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Postmodernism is insanity.
Dec. 17th, 2017 12:20 pmThat words derive their meanings solely from one another, reducing all of language to a circular argument and rendering it inherently meaningless, is a foundational belief within postmodernism, and it is absolutely, almost hilariously (were it not infecting the humanities to an epidemic degree), wrong.
Words do not derive their meaning from one another. Words derive their meaning from interactions between consciousness and objectively occurring phenomena. We communicate that meaning to one another by using other words, by using dictionaries, thesauruses, etymologicons and encyclopedias, but that's just overhead, the work that the system of language must do to maintain efficient, consistent organization. Overhead is the computing power needed to run a complex system, and so overhead is necessarily self-referential, but with the exception of useless machines, overhead is never what a system is about. It makes no more sense to say that words derive their meanings from one another than it does to say that words derive their meanings from the letters of which they are comprised. To conflate the definitions (or the spellings) of words with the meanings of words is to try to eat money as though it is inherently nourishing. It is to try to smoke Magritte's pipe. It is to expect to physically live on and on, breathing and thinking, in Terry Pratchett's clacks.
To disprove this claim of meaninglessness in language, consider the onomatopoeia, which is a word formed from a sound as a reference to that sound. Examples include 'achoo' and 'bang.' More expressly than any other words, onomatopoeias do not derive their meaning from other words, but rather from objective external phenomena: the sounds that the words sound like. Thus it is proven possible for words' meanings to rest on more concrete objective foundations than the definitions of other words. It is now the postmodernists' task to explain why onomatopoeias are so fundamentally special -- why the whole of language doesn't work like onomatopoeias with additional abstract steps -- without employing special pleading tactics. Good luck.
The belief that words derive their meaning from one another is a symptom of not truly living, perhaps of refusing to live. It is a symptom of spending one's time sheltered from the world by the psychological equivalents of straitjackets and padded walls. The postmodernist declares, swaddled within an ivory tower of denial where consciousness has been sheltered both from suffering and from love, that straitjackets and padded walls are all there is, and that the reality he is missing was never there to begin with. The natural progression from here is to go to war with the primary threat to the postmodern perspective: the notion of truth itself, and thus all linguistic, artistic and sociocultural structures built from human knowledge. In other words, the postmodernist's mission is to undermine everything a sane person loves. Thus we find postmodern artists declaring that a concept is worth executing simply because "nobody has done it before," sharing with fundamentalist progressivism an elevation of mere shallow novelty above all else. Such artists seem incapable of conceiving that they were preceded by a long heritage of visionaries who found success by deciding against bad ideas, and that's why so many pieces of 'art' elevated by postmodernists and progressives for their novelty have not been "done before."
Meaning is housed within the consciousness of the individual, while communication is the sharing of that meaning among individuals. In its attacks on language, postmodernism reduces meaning to its communication without grounds -- it must artificially remove the world's source of meaning in order to get away with declaring that nothing is truly meaningful. At its core, postmodernist philosophy denies the conscious mind of the individual, the most precious thing in existence, in order to declare the mind's main communication machine -- language -- useless. No wonder postmodernism, progressivism and collectivist identity politics are such close bedfellows. This is why the term 'Cultural Marxism' is so poignant. This is why it is such a threat to the people it describes that they seek to erase it from public consciousness by removing its Wikipedia page. Meaningful language is anathema to these people, especially when directed right at them, as they find their power in obfuscation. Using a term like 'Cultural Marxism' to encompass their slippery artificial subdivisions is like dumping water on the wicked witch.
If language was a useless machine, it would be impossible to tell anybody so, rendering postmodern philosophy inherently futile. Thus the only sensible thing for postmodernists to do is to stop writing. Every argument penned in service to postmodernism is hypocrisy. Just stop.
... And so must I. A mountain of gingerbread dough awaits cookiefication and decoration. Gotta go earn my blackbelt in Wai Fu. Bai.
Words do not derive their meaning from one another. Words derive their meaning from interactions between consciousness and objectively occurring phenomena. We communicate that meaning to one another by using other words, by using dictionaries, thesauruses, etymologicons and encyclopedias, but that's just overhead, the work that the system of language must do to maintain efficient, consistent organization. Overhead is the computing power needed to run a complex system, and so overhead is necessarily self-referential, but with the exception of useless machines, overhead is never what a system is about. It makes no more sense to say that words derive their meanings from one another than it does to say that words derive their meanings from the letters of which they are comprised. To conflate the definitions (or the spellings) of words with the meanings of words is to try to eat money as though it is inherently nourishing. It is to try to smoke Magritte's pipe. It is to expect to physically live on and on, breathing and thinking, in Terry Pratchett's clacks.
To disprove this claim of meaninglessness in language, consider the onomatopoeia, which is a word formed from a sound as a reference to that sound. Examples include 'achoo' and 'bang.' More expressly than any other words, onomatopoeias do not derive their meaning from other words, but rather from objective external phenomena: the sounds that the words sound like. Thus it is proven possible for words' meanings to rest on more concrete objective foundations than the definitions of other words. It is now the postmodernists' task to explain why onomatopoeias are so fundamentally special -- why the whole of language doesn't work like onomatopoeias with additional abstract steps -- without employing special pleading tactics. Good luck.
The belief that words derive their meaning from one another is a symptom of not truly living, perhaps of refusing to live. It is a symptom of spending one's time sheltered from the world by the psychological equivalents of straitjackets and padded walls. The postmodernist declares, swaddled within an ivory tower of denial where consciousness has been sheltered both from suffering and from love, that straitjackets and padded walls are all there is, and that the reality he is missing was never there to begin with. The natural progression from here is to go to war with the primary threat to the postmodern perspective: the notion of truth itself, and thus all linguistic, artistic and sociocultural structures built from human knowledge. In other words, the postmodernist's mission is to undermine everything a sane person loves. Thus we find postmodern artists declaring that a concept is worth executing simply because "nobody has done it before," sharing with fundamentalist progressivism an elevation of mere shallow novelty above all else. Such artists seem incapable of conceiving that they were preceded by a long heritage of visionaries who found success by deciding against bad ideas, and that's why so many pieces of 'art' elevated by postmodernists and progressives for their novelty have not been "done before."
Meaning is housed within the consciousness of the individual, while communication is the sharing of that meaning among individuals. In its attacks on language, postmodernism reduces meaning to its communication without grounds -- it must artificially remove the world's source of meaning in order to get away with declaring that nothing is truly meaningful. At its core, postmodernist philosophy denies the conscious mind of the individual, the most precious thing in existence, in order to declare the mind's main communication machine -- language -- useless. No wonder postmodernism, progressivism and collectivist identity politics are such close bedfellows. This is why the term 'Cultural Marxism' is so poignant. This is why it is such a threat to the people it describes that they seek to erase it from public consciousness by removing its Wikipedia page. Meaningful language is anathema to these people, especially when directed right at them, as they find their power in obfuscation. Using a term like 'Cultural Marxism' to encompass their slippery artificial subdivisions is like dumping water on the wicked witch.
If language was a useless machine, it would be impossible to tell anybody so, rendering postmodern philosophy inherently futile. Thus the only sensible thing for postmodernists to do is to stop writing. Every argument penned in service to postmodernism is hypocrisy. Just stop.
... And so must I. A mountain of gingerbread dough awaits cookiefication and decoration. Gotta go earn my blackbelt in Wai Fu. Bai.
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