| Postmodernism |
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| Preceded byModernism |
| Postmodernity |
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Criticism of postmodernism encompasses critical attitudes towardpostmodernity,postmodern philosophy,postmodern art, andpostmodern architecture. Postmodernism is generally defined by an attitude ofskepticism,irony, or rejection towards what it describes as themeta-narratives andideologies associated withmodernism, especially those associated withEnlightenment rationality. Common targets of postmodern criticism includeuniversalist ideas ofobjective reality, morals (moral universalism),truth,reason, science, language,human nature, andsocial progress, which in turn are defended by postmodernism's critics.
Critiques of postmodernism frequently allege that its scholars promoteobscurantism, are hostile toobjective truth, and encouragerelativism in culture, morality, and knowledge to an extent that isepistemically and ethically crippling. Criticism of more artistic postmodern movements in the arts have included objections to a departure from beauty, lack of coherence or comprehensibility, deviating from clear structure and a consistent use of dark and negative themes.
Postmodernism has received significant academic criticism for its lack of stable definition and meaning.[1] The term marks a departure frommodernism, and may refer to "postmodernity" as an epoch of human history, a set of movements, styles, and methods inart andarchitecture, or a broad range of scholarship, drawing influence from scholarly fields such ascritical theory,post-structuralist philosophy, anddeconstructionism. TheStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that "the indefinability of postmodernism is a truism."[2]
Some writers, including media theoristDick Hebdige,[3][4][5] have suggested that the term is a meaninglessbuzzword, while others including the historianPerry Anderson defend its varied meanings assigned to "postmodernism", arguing in Anderson's case that they only contradict one another on the surface, and that a postmodernist analysis can offer insight into contemporary culture.
The perceived verbosity and obscurantism of postmodernism has been attacked asintellectual dishonesty by authors includingChristopher Hitchens[6][7] andRichard Dawkins.[8]
Philosophers such asRoger Scruton,[9]Theodore Schick,[10]William Lane Craig,[11]Daniel Dennett,[12]Jürgen Habermas,[2] and the historianRichard J. Evans,[13] have taken postmodernism to task for its relativist positions and argued that it is self-contradictory. Another line of criticism argues that postmodernism has failed to provide a viable method for determining what can be considered knowledge, or that it is a dead end in social work epistemology.[14]
LinguistNoam Chomsky has argued that postmodernism is meaningless because it adds nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge. He asks why postmodernist intellectuals won't respond like people in other fields when asked:
Seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc? These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse toHume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.[15]
Richard Caputo, William Epstein, David Stoesz & Bruce Thyer consider postmodernism to be a "dead-end in social work epistemology." They write:
Postmodernism continues to have a detrimental influence on social work, questioning the Enlightenment, criticizing established research methods, and challenging scientific authority. The promotion of postmodernism by editors ofSocial Work and theJournal of Social Work Education has elevated postmodernism, placing it on a par with theoretically guided and empirically based research. The inclusion of postmodernism in the 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards of the Council on Social Work Education and its 2015 sequel further erode the knowledge-building capacity of social work educators. In relation to other disciplines that have exploited empirical methods, social work's stature will continue to ebb until postmodernism is rejected in favor of scientific methods for generating knowledge.[16]
Analytic philosopherDaniel Dennett said, "Postmodernism, the school of 'thought' that proclaimed 'There are no truths, only interpretations' has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for 'conversations' in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster."[17]
SomeMarxist writers have expressed skepticism over postmodernism, with the art historianJohn Molyneux and political theoristAlex Callinicos, both members of theSocialist Workers' Party in the UK, denouncing it asbourgeois[18] and a reflection of generational frustration at the failure ofMay 68 to achieve revolution in France;[19] or, in the case of the American literary critic and Marxist political theoristFredric Jameson, describing it as refusing to critically engage with the issues of capitalization andglobalization, and being complicit with the prevailing relations of domination andexploitation.[20]
The AmericanLibertarian historianMichael Rectenwald argues that postmodernism deniesself-determination by seeing individuals as the product of social factors,[21] while the American historianRichard Wolin considers it to have intellectual roots in writers who had a fascination withfascism.[22]
In 1996Alan Sokal, a physics professor atNew York University, perpetrated ahoax in which he wrote a deliberately nonsensical academic article in a style similar to postmodernist articles, which liberally used vague post-modernist concepts and lingo while criticising empirical approaches to knowledge. Despite its being an obvious parody of postmodernist writing, the article was accepted for publication by the journalSocial Text. On the same day that it was published he published another article in a different journal which explained the hoax. He subsequently expanded the explanation into the bookFashionable Nonsense, coauthored with the philosopher of scienceJean Bricmont, which offered a critique of the practices of postmodern academia.[23]
[P]ostmodernism has been nourished by the doctrines ofFriedrich Nietzsche,Martin Heidegger,Maurice Blanchot, andPaul de Man—all of whom either prefigured or succumbed to the proverbial intellectual fascination with fascism.
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