

Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism - absconditus
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

======
apu
I wonder what has caused the sudden influx of articles excoriating post-
modernism/structuralism on HN? It's fun to read, of course, but the utter
bullshit of these cults is so patently obvious (to everyone, I'd hope), and
yet I find it to be a useless exercise to spend much time exposing it.

I agree with Chomsky here: there are far more poisonous and important targets
to address than this cult, which thankfully remains quite insular and self-
contained and, ultimately, of virtually no consequence to the world at large.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I, too, am surprised (and disappointed) bu the sudden influx of articles
attacking post-modernism. It should be clear enough that the authors of the
articles (and a fair number of commentors) have not taken the time to actually
read and understand the works they are attacking, and the whole business is an
exercise in smug posturing and implied superiority.

Look: I've spent the better part of 30 years studying continental philosophy
(and more specifically, the works of Derrida) and anyone who thinks that the
field can be summarily dismissed by folks like Chomsky, Weinberg or Dawkins
are sadly mistaken. Chomsky, Weinberg and Dawkins are all brilliant men in
their own fields, but it takes some mighty big cojones, and a mighty parochial
view of the world, if they think that this means that their judgments on
matters outside their field are more important than any other amateur. And I'm
sure they'd be the first to cry foul if some philosopher or other tried to
dismiss their work on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes, without
bothering to actually do the reading.

I'm not saying that the writers generally thought of as "post-modern" are
above reproach; far from it. What I am saying is that if you want to attack
them, for God's sakes _read the texts_.

~~~
endtime
Have you read the Dawkins and Chomsky articles? They clearly have read the
texts, and spent a lot of time trying to understand them, before concluding
that they are nonsense. Both also request that someone translate the allegedly
profound concepts into comprehensible English, so that us commoners can
appreciate the concepts in question - are you offering?

~~~
ThomPete
Whatever they have they have unfortunately let their feeling run away with
them.

Postmodernism is a critique frame of references and can't by definition be
nonsense since they don't claim anything positive about the world.

~~~
endtime
I have no idea what you're talking about. Is your comment postmodernist
itself?

~~~
anigbrowl
I think he's trying to say that postmodernism is a critical methodology,
rather than a collection of assertions - much as science is a systematic way
of developing knowledge, rather than just the sum of its various axioms.

ThomPete, you might find it instructive to consider that the major problem of
postmodernism is its' adherents seeming inability to make simple declarative
statements. Of course, simple declarative statements are often freighted with
unspoken assumptions, and unpacking and analyzing these is a postmodern
exercise in itself, particularly that of Jacques Derrida and the
deconstructionists.

But where many postmodernsists go wrong is in the attempt to make fully
qualified and narrowly specified declarative statements, which end up being
almost impossible to read. In their zeal to avoid implying anything or having
their intentions misunderstood, postmodernists frequently alienate their
audiences with discourse which resembles cultural autism. This creates the
impression that post-modernists are actually in love with the comforting
certainties of modernism, but have seen the negative results of too much
certitude: they would still like to establish definitive truths, but have
decided to do so very very carefully.

I am not against post modernism, which I believe has many interesting things
to say and provides useful tools with which to understand the world and our
place in it. However, a critical framework that is so woolly and inconsistent
as to be useless for practical communication of ideas does no service to the
truths it was designed to express.

~~~
ThomPete
Which of course requires there to be any truth to begin with.

That Derrida showed that it's not possible to make declarative statement's is
not the fault of Derrida but of language.

It is exactly the point that you CAN'T make any declaretive statements i.e.
express truth that is the point of Derrida and deconstructivism.

~~~
anigbrowl
Well, you're certainly making his point for him.

------
grantmoney
I try not to reply to these types of arguments, but two days in a row of
dissing postmoderism is a bit much, and so I'll try to defend postmodernism,
cause I do think it's worth defending.

The first problem with postmoderism is it exists across fields. There was a
movement in architecture. There was a movement in theatre. If you listed all
the fields, you'd notice that they're all creative. That's the other problem,
and the one that creates so much confusion for non-creative people. I wouldn't
say all scientifically minded (digital thinking) people are not creative, but
I'd guess a majority probably aren't. It's those that have problems with it,
and this is why people 'that get it' call them 'stupid'. I don't agree that
they're stupid, but I do think it's to do with the lack of natural creativity.

From my interpretation, the thing about postmoderism is that it measures the
field using what makes that field unique as the variable. Postmodern designers
feared that 'creativity' in design was disappearing, as it was the
'creativity' that designers valued, so without it - there was no more design.
The postmodern philosophers, who are mostly concerned with humans, came to the
same conclusion - humans were disappearing. Without humans, there is no more
philosophy.

You also have to remember that these are creative people asking the questions,
and creative people cannot be tamed. They love a prank, and if they choose to
write, their styles become poetic and humourous. They redefine words as that
is what philosophy has been doing since the origins of it. A bunch of drunk
greeks sitting around defining concepts like love. Hegel re-defined
practically every stylistic word he could find - to be poetic. Philosophy may
have branched out into fields like science, but its origins are in human
creativity, and that can't be measured by rigorous scientific method. It's art
for thinkers. It explores a world that 'does' exist, but science choses to
ignore as it has no other option but to. Some people can't accept that, and in
this modern culture with modern people on a postmodern trajectory, they lash
out, which results in some ridiculous polemics against it.

The big point of postmodernism that needs to be understood is that it is the
'end' of something. The 'end' of design. The 'end' of humans. It doesn't mean
those things will cease to exist, but that what made them worthy of our
attention was going to 'end'. Tech fields haven't yet hit a point where new
ideas stop coming, but there will come a time where the only things coming out
are rehashes of twitter or myspace. That's when a genuine postmodernism
movement will rise within technology.

The ultimate test of postmoderism is to hand a naturally creative human a book
by Baudrillard, and see if they get it. I would guess at least half could
interpret a bulk of it.

------
ThomPete
People who criticize Postmodernism, either don't understand it or do and is
afraid of it.

~~~
dmm
>> Anybody who criticizes <<idea>> is either stupid or afraid.

Even if it is true, do you really think that's a good argument?

Why don't you point out how this article shows Chomsky to be stupid or afraid.

~~~
ThomPete
"As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the
debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if
this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the
course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that
I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what
others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without
three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at
least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of
course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll
return. "

This is the level of the writing. He don't understand deconstruction so he
don't like it. That is what is wrong with most critique of postmodernism.

Further more it's not just french philosophers. Thomas Kuhn, Lakatos and
Feyrabend are not exactly french.

All he do is showing how ignorant he is on what he speaks. But that do
expalain the level of his other writing.

~~~
jibiki
I think you need to understand the context of Chomsky's remarks. He is
responding to people who criticize him because he doesn't work within a
"theoretical" framework, and his activism isn't properly informed by
postmodern understanding.

I have heard people criticize universal grammar as being, essentially, a
Colonialist theory, which attempts to assimilate languages into a Eurocentric
framework. That is the sort of BS he is replying to. Chomsky is not saying,
"postmodernists are stupid and should stop doing philosophy," rather, he is
saying, "you want me to do things in a certain way, so explain why."

~~~
ThomPete
"I have heard people criticize universal grammar as being, essentially, a
Colonialist theory, which attempts to assimilate languages into a Eurocentric
framework."

What is the BS part then formulation or the theory?

------
reyu
The post begins -> "This text has circulated quite a number of times on
Usenet, and so far as I know is authentic. This version (less, of course, the
HTML airs and graces) was posted by one jenm289@aol.com to rec.arts.books, 13
Nov 1995 03:21:23 -0500, message-id 486v63$9an@newsbf02.news.aol.com. Jenm289
wrote: "The following was written several months ago by Noam Chomsky in a
discussion about po-mo and its contribution to activism et al. The discussion
took place on LBBS, Z-Magazine's Left On-Line Bulletin Board (contact
sysop@lbbs.org to join)."

After reading only a few lines of this article it struck me as inconsistent in
tone from other speeches and writings of Chomsky. So I would first like to get
Chomsky's response on whether he authored this. Considering how many
interviews and public speeches Chomsky gives, I find it hard to imagine him
having the time to debate his ideas on Internet bulletin boards. Unless he was
experimenting with the format back in 1995.

~~~
gruseom
Heh. I had exactly the same response: it didn't sound like Chomsky to me. I
even commented to that effect, but then had second thoughts and deleted it. It
wouldn't be unnatural to use a different voice in a casual email than in a
published article. Also, some of the things in there do sound distinctively
like Chomsky (e.g. the second last paragraph).

I searched around for more on Chomsky and postmodernism and came up with
<http://archive.zcommunications.org/chomchatarch.htm>, which includes quotes
from the OP. So it seems it's at least partially authentic.

As for whether he would have had time, that's easy. It's already impossible to
explain how he has time to do what he does.

Edit: I also ran across a clip of Chomsky's discussion with Foucault on Dutch
TV from the early 70s (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kawGakdNoT0>), which
was fun to take a look at. Can you imagine anything more un-TV-like? The very
length of their sentences is unthinkable - I was going to say "nowadays" but I
bet it was unthinkable on TV even then.

------
akamaka
Summary: "I don't get postmodernism, and I'm not capable of understanding it."

His attitude here reminds me of people who proudly say "I suck at math!"

The next time a Chomsky article shows up here, I _really_ hope that it's in an
area that he actually knows something about!

~~~
strlen
That's a wrong summary. He says:

1) "I can't read most academic po-mo papers (with exception of Foucault)"

2) "I also can't read some academic mathematics and physics paper"

3) "Physicists and mathematicians can readily explain their papers in terms
that are understandable to me, no one seems to be able to do so for po-mo
papers."

He then gives specific criticism of Foucault (whom he understood), and then
makes a logical statement about po-mo:

1) Either po-mo is so incredibly advanced, it can't readily be explained by
_one academic to another academic_ (and while Chomsky is known in public for
his political writings, his real contribution manifests itself every time you
are using a parser, interpreter or compiler).

2) or.. po-mo is incomprehensible and can't be treated in a logically rigid
manner, which means it would be pointless for Chomsky to speak more on the
matter.

Both 1) and 2) are logically valid conclusions, but facts seem to align
themselves closer to 2)

