Hiya Keith,
I enjoyed the quote you sent us! But I was not shocked.....
A key question to the author might be "Who arbitrates on what actually counts as 'progress'?" I am also quite worried about how we can be sure history is marching 'forward'? History is more likely lost in a gloomy forest.
'Post-modernism' is not 'unpopular', that is so not fair of Mclure! It isn't competing in a philosophical 'X' Factor! Is Marxism the 'Take That' of philosophy to 'Post-modernism's' Chas and Dave? :-)
I think PM is a very loose ragbag of ideas that is still unfolding. 'Post-modern' thinkers often don't agree with one another and there are many post-modernisms.... it can't be easy to be against it all but I know people try ;-)
Mostly I just want to say I agree with David's posting and am in general agreement with much of the quotation. The list of qualities of post-modernism given, "fragmentation, ambiguity, loss of certainty" etc, reads like a list of my personal values.
It seems to me that people neglect the radical action element of a lot of post-modern thinking. Foucault and Deleuze were very politically active on a range of fronts and I would definitely recommend investigating the political expression of the ideas in order to see how the philosophical thinking is 'useful' and 'pragmatic'. Foucault is very sharp when writing about living a 'non-fascist life', his strong emphasis on 'de-individualizing' seems especially relevant to community psychologists, as does his injunction:
"Do not think one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable."
Post-modern writer's emphasis on difference over uniformity, and mobile arrangements over systems, provides rich resources for thinking about communities in non-hierarchical non-authoritarian ways.
There is something rather desperate and paranoid about some of the Trotskyist attacks on PM thinking, and Alex Callinicos' "Against Postmodernism" struck me as a deeply reactionary rant - but is a good read if you want to size up some of the anti-pm arguments). I don't think the Marxists and the Post-Modernists need to go to war with one another, but don't want to go as far as Fred Newman who writes (in Against and For CBT p 220) (I am)..."an orthodox Marxist - turned - post-modern Marxist"? Anyone on the barricades with the Post-Modern Marxist Party?
There is an interesting paper in History of the Human Sciences Vol 8 No 2 1995 by Edwards, Ashmore and Potter called 'Death and Furniture: the rhetoric, politics and theology of bottom line arguments against relativism' which is an entertaining read, even if it doesn't convince you it might make you smile.
Yours, an indecisive relativist, Grant
("Looking away shall be my only form of negation" FN)
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fryer
Sent: 12 December 2008 08:07
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Post Modernism doesn't believe in progress
Hi Keith,
If by 'critique' you mean 'comprehensive criticism', I would not be interested in offering that because (although there are issues in the quote which I would problematise and although I appreciate that within dominant frames of reference some of the points in the quote may be hard to accept and easy to ridicule), I am in general agreement with much of (how I read) the quotation and think community (and other) psychologies informed by such ideas less problematic than the currently 'modernist' dominant ones.
If by 'critique' you mean 'processing from a critical frame of reference' (processing which would bring to the surface ideological implications including ones which are progressive), I would be in interested in participating part in that except that it would take some time to do adequately and I am struggling to find time for existing commitments at the moment. However the book which you talked about buying (Denzin and Lincoln 3rd Ed.) has many contributions which draw positively on 'post modern' scholarship and I think reading those will illustrate this point.
David
________________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Venables,Keith (Children and Younger Adults) [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 11 December 2008 19:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Post Modernism doesn't believe in progress
Colleagues,
I was shocked to read this from MacLure (1995) on the Impact of
Postmodernism :
As a starting point: think fragmentation, ambiguity, loss of certainty.
Think of postmodernism as a kind of undoing of all the habits of mind of
so-called western thought that have prevailed over the last two
centuries - the decidability of truth, the inevitability of progress,
the triumph of reason, the possibility of a universal modern code, the
objectivity of science, the forward march of history, the existence of
the singular, autonomous self. These foundational principles, are all to
do with making the world knowable, accountable, unambiguous,
generalisable, predictable, coherent, manageable and mutually
comprehensible. They have all, at one time or another, been held to be
characteristic of modernism. And post-modernism says 'No' to them. You
will begin to understand its widespread unpopularity.
MacLure, M. (1995) Postmodernism: a post script, Educational Action
Research, 6 (3) 453-469
Is there anyone out there who might offer me a critique of this
postmodernism?
Keith Venables
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