Philadelphia, PA

Dear Shepherd, 

Is post-modernism over? I certainly hope so. I would suggest thinking of it as a "deconstruction" of the social and political configurations of the Cold War, which will lead, we hope, to new, reformed configurations. 

I notice a good deal of recent focus on Aristotle, who, plausibly, contributes very significantly to the common sense of Western civilization overall. If there has been splintering, then people will naturally seek common ground. Aristotle also came to considerable prominence 100 years or so back, near the end of the last great epoch of "globalization," --which unfortunately culminated in WWI.

How the internet and the related digital phenomena will work out is really a matter of what we do with it. It certainly has both positive and negative potentialities. The real danger is the idea that we can all simply ride this particular economic and institutional roller-coaster without pausing to make moral decisions and discrimination. Sorting out the positive and negative potentialities is the needed moral and political work.  

H.G. Callaway

Hi Pete and H.G.,

What is happening today, with the change towards Hypercommunication is the definite burying of Modernism - if it is seen as the expression of a single dominant view. In its wake, it leads to the disappearance of Post-modernism, as a consequence to the disappearance of Modernism.  Post-Modernism, as a reaction to Modernism, develops the notion of deconstruction of shapes in art and storytelling-structure in writing and film.

But philosophically, Post-modernism, or rather Post-structuralism, has always been present and will always be - as long as one can exert critical thinking.

Post-modernism and post-structuralism have been used interchangeably, leading to a very confused view on whether they are the same thing or not.

Today, with the advent of the exploded nature of Hypercommunication, we may accept the disappearance of Modernism/Post-Modernism, as  single-track cultural expressions. But I do believe - and hope others would agree - that Post-structuralism proudly stands in the ruins of Post-modernism. Deconstruction of the structure of a message, as critical analysis and unmasking of the purpose and the intent behind a message is more needed than ever in our era of Hypercommunication that makes a message expand sometimes beyond our immediate ability to grasp the full scope of a subject.

Because Hypercommunication is not lacking or exploding (destroying) structure, but has a structure of its own - but because it is multilayered and multidirectional it requires even more attention and acute questioning.

I see many people rushing with the news of the death or disappearance of Post-modernism. Post-modernism is that kind of word resembling an empty box that can be filled at will by the person using it. The notions piled up within the box may appear vintage today, But somewhere in there also lies the sharp intellectual defensive weapon that Deconstruction is. It makes me wonder : do the persons hoping for the death of Post-Modernism somehow hope for the end of relentless critical thinking too ?

Hi There Jean and HG

From a strictly artistic standpoint i agree with Jean's 'empty box' idea and digitism has facilitated the filling of that box with an almost infinite number of possibilities, both from what has come before and new potential ideas especially in the fields of developing media. Postmodernity/structuralism is an almost ubiquitous aspect of our popular culture, so much so we don't even realise its presence or have at least become so familiar with it as to accept it without question. I kinda feel that its demise is greatly exaggerated and its merely shifting into comfortable middle age with a portly belly and a fine bordeaux at its side, overseeing the digital child that plays with its toys. 

Post-modernism/structuralism has always been a movement of flux and adaptation and that continues, as does the flux of technology, we are still in an era of immense digiflux still reliant on dexterity of hand rather than direct cognitive control, something which must inevitably come, which could be said to result in the ultimate in subjective artistic creation and as a consequence hyper-deconstruction. 

with that in mind could we be entering a new epoch of trans-futurism where everything will be new yet reliant on personal phenomenology. art from the deep corners of the mind. 

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Shepherd, 

I'm all in favor of experimentalism in the arts, though I don't always admire the results, of course. 

My general sense of the theme is that the terms "modernism" and "post-modernism" are both extremely vague and ambiguous. I would say the same for "structuralism." These terms seem to have almost as many variations of meaning as they have had defenders and critics. So, I am not now very optimistic on the prospects of a productive debate or discussion of your question. My first impression was that your question indicated an openness to critical perspectives. 

Having said this much, however, I would like to add that I quite liked Vanderperre's take on the theme. You might do better discussing it with him. "Deconstruction" may even be good, if we know exactly what the problematic item may be--and as long as there is some clear aim or goal of reconstruction. Failing these things, however, a lot of dust and suspicions get kicked up to little avail.

"Post-modernism," (I first heard the term at a conference at Princeton many years ago, by the way), seems to me to be deeply political --and at the same time to deny or evade its political role or commitments. But look at the results over the past decades, and what we see includes growing inequalities world wide, much conflict and even, perhaps, a deficit of governability. People who support or take their lead from the powers that be, and even the most conservative or rigid among them, consistently attack the advocates of reform in favor of vague aspirations. This development seems to turn, in degree, upon an unwillingness to make clear what commitments are being advocated or promoted. 

We are all aware that there are people who want no clear and open discussion of problems or alternatives to their plans and projects. 

H.G. Callaway

Hi Callaway. 

Apologies if i sounded closed to discussion, that was not my intention at all. 

I agree with your point that post modernism is a vague and ambiguous chalice and i think thats the point, that there is no formula and no defined purpose other than to inspire subjective reaction to produced works. where we differ i think is in the idea of deconstruction and as you say the need for such a thing to address a perceived problematic, I think its far more what Zizek calls the parallax view, that perception of something alters once the viewing position is changed. This is something that can produce both interesting perspective and creations. 

Politically i have felt for many years now that we are in a limbo that is essentially a deconstruction of the old ideas, Our governments are no longer in a true position of power, that being devolved to the corporate and individual oligarchs who define policy. The old narratives of marxism and keynesian economics are confused and bith discredited to an extent, in both cases because, as a species, we've demonstrated we aren't responsible enough to use either and yes, vague aspirations are all thats left because we have no idea how we want to be governed any more, democracy being a game we play knowing full well that the policies that attract us will be twisted and shaped by external financial influence rather than any true ideological innovation once the incumbent is installed on the seat of alleged power…. i digress...

My interest lies in whether we are culturally entering a new futurist epoch facilitated by the ever expanding technological advancement or whether we are content to continue the postmodern paradigm but with new tools. Taking popular culture as an example it would seem that nostalgia is our current craving with an emergence of the single, folkesque troubadour or interpretations of existing genre such as 60s soul having mass appeal rather than the futurist innovation that one might expect with such a paradigm shift as that digital revolution. i guess this could be seen as a direct reaction to the extremes of postmodernism, a reconstruction from discord if you like or the reorganisation of chance. 

Well, I think that postmodernism hasn't simply passed away. It aborted.

It was meant, at least in Lyotard, to flag an oncoming new age after modernisation, with the end of the factories centred towns, and an accelerating blurring of working and leasure time, etc. So it meant to capture a "real" fact, and not simply to remould discourses; but we came back, or remained, within a modernity which is loosing its deeper structures and forms without being able to rearrange them.

From this standpoint I think it would be material to dismiss the "French Theory" as such, and kook rather at what is emerging as a newer "Italian Theory", including mainly Agamben and Esposito, rooted as they are in Benjamin and others, trying really to grasp the bulk of this time of transition. And, anyway, offering a stil not completely crafted, but quite intriguing paradigm.

Short Answer: to ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER as the 'çompleter' of Speculative Realism by way of the 'return to Religion'.

There are many, many issues as stake in this discussion; I will limit my comment to one by way of a quote from American novelist David Foster Wallace:

"The next real literary 'rebels' in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles ... The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the 'Oh how banal'" (Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction," in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1997), 81).

Part of Wallace's genius was his ability to deconstruct the pretensions of postmodernism as a philosophical/literary movement.  I don't mean that he opposed postmodernism; I mean that he successfully employed it to reveal its own shortcomings.  He delighted in ironizing clever uses of irony.  His work shines a bright light on the unfortunate conclusion that many (though certainly not all) seem to draw from postmodernism, namely, that because every truth is, in an important sense, a human truth (a logical observation concerning language and human rationality), it must follow that the pursuit of real truth is an illusive endeavor.  But that conclusion does not follow; in fact, and ironically, that conclusion is parasitic on the notion that real truth has no human orientation.

I hope that where we go from here is a basic recognition that in our discussions of politics and morality and religion that the existential commitments that people hold are real and that questions about the truth of those commitments are not dismissed or marginalized or reduced simply because they are existential.  In sum: I long for a literary and philosophical turn in which reality and truth are understood by intellectuals in those existential terms rather than in the cold, harsh and potentially distorting laboratory of theory and explanation. 

Of course, another way of phrasing the question is: 'if post-modernism is over, does that mean that John Searle and crew have won?'

Hi Patrick,

can I ask for clarification on the following : you say:"In sum: I long for a literary and philosophical turn in which reality and truth are understood by intellectuals in those existential terms rather than in the cold, harsh and potentially distorting laboratory of theory and explanation."

Which meaning do you precisely give to 'reality and truth as existential terms' ?

I have an understanding of the words but I am not sure it means the same thing as what you intend.

Thank you in advance,

JL

Thank you for your question, JL.  By existential commitments I mean commitments that necessarily have no theoretical or rational foundation that would justify holding them, and living by them, as life commitments.  So, for example, it is difficult for me to see what could justify a life commitment to justice; for most people committed to justice what could be more important that could serve as a ground or foundation for justice than justice itself?  Similarly, for those that are committed to a life of faithfulness to God, what would serve as a justification of such a commitment, given that there could be no greater appeal for such a person than to God.  It has been my experience that philosophers in both the analytic and the Continental traditions, theists and atheists alike, are frequently trying to provide some sort of theoretical or metaphysical justification for such commitments and these efforts frequently distort the nature of those commitments and take us away from a clear understanding of their nature.  

A philosophical and literary turn in which attention is given to those existential commitments would highlight and emphasize what truth and reality come to in the lives of those with these commitments.  I'm not suggesting that truth and reality will then be one thing (far from it) but rather that whatever is said about truth and reality will be rooted in a shared human life rather than a theory about human life.  In my view, such a turn would provide us with a rich and thorough understanding of morality, religion, and politics.

But surely, but living a specific truth or reality, even if that truth is what you consider THE truth, you have to analyse what, if anything that truth is. whether it is a definition or a subjective perception of truth. Thats the dilemma of religion isnt it ? a narrative that declares 'i am the truth' instantly denies any alternative view, similarly with morality and politic. For the most part i believe we, as a species, do have certain universal truths, if i fall over i'm subject to the laws of physics and have just interacted with gravity in a painful way or the moral position that killing people is a bad thing but even within those there is a debatable position - gravity is a very localised thing, on a universal level does it even exist or yes killing is wrong but is there a moral case for the selective kill in say a war or in the case of capital punishment. 

so can even a universal truth exist or is it subject to the parallax view ? isnt that why we theories in the first place ?

Hi Patrick,

I do notice that many who relish the supposed death of post-modernism are hoping for the (re)drawing of a clear structure, giving a stronger, clearer sense of direction that they consider needed in our society.

But not too fast... The view that post-modernism is a structure-less society project is a total misconception. It is not a project at all - it only represents the will to subject any project or structure to a critical view. In the sense of a critique of the structures, it can never represent itself a structure of any kind. So that the irony you mention in your first post is not belonging to postmodernism itself, but it is rather a by-product of its integration in popular culture, partly due to a superficial (at best) understanding of its aims. 

There is a very interesting text from Jean-François Lyotard in his collection of letters 'Le Postmoderne expliqué aux enfants' where he is commenting on the 'post-' prefix. He says it is important to understand that 'post-' should not be understood in a chronological sense, but rather in the sense of the 'ana-' prefix.  In that sense we would be more correct to say (if I may dare) anamodern rather than postmodern - with the idea that anamodern is a permanent process of analysis and questionning.

In that sense postmodernism/postructuralism – or deconstruction, as it is to me the clearest expression of the need and will of permanent questionning – can not ever die. Nor should its death ever be wished for. Nor was it never really absent but the fact that it has been theorized has given it stronger ground and substance.

You are saying : «...whatever is said about truth and reality will be rooted in a shared human life rather than a theory about human life. In my view, such a turn would provide us with a rich and thorough understanding of morality, religion, and politics. ». Any idea being expressed is to be subjected to questionning. None should be considered untouchable and understanding is not synonym of acceptance. Ideas must be stripped to their bare elements to unmask any purpose of control or exertion of partisan power. The latter being often, if not always, the spirit inhabiting sharply drawn structures.

Don't you think ?

Thank you Jean Louis, that was excellent. 

This is not a question of whether to analyze.  We are scholars and intellectuals.  Analysis is fundamental to our work.  The question concerns what sort of analysis do we participate in when it comes to understanding morality, religion, and politics. 

Rather than starting with definitions, questions of subjectivity, perception, and other epistemological questions, it seems to me that we would be better served by starting with an analysis of terms and their use in contexts rather than assumptions about terms and the need for justifying claims.  For example, a closer look at the phrase, "I am the truth," might reveal that for many believers the phrase does not chiefly play the role of a claim that "instantly denies any alternative view."  Your description seems to me to be a prejudiced reading that is wholly dependent upon one kind of religious tradition.  There are numerous sorts of religious traditions.

Your claim for universal truths already makes enormous cultural assumptions about the nature of reality and truth.  While I certainly agree that there are lots of features and characteristics that we take to be true of the human species, how those features and characteristics are taken up in the life of a people makes all the difference in their truth and reality.  So, for example, all humans die but when you begin even a cursory analysis of the role of death in different cultures and contexts, the variety of meanings becomes so great that any claim concerning a universal truth about death loses its significance.  In many cultures and traditions, how one approaches death is infinitely more important than the fact that human beings die.

Thus, of course, there are universal truths, even moral ones, but it does not follow from such claims that they must be founded or justified in ways that would not make sense.  I am claiming that the results of such attempts at justification have the feel of a Monty Python dialogue:

[Man enters office door: "Department of Religious and Moral Justifications."]

Official (seated behind desk): May I help you?

Man: Yes, I'd like to license a moral justification for the universal claim that the torture of children is evil.

Official:  Fine.  Just a couple of questions.  [Pulls out a pen and a form from desk drawer].  Okay.  First one: Are you God?

Man: Huh?

Official: C'mon, it's a simple question.  Are you God?

Man: No, though my mum says I was a good boy.

Official: Well, okay, . . . that would be a "No."  Second question: Do you have access to metaphysical truths or otherwise know what it is impossible for humans to know?

Man (thoroughly confused): I don't think so.

Official: That's probably the sort of thing you would be sure of if you knew, so I'm going to put "No" on the form.  Okay, that does it.  The form is complete.  Your application for a licensed moral justification is denied.  Therefore, you may not go around claiming that it is universally true that the torture of children is evil.

[Man leaves the office confused and depressed.]

The fact that we have different perspectives of truth and reality is not an external condition or contingent fact about what we take truth and reality to be; it is constitutive of any claim to truth and reality.  It makes no sense to treat our claims as if they might have been non-human.  What would that even mean? 

Unfortunately, the use of theory (whether metaphysical, sociological, or psychological) to analyze religious and moral commitments has a disastrous track record that makes those commitments unrecognizable in their original contexts.

Yes, JL, you provide a very good and clear description of postmodernism.  That is the description of postmodernism that I could sign up for with the exception of your last two sentences.  I embrace all the rest and putting aside all of the distortions of postmodernism that we must contend with (this may be a greater problem in the U.S.), allow me to address your last two sentences: "Ideas must be stripped to their bare elements to unmask any purpose of control or exertion of partisan power. The latter being often, if not always, the spirit inhabiting sharply drawn structures."

I have no desire for "sharply drawn structures."  What I desire, as a philosopher of religion and morality, is sharply drawn pictures of what people are saying and doing.  Sometimes they pursue control and/or the exertion of partisan power.  When they do, I hope that I am able to draw that picture sharply.  When they sacrifice themselves for others or when they pray to God for forgiveness and their daily bread or when they practice disciplines toward the eight-fold noble path, I hope that I am able to draw that picture, too.

I am not naive, at least not in matters of political power.  There are numerous examples of abuse, corruption, deception, etc., (especially perhaps in religious circles) and we have a responsibility to clearly paint those pictures where we see them.  But I have no ground on which to assume that all human ideas and actions (even partisan ones) must be motivated by the exercise of some immoral use of power.  I have to first look and see if that is the case.  Analysis first; then the drawing of pictures.  My analysis must proceed without assumptions about the purity of motivations, one way or the other.

My concern about theoretical commitments is just this: they build in assumptions which distort the concepts that we seek to analyze.

Hi Patrick,

I guess your reply was following up on Pete's previous post rather than mine but here is my reply to yours:

You say: ""I am the truth," might reveal that for many believers the phrase does not chiefly play the role of a claim that "instantly denies any alternative view.""

It is true that it does not make any other view impossible but it may aim to make any other view invalid - it all depends on the true signification behind the 'I am the truth' assumption'. The only way to know is through further questionning. It would clarify what the person means: 'a truth' or 'the only truth', or even ''definitely the truth" or "potentially" the truth" ?

I don't think I would ever invalidate anyone's religious or moral commitments - they are a matter of personnal choice. But I don't think there is any reason for taking those commitments out of scrutiny and questionning.

What is true is that any questionning that tries to go to the bottom of things is unusual, painstaking and as such can be turned in derision. But often, it is the ability of the interviewee to answer that makes, in retrospect, the quality of the question.

JL, we are in principle, I think, in agreement.  But I worry about phrases such as "getting to the bottom of things."  What constitutes "the bottom" will vary from one person to another and philosophers/theorists have no ground upon which to adjudicate such differences.  I have no desire whatsoever to provide special protections for religious and/or moral commitments when it comes to questions and analyses.  However, I do think that claims by philosophers, theorists, and other intellectuals concerning what constitutes "the bottom of things" are often quite dubious and logically insupportable. 

Patrick, on this I believe we agree as well. It is true that the process of questionning, just as any discourse, is also subject to  'deconstruction', and needs being stripped to its bare elements to unmask any partisan view. 

The 'bottom of things' represents the meaning that lies under different layers of social construction, that need to be identified and removed.

Therefore, to get back to the original question, whatever is believed of the fate of Postmodernism, its 'deconstructing' influence is not to go away. It constitutes an important and necessary mental process.

Yes, JL, there is much that we agree upon.  I suspect that our disagreement would lie in how much weight we each give to "the meaning that lies under different layers of social construction."  I am not opposed to the insights of the hermeneutics of suspicion nor do I want to defend religion from the observations that the Masters of Suspicion (Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud) have made concerning religion.  What I question in these efforts is the assumption that religious claims can have no irreducibly religious sense.  One must look first.  And I think examples can be given of religious concepts with an irreducibly religious sense.  This means that if, as intellectuals committed to understanding, we wish to do full justice to such concepts we must give an account of this religious sense.  This does not make us defenders or advocates of religion; it only means that these concepts can have the meanings for the people that they do.

I know which direction I would like philosophical thought to go. It is toward recognition that each person is sovereign of himself/herself. Attendant with that is the possession of fundamental rights that come before government or the rules of any organization. I have written a book on this subject. It is available at my web site www.truehumanrights.com

Thank you Desroches, trust me, your English is better than my French !

on you first point, my question really is not necessarily that as the century turns we ask new questions but rather how the existing questions fit into the now zeitgeist. The turn of the 21st century, which now seems a lifetime ago given the political, social and technological developments of the past 15 years, has for the first time since the industrial revolution at the turn of the 18th century been subject to a complete rethink about how we move forward and what our position is in the world given the technologies now available and yet to come. 

as for religion, I hold very little truck with it, I neither condem or condone those who choose to place their faith in the unprovable. If it gives those people a focus and they don't foist those ideas on me I'm happy to stand by and let them do as they will, if it begins to impinge my freedoms I become more vocal. For me, music is not a religious experience in either its creation of its appreciation though I do very occasionally attain a state of a certain blissful satisfaction when playing or listening. 

Thank you you for your reply

shepherd

So long as I understand your far-reaching question, I would like to add something.

Are you searching a newer unifying paradigm. Are you?

Well in the framework posed by Kirby there is a reappraisal of previous paradigms as bit as it can so summarised :

"Postmodernism, like modernism and romanticism before it, fetishised [ie placed supreme importance on] the author, even when the author chose to indict or pretended to abolish him or herself. But the culture we have now fetishises the recipient of the text to the degree that they become a partial or whole author of it. "

Well, in epistemological terms I think that to build up successfully a new frame you should before place correctly what previous approaches have been.

Now it is to me highly questionable:

1. that postmodernism, modernism and romanticism fetishised the author

2. that "actually" we are fetishising the recipient

So I think Kirby is completely misled and misleading.

as to 1.

It is true that romanticism did it : in romantic term the whole world becomes an occasion for the subjectivity of the subject to express him/herself.

Many examples : "the curfew has buried the they...leaving the world to darkness and to me" (John Chipman Gray) ; "the only meaning of the Peloponnesian wars have been to allow Tucydides to write his books" (Hegel) and so forth. This attitude of course needed a theory of Genius, because inly a Genius can affabulate the world in an intriguing manner. 

From the political standpoint all this could become mere "parlamentarism" , ie the world as an occasion for endless discussion disperding the political (Schmitt), or on the opposite a theory of Heroes Warship (Carlyle).

Modernism strongly reacted against all this : the life of the author became immaterial for the understanding of the text (T.S. Eliot), and the technique of close reading was widely adopted in literary studies (Yale New Critics), and confined itself to a very clear cut, sometimes pinpointing, style of writing, close to that of the pulps of the 30s or 50s.

Postmodernism brought this technique to its extreme consequences by concentration on the ècriture as such (Derrida) and so analysing texts in terms of the inner capacity of their internal devices and tropes to produce meanings (Paul the Man and the Allegory of Reading) far beyond the scope of the author and the expectancies of the audience. Moreover it adopted a camp-slang style designed to stick out who is a "simpatico" and who is not.

So romanticism, modernism, and postmodernism do not share too many traits - I thinks - and henceforth would be a gross mistake to try to elaborate a paradigm as a reversal of things so deeply differentiated.

As for 2.

I contest the "actually" or the "now" of the pro-reader shift described by Kirby. It is not true that this is happening now and because of new technologies. It is a shift as old as Stanley Fish, and developed by far before any web was around and certainly much before the second stage of globalisation which took off after 2001.

Besides this pro-reader shift has its roots in the German Comparative Religion approach known as the School of Forms as applied to the gospel, when to reconstruct the historical figure of Jesus, more attention was given to the supposed different audiences of the different gospels, so explaining the striking differences between Mark, Luke, Matthew and John, not to mention Paul. So there has been a theological background of this literary shift, and it had nothing to do with our technologies.

So I think you cannot build on sand.

What then to do ?

Probably nothing. Or start from the past, as always.

All of these movements had a preferred past to fetish in order to build a newer start.

Romantics were so in love of Greek Urns and white ruins in the countryside, or of northern sagas of a distant gothic past. Modernists, like Pound and Eliot, loved the Tuscans (Dante and Cavalcanti) to wipe off the Victorians. Even De Man had such a feeling about Proust and the whole of the post-classical French school.

Kirby is disturbed by the fact that young students are born after Blade Runner, or Apocalypse Now, and indeed it is quite annoying to become aware that what for us has been a direct impression of senses it is now contemporary of Homer for our students. But....

I think we need some past to revamp.

Re-vamping something is what the world is doing. And maybe, especially in its intrinsic aesthetic conception the self-awarness of revamping can be a possible legacy of postmodernism (Learning from Las Vegas) toward its own super-seeding.

Thanks for your attention.

Thank you Pier

My original question was, i admit, more of a musing and reaction to Kirby's original article ( https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond ) which i found myself disagreeing with vehemently. The idea that a zeitgeist can simply die and be replaced seems folly and the cultural evidence around us, online, on tv, in mass culture as a whole appears to indicate a realisation of postmodern theory become practice. Particularly i think within the televisual advertising arena. Take for example the multitude of perfume adverts that invade our screens as christmas approached, the product becomes secondary to the tale portrayed in the advert and the potential purchaser is drawn into a subjective ultraworld of glamour and aspiration rather than the mundane objective reality of buying something that smells nice. ( for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utkf07CI4rI ) 

Yeah I totally agree, especially thinking also to your actual PM's lingo !

!

Posthumanism is a good mark. Plurality, between relativism and monism is also a good touchstone. Of course, varieties differ, but realizing that there is a there there, so to speak is paramount to confronting, rather than sidestepping the problems in our reality. I think a lot of the work in philosophy of science interrogating the fact-value distinction moves in this direction. STS also has much to offer.

I hope the world moves toward rational thot being the indispensable ingredient in all political decisions and that optional choices, e.g., religion, social theory (socialism, liberalism) not be the basis for those decisions. People like ISIS are trying to take the world in the opposite direction but they should be conquered soon. Let's get back to common sense.

I'm not sure if postmodernism started. For some reason, philosophers tend to believe that any particles of "post", "neo", "quasi" and so on can change the very social reality. This is usually not the case. We are still in modern times, whether we like it or not. Modernism is a form of organizing social reality. And this organization is still not fully organized.

the good thing with "post" is that it never gets old, something that is modern do (or wait), does the modern re-invent itself? So, post-post-modernism, or hypermodernity?

Well - nobody is going after me? Then I just simply state that "nothing is ever over"

The age of free thot, that we enjoyed for such a short time- maybe 200 years- is drawing to an end. Like the fifth century when free thot was abolished as religious ideology (Christianity) took over the discussion of ideas, in our century it is socialist liberal ideology and its branches: gender ideology, CRT, etc. We are entering another misguided age.

I believe that even in current debates essential aspects of 'postmodern' methodology, especially when criticized, are too generalized. Many critics I know tend to dismiss as postmodernism anything that contradicts familiar, i.e. old-established, traditions of thought. Then quite different philosophical approaches from Foucault and Deleuze to Butler and Derrida are happily lumped together and pretended to be all postmodern, although most of these poststructuralist thinkers have distinguished themselves from postmodernism. In this respect, many of these polemics do not really help and are really just philosophical trench warfare.

What becomes clear, however, is that many well-known philosophical approaches, such as dualistic perspectives, subject-centeredness, not taking into account the digital transformation of society, ignoring theories of affect, etc.pp. do not provide adequate insights into contemporary social as well as philosophical issues. Precisely because of the fact that our digital, political and cultural transformations are taking place, there is a need for methodologically and perspectively different approaches in dealing with the phenomena of our time. What is subsumed under postmodernism could at least be understood as an attempt to deal with these challenges. Regardless of which perspective one ultimately chooses, one should at least recognize the necessity of broadening one's perspective. One does not have to be a fan of postmodernism, but one should also not fall behind essential arguments that go along with the various poststructuralist (!) perspectives.