Comments on: Cronin on Post-modernism

By: Akma » * Tap, Tap * — Is This Thing On?

Akma » * Tap, Tap * — Is This Thing On? — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:15:39 +0000

[...] have two days to pump out more word count. Speaking of my hermeneutics, while I was away Frank cited an interview with Dr. Helena Cronin of the London School of Economics, in which she speaks of [...]

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:52:46 +0000

I’m good with simply excising the rot. My concern is the tendency of these folks to go straight Joseph Goebbels on us. There are plenty of righteous people who call themselves po-mo and tell the truth anyway. But there are as many PR pukes using po-mo as an excuse to shape perspectives around scientific knowledge. GK1 said his bit about how blue is green or whatever and I can go with that, as long as we get out the spectrum analyzers and agree to call the object that’s reflecting a specific wavelength a specific name… hell, we can call it Phil Collins if you want to.

By: Charles Follymacher

Charles Follymacher — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:12:45 +0000

so have we gone further than wot la madame said @#19?

to me, po mo is as natuarl a thing in human evolution as rationalism or inventions like writstwatches and handguns. it doesn’t behoove us to blame po-mo itself for its misuses any more than we orta blame rationalism for experiments done on tuskegee airmen. treacherous waters, i know. relativism has its place and outside those boundaries it is easy to be abused or made the scapegoat of societites ills.

at some point, it gets to be like screaming at language for the existence of hateful graffiti or stringing up twine for the invention of hangin nooses.

that’s not plain dealin. methinks we should stick to badgering the specific gangrenous mutations and leave it at that. methinks. hope i don’t regret that.

By: Jon H.

Jon H. — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:37:41 +0000

They have served their apprenticeships, are now union members, have their cards (displayed on their office walls) and their employers pay their union dues (and faculty club memberships).

By: madame l.

madame l. — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:28:43 +0000

“And please. Not the academic as elite again. They are what they are. And apparently, really miss the old days, when they seemed to be so much more.”

what you don’t seem to understand, zo, is that “these people” are rigorously trained by Experts and have paid untold amounts of ca$h to obtain their well-deserved seats on hand-carved teak academic life-saver towers. (as it were.)

you and i are in no position to judge. we can’t see the whole beach. (to cunt. the metaphor.)

By: Zo

Zo — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:01:20 +0000

But one cannot undo the very real collapse of form that ought to beset this, the post-modern world, and I don’t think any number of academic science types stamping their tiny feet can change that. Really I don’t.

Number two. The upside of the post-modern is going to get us past a whole lot of Us and Them, in future. Broken forms usually means the hierarchy is upset, and about goddamn time. Think wide.

And please. Not the academic as elite again. They are what they are. And apparently, really miss the old days, when they seemed to be so much more.

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:24:50 +0000

Re. the big box/wetlands example: as a community member I have an interest. The big box corporation obviously also has an interest. My neighbors are interested, and some make their living in the construction industry so their interests are split. But the scientists called in to produce a model of present conditions and changes that can be anticipated based on different courses of actions have an objective interest in digging out the truth. Since we are dealing with aquifers in different strata that cover tens of thousands of square miles, and layers of rock between the aquifers that protect the lower from contaminants found in the upper, any answers we get from the scientists will be presented in a range of probabilities. That’s relativism on the face of it, but it’s not a relativism that concerns me. The relativism that concerns me is the PR relativism, the idea that public opinion CAN be swayed by those contributions to the little league.

And just to confuse matters, it’s always possible that the geologist belongs to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and will fudge his/her results to see that the new well is sited in such a way that the mink ranch will be put out of business.

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:37:19 +0000

a close look at the clip shows a Burroughs reference in the backdrop early on

By: Jon H.

Jon H. — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:27:08 +0000

hey madame l. Thanks for the memories. I think I knew (somewhere in the many cobwebs of my mind) that it came from Burroughs, but obviously got swept up in my fan-boy adulation .. it being a peculiarly personal form of oblique strategy of mine.

By: madame l.

madame l. — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:14:19 +0000

hey jon , laurie anderson might say “language is a virus”, but she would be just quoting burroughs.

(who probably caught it somewhere else… brion gysin being the most obvious carrier that pops to mind.)

my simple minded understanding is that po-mo “crept into modern science” when it was determined that an object could be proven by approved / traditional scientific methodology to “be understood” to have several contradictory properties. (a concept the east took for granted for thousands of years without the benefit of “our rigourous set of rules and training”.) metawhatphor.

“wave bye bye to the boss.”

obviously i’ve just woken up and will need much time to unpack. or as calvino would say: “newly arrived and don’t really understand the language”.