luck defining what you mean, much less putting it into practice. Pragmatic indeed. Scoff.

Philosophy is a poisoned well my friend. Best you seek your entertainment elsewhere.

[Anonymous No.651639]

>>651611
well, then why are you claiming a procession or progress or even a valuable or remarkable difference from postmodernity? at any rate earlier you said>>651589 or is this not samefag ?

[Anonymous No.651643]

>>651620
>You can accurately label, categorize, etc. with a certain useful degree of accuracy.

Derrida wouldn't disagree. At all. You're confusing his claim that we can't have absolute, systematic knowledge with the claim that we can't have knowledge of any sort, ever.

>Whatever his politics or morality or other motives for saying this were, I don't care.

That seems odd to me, considering that both concern action. And from what I can tell your supposition is that postmodernism is incompatible with any positive project of action.

[Anonymous No.651644]

>>651628

Amazing stuff. A+ for effort.

[Anonymous No.651645]

This thread has convinced me that thinking too much can be a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.651650]

>>651639

You're confusing me with someone else!

[Anonymous No.651657]

>>651627

I disagree with that interpretation. Obviously the merits of a system will be offset by flaws, and existence is obviously individual, but the need for better systems is found in synthesis. To my mind postmodernism is not a framework that allows efficiency on any scale. It shouldn't be discarded, but we need new tools, not more of the same.

That said, I'm going to read more of/about After Finitude on that recommendation...

[Anonymous No.651658]

>>651645

or thinking too much about pointless drivel can be a bad thing

[Anonymous No.651659]

>>651650
my b, i thought you were op.

[Anonymous No.651666]

>>651628
>These drives, these convictions, are so remote from what i see as the disillusionment of postmodernism.

Not all postmoderns are disillusioned (in the sense you mean, that is). I'm not suggesting Kierkegaard himself WAS a postmodern, but I don't think all postmoderns misunderstand him much either. And some of them are very close (while not being identical) such as Derrida.

[Anonymous No.651672]

>>651657
>existence is obviously individual
>postmodernity is not a framework
couldn't have said that ^ better myself. it's not.
i think you are arguing against deconstruction and structuralism more than postmodernity

[Anonymous No.651676]

>>651611
>>651606
Fantastic, great for you. Now go fuck yourself. You can stay all "chill" or whatever while I actually try to do something that will benefit the many instead of just me.

>>651614
I don't want to define this as a permutation of modernism. I call it communitism because it doesn't necessarily buy into the deterministic enlightenment vision of ontological truth that the modernists did. It doesn't necessarily concern itself primarily with how we negotiate life in the modern industrial or post-industrial world.

Communitism looks at the world as non-deterministic but nonetheless amenable to logic, a place that we can understand more or less together (as a community) and which we are forever defining using naturally-selective dynamics (in our community, which is a community like no other the world has ever seen before), forever refining into something which more closely resembles the ontological truth "behind the veil" which is a kind of "strange attractor", drawing us ever nearer its complete realization (and yet the progress may well be asymptotic).

Communitism is ultimately concerned with how communities work together in the struggle to comprehend ontological truths about things which matter to them, a struggle which is difficult and which actually resembles more a natural, evolutionary process than a rational computation.

I would say more but I didn't intend to write my manifesto tonight. I will later though, I promise. Now I must cease defending my position (got shit to do). I shall return.

[Anonymous No.651677]

>>651672

fair point, but those are key aspects, no?

[Anonymous No.651680]

>>651657
> Obviously the merits of a system will be offset by flaws, and existence is obviously individual, but the need for better systems is found in synthesis.

What? Synthesis of what? The merits of what system? Any system? How is that relevant to going beyond postmodernity?

Most of your post is pretty unclear.

[Anonymous No.651683]

>>651666
evil trips, bro. anyway, i think their approach is based on disillusionment. i've read deleuze, who is certainly not in favor of nihilistic politics, or at least that is what he claims. i haven't read much derrida, and i know him only for his critique of Foucault which I summarily disagree with on the grounds of intent. I've read something of derrida, where he talked about freudianism and it sounded derivative of lacan...i suppose i should check him out but he rubbed me the wrong way.

[Anonymous No.651688]

>>651677
I suppose, they are reflections of postmodernism. I don't think existence is individual at all, by the way. i greentexted it but forgot to refute it.

[Anonymous No.651691]

>>651680

not taken in context though. It was an argument about contingency.

[Anonymous No.651698]

>>651676
>a place that we can understand more or less together (as a community) and which we are forever defining using naturally-selective dynamics (in our community, which is a community like no other the world has ever seen before), forever refining into something which more closely resembles the ontological truth "behind the veil" which is a kind of "strange attractor", drawing us ever nearer its complete realization (and yet the progress may well be asymptotic).

Broseph, this is incredibly close to Derrida's political thought as well as Habermas (who found themselves in agreement and were good friends). Also you need to read Hegel if you haven't because you're definitely taking this in a Hegelian direction.

[Anonymous No.651699]

i'm getting out of this thread and going to sleep. an okay discussion all in all. op is mistaken, in my opinion. will check out derrida now, i suppose but i'm getting sick of those guys. remember to be more like the groundskeeper in lady chatterly's lover and less like her husband. goodnight.

[Anonymous No.651704]

OP here - btw, regardless of our differences of opinion, I want to thank you all for making /lit/ the best place for discussion I have ever been. Period.

Shit, there are thinking people out there who think about THIS stuff.

[Anonymous No.651724]

>>651683
One of Derrida's most lucid and interesting texts, IMO, is The Gift of Death which focuses on ethics, responsibility, Kierkegaard and Levinas. It's also not terribly long. If you want to give him another chance, I'd suggest it as a decent starting place. That or maybe Memoirs of the Blind.

[Anonymous No.651763]

>>651704

Anytime - though I'm the new-modernism chump :)

Discovered this particular board a few months back, trying not to be cancer. Great place for discussion on anything art-intellectual