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To: risk
"Except to postmodernists themselves, there's nothing inherently "post-modern" about the Internet"

Postmodernism is by definition altered by time and space. The Internet alters significantly time and space. Globalization such as India's prominence in software is a result of miles of fiber layed in the 90's and running under the Ocean.

Time and space are the main perspectives by which Postmodernism is defined.

31 posted on 11/18/2004 9:58:35 AM PST by Helms
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To: Helms; Miss Marple; Fedora; Grampa Dave
Postmodernism is by definition altered by time and space. The Internet alters significantly time and space.

These are popular translations of the concept of post-modernism and post-structuralist analysis, but they really have no bearing on the process of studying text and culture in terms of those methodologies.

The Internet is post-modern in the minds of some of its fans. It is post-modern in the eyes of popular pundits, but that's about it. The Internet does not alter space and time at all, not on its own. It doesn't change the laws of physics.

We can't equate the impact of media such as fiber optic data transmission lines, with the choice of cultural analysis techniques used by our top educational institutions. Likewise, encountering the "global village" (created by radio telegraph, ocean cable telegraph, satellite TV and the Internet) has preceded this culturally relativistic scholarship. But that doesn't mean that we had to react the way we did on an intellectual level. And many didn't. Scholars like Foucault and Derrida simply made a big splash because they came up with such interesting perspectives. In many ways, their ideas are useful.

The problem is that unchecked, post-modernism and post-structuralism have been applied where they did not belong. The product is the natural undisciplined response: cultural relativism. It could have produced the opposite! For example, by definition a culture that has lost its power and influence in the 20th century or before should be abandoned. Why would we be interested in any third world culture other than for historic purposes? Yet the irrational fans of post-structuralism praise the east and its "oppressed glories." Edward Said uses post-structuralism to shred exclusionary western "narrative" and "marginalism."

But why shouldn't we exclude savagery, cannibalism, idol worship, tribalism, and oligarchy? The west is the best. From Japan to Buenos Ares, western civilization is king. Why? Because of truth. Truth, law, and a reliance on the sovereignty of the individual are the power behind our success. One can argue that these precepts emerged from Christianity, but they are also inherent in the human being. Doctrine may reflect these facets of our nature and visa versa.

Whatever the case, applied post-structuralism is like a cancer eating our body politic. There is nothing wrong with filtering culture with post-structural analysis as long as it is just seen as one lens for examining truth. But undisciplined or nihilistic thinkers have come to believe that it is a tool for destroying the west. Freedom can't exist where the concept of liberty is obscured by psychobabble. Psychobabble is going to destroy us. The truth shall set us free!

43 posted on 11/18/2004 8:35:52 PM PST by risk
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