Obama Is 'Post Modernist' Reason Us Oldsters Don't Get Him?

[Kathianne]

I'd like to say the excuse is my age, however I think something else is afoot here:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/08/obama-the-postm.html#more



Hd_columnists_opinions Goldbergopedonline
Obama, the postmodernist
In the Illinois senator’s world, words have no fixed meaning, and truth is often just a matter of perspective.

By Jonah Goldberg

Asked to define sin, Barack Obama replied that sin is "being out of alignment with my values." Statements such as this have caused many people to wonder whether Obama has a God complex or is hopelessly arrogant. For the record, sin isn't being out of alignment with your own values (if it were, Hannibal Lecter wouldn't be a sinner because his values hold that it's OK to eat people) nor is it being out of alignment with Obama's — unless he really is our Savior.

(Illustration by Suzy Parker, USA TODAY)

There is, however, a third possibility. Obama is a postmodernist.

An explosive fad in the 1980s, postmodernism was and is an enormous intellectual hustle in which left-wing intellectuals take crowbars and pick axes to anything having to do with the civilizational Mount Rushmore of Dead White European Males... Lots of links for those libs that dare to read.

[PostmodernProphet]

sigh.....Postmodernism wasn't an "explosive fad".....the two candidates in the past thirty years that best exemplified "postmodern" thought were Reagan and Clinton....if you consider their popularity and those things which they had in common you can get a better understanding of postmodernism.....

modernism isn't "good" and postmodernism "evil"....they are simply two different ways of looking at things....every person has elements of both within their make-up....for example, if you are watching an episode of Ghost Hunters on the sci-fi channel.....a part of you says "things like that don't happen".....that is your modernist part.....another part of you says "I wish I had experienced that".....that is your postmodernist part....those two parts struggle within you.....whichever part wins tells if you are predominantly modernist or postmodernist.....

[mundame]

I'd like to say the excuse is my age, however I think something else is afoot here:




I'm going to say the excuse is my age. Postmodernism? I'm sorry, I just don't have time for that.

[Dilloduck]

sigh.....Postmodernism wasn't an "explosive fad".....the two candidates in the past thirty years that best exemplified "postmodern" thought were Reagan and Clinton....if you consider their popularity and those things which they had in common you can get a better understanding of postmodernism.....

modernism isn't "good" and postmodernism "evil"....they are simply two different ways of looking at things....every person has elements of both within their make-up....for example, if you are watching an episode of Ghost Hunters on the sci-fi channel.....a part of you says "things like that don't happen".....that is your modernist part.....another part of you says "I wish I had experienced that".....that is your postmodernist part....those two parts struggle within you.....whichever part wins tells if you are predominantly modernist or postmodernist.....

You mean like a realist vs dreamer ?

[mundame]

Whoops, no offense to you, of course, PostmodernProphet.

It's just a little too deep for me.

I expect you understand it very well.

[PostmodernProphet]

You mean like a realist vs dreamer ?or from another perspective, an iconoclast vs a realist.....I take it from your post that your "modernist" side was carrying a weapon when it met your "postmodernist" side......

I have dedicated the bulk of my post graduate studies to the question of postmodernism.....the balance between modernism and postmodernism began to tip early in the 20th century.....I think the first impetus may have come from the sinking of the Titanic......she was to have been the symbol of man's ability to accomplish anything.....she was advertised as the "Ship that even God could not sink"....and she sank......soon thereafter we had the War to End All Wars....(modernists like to capitalize things)......and it didn't.....mankind's ultimate solution the League of Nations, failed to materialize.....and how did society react?.....with the Roaring 20s, a decidedly anti-Big Government era....

ah, but then we had the Depression and World War 2.....and Big Government saved us from both, Big Business thrived, fatherhood and motherhood become iconic with the influx of television.....modernism was on a roll......

triple whammy.....the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate.....the respect for the authority of Big Government was wiped out in a single decade.....all the old icons are under attack....Big Business, the Church, the Family......modernists are defending symbols rather than essence.....for example, they think they need to defend Big Oil, instead of really thinking out what a good course of action would be.......

[PostmodernProphet]

now that fact that Obama may be "postmodernist" (and I am not yet conceding he is) does not mean that his positions are better than a "modernists", it just means he arrives at his positions in a different way than a modernist does....both a modernist and a postmodernist can arrive at a correct opinion and both can arrive at an incorrect one.....

now, I am going a step further and say that between the two candidates, McCain has demonstrated more of a postmodern approach to thinking.....I think that is why he has traditionally been considered a "maverick"......he didn't think in the same way as others in Washington, on both sides of the aisle.....Bill Clinton was PM, Hillary was M, as was Ted Kennedy and most of the Dems in Congress.....Reagan was PM, so was Gingrich......no modernist would come up with the concept of a contract with America....a modernist wouldn't dream of something relational like a one to one committment between a voter and a candidate....a modernist is more likely to think they have the solution and will deliver it to the voter....sort of I am the symbol (lol, a postmodernist would die before calling himself a symbol) of Hope......see why I am not prepared to concede Obama is a postmodernist?.......

[midcan5]

If anyone is a postmodernist - and I am using this in a pejorative sense - it is Goldberg. Anyone who can write 300 plus pages arguing liberalism is now fascism has no firm grasp of any truth and flounders in that esoteric world of English and French lit studies in the deconstruction of the text - in his case the world and most of reality.

Ironically I enjoy this stuff as literature contains truths that allow us to see the world from a more empathic seat. Great writing makes the day. But my political or philosophic position is we don't live life in theory, we live life in a reality requiring choices that touch how all humans, lesser animals, and the world will survive and hopefully prosper. Habermas's critique of PM is right on.

Neither Obama or McCain are postmodernist and the only reason they would appear so is they are attempting to appeal to a constituency that defies boundaries. Politics is about compromise, about trying to do the right thing. In truth Obama is just a heck of a lot smarter and educated he knows the lingo. McCain know as much about PM as he does about economics.


"Post-modernism is modernism with the optimism taken out." Robert Hewison

[PostmodernProphet]

If anyone is a postmodernist - and I am using this in a pejorative sense - it is Goldberg. Anyone who can write 300 plus pages arguing liberalism is now fascism has no firm grasp of any truth and flounders in that esoteric world of English and French lit studies in the deconstruction of

obviously you have paid no attention at all to what "postmodernism" is.....while it has demonstrated itself in the "world" of literature, that is merely a theoretic discussion of it's application, not an understanding of it's essence.....in truth, a postmodernist would never attempt to make an argument that one "ism" is another "ism", since a postmodernist doesn't acknowledge "isms", stating they are merely modernist symbols of an unrealistic "ideal".....therefore whoever Goldberg is he wouldn't be a postmodernist....

note: okay, I see that Goldberg is the guy who wrote the quote from the OP.....obviously, since I began posting by pointing out the author didn't know what postmodernism is, I feel it consistent to also state the he isn't a postmodernist.....in truth, like midcan, he thinks of postmodernism in a "perjorative" way......

[midcan5]

PostmodernProphet, then tell us what PM is for you or how you define it. And while I was being pejorative I actually like this stuff and isn't ambiguity at its essence? Barthes was one of the early writers, I think, even though I hardly hear his name today and I have read Lyotard among others.

[avatar4321]

I dislike postmodernism.

Did Obama really say sin was anything that disagreed with his values?

[PostmodernProphet]

PostmodernProphet, then tell us what PM is for you or how you define it. And while I was being pejorative I actually like this stuff and isn't ambiguity at its essence? Barthes was one of the early writers, I think, even though I hardly hear his name today and I have read Lyotard among others.

you never really understand what an era is until you are out of it....thus, we are just beginning to understand "modernism" as an era of history.....personally, I think we are just going through another stage of the byplay between "reason" and "emotion"......historically we had the Romance era and the Age of Enlightenment and I think that Postmodernism is nothing more than a resurgence of the same phenomena......

"postmodernism" currently is merely a reaction to Modernism, a rejection of what has developed since approximately the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.....it has not yet coalesced into something of it's own......

when you reach the extreme state of realism, when the mind begins to believe that there can be iconoclastic entities that represent the ultimate of any concept.....that there are Liberals and Conservatives, that there are The Rich and The Poor, that there is Big Business and Big Government, that there is Church, that there is a Mother of All Battles and a Best Movie.....then a part of the human mind begins to react, realizing that the symbolism inherent in those icons begin to act as a barrier to communication instead of a form of communication......those quickest to react may say things which seem silly to those slow to react ("depends on what is, is") but the ultimate message is that when you speak in symbols they may not communicate what you believe to the person listening to you.....for the postmodern mind the most important aspect of life is what you experience for yourself, because therein you can find assurance of genuine-ness.....

a generation that has grown up with television commercials depicting cars driving straight up building walls recognizes that truth can be hidden so well it cannot be sensed.....this has been improperly communicated as "there is no truth"....in essence the message is "there is no assurance of truth"......

when experience is the only thing you can trust, personal relationship becomes more important....what you did with X yesterday is important....'belonging' to a political party or a religious denomination or an alumni association is not....involvement is important.....skateboarding becomes more important than watching baseball, because spectator sports are not personal experience......talking to somebody about mysticism is more important than listening to a sermon about the same subject......picking up a candy wrapper and throwing it in the garbage becomes more significant than mailing a $1k check to a charity......

that's just touching the surface, but it's a beginning....

[mundame]

when experience is the only thing you can trust, personal relationship becomes more important....what you did with X yesterday is important....'belonging' to a political party or a religious denomination or an alumni association is not....involvement is important.....skateboarding becomes more important than watching baseball, because spectator sports are not personal experience......talking to somebody about mysticism is more important than listening to a sermon about the same subject......picking up a candy wrapper and throwing it in the garbage becomes more significant than mailing a $1k check to a charity......

that's just touching the surface, but it's a beginning....


Sounds like Zen, PM. http://www.augk18.dsl.pipex.com/Smileys/meditate.gif


Good discussion, very interesting.

[actsnoblemartin]

reading :scared:


I'd like to say the excuse is my age, however I think something else is afoot here:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/08/obama-the-postm.html#more


Lots of links for those libs that dare to read.

[PostmodernProphet]

Sounds like Zen, PM. http://www.augk18.dsl.pipex.com/Smileys/meditate.gif


Good discussion, very interesting.


Zen became popular because lots of people were beginning to think 'postmodernly'......

[midcan5]

PMP, Interesting. Dependent on which idea you focus on, it can cover lots of people and movements, from hippies to the local recluse, I was thinking my mother in law is a post modernist as it would seem her experiences are always self referential to a degree it seems natural even though odd to the rest of us. lol

Obviously I don't agree with some of its conclusions, I enjoy the trip but I'm not sure I've learned anything solid. For instance when we look at the past we look at it through the eyes of today. We (many of us) cannot for instance imagine a world governed by spirits. I'm always jittery when someone mentions genuineness, as that seems rare. And everyone (?) thinks they are genuine even when they are fabricating, it's just a hard quality to lock down.

I do agree that no single unifying theory will come forward one day to sum up the totality of human experience. The meta-narrative was shot down long ago by relativity, indeterminacy, and the mass murders of last century by a so called civilized people. It is as if we need to learn all over again, but that is another thought theory.

Your examples are odd I have to think about them more....

[diuretic]

Goldberg is trying to flay Obama with the accusation of relativism. In politics, where absolutism triumphs and finely nuanced policy positions will kill a campaign stone dead, the accusation of relativism is powerful propaganda. Now mature adults know that not much in modern society is absolute. Human nature and human society don't work that way. But most of us don't consider that when we vote for a candidate. We want black and white, not shades of grey.

midcan - that was a good summary of Goldberg.

PMP - interesting. If the postmodernist texts were a bit clearer, like your posts, and less dense and difficult to read (I admit my intellect might not be up to it) then we'd all know a bit more about it.