“I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
And when the dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Where does ontology, phenomenology, and postmodernism fall into this? I find it hysterical that many Right Wing folks are essentially a backwoods version of Postmodernists.
That’s an interesting point, and I love the “backwoods postmodernism” concept. I had to take a minute to refresh my understanding of postmodernism (thanks, Wikipedia) because I’ve always thought of it as aligned with alternative historical narratives like Howard Zinn’s work (People’s History of the US etc.). In this sense, it’s a choice to view the same set of facts from a different perspective. But it’s a short walk from a change in perspective to selective fact finding, which as we all know is the kissin’ cousin of fact-free narrative and outright lies.
Usually, postmodernism is intertwined with multiculturalism. In that way, your observation is spot on. MAGA is but another culture (though they might insist it’s the only “right” one). To the extent that postmodernism considers all cultural perspectives to be equally valid, it offers no answers to questions of the greater good in a multicultural society.
You’ve got me wondering if there are objective criteria for a postmodern narrative - particularly whether facts matter. Can some postmodern worldviews be judged better than others? If so, does the availability of objectively true information correlate with “good” postmodernism? I’ll have to spend a weekend mulling this over with my robot friends. Unless you beat me to it!
Postmodernists would say that nothing can be objectively true. They challenge the very epistemological bedrock that most humans subscribe to. Subjective perception of an objective truth is still subjective, they'd say. I can feel my MAGA hat materializing in front of me already
Lol definitely going to explore this further. I’ve been thinking about the idea that the postmodern stance may be society’s undoing ever since you brought it up. How ironic if so that most people don’t know the term. I guess you don’t have to know the names of all the muscles in your hand to make a fist either. 🤷♂️
In all seriousness, this is very eye opening…paradigm shifting. Another question: For a time, there was discussion of a watermark or some means of reliably identifying intelligence as artificial, especially images. Does such a protection exist? Do publishers check manuscripts for some sort of human DNA? Do editors run queries to see if writers are cheating? Why doesn’t Trump sound smart??? The technology exists. Why doesn’t he run his incoherent drivel through one of these tools and, for a moment anyway, appear intelligent enough to not stare into the sun.
I think you’ll really enjoy ChatGPT and/or Claude AI. Both have free versions. I recommend you try out this list of questions with each of them and see where it takes you. If you learn something interesting, please share!
Also, Carl Sagan in 1995:
“I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
And when the dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Where does ontology, phenomenology, and postmodernism fall into this? I find it hysterical that many Right Wing folks are essentially a backwoods version of Postmodernists.
That’s an interesting point, and I love the “backwoods postmodernism” concept. I had to take a minute to refresh my understanding of postmodernism (thanks, Wikipedia) because I’ve always thought of it as aligned with alternative historical narratives like Howard Zinn’s work (People’s History of the US etc.). In this sense, it’s a choice to view the same set of facts from a different perspective. But it’s a short walk from a change in perspective to selective fact finding, which as we all know is the kissin’ cousin of fact-free narrative and outright lies.
Usually, postmodernism is intertwined with multiculturalism. In that way, your observation is spot on. MAGA is but another culture (though they might insist it’s the only “right” one). To the extent that postmodernism considers all cultural perspectives to be equally valid, it offers no answers to questions of the greater good in a multicultural society.
You’ve got me wondering if there are objective criteria for a postmodern narrative - particularly whether facts matter. Can some postmodern worldviews be judged better than others? If so, does the availability of objectively true information correlate with “good” postmodernism? I’ll have to spend a weekend mulling this over with my robot friends. Unless you beat me to it!
Postmodernists would say that nothing can be objectively true. They challenge the very epistemological bedrock that most humans subscribe to. Subjective perception of an objective truth is still subjective, they'd say. I can feel my MAGA hat materializing in front of me already
Lol definitely going to explore this further. I’ve been thinking about the idea that the postmodern stance may be society’s undoing ever since you brought it up. How ironic if so that most people don’t know the term. I guess you don’t have to know the names of all the muscles in your hand to make a fist either. 🤷♂️
In all seriousness, this is very eye opening…paradigm shifting. Another question: For a time, there was discussion of a watermark or some means of reliably identifying intelligence as artificial, especially images. Does such a protection exist? Do publishers check manuscripts for some sort of human DNA? Do editors run queries to see if writers are cheating? Why doesn’t Trump sound smart??? The technology exists. Why doesn’t he run his incoherent drivel through one of these tools and, for a moment anyway, appear intelligent enough to not stare into the sun.
I think you’ll really enjoy ChatGPT and/or Claude AI. Both have free versions. I recommend you try out this list of questions with each of them and see where it takes you. If you learn something interesting, please share!
I believe enshittification has just one “t”.
Lol I actually looked this one up. But you can’t trust everything you read on the internet. 🤣