Scott,
Thank You!!!!!!!!!!! I really appreciate this post- can wait to read the book.
I loved your Yellow Submarine analogy.
Thanks again,
Erin
>An interesting challenge. Overall my take on postmodernism is that it is
>a step in the right direction, so the uncomplimentary things I would say
>are (a) that they don't go far enough, that they (excuse the
>over-generalization) don't fully appreciate what "going beyond SOM"
>entails, and (b) that many who call themselves postmodernists are mostly
>just being trendy or deliberately provocative. But to be at least a
>little bit specific, I'd better be more long-winded.
>
>First, I regard modernism as, more or less, SOM. So the postmoderns
>include those who are trying to overcome SOM, I suppose starting with
>Kierkegaard and Nietzche and the pragmatists (esp. James), and with
>another attack on modernism from a different direction from Freud. (One
>should also include quantum mechanics as also being a major attack on
>SOM, but that is a field too far to deal with now).
>
>So, definitely I regard Pirsig as a postmodernist, in the (a) category
>(though in his case I think his "not going far enough" is more a matter
>of his having pulled his punches somewhat, especially in Lila.)
>
>Another of my favorite (a) category folks is Rorty, who at least has the
>decency to write intelligibly (as opposed to those French folks). I can
>agree with his take on regarding phrases like "objective reality" or
>"things in themselves" or "clear and distinct ideas (or self-evident
>first principles)" as philosophically empty. But he remains a
>secularist, and a Darwinist, which I think one can only maintain by
>keeping a belief in "things out there" from which, somehow,
>consciousness emerged. I regard this as inconsistent. And, I think, his
>philosophy is, in the end, nihilist, since it pretty much says that
>everything we do is a game, and is ultimately meaningless. (He would, I
>imagine, respond that "seeking meaning" (or anything "ultimate") is my
>problem, i.e., a disguised theism. I would respond that I am seeking
>Meaning, not meaning in any particular object, and most particularly not
>in a God-object, that I only expect to "find" it when there is no longer
>a "finder"). Sort of like (well, actually exactly like) Quality.
>
>I can''t really comment on Derrida. I think he is having fun, which is
>fine, but it's no fun for me to try to keep up, so I suppose one can
>take that as an uncompliment.
>
>Where all this is valuable, as I indicated, is in taking the postmodern
>step, and then seeing how it is a necessary step on the way to a
>philosophy of emptiness. My favorite image for this is that sequence in
>Yellow Submarine where the sucker monster is sucking up all the objects
>it sees (SOM), including the submarine, then sucks up the backdrop
>(postmodernism), leaving only itself in an empty background, then sucks
>up itself (achieving no-self), and out pops the submarine, but now in a
>land of Imagination (or True Reality).
>
>Robert Magliola's *Derrida on the Mend* is recommended, both for its
>description of Derridean deconstruction, but mainly for how to go beyond
>it.
>
>- Scott
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