Postmodernism, the school of "thought" that proclaimed "There are no truths, only interpretations" has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for "conversations" in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster.edge.org
Humanities professors thrashing colleagues that stick to Postmodern frameworks and interpretations. Does this mean we can finally have a public funeral?
1 comment:
Professors and intellectuals call each other out for being too academic and hyperbolic all the time. Postmodern scholarship is quintessentially academic and hyperbolic, certainly.
It's odd, in this article, that the person being called postmodernist is also accused of pigeon-holing other academics. I thought postmodernism was the school of pluralism, and anything goes!
Anyway, theory should follow the art, not lead it. I'm wary of trying to philosophize my way into making art. Not that thinking about this stuff isn't fun. But trying to rationalize something that should be simply embodied experience misses the point, a little bit.
Here's a Barnett Newman quote from the film "Painters Painting":
"Even if [the aesthetes are] right, and even if they can build an aestheic analysis or an aesthetic system that will explain art, or painting, or whatever it is. It's of no value, really, because that aesthetics is for me like ornithology must be for the birds."
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