Chomsky had a saying about postmodernism in general: most of their ideas are either absurd or trivial. For example, take moral relativism: it's either a trivial observation - that different cultures have different notions of exactly what is moral or not; or it is an absurd idea, that morality means nothing and you are as justified to pick a flower as you are to rip another human's arms.
>Chomsky had a saying about postmodernism in general: most of their ideas are either absurd or trivial.
Chomsky is an American linguist academic with limited understanding or knowledge of continental philosophy. His comment amounts to some rube saying Asian food is not "proper food" like meatballs, apple pies, and pizza.
>For example, take moral relativism: it's either a trivial observation - that different cultures have different notions of exactly what is moral or not; or it is an absurd idea, that morality means nothing and you are as justified to pick a flower as you are to rip another human's arms.
Both statements are true, and neither is trivial or absurd. The first, supposedly trivial, has seen the opposite idea taken for granted time and again.
And as for the second claim, under the right circumstances those saying that "morality means something" would still be ripping people's arms and feeling good while doing it, if that was the prevailling morality.
In the US South, for example, people didn't feel "bad" for owning slaves and/or treating them like cattle. They felt like honorable members of society. The Inquisition who burned people alive didn't felt much differently either.
So, yeah, morality means nothing as a general guiding principle that would prevent "ripping people's arms off" being moral.
> Chomsky is an American linguist academic with limited understanding or knowledge of continental philosophy. His comment amounts to some rube saying Asian food is not "proper food" like meatballs, apple pies, and pizza.
In addition to what you said, Chomsky is also a Philosopher and political thinker, with quite a lot of personal experience with continental philosophy. He personally knows and has debated continental philosophers, most notably Michel Foucault. He is one of the most widely read and considered intellectuals living today. Comparing him to someone who thinks Asian food is not proper food is beyond insulting.
> Both statements are true, and neither is trivial or absurd. The first, supposedly trivial, has seen the opposite idea taken for granted time and again.
Where? Who believes that all human cultures, across time, have had the same moral beliefs?
> And as for the second claim, under the right circumstances those saying that "morality means something" would still be ripping people's arms and feeling good while doing it, if that was the prevailling morality.
> In the US South, for example, people didn't feel "bad" for owning slaves and/or treating them like cattle. They felt like honorable members of society. The Inquisition who burned people alive didn't felt much differently either.
Chomsky's views here are very simple when you go away from "in principle" ideas like yours into actual human societies: morality varies between societies, but only between along certain axis and certain values along those axis, and these are fixed by human nature and other natural laws.
Furthermore, studying human societies, you'll often see similar progress of morality as a culture matures, unless and until certain traumatic breaks happen (such as subjugation by an external culture, or huge social and economic turmoil). There are very few if any societies that abandoned (chattel) slavery and later re-instituted it. Furthermore, the pattern by which this happens is usually the same: slavery and oppression are forced on people who are, for various reasons, seen as sub- or non-human, and as their fundamental humanity is recognized by society, slavery and similar oppression become seen as immoral, even as they are sometimes still practiced.
Note that it is logically impossible for morality to be completely arbitrary/relative - if it were, it would be impossible for humans to ever acquire it (by the same arguments that show that there has to be some fundamental human language structure, otherwise being impossible for children to acquire it in a limited amount of time).
>There are very few if any societies that abandoned (chattel) slavery and later re-instituted it.
There are quite a few, which goes to show that it's not some whig one-way historical progress. Heck, the European world had abandoned slavery for a millenium and the then re-introduced it en masse in the colonies and in the New World.
But the actual reason societies don't often re-institute something like slavery faster is not some moral advancement, but because other things make more economic sense. You can't sell consumer goods to a society of slaves, nor they make for good workers in more advanced jobs. If those economic conditions change, here comes slavery again.
Chomsky has demonstrated little understanding of "postmodernism" (whatever that vague term entails). I would take any criticism he has of French poststructuralist thinkers with a grain of salt.
For example I don't think any of the philosophers usually called "postmodernists" have actually argued for the type of moral relativism you're describing. Foucault didn't, Lacan didn't, Delueze didn't. I don't know if Derrida did, but I'm pretty sure Chomsky doesn't either.
> For example I don't think any of the philosophers usually called "postmodernists" have actually argued for the type of moral relativism you're describing
They openly reject the notion of aiming towards objective truth and replace it with building ideas that are better at changing power structures. There's a good reason why people are even considering 2+2=5 as an actual hypothesis.
Even if they didn't espouse those radical views themselves, it's not hard to see that they laid the framework for it.
Ooops, sorry to introduce that doubt. I had seen this as something he had said a long time ago, but you're right that I should have used another tense.
