A clever critique of reason and post-modern thought

Post Reply New Topic

The point of the article seems to be that our society's moving fast enough to nearly leave all of us behind, each in our own way. He phrased it a bit abstractly but I think the main thought of the article is right - we're still rather actively undermining the structures needed for each successive generation to really take on the responsibilities we've left them. In particular it's getting to be a world so complex that engaging it fully takes everything we've got and then some even under the best guidance available.

IMHO it may not be realistic to think that our customs and education structures can move as fast as technological progress and societal differentiation but it's still an important red-pill to pop and file away for consideration.

http://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity-bridge

I can also identify with the 4.5 rift the author discussed - I was there for years, and my seeming break into magical stupidity was really just an admission that I needed both objective and subjective hygiene (with all the contradictions that apparently carries) to really thrive inwardly for the sake of having something positive to bring back to my objective life.

hmm. it seems to me less of a critique of postmodern reasoning, than an attempt to build its own philosophy, and I'm afraid the author seems to be a relatively poor philosopher.
I've been feeding on sloteedijk, bauman and zizek lately, and find all o´f them more rewarding through the historical scope they provide.

I think part of the problem I find with this article, and others on that webiate is the assumption of "rationality" as in any way possible, but in a modernist, or what he describes as- a rational way.
now, I'm aware that I'm employing very postmodmern thinking when I say that rationality is just not possible outside Math, as we in general neither know the rules of what we're doing, nor the number, let alone the values of the variables we're dealing with. Math again has only shown to be truth as long as we don't really try to break it- according to Kurt Goedel.

anyway. bauman's conceptof liquid modernity as a continuation of modernity, i.e. tha liquification of all the used to be solid (knowledge), works without any asumption that such a things as logic even has to exist. It's more of a story.
Don't getme wrong, what the guy in his article describes is not wrong per se, just the terminology doesn't get you any further than that.
I think he's particularly right about the education system not telling te whole story, but just the end-result, which, by the very nature of modern/post-modern states, can not be final, and will be overhauled soon.

and yes, we're to slow to kepp upt, but also: things are not progressing in a straight line.
it takes looking at history and realizing that history has not, as everyone thought in the 90ies, ended.