On 8/29/06, Mark Lause <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I haven't seen much questioning inspired by the postmodernist theorizing,
have you? It's just a different set of formulae to get the same answers.
The fact that the idiot fringe might object is hardly an argument. I
remember this Bible thumper telling me in 1968 that all bi-ology,
psych-ology, and soshi-ology were all the work of the devil. That doesn't
mean that corporate academe didn't see their uses.
The only area that in which postmodern philosophy has had a major
real-world impact is conception of sexuality.
Take a look at Anthony Kennedy's opinion in LAWRENCE V. TEXAS (02-102)
539 U.S. 558 (2003), overturning Bowers v. Hardwick:
<blockquote>At the outset it should be noted that there is no
longstanding history in this country of laws directed at homosexual
conduct as a distinct matter. Beginning in colonial times there were
prohibitions of sodomy derived from the English criminal laws passed
in the first instance by the Reformation Parliament of 1533. The
English prohibition was understood to include relations between men
and women as well as relations between men and men. See, e.g., King v.
Wiseman, 92 Eng. Rep. 774, 775 (K. B. 1718) (interpreting "mankind" in
Act of 1533 as including women and girls). Nineteenth-century
commentators similarly read American sodomy, buggery, and
crime-against-nature statutes as criminalizing certain relations
between men and women and between men and men. See, e.g., 2 J. Bishop,
Criminal Law §1028 (1858); 2 J. Chitty, Criminal Law 47—50 (5th Am.
ed. 1847); R. Desty, A Compendium of American Criminal Law 143 (1882);
J. May, The Law of Crimes §203 (2d ed. 1893). The absence of legal
prohibitions focusing on homosexual conduct may be explained in part
by noting that according to some scholars the concept of the
homosexual as a distinct category of person did not emerge until the
late 19th century. See, e.g., J. Katz, The Invention of
Heterosexuality 10 (1995); J. D'Emilio & E. Freedman, Intimate
Matters: A History of Sexuality in America 121 (2d ed. 1997) (" The
modern terms homosexuality and heterosexuality do not apply to an era
that had not yet articulated these distinctions"). Thus early American
sodomy laws were not directed at homosexuals as such but instead
sought to prohibit nonprocreative sexual activity more generally. This
does not suggest approval of homosexual conduct. It does tend to show
that this particular form of conduct was not thought of as a separate
category from like conduct between heterosexual persons.
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZO.html></blockquote>
The works by Katz, D'Emilio, and Freedman that Kennedy cites, and
others like it, were deeply influenced by Michel Foucault's History of
Sexuality. What Foucault knew, anyone who had cursory knowledge of
history and anthropology knew, but he put it clearly and
provocatively, in a way that no one could miss the point.
I predict that Foucault's will be the only lasting legacy of
postmodern philosophy.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
