Nick -
What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology? Praying to whatever
might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky?
I tend to think of Cargo Cult thinking as (naively) conflating form with
function, of invoking the "form" of something with the hope/assumption
that the function will follow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
I think I hear in this presentation that it is being used mostly to
describe the rhetoric of *some* PoMo followers who might salt their
language with erudite sounding terms, hoping the results won't be
challenged. Similar to the way Newage practitioners use "laser",
"vibrational energy", "crystal", etc. to try to imply scientific
foundations for their ideas. Or closer to home the way our extended
group can be accused of "Complexity Babble" for lacing our explanation
of things with words like "emergent" or "chaos" or "attractor" for
similar purposes.
I think the key concept is to invoke something you have seen to be
effective in one context without understanding it's mechanism and
thereby completely missing the mark in your own application.
I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming
named after this term as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
- Steve
And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism? I take
existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life, if human
life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the humans that live
it.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Frank
Wimberly
*Sent:* Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com>
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists
This stimulated a memory. When I was a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon
one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic fraternity
boys ever. I transferred to Berkeley that year. When I returned to
CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also a grad student and
a florid Hippie. I recently did a search and discovered that he is a
prominent member of a folk-dancing group for elders. Some people are
like chameleons; I am not being judgmental.
Frank
Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918 <tel:%28505%29%20670-9918>
On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <profw...@fastmail.fm
<mailto:profw...@fastmail.fm>> wrote:
I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in college
in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but Maynard G
Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and Lord Buckley
was on the pop radio.
dave west
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks had
come and gone before the Hippies emerged.
Frank
Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918 <tel:%28505%29%20670-9918>
On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith" <sasm...@swcp.com
<mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
Glen ☣-
A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to
Rationalists?
Actually I found it somewhat interesting... and was
(nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use of
bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems very
symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.
As for the summary you included here from the presentation:
Best of Times:
A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo presented
significantly as both dogmatic and ideological... but
that may have been partly projection and partly the
selectivity of what I *recognized as* PoMo.
2) The "focus on human values" is a tautological
statement? PoMo seems to be centered (to the
exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity that is
intrinsically "human" and maybe even more acutely
"self" as in "self-centered"? I'm not trying to say
that I don't find the PoMo perspective useful and even
appealing in many ways, but in it's purest form, it
would seem to degenerate to pure narcissism (without
judgement of that)?
c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind" in
roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do? I also
don't mean that to be acutely dismissive, but the
mechanism seems to be similar to this, and/or maybe
"annealing" with repeated (arbitrary?) randomizing of
the smallest elements with thermal excitation?
IV) This one feels like the most useful (or least
challenging?) of his observations.
Worst of Times:
0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was exclusively
(selective hearing?) used to push shoddy agendas... I
observed it being used as a turd in the punchbowl more
than anything. I think I'm (well?) past judging it by
that early introduction, but I think the author cited
here is (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the
Alt.Right these days.
II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult... and it fits
the superficial approach of PoMo as I apprehend
it... elevating correlation (free association) to
the level of causation. Ignoring the implicit
commutativity in the Form/Function duality. I don't
mean PoMo is intrinsically superficial, but rather
that it is often invoked in that mode and perhaps
(too) often apprehended that way in an attempt to
dismiss it's confrontational style (nature?).
c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than not...
it was the tool of self-styled "young Turks" who, in
some ways, like the Anarchists of early c20,
recognized that it is easier (and can be more
satisfying) to toss a bomb into things than it is to
try to deconstruct/reconstruct thoughtfully.
Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo seems to
associate it with Nihilism and may drive the worst
aspects of it's presentation in culture?
PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is wanting
to be received seriously (trying to rationalize itself to
rationalists?). It's (unfortunate) association with the
Beat culture (my experience growing up was that the Beats
were mostly the over-30 dropout men who were trying to
horn in on the youth culture of the Hippies, especially
(surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent)
drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.
But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?
Post-Postmodernism? MetaModernism? A plenitude of
*modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)
From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:
/Salient features of postmodernism are normally
thought to include the ironic play with styles,
citations and narrative levels,^[6]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-6>
a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism> towards a
“grand narrative
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_narrative>” of
Western culture,^[7]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-7>
a preference for the virtual at the expense of the
real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of
what 'the real' constitutes)^[8]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-8>
and a “waning of affect”^[9]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-9>
on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the
free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible
signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to
schizophrenia.^[10]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-10>
/
All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how
non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and names
referenced there. Eric Gan's PostMillenialism struck me
for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as "victimary
thinking"... a corollary of nihilism? I don't really
take Gan's Generative Anthropology seriously (though it
has interesting ideas) and DO (against my personal
convenience) believe in a postCapitalist/postDemocracy
(r)evolution on the cusp of happening (perhaps even in my
lifetime?).
I also find something interesting in this description of
metaModernism (same source):
/As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen
and van den Akker cite the 'informed naivety',
'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the
various cultural responses to, among others, climate
change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political
instability./
/The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective
stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaxy>, which intends
a movement between opposite poles as well as
beyond.^[25]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-25>
/
Fire away!
- Sieve
HTML:
https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
PDF:
https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf
I appreciated these 2 slides:
• Postmodernism at its best
· Not dogmatic and ideological
· Focuses on human values
· Allows you to approach and understand other subjects
and viewpoints
· Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple
maps
• Postmodernism at its worst
· Used to push shoddy political agendas
· Cargo cult ideology
· Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
· Results in existential loneliness
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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