17 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Terrorism of Obscurantism
With Derrida, you can hardly misread him, because he’s so obscure. Every time you say, "He says so and so," he always says, "You misunderstood me." But if you try to figure out the correct interpretation, then that’s not so easy. I once said this to Michel Foucault, who was more hostile to Derrida even than I am, and Foucault said that Derrida practiced the method of obscurantisme terroriste (terrorism of obscurantism). We were speaking French. And I said, "What the hell do you mean by th... 1 
notes
notes26 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Sign-Function Linking
It is clear that if the phonic substance lost its privilege, it was not to the advantage of the graphic substance, which lends itself to the same substitutions. To the extent that it liberates and is irrefutable, glossematics still operates with a popular concept of writing. However original and irreducible it might be, the “form of expression” linked by correlation to the graphic “substance of expression” remains very determined. It is very dependent and very derivative with regard t...Folksonomies: writing post modernism
Folksonomies: writing post modernism
1 notes
notes19 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Post Modernism Leads to Totalitarianism
There is objective truth to be learned by observation, and the knowledge gained gives power that other "ways of knowing" have not. But the more dangerous problem with postmodernist thinking is its a priori nature. Not truth, but a political goal has to be served—in this particular case the goal of openness, or tolerance without judgment. But without acknowledgi objective truth, all arguments become rhetorical and therefore can go on forever—and we are either paralyzed by it or we must res... 1 notes
notesWhen facts are relative and belief makes reality, then the best strategy is to hold to your belief uncompromisingly.
19 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Summary of Postmodernism
The teaching that there is no objective reality, but rather many subjec¬ tive realities, or in this case, that the subjective realities are on an equal par with the objective reality (you're dead!) in turn influences students' views of the primacy of knowledge. To critics, history is no longer the search for what really happened, but rather the victor's interpretation as seen through the lens of power and oppression, and it bears a cultural and political focus. Literature is no longer a stud...Folksonomies: postmodernism post modernism
Folksonomies: postmodernism post modernism
1 The relativity of knowledge.
02 NOV 2012 by ideonexus
Disneyland's Simulation Reinforces the Myth of the Real
Thus, everywhere in Disneyland the objective profile of America, down to the morphology
of individuals and of the crowd, is drawn. All its values are exalted by the miniature and
the comic strip. Embalmed and pacified. Whence the possibility of an ideological analysis
of Disneyland (L. Marin did it very well in Utopiques, jeux d'espace [Utopias, play of
space]): digest of the American way of life, panegyric of American values, idealized
transposition of a contradictory reality. Certainly. But... 1 notes
notesIt's fantasy persuades us to ignore the simulation of what we consider the "real" world. It presents itself as childish whimsy, which convinces us that what we experience daily is the "adult" world.
02 NOV 2012 by ideonexus
Ethnology Destroys What it Studies
Ethnology brushed up against its paradoxical death in 1971, the day when the Philippine
government decided to return the few dozen Tasaday who had just been discovered in
the depths of the jungle, where they had lived for eight centuries without any contact
with the rest of the species, to their primitive state, out of the reach of colonizers,
tourists, and ethnologists. This at the suggestion of the anthropologists themselves, who
were seeing the indigenous people disintegrate immediately up... 1 notes
notesWhen the anthropologist interacts with the indigenous person, they change and corrupt them.
31 OCT 2012 by ideonexus
Levels of Simulation
Such is simulation, insofar as it is opposed to representation. Representation stems from
the principle of the equivalence of the sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is
Utopian, it is a fundamental axiom). Simulation, on the contrary, stems from the Utopia of
the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value, from the sign
as the reversion and death sentence of every reference. Whereas representation attempts
to absorb simulation by interpreting it as a f... 1 notes
notesThe differences between appearance and simulation.
31 OCT 2012 by ideonexus
Metaphor of a Map as Hyperreality
If once we were able to view the Borges fable in which the cartographers of the Empire
draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly (the decline of the
Empire witnesses the fraying of this map, little by little, and its fall into ruins, though
some shreds are still discernible in the deserts - the metaphysical beauty of this ruined
abstraction testifying to a pride equal to the Empire and rotting like a carcass, returning to
the substance of the soil, a bit as the ... 1 notes
notesA map so detailed that it perfectly replicates the territory it represents is no longer a map, but reality.
31 OCT 2012 by ideonexus
The Difference Between Pretend and Simulation
To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have
what one doesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But it is more
complicated than that because simulating is not pretending: "Whoever fakes an illness can
simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness
produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littré). Therefore, pretending, or
dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is...Folksonomies: post modernism hyperreality
Folksonomies: post modernism hyperreality
1 notes
notesWhen a person pretends to be ill, they just lie in bed; but when they simulate illness, they produce actual symptoms, thus blurring the lines of reality.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Francis Bacon Takes Issue With Postmodernism
The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out; but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known. I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise and supply helps for the same. 1 notes
notesBacon attacks postmodernism and the idea that we cannot know anything through the senses, even though postmodernism didn't exist yet.
