Post-modernism and Moral Relativism - now in decline?

[cerulean]

From
DAILY EXPRESS
Fish Story
by Peter Berkowitz
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mh...erkowitz062802

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, commentators on intellectual life from a variety of quarters, including The New York Times, Time magazine, and U.S. News and World Report, speculated that the war into which the United States had been thrust would force a new seriousness upon the nation. And they wondered whether one consequence would be a decline for postmodernist thinking--among both the scholars who propound it and the students who imbibe it. As the argument went, postmodernism--with its celebration of irony, its commitment to the subversive, its conviction that all morality is local, historical, and socially constructed--would soon find itself out of step with the temper of the times. ...

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The rest of the article is devoted to the post-modernist professor, Stanley Fish.

I suppose post-modernism sometimes celebrates irony, although much of the time I just found it dreadfully pedantic and tiresome.

But more to the point, is it possible to argue there are moral absolutes while still accepting the idea that very different cultures can be morally equivalent? (or can they) Is it possible to have multiculturalism in a society if you have members with very different ideas of what is moral and acceptable?

How is this all going to work in any given pluralistic society?

[Micah]

Originally posted by cerulean
I suppose post-modernism sometimes celebrates irony, although much of the time I just found it dreadfully pedantic and tiresome.

It may be a bit off topic, but that word...lol, my Dad used it once and I just made weird faces and asked what the heck it ment...

I forget what it ment, so I am going to look it up...

[elke]

Originally posted by Micah


It may be a bit off topic, but that word...lol, my Dad used it once and I just made weird faces and asked what the heck it ment...

I forget what it ment, so I am going to look it up...

I guarantee that you will make faces when you find out!

[elke]

Originally posted by cerulean
But more to the point, is it possible to argue there are moral absolutes while still accepting the idea that very different cultures can be morally equivalent? (or can they) Is it possible to have multiculturalism in a society if you have members with very different ideas of what is moral and acceptable?

How is this all going to work in any given pluralistic society?

I think that there are moral absolutes, and (most) different cultures are morally equivalent. The moral absolutes deal with survival, just like in the rest of the natural world. Because life is not simple, and human beings' psychology is complicated, "survival" for humans is a more complicated affair, and different cultures have evolved to accommodate the various circumstances. These differences do not abrogate the bedrock of human survival, which is society.

There was a time when the Norse tribes used to bop their old people on the head, when they could no longer keep up with the pace of their nomadic existence. Does that mean the young 'uns were unnecessarily cruel? No, they simply couldn't afford, as a group, to sustain these people. As our material well-being increases, we can now afford to take care of our elderly - and in general, concentrate more on the individuals within the group. This, in turn, helps the society because now we have the benefit of the life experience our senior population has.

The moral imperative is that the group survives and prospers. Different cultures have arrived at different ways to assure this survival and prosperity. We are here, the dominant species on the Planet, because we have successfully - so far - separated the wheat from chaff, as far as our cultural differences are concerned.

[cerulean]

Originally posted by Micah


It may be a bit off topic, but that word...lol, my Dad used it once and I just made weird faces and asked what the heck it ment...

I forget what it ment, so I am going to look it up...

Micah, hope you got a chance to look it up If not, here's a living (well maybe dead) post-modern example of pedantry:

http://pum12.pum.umontreal.ca/revues.../derridaa.html

[cerulean]

Elke, I have a hard time with the idea that most cultures are morally equivalent. If someone in Afghanistan is selling his seven-year-old daughter in marriage for a large sack of flour (happening all the time right now and in times past), this might be an immediate way to survive. He probably doesn't see himself as evil for doing it. (Maybe this example is outside of what you were including in "most.")

But many other cultures in existence right now, including some in desperate straits, would not consider doing such a thing, even if they might suffer in the short-term for it. If someone did do this as an exceptional act, he would suffer for it.

[Mediocrates]

But most cultural conflict isn't about actual survival anymore. It hasn't been for hundreds of years. There are of course lots of exceptions to that like WW2, Rwanda, Bosnia but for most of the world, the small (and the large) brush wars, civil wars, jihads, rebel movements and wars of freedom and national identity are about ideas, rights, language, religion, economics, natural resources and flat out tyrannical power.

It's about denying specifically that all cultures are the same and all values are equivalent. The Macedonians want Macedonia for them. I doubt they care whether Serbia becomes Macedonian. Chechnians want Chechnia for them (control over wealth, etc.). Pakistan(s) were formed specifically because not all Hindus and muslims in the Raj could live with one another. That they picked up weapons and slaughtered each other in the millions has nothing to do with survival. It has to do with DOMINANCE.

Now the second question is, within a culture are there any external rights that may be imposed? Yes there are. We have a duty to stamp out African slavery. We have a duty to stop Chinese infanticide. We have a duty to end the violent oppression of muslim women. We have responsibilities; not because it is good for us but because it is civilized and good. And if that means we have to make them over as us then so be it.

In the Torah we read about two basic concepts. Tikkun Olam - fix (heal, repair) the world, and Tzadek Tzadek Teer Dof - Great Justice (righteousness) thou shalt pursue. Those are the goals and the commandments. I can't make it any clearer than that.

[elke]

I didn't make myself very clear

What I was trying to say is that most cultures that stood the test of time , are morally equivalent. Ultimately, there aren't many fundamental differences in the bedrock morals among long-living cultures. Not being religious, I still have to say that the 10 Commandments really do give a good - and actually pretty much complete - basis of what I would call the moral absolutes . These are the bedrock of society. In one way or another these Commandments have been incorporated into every code of law I know of, in every "important" (i.e. alive long enough to matter) society throughout history.

IMHO, the relationship of "absolute morals" to the kind of thing you describe in the example you gave - of an Afghani "redneck" selling his daughter in marriage for a sack of flour - is akin to that between the Constitution and the statutory and common law in the US. The Constitution is like the "absolute moral code" - virtually unchangeable over time, but while the rest may be "law", it can - and is - changed over time, as circumstances and needs change. Therefore, it is not absolute, by definition.

Again, going back to my example of the Norse peoples bopping their elders on the head: this ended as soon as it was no longer necessary, even though the change was probably fought against at the time because bopping the old people on the head was "part of their culture". The same fate awaits the selling of brides. This was not an uncommon custom in many Western cultures until relatively recently either. That's where the idea of the "dowry" comes from. In the Western societies it simply morphed into something else now, and is part of the tradition of marriage rather than an ugly leftover of our uncivilized past. I expect that the same thing is going to happen to many of these so-called "cultural differences".

[cerulean]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/13/arts/13CONN.html

Moral Relativity Is a Hot Topic? True. Absolutely.
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
...
In the symposium, Mr. Fish seems to backpedal a bit, arguing that pomo might actually have an effect. It might, he suggests, teach us to understand the opponent not as an evil abstraction but as a fellow human being with his own motivations. Mr. Fish, for example, says that when Reuters stopped using the word terrorism because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," this policy was mistakenly attacked as pomo-style cultural relativism. Actually, he argues, Reuters saw that the word was "unhelpful" because, in Mr. Fish's words, it "prevents us from making distinctions" that might allow us to get a better picture of whom we are fighting.

But this explanation is disingenuous. Mr. Fish is really saying that he prefers one set of distinctions over another — distinctions that, in this case, emphasize resemblance, or perhaps even symmetry, between the terrorist and his opponent, while ignoring the central differences, including the fact that this is a war against Islamic terrorism and its totalitarian ideologies.
...
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The author states that September 11 "could upset the presuppositions of two major academic movements: postmodernism and postcolonialism." Apparently postmodernists have felt under attack, particularly since September 11, and are fighting back. It would be interesting if the author also did a similar article on postcolonialists.

There are also some related articles linked in the sidebar.