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I agree entirely with Ken's critique of sloppy 'postmodernisms' that fail to cite references; jump, uncritically, on science bandwagons; and use 'disruption' as just another grand narrative to make truth claims and assert cultural capital through power/knowledge relations. Yet, it could be argued that those who suggest that 'postmodernists' simply want to argue that there is no truth and have done with it, are making similar intellectual leaps. > If all things are relative, and everything is a matter of > interpretation, then there is no basis for claiming that one regime > is just, another unjust. I have the suspicion that the so-called postmodernists themselves have been as poorly understood as their own scientific referents The classic, oft-repeated, argument against 'postmodern' writing uses the issue of Nazism as the bottom line: if postmodernism is right, then how can we say Nazism is wrong? One of the more interesting books I've read in this territory is Simon Critchley's The Ethics of Deconstruction (1992, Oxford: Blackwell). In reading Derrida through the writings of Emmanuel Levinas Critchley appears to argue that the assertion that there is no one truth is simply the first step, that Derrida never suggests that postmodernity is all about relativism. What is at issue is the inexorable need for humans to make decisions in the light of a nonexistent 'right' decision. To take a stand, to make an ethical decision, we have to be alive to difference and multiplicity. It brings to mind Ken's arguing that there are facts ‹ we breathe, the sun shines, etc. OK. But aren't the really interesting bits the ways in which those facts are articulated, embodied, propelled through human societies? I suppose this fits in with Ken's citing of Weick in that we have to move beyond the simplistically disruptive - whether that's disrupting the notion of stable truths or disrupting the notion of multiple truths. And. yet, as I think Ken is suggesting, there is real potential value in critiquing writers who question the practice and validity of science/rationalism and then go on to mobilise positivist scientific models to make truth claims about the fallacy of truth. Indeed, some 'postmodern' writers are as guilty of not taking on board the political contexts of those scientific models as the scientists whom they critique ‹ surely there are just as many political implications in the mobilisation of string theory in the fictional writings of Jeanette Winterson as there are in the 'actual' practices of quantum mechanics? Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks have some interesting things to say about such politics, in the context of the practices of archaeologists (2000. Theatre/Archaeology. Routledge). They talk about describing an ecology of practice. It's not that politics (whether the grand-scale of left and right, or the small-scale of interpersonal team dynamics) pollute the practice. The everyday of those individuals involved is as central to the research as the 'objects' under study. There are much wider landscapes that need to be mapped (to borrow, *uncritically*, from a geographic model) in order to create a more nuanced understanding what it is that we do. Apologies if somewhat rambling - this was relaxing break from mountainous post-holiday correspondence. Angela A A Piccini PARIP Department of Drama: Theatre, Film, Television University of Bristol Cantocks Close Woodland Road Bristol BS8 1UP T: +44 0117 954 5474 E: [log in to unmask]