In a message dated 2/2/01 6:56:02 AM Central Standard Time,
pholden@cbvnol.net writes:
> Not so the postmodernists. They object to absolute truth, regardless.
> For them truth is whatever the community (culture) says it is. One of
> them, P.K. Feyerabend, even goes so far as to say that scientific laws
> ought to be decided by democratic vote.
>
> No scientist I know of (or for that matter any human being with a
> modicum of sense) will deny the absolute truth of the Holocaust. Or of
> deaths caused by AIDS. Or the danger of standing on the tracks in front
> of an oncoming train. Life is lived in a sea of absolutes, beginning with
> birth and ending with death.
>
> Postmodernists say truth depends on “power relationships” and
> “power struggles,” not on a honest effort to portray a reality
> independent of one’s race, sex, religion or class. Once that foundation
> of truth is denied, a free society based on the ideal of rational
> persuasion crumbles and ad hominem attacks (such as Hitler used
> against Jews) are all that remains. Therein lies the danger.
>
> Let us not confuse the absolute truth that science denies vs. religion or
> the many truths that Pirsig allows in his metaphysics with the absolute
> truths of day-to-day living like the certainties of hunger without food,
> lawlessness without police or stagnation without freedom.
>
> My main problem with postmodernism, besides its dedication to
> irrationalism, is its dictum of tolerance-above-all. Those who hold to
> that ideal volunteer to unilateral moral disarmament, leaving the door
> wide open to the Castros of the world.
>
> Do you think this criticism is unfair?
>
Hi Platt
You have made some very valuable, precise points. Your targeted criticisms
toward the "postmodern" movement and some of its proponents isn't unfair. The
dangers of proclaiming "there is no truth" are very real, and can have
disastrous results. I hope none of the people you mentioned or their ideas
ever gain mass popularity.
I'm not a "postmodernist" and don't want to be a part of any kind of movement
involved with them. But I would be lying to you and to myself if I said I
didn't think the ultimate nature of reality was relative and constantly
changing. It is *true* the Holocaust happened, and it is true that if you
step in front of a train you will be flattened (or squashed or knocked off
the tracks with such force it kills you). I don't deny Truth. I deny Absolute
Truth. That's just what I think, but to *use* this idea to justify
mass-nonsense, mob rule or depravity is sickening to me.
Does my denial of Absolute Truth automatically place me in league with the
hard-core postmodern people you mentioned? Does it automatically make me an
immoral person?
Jon
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