Hello Sarah and all --- In one sense you may have "hit on" one of the crucial
debates already. I agree it is "pretty scary".
Many would say that the postmodern is only up for interpretation. In this
explanation is a little suspicious. The "Modernity" way of explanation is, it is
argued, all too much connected to a "universal truth" or an "essential" centre
which is suspicious. Truth itself for a various range of postmodern(s) is
suspicious because the "centre itself" is but a power whereby even knowledge is
attached to "interests" and politics.
The postmodern way takes us into a double-duty of meaning whereby even our very
questioning of our own language ( the so called "Linguistic-turn") is a
political act. In this there becomes "Claims To Truth" rather than THE truth.
I have tried to begin this reply through your words, Sarah, where explanation is
one term that gave me a kind of "entry". I have made an almost dualistic contest
through my use of "interpretation" rather than explanation. I guess it is here
that the debate really gets moving again.
Like i said this is "scary". When can we communicate well if we deny the centre?
In a world that no longer "speaks" as a unified-self" or even as a
"divided-self" then it speaks as a muliple-self. Madonna and Jackson are like a
transvestite-movement which is indeed quite "queer" at times for a simple male
and female dualism.
Some postmoderns revel in this as they believe that moderns find it scary.
For me i have enjoyed those like James Joyce and W.B.Yeats ( both Irish writers
of poetry and prose) to help me find a sense of the postmodern in the early
1900s. That is when the "centre" does not hold anymore and where doubt is
everywhere.
For me I have become very much stuck on this interpretation/explanation debate
as it concerns legislation. I am very postmodern, I guess, in that I am
suspicious of so called scientific explanation which is used as if it were not
political but at the same time I am suspicious of mere interpretation as a
reasonable decision-making context.
I guess it all involves more deabte from us. I am already aware of questions
that will come from my words written above.
But they are "written" ( they are now with a "trace" unless somebody delates
them from this list which is also an archive) and this act of writing is
different from the face to face speech condition. This writing, here, is
historical as I press the "send" button just as it is not historical if somebody
refuses entry. Is this e-mail list postmodern? Is there a "centre"? ( The
archive).
I would love this debate to continue and these questions posed. All I can say is
that I have tried to do the best I can to "answer" in a world where there is no
"one-answer".
best wishes Sarah
steve bowles
Sarah McKinnon wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Could someone explain 'postmodern' for me. I am interested but its a pretty
> scary word for me.
>
> Sarah McKinnon
> student
>
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