Archives for posts with tag: Socrates

What Is Postmodernism?

Nov 27, 2017 //
4

To understand postmodernism, one must first have a basic understanding of modernism. Luckily, modernism is far less complex than postmodernism, which hopefully makes understanding postmodernism easier as well. Modernism is a paradigm that says that we’ve figured everything out, science has won, our current institutions never need to change again, and any form of progress will only be the refinement of things that we currently have got going for us right now. It’s the paradigm of Fukuyama’s “End of History.” There’s no point in talking about things anymore; this is it.

Postmodernism is the reply to that which says, “Wellllllll….. I mean…. really? Literally everyone in the past has said that their way of thinking is irrefutably true, but you’re super sure that you’ve got it this time?”

This of course is completely reasonable. Modernists give primacy to science; science is about the refutation of existing theories (except apparently when it comes to the primacy of science and other modernist principles which can never possibly be refuted), so why is there such blowback against attempts to refute existing theories? Postmodernism is applying rational skepticism to firmly entrenched ideas and values. This is usually done by looking at an idea that is taken for granted as true, analyzing its history, and then pointing out flaws that have been imbued in that idea since its inception. Postmodernists usually leave it up to us to decide what to do with their criticism, but it’s generally assumed that a revaluation of that idea is the implied minimum.

For a couple of examples, capitalism is an economic system founded in colonialism and slavery. Tracing its history to today, one can see threads of that continuing in the exploitation of third world countries for first world profits. Postmodernism stops there. It has never been big on solutions, just pointing out the problems. I’ve also outlined the general thesis of Foucault’s evolution of punishment here. This blog is essentially a postmodern analysis of contemporary justice. Basically if you’re criticizing something by looking at how its history has shaped its current incarnation, you’re doing postmodernism. Nietzsche was actually one of the first postmodernists. In The Genealogy of Morals, he takes the firmly established Christian way of life, and then deconstructs it as the “slave morality” response to the Roman “master morality”, thus leading to the insipidness of his time. The difference I guess is that Nietzsche offered a solution.

Here’s the thing: nobody likes postmodernists. Which is weird because skepticism has been around for a looonnnng time. Postmodernists are attacked for not liking science and reason; David Hume posited that causality is unknowable; Renee Descartes suggested that mathematical truths could be the deception of an evil demon, and thus could not be held self-evident; Sextus Empiricus, one of the most famous Greek skeptics, provided proofs both for and against the gods; Socrates denied traditional piety, values, language, epistemology, justice… so many things. Much like Socrates, postmodernists get a lot of grief because they attack the paradigm of those in power. They are the gadflies of modernity.

If you watch any video on postmodernism, you’ll probably see somewhere in the comments advice from helpful Youtubers to check out Jordan Peterson, because he knows about postmodernism, and he says it’s bad. Let’s look at some of his criticisms:

It’s an attack on rationality/empiricism/science: That’s one way of framing it, sure, but that isn’t unprecedented even in the most enlightened of circles, and it’s not actually the case. Postmodernism appreciates other ways of knowing, rather than baldly accepting the deification of reason. Maybe beauty has some truth worth knowing, or empathy might reveal something about the universe. Ask yourself, “How can I prove that reason is the ultimate way of knowing?” You can answer either with reason, which would lead to an infinite regress (proving reason with reason would require further reason to prove the second reason), or with some other way of knowing, which shows the value of an alternative. It’s not that science is wrong or bad, it’s that it’s not alone.

It suggests multiple viewpoints, which means there can be no true viewpoint. The only reason we have an agreed upon viewpoint is because it belongs to those in power: Well, yeah. Read a book. History belongs to the victors, right? Those with the most power are going to organize things so that they keep winning. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Everyone knows politicians are corrupt because they do everything to keep their power, but nobody can make the leap to other facets of our society functioning on the same premise? Please.

Next would be the relativism implied in the criticism: the difficulty we have with truth does not mean that there cannot be a best viewpoint, and deciding which is best is a lot more complicated than accepting the current system simply because that’s the way it has always been. Perhaps with a postmodern lens, we can better understand which viewpoint has the greatest benefit.

There is no individual in postmodernism, just identity. It splits people into an oppressor and oppressed class: Again, yes. Economists and statisticians split people into identifiable variables all the time. It makes measuring trends easier. It’s a way of analyzing social phenomena. If one group is lumped together into an oppressor class, that’s because historically that group has tended to behave in that pattern and now benefits from that history, even if you don’t accept that that practice continues today. It’s not complicated.

Postmodernists are all Marxists. They don’t engage in dialogue. They want to destroy everything: To sum up, postmodernism corrupts the youth. Peterson is famous for wanting to shut down university courses that he believes perpetuate postmodern ideas and “cultural Marxism.” This is the exact charge the Athenians levied against Socrates. There is a lot of propaganda against postmodernists by those who stand to lose under their dissecting eye. Peterson is a buffoon.

There are some valid criticisms of postmodernism, even in this blog. You may have noticed I repeatedly pointed out that it doesn’t offer solutions. Beyond this, it denies any Grand Narrative, which in theory could be used to unify people even if today they are mostly used for jingoist purposes. When people call postmodernism a philosophy I usually cringe because I see it more as sociology rather than philosophy. A postmodernist is more likely to criticize bourgeois philosophy than participate within it, and fair enough.

The true skeptic holds that every belief must be questioned, including the belief that every belief must be questioned. Postmodernism is not beyond criticism, and nobody says it should be. It’s just that too much of its criticism has been coming from people who lump it in with “Cultural Marxism“, and those people are just so, so dumb and are ruining things for everyone. I just want to go back to writing about how empathy isn’t real and the Marxist implications of Facebook, but NOOOOooooo! I have to write out entire blogs explaining why alt-right talking points are wrong.

Post-script: In that Jordan Peterson video, he says that he read Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, and then says that its theme is that the presentation of mental illness is shaped by the conditions of its surrounding environment. That’s… not what the book is about at all. The book is about showing how mental illness is framed in moral terms, as a manifestation of an unreason contrasting the social norms of its environment. Kind of like how being transgender is seen as morally deviant because it flies in the face of the traditional understandings of gender. It’s actually exactly like that. Peterson either never actually read the book and is posturing (so smugly) to seem smart to his followers, or he’s just really, really dumb and didn’t pick up what Foucault wrote out explicitly like, a bunch of times throughout the book. It really seems to me that Jordan Peterson learned about postmodernism from a Jordan Peterson video, and didn’t investigate further because whatever, he gets to be famous for being the stupid man’s smart person.

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Categories Philosophy, Politics, Social Criticism

Dialogue with a Beta Cuck

Jul 10, 2017 //
3

An Alpha male was completing his set on the bench press when he spied a Beta Cuck using the hip abduction machine. His masculine heart stirred at this tragedy, and he approached the poor wretch who by all accounts did not even lift.

Alpha: Hey buddy, I don’t mean to sound insulting or anything, but real men don’t use that machine. It’s for chicks. If you want to get built, you should focus on your upper body, and maybe some squats if you’re desperate to do legs.

Beta Cuck: Forgive me, I am ignorant. However, you seem to know a lot about masculinity! Perhaps you could share that wisdom and explain to me what it means to be a man!

The Alpha considered for a moment since taking the time to explain manhood to this Beta Cuck might mean losing his pump. The Alpha surveyed the gym to discover that there were few enough people to impress that he could spare a moment from his workout to enlighten this spindly creature.

Alpha: To be a man is easy. Being a man is being a provider. It means going to work, and taking care of your family. It means being strong, and lifting weights. It means enjoying a hot steak and a cold beer. Being a man means liking sports, and driving fast cars.

Beta Cuck: Surely women could do all these things as well!

Alpha: Women who like sports or lift weights are only performing those actions. They are not linked to womanhood, but to manhood. When women behave this way, they are deceiving themselves.

Beta Cuck: So to be a man is to perform acts of manhood. I see now! I think I’ve heard about this. Sex is the biological makeup created at birth, and gender is a social performance.

Alpha: No, that’s wrong. You’ve been deceived by SJW lies.

Beta Cuck: Oh dear me. I am more confused now than ever! You said that being a man is to perform manly actions!

Alpha: I did not say that!

The Alpha shook his head in exasperation. This was going to be more difficult than he thought! This Beta Cuck had endured some liberal indoctrination, but he composed himself and continued.

Alpha: What I *said* was that when women perform manly actions it is a performance, but when men do it, it is natural. Women naturally cook and clean, while men naturally provide. Those who stray from nature are performing, but those who adhere to nature are living authentically.

Beta Cuck: I see that you are being patient with me, and I appreciate that. However, I do believe I am more confused now than even before. You say that it is natural when men work and women cook.

Alpha: Yes, that’s what I said.

Beta Cuck: But within Judaism, for thousands of years there have been sects where men stay home to study the Torah, while women go out to provide for their family. This continues even today! And the most famous cook in the world is Gordon Ramsey, a man! Surely you would agree that it is incredibly unlikely that since the inception of humanity, we are, as a culture, only now and in this specific region aligning with what is naturally male.

Alpha: I suppose that is unlikely.

Beta Cuck: Men in India are accustomed to holding hands while walking down the street with no overtones except friendship. It used to be haute couture that men would wear makeup, wigs, and stockings. Even pink used to be a boy’s colour before the 1920s. If men were biologically inclined one way and women another, it would be impossible for them to behave otherwise since one cannot rebel against one’s true nature!

Alpha: It doesn’t make sense to believe that these behaviours are naturally masculine if they are only locally and temporally specific. Perhaps in the future to be a man will mean something entirely different!

Beta Cuck: But if that’s true, then what does it mean to be a man?? If masculinity is relative, then who is to say that being a man means anything at all!?

The Alpha male was struck by this. Though he had to admit, his initial impression had been faulty, he couldn’t completely disregard masculinity! He would not be able to describe himself as an Alpha Male at all if it didn’t mean anything. His interlocutor could not even be described as a Beta Cuck! His whole worldview was in jeopardy, so he decided to take a different approach.

Alpha: There is such a thing as being a man, but it has nothing to do with actions or performance since their relevance is only culturally specific. Being a man is about *who* you are. Men are stoic, rational, and assertive. Manliness is about character.

Beta Cuck: I’m sorry, I know you know more than me when it comes to being a man, but I do know *some* things. For example, temperament is related to genes, not to chromosomes. The emotional gap between boys and girls deepens as they age, with some studies showing that men are actually *more* emotional than women, which suggests that it is not a biological difference but a social one.

Struggling now, the Alpha Male began sputtering.

Alpha: But testosterone is more abundant in men, and estrogen in women! Surely that must have an impact!

Beta Cuck: It seems like you are asking me! I have already stated that I know nothing about being a man. Surely you do not mean that being a man is something that can be purchased in pill form, however.

Alpha: No! Being a man is more meaningful than that!

Beta Cuck: But you have not given me an answer as to what that meaning is at all! At best you have given examples of masculinity, though they were poor examples, when what I seek is what it means to be a man more generally.

Alpha: Being a man is… is…

The Alpha Male trailed off, and stood inert for a moment or two, before punching the Beta Cuck in the eye. The Alpha returned to a set of dumbbell curls, certain that the exercise would rid his mind of doubt. The repetitive motion soothed him, and he began to think of how much smoother his hands would be if he wore lifting gloves. For some reason the notion seemed less offensive to him now than it had previously.

The Beta Cuck lay on the floor dazed, as the gym staff rushed to his aide.

Beta Cuck: That Greek woman I white knighted on Twitter was right. I may not know what it means to be a man, but at least I *know* that I don’t know what it means to be a man.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality

The Necessity of Philosophy

Mar 27, 2015 //
1

Many people assume that philosophy is actually pretty useless. It can really only get you a job teaching philosophy, and its practical uses are pretty much nil. You can’t eat it; it can’t move you about on four wheels, or even two wheels, so why bother?

If Socrates was a real person, he might have said that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. It is better to critically analyse yourself and your surroundings as it will lead to a more fulfilling existence than not doing these things. John Stuart Mill, someone who is definitely a real person, said:

“It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.”

Being able to think critically, not only about yourself but about the world, can have some practical effects as well, such as the ability to engage in political debate or understand social issues that might pertain to your community or yourself. But perhaps this is a little too pretentious. There are those who would argue that the simple life has its own merits, and that being able to enjoy a cold beer and a football game is the greater experience over fretting over the validity of escapism.

If one accepts that scientific pursuit is of value, such as finding out which elements make up a rock on the moon, then perhaps one might expect there to be value in questioning why there are rocks on the moon in the first place. Martin Heidegger’s question, “Why are there essents (translation: things that exist) rather than nothing?” is described as being the original philosophical question. Why even is there a universe wherein rocks and moons can exist? If curiosity in regards to the material universe is valid outside of the drive for profits, then it follows that curiosity in regards to other aspects of the universe is equally valid.

Maybe a materialist would argue that there cannot be anything other than an empirical universe and so to question why things are is meaningless, but Karl Jaspers raises an interesting counterpoint:

“If by “world” I mean the sum of all that cognitive orientation can reveal to me as cogently knowable for everyone, the question arises whether the being of the world is all there is.”

 It is a little naïve and narcissistic to think that only what we can experience with our heavily flawed sensory organs, or comprehend within the limits of our human intellect, is all that there can possibly be within this universe. Friedrich Nietzsche puts it even less politely:

“Would it not be rather probable that, conversely, precisely the most superficial and external aspect of existence—what is most apparent, its skin and sensualization—would be grasped first—and might even be the only thing that allowed itself to be grasped? A “scientific” interpretation of the world, as you understand it, might therefore still be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it be one of the poorest in meaning.”

 I do appreciate a man who flat out calls science stupid.

But maybe you reject metaphysics. Maybe this is all there is, or you subscribe to the belief that if we can’t experience it, or it doesn’t materially affect the universe in such a way that we can measure it, then it is, again, meaningless and pointless to discuss. Of course this doesn’t take into account that we could possibly experience it in some way outside of our sensory or intellectual selves (for example the accumulation of Karma, perhaps, which affects us but not in a way that we would ever be able to materially measure) but let’s just ignore that point for now. Let’s say this is all there is.

Do you think that it’s important to discuss what’s good and bad? Or even to come up with an idea as to what “good” even means? Heidegger agrees that there is no imminent practical use of philosophy, but says, “We cannot do anything with philosophy, [but] might not philosophy, if we concern ourselves with it, do something with us?” Adam Smith was a philosopher of economics, from whence we obtained capitalism which now dictates how our entire world is run. Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes have offered their own views on the economy which have affected the world in their own significant ways as well. The philosophy of René Descartes dictates how we view our sense of self: as a discrete subject separate from the rest of the universe. Philosophy can change entire paradigms.

But maybe changing the world still isn’t good enough. You want a practical job that’s not a professor. Something with prestige. Plato argues that philosophy isn’t only practical, but it is the ideal for leadership. He advocates that any type of ruler should be a philosopher in its most literal sense, as a lover of knowledge. A lover of knowledge would endlessly pursue it, and in doing so would be able to apply any knowledge gained to the society underneath him or her. With knowledge as one’s passion, the love of power would not exist, and there would be a disdain for rule that the philosopher would possess: another quality for governance that Plato found necessary.

So start a revolution based off of The Republic, and then your philosophy major can finally net you a ballin’ career path… which, um… upon reflection, still doesn’t actually pay all that well.

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Categories Philosophy