You too can be a postmodernist
Offline This is now my favorite website on the internet:
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
Everytime you go there, it generates a new postmodern thesis for you, complete with citations. Here's what it gave me:
“Society is fundamentally responsible for sexism,” says Debord; however, according to Tilton [1] , it is not so much society that is fundamentally responsible for sexism, but rather the stasis, and therefore the meaninglessness, of society. The characteristic theme of Pickett’s[2] essay on presemanticist capitalist theory is not materialism as such, but prematerialism. Thus, the subject is contextualised into a that includes culture as a reality. “Class is part of the futility of art,” says Derrida. Sontag uses the term ’subtextual capitalist theory’ to denote the defining characteristic, and some would say the meaninglessness, of neocultural sexual identity. In a sense, the primary theme of the works of Madonna is the difference between sexuality and class. Lyotard uses the term ‘poststructural materialism’ to denote the collapse, and subsequent absurdity, of patriarchialist sexual identity. It could be said that Baudrillard suggests the use of Lacanist obscurity to attack hierarchy. A number of discourses concerning the bridge between class and sexual identity exist. However, Marx’s model of dialectic theory states that discourse must come from the collective unconscious. The subject is interpolated into a that includes language as a whole. But the premise of the posttextual paradigm of consensus suggests that society has significance. In the works of Madonna, a predominant concept is the concept of dialectic reality. An abundance of theories concerning poststructural materialism may be discovered. Thus, Debord’s essay on prematerialist Marxism holds that the establishment is a legal fiction, given that poststructural materialism is invalid. The fatal flaw, and hence the stasis, of the capitalist paradigm of discourse which is a central theme of Madonna’s Sex is also evident in Erotica, although in a more mythopoetical sense. But the subject is contextualised into a that includes culture as a paradox. Hamburger[3] suggests that the works of Madonna are postmodern. It could be said that a number of deappropriations concerning not, in fact, theory, but neotheory exist. If presemanticist capitalist theory holds, we have to choose between poststructural materialism and Derridaist reading. Therefore, Baudrillard promotes the use of prestructuralist socialism to challenge and modify sexual identity. The characteristic theme of Buxton’s[4] critique of the cultural paradigm of expression is the role of the artist as writer. An abundance of theories concerning dialectic theory may be found. But Debord uses the term ‘dialectic discourse’ to denote the rubicon, and eventually the economy, of postcapitalist reality. “Sexual identity is part of the failure of art,” says Sartre; however, according to Cameron[5] , it is not so much sexual identity that is part of the failure of art, but rather the failure, and subsequent fatal flaw, of sexual identity. Any number of discourses concerning the common ground between sexual identity and language exist. Thus, de Selby[6] holds that we have to choose between presemanticist capitalist theory and Marxist class. The primary theme of the works of Madonna is the paradigm of precultural class. Therefore, Sartre suggests the use of dialectic theory to deconstruct outdated, colonialist perceptions of culture. An abundance of theories concerning presemanticist capitalist theory may be discovered. It could be said that if capitalist libertarianism holds, we have to choose between dialectic theory and Batailleist `powerful communication’. The example of dialectic discourse intrinsic to Madonna’s Material Girl emerges again in Erotica. But Cameron[7] states that we have to choose between neoconstructive materialism and textual theory. Lacan uses the term ‘presemanticist capitalist theory’ to denote not narrative, but prenarrative. It could be said that if dialectic discourse holds, the works of Madonna are modernistic. 4. Buxton, T. ed. (1985) Marxism, subtextual dematerialism and dialectic theory. Schlangekraft 6. de Selby, J. ed. (1989) Dialectic theory in the works of Gibson. Panic Button Books1. Dialectic theory and poststructural materialism
2. Realities of paradigm
3. Presemanticist capitalist theory and dialectic discourse
The thing is, it's gibberish. It's an algorithm designed to create grammatically correct paragraphs filled with appropriately linked postmodern "catch words." I don't know if this is a direct tribute to Alan Sokal or not, but if it isn't, it should be. In 1996, Alan Sokal outed a postmodern "journal" Social Texts by doing exactly what this generator does. He compiled a grammatically perfect, hideously difficult to read thesis complete with all the correct buzzwords, but also with physics howlers that any college graduate should catch at first glance. Not only did it pass "review," and receive congratulations from all sides, but after the hoax was revealed, it earned the journal, and its editor, the 1996 "Ig Nobel Prize for Literature." Just for shits and giggles, you should find yourself a suitably pompous postmodern forum and see if you can do the same thing.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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(Ahem... yeah. So, anyway, I read the fine print at the bottom. It is a tribute to Sokal. Yep... um... so the moral of the story, children, is always read the instructions before beginning the test.)
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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I've heard of that site.
It's an exceedingly clever parody. I was at first astounded that it can randomly generate academic papers on postmodernism by recombining sentences with correct structure and certain words that postmodernists like to use but I suppose I shouldn't be too suprised. It is the funniest thing I've ever seen, and yes, it's a tribute to the Sokal Hoax, since he did something more or less identical.
Ah, I see you've already figured this out.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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THAT is hilarious.
"prestructuralist socialism to challenge and modify sexual identity"
translated
Dude looks like a lady.
"The example of dialectic discourse intrinsic to Madonna’s Material Girl emerges again in Erotica."
Perhaps 1,000 years from now there will be a course on this at the university. A senior thesis could be written on the Britney-Madonna kiss. lol.
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I just read Sokal's article. This was honestly one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
Read a few paragraphs of this obvious bullshit he wrote that a postmodernist journal published:
http://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html
And then read his serious article describing the low depths that some modern intellectuals have sunk to:
http://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html
I have read a bit of post modernist B.S. in some of my classes at my university. It is if anything worse than the joke article Sokal wrote. Leftist intellectuals need to stop this kind of nonsense if they want to be taken seriously. After reading 'The Egg and the Sperm' by Emily Martin, I lost all respect for modern leftist intellectuals. They hate science and love to mock the concept of objectivity. Sokal's joke article is not nearly as bad as the constant assault on objectity and science that I experienced in that gender studies class I took a while back. No matter how bad his article seems, keep in mind that the real stuff is far worst.
I'll add in the caveat that not all modern leftist intellectuals engage in this kind of nonsense; but there is a large class of them that do.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
What kind of a name is Lyotard? Is that like the retarded brother of Liono from Thundercats?
Aha! I've just come up with a brilliant name for postmodernists: pomotards!
Google says "Results for: pomotard
Your search - pomotard - did not match any documents."
Yes! I coined an insult!
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I think what they've done is they've managed to attach a stigma to science in their own eyes, much like the stigma against men that many feminists have, or the stigma against atheists that theists have.
Imagine it. You equate 'science' with something like sexism, and suddenly it becomes taboo to be associated with science. It represents oppression and destruction and inequality: After all, if I can't understand science, it must be because those evil atheist male scientists are trying to oppress me!
Once you do that, install the fear trigger, you start to demonize everything about science. Hence the divorcing from objective reality, evidence, logic, etc. Unfortunately, since most people don't understand science, they feel quite comfortable with rejecting it so they don't have to feel inferior: Well, your science is meaningless anyway! I'm glad I don't understand it.
It's like sour grapes, I guess.
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The http://physics.nyu.edu/sokal site has some article by leftists denouncing postmodernism. It seems that there are still leftist academics that I can respect. For some reason I was swamped with pomo bullshit in a few of my classes, but it seems that leftists get it that this hurts them and that they need to stop it in order to be taken seriously. I fear though that many of my classmates will never get to read articles from leftists denouncing postmodernism. They will likely think of leftist academics as being their inferiours for the rest of their lives. If they felt the disgust that I did after I got a glimpse of the current academic state of affairs, then they will probably discount the opinions of leftist academics as just being more of that bullshit they had to deal with in college.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
I am no 'intellectual', but I have been referred to as a leftist; often in a disparaging manner.
Perhaps a more well-defined pejorative invective could be used?
I've always preferred 'postmodernist asshole' because I have never met anyone who willfully accepts the label of postmodernist even though I feel we have our share of them on these forums. lol.
History devoid of biographical data is my one weakness in this respect.
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Funny you should say that. The feminists in that class loved to attack science as being Western and masculine. I tried to point out that I personally know female asian scientists and engineers (there are a lot of women and asians in the science and engineering schools at my university), but they didn't care. They only think of science as being a tool of men and the West to concentrate power in their hands and prevent women and oppressed groups from gaining power. These post-structuralists don't like the West (even though they are almost all in Europe or the U.S.) and they don't like anything that is masculine (even though the founders of post-structuralism were all men).
Science is something that they can pile all their hate on: it is objective (they mock the concept of objectivity), it makes factual claims (they deny that anyone 'knows' any 'facts' about 'reality') and it searches for understanding of an external world that is independant of our desires or cultures. They want to frame everything as a cultural discourse; so a scientist claiming to know objective laws about the universe that don't rely on our culture for validation is offensive to them. So they do see science as being sexist and oppresive and arbitrary and most of all they see it as being fundamentally wrong in its claims of being able to find reliable evidence about objective facts pertaining to the universe. I think that they focus on it so much because it is in every way the opposite of their outlook. There is not any aspect of science that is compatable with their ideology.
darth_josh: I don't mean to slur all leftists. It is just that the writing classes that I took and that feminism class depict current leftist intellectualism as being the worst form of pomo bullshit. Leftists need to rectify this problem. I fear that a lot of college students are being convinced that leftists are intellectually lazy and weak and that they have to hide behind a denial of any form of objective truth in order to maintain their beliefs. You wouldn't beleive the things I have read that make leftists look very bad. I don't mean to exaggerate the problem, but university leftists need to get their act together and denounce all forms of post-structualism/post-modernism and they need to do it soon.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
They grow up eventually. lol.
I think they inevitably run into an undeniable fact and their brain goes in one direction or the other. Acceptance or denial.
It isn't just at colleges either. We have the mildly dysfunctional reading romance novels set in historical times with mouthy women. We have millions of poorly educated people watching 'Lost' like it's a fucking survival documentary.
The difficulty lies in teaching both sides that rational self-interest can exist in the ideas presented by both conservative and liberal.
Perhaps a Gould's NOMA for societal politics. lol. A poli-sci demilitarized zone. lol.
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