Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

Posted by dbhalling 10 years ago to Books
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Have you ever wondered why President Obama and fellow travelers do not care if they are caught in a lie, or make contradictory statements? This book will explain to you why these people don’t care about the facts.
What is really impressive about this book is that the author clearly explains the philosophical thoughts of Kant, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Logical Positivists, and many others. If you had difficulty understanding the writings of these philosophers, there is a reason. They don’t believe in reason, logic, evidence, or that words in anyway are related to reality, which logically means we should not take their writings seriously since they don’t.
The author suggests that philosophical problems in Enlightenment epistemology were the crack by which Postmodernism gets its hold, but he does not explain what the problems were. This point of view is interesting, because Rand’s argument is that it was a failure of ethics that provided the crack for socialism.
SOURCE URL: http://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Postmodernism-Skepticism-Socialism-Rousseau-ebook/dp/B00480P9H2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396391636&sr=8-2&keywords=postmodernism+explained


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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years ago
    All one has to do to understand Progressives like Obama is to understand that there is no such thing to them as objective, absolute truth. Everything is fungible and definitions are made by those in charge.

    It doesn't make this philosophy any less aggravating, delusional, or hypocritical, it just helps explain why it is pointless to argue with them in the first place. ;)
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 10 years ago
    I tried reading and studying Kietzsche and Kierkegaard much earlier in life (20's) and from that experience, developed a bad taste for philosophy in general. Thank goodness I tried AR shortly afterwards and found that there really was someone else in the world that respected reason and logic.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years ago
    I'm not very knowledgeable about philosophy, but it's shocking to think people like Kant and Rousseau paved the wave for postmodernism.
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    • Posted by 10 years ago
      Why?
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years ago
        Because I think of Kant and Rousseau as giants and postmodernism as mostly cloudy thinking.
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        • Posted by 10 years ago
          Rousseau philosophy was to get back to nature, to ignore reason, to get rid of technology.

          Kant's whole goal was to save religion from reason and he created a system that was neo-platonist to accomplish this.
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          • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years ago
            I did not know any of that. I lump them all, probably wrongly, into the people who influenced the founders of the US. Didn't the idea of the social contract (the only words I know to associate with Rousseau) influence the founders?

            In college I satisfied my history requirement by taking history of science and history of biology. I should have been less science/tech-centric. If you know a good premier on the great philosophers that influenced the US, I would certainly read it.
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            • Posted by 10 years ago
              I don't think Kant or Rousseau had any influence on the founders. I think professors push or pushed the idea that Rousseau had influence on the founders, but I think you would be hard pressed to prove that. They also pretend that Rousseau and Locke are similar.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years ago
    Is this along the same lines as Ominous Parallels where Peikoff goes into the mentality of citizens in pre Stalin Russia and pre Hitler Germany and they would just accept whatever they were told by the government even if what they were told today completely conflicted with what they were told yesterday? The whole, "don't judge, don't notice, don't be certain" mind set. Nothing makes sense, but everyone does what they're told as if they believe that someone smarter than them knows what's best and they don't want to make waves.
    Or am I misunderstanding this?
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    • Posted by Herb7734 10 years ago
      Right on the money! When I was younger and trying to find something to believe in, all that happened was confusion. I read the 2 A.R. mega-novels and was delighted to discover that the books were based on a philosophy, and after reading them it was if someone had pulled me out of the water just before I drowned.
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      • Posted by 10 years ago
        Which is too bad, because their are a number of good philosophers like Locke, Bacon, Voltaire. Unfortunately, getting past the original language is difficult, which is why books like this are so valuable.
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        • Posted by Herb7734 10 years ago
          Being insatiable when learning (mostly After I got out of school)I took the Basic Principles of Objectivism, which referenced the above philosophers, which led to references of still others, so that there was a period of my life in which I read philosophy for several years. I read Fountainhead at age 14. I am now 80. It's been quite a trip.
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    • Posted by 10 years ago
      No I would say it is more an examination of the philosophies and philosophers that got us her. I read Ominous Parallels years ago and I think this is much better, but it is also different, it is not about politics per se.
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