Glen, Have you read Slavoj Zizek, "In Defense of Lost Causes or A Plague of Fantasies"? The two of you share much in common but Zizek is much funnier.
His attacks on post modernism are often spectacular. Unfortunately neither of you two seem to have found a way out of the trap of solipsism disguised as a philosophy. That may be part of the problem here, we have a phenomenon so odoius that it has been mistakenly lumped in with other philosophies when in fact I suspect it is simply a rubbish tip which we had to give a name. In the absence of a philosophy we seem to have latched on to Reality TV and Twitter. Nearly everything lately called revolutionary is simply self indulgent / self infatuated. Funny now that everyone is supposed to be equal; the dirty infighting for fame and media attention is unsurpassed. Fame or the camera spotlight are our highest goals as a society. Zizek tries to compare this era to past events but seems to have failed. No bloody revolutionary will ever get us out of this swamp. I like to call it the Tyranny of Mediocrity. I recall upsetting the PTA ,20 tears ago, claiming that ADHD was a fictional disease striking the middleclass two parent families that did not have enough time to cook dinner.Often the diagnosing physicians were also juggling careers and families. My goodness the foolish beliefs we have had to endure, remember Facilitated Learning where the mentally deficient could write stories typical of middle aged women with a need for fame. Curious how a belief system can so delude the public. Now Druids are a recognized religion in the UK and witches run for office in the US. No wonder the Inquisition was disbanded when so many obviously delusional people started claiming to have fornicated with the devil's minions. The Inquisitors lost hope in ever finding a legitimate witch. They switched the focus to alchemists and counterfeiters. Every night we can hear interviews with criminals justifying their actions because of some newly formulated self acquired Right. Here is a title "A Plague of Human Rights". In the same week I saw activists claim that women had the Right to Abortions, The Right to Abandon Infants, The Right to raise male children to be Mothers, The Right to end the lives of the suffering with Dignity. The Right to Kill their spouses who they accused of abusing them. The even pronounce that they have the Right to be believed whatever contrary evidence exists. They have the Right to impose their specific delusion on the rest of mankind. It is not just PoMo this is fundamentally an issue between civic responsibility and selfish interests. PoMo is a "Pseudo Philosophy created to rationalize selfishness" Well Glen try being a little more outrageous and you may have a new career as a fiction writer. One curious thought I have had reading Zizek is that he is trying to describe the basics of a psychology that is embedded within a complex system. In part the confusion arises as a result of parallax, if we assume normal linear causality we keep looking into an endless hall of mirrors and we keep seeing the apparent coincidence of contradictions. Perhaps philosophy itself will change when it recognizes that the classic cause and effect system is no longer quite meaningful. In part as the world becomes more complex the populace reverts to solipsism as the only means of survival and thereby insuring their own demise. Good hunting , thanks for the link! Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky Ph.D.(Civil Eng.), M.Sc.(Mech.Eng.), M.Sc.(Biology) 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg, Manitoba CANADA R2J 3R2 (204) 2548321 Phone/Fax vbur...@shaw.ca -----Original Message----- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: November 8, 2010 6:40 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: [FRIAM] PoMo, the value of literary fiction, and realism RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U I found this talk interesting given our recent discussions of post-modernism, the value of literary fiction, and the old standard of realism. I disagree that it all boils down to an industrialized education system; but I agree that all the elements he mentions, from industrialized education to medicating children to the over-valuation of abstract thought, etc. are part of the cause of PoMo (and its unjustified propagation), the lowered value of literary fiction (at least in some of us), and _both_ the hyperfocus on and the abandonment of realism. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
