Postmodernism is a variation on Plato's allegory of the cave. The idea is that everyone is living in a world of total illusion, but the philosopher will, though a very unconventional intellectual process, discover the really real, and then use his understanding to bring about a utopia.
For postmodernist, the intellectual process is deconstruction and critical thought, and the utopia is sort of multicultural but radically individualistic world, and the replacement of capitalism with some sort of vague socialism.
However, postmodernists don't really believe in their claimed radical perspectivism. So for instance, when there is a dispute between peasants claim they are starving and beaten down, and the wealthy landholders claim the peasants are doing just great, they think the peasants are objectively correct and the landholders are just plain wrong.
Postmodernism came about because Marxism had come to a political dead end, and so leftist types in France decided to try to use Nietzschean relativism as a way to undermine liberal realism, in hopes it would somehow lead to their desired utopia.
This doesn't make much philosophical sense, since Nietzsche was militantly anti-socialist, and as a political strategy it has been an utter failure.
I don't think so, platos point was that the shadows were poor representations of real objective things. By moving beyond the cave, you can see the real objective thing.
post modernsim says, nah, your objective things aren't objective, you just found some "shadows" that look prettier to you.
I think pseduo modernisim is a bit more more like the cave, a sort of acknowledgement that there are real objective things but the shadows are things in and of themselves. Except these are special shadows that can produce brilliant colorful holograms, and these fancy shadows are also interesting things, in fact they can make life super interesting. But somehere in these shadows there is some kind of objective reality.
>I don't think so, platos point was that the shadows were poor representations of real objective things. By moving beyond the cave, you can see the real objective thing.
post modernsim says, nah, your objective things aren't objective, you just found some "shadows" that look prettier to you.
I agree, that is why I said it is a variation on Plato's cave, not a simple repetition. What they have in common is the belief that what seems real in experience is in fact not, and that to arrive at an understanding of the true state of affairs requires a complex intellectual process that is radically different from ordinary thinking. Contrast all this with, for instance, Aristotle.
For postmodernist, the intellectual process is deconstruction and critical thought, and the utopia is sort of multicultural but radically individualistic world, and the replacement of capitalism with some sort of vague socialism.
However, postmodernists don't really believe in their claimed radical perspectivism. So for instance, when there is a dispute between peasants claim they are starving and beaten down, and the wealthy landholders claim the peasants are doing just great, they think the peasants are objectively correct and the landholders are just plain wrong.
Postmodernism came about because Marxism had come to a political dead end, and so leftist types in France decided to try to use Nietzschean relativism as a way to undermine liberal realism, in hopes it would somehow lead to their desired utopia.
This doesn't make much philosophical sense, since Nietzsche was militantly anti-socialist, and as a political strategy it has been an utter failure.