Books of all genres, and the publishing industry

on how well postmodern’s doing compared to … laugh… renewal
humanists?

1
Postmodern warfare :
the ignorance of our
warrior intellectuals
by
Stanley Fish
July, 2002
Who would have thought, in those first few minutes, hours, days, that
what we now call 9/11 was to become an event in the Culture Wars?
Today, more than nine months later, nothing could be clearer, though
it was only on September 22 that the first sign appeared, in a New
York Times opinion piece written by Edward Rothstein and entitled
"Attacks on U.S. Challenge the Perspectives of Postmodern True
Believers." A few days later (on September 27), Julia Keller wrote a
smaller piece in the Chicago Tribune; her title (no doubt the
contribution of a staffer): "After the attack, postmodernism loses its
glib grip." In the September 24 issue of Time, Roger Rosenblatt
announced "the end of the age of irony" and predicted that "the good
folks in charge of America’s intellectual life" would now have to
change
their tune and no longer say that "nothing was real" or that "nothing
was to be believed in or taken seriously." And on October 1, John Leo,
in a piece entitled "Campus hand-wringing is not a pretty sight,"
blamed just about everything on the "very dangerous ideas" that have
captured our "campus culture"; to wit, "radical cultural relativism,
nonjudgmentalism, and a postmodern conviction that there are no
moral norms or truths worth defending."
2
Well, that certainly sounds bad–no truths, no knowledge, no reality,
no morality, no judgments, no objectivity–and if postmodernists are
saying that, they are not so much dangerous as silly. Luckily,
however,
postmodernists say no such thing, and what they do say, if it is
understood at all, is unlikely to provoke either the anger or the
alarm
of our modern Paul Reveres. A full account or even definition of
postmodernism would be out of place here, but it may be enough for
our purposes to look at one offered by Rothstein, who begins by
saying that "Postmodernists challenge assertions that truth and
ethical
judgment have any objective validity." Well, it depends on what you
mean by "objective." If you mean a standard of validity and value that
is independent of any historically emergent and therefore revisable
system of thought and practice, then it is true that many
postmodernists would deny that any such standard is or could ever be
available. But if by "objective" one means a standard of validity and
value that is backed up by the tried-and-true procedures and
protocols of a well-developed practice or discipline–history,
physics,
economics, psychology, etc.–then such standards are all around us,
and we make use of them all the time without any metaphysical
anxiety.
As Richard Rorty, one of Rothstein’s targets, is fond of saying,
"Objectivity is the kind of thing we do around here." Historians draw
conclusions about the meaning of events, astronomers present models
of planetary movements, psychologists offer accounts of the reading
process, consumers make decisions about which product is best,
parents choose schools for their children–all of these things and
many
more are done with varying degrees of confidence, and in no case is
the confidence rooted in a conviction that the actor is in possession
of
some independent standard of objectivity. Rather, the actor, you or I
or anyone, begins in some context of practice, with its received
authorities, sacred texts, exemplary achievements, and generally
accepted benchmarks, and from within the perspective of that
3
context–thick, interpersonal, densely elaborated–judges something to
be true or inaccurate, reasonable or irrational, and so on.
It seems, then, that the unavailability of absolutely objective
standards–the thesis Rothstein finds repugnant and dangerous–
doesn’t take anything away from us. If, as postmodernists assert,
objective standards of a publicly verifiable kind are unavailable,
they
are so only in the sense that they have always been unavailable (this
is
not, in other words, a condition postmodernism has caused), and we
have always managed to get along without them, doing a great many
things despite the fact that we might be unable to shore them up in
accordance with the most rigorous philosophical demands. One of the
things we might be doing, for instance, when we’re not doing
philosophy, is condemning someone or some group, though Rothstein
seems to think that we can’t do that unless we have all our
philosophical ducks in a row–and in the right row. Thus, he says,
given
postmodernist assumptions, "one culture, particularly the West,
cannot reliably condemn another," which means, according to him,
that we in the United States cannot reliably condemn those who
attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Again, it depends
on what you mean by "reliably," a word that takes us right back to
"objective" and to the argument I have been making. If by "a reliable
condemnation" you mean a condemnation rooted in a strong sense of
values, priorities, goals, and a conviction of right and wrong, then
such
a condemnation is available to most if not all of us all of the time.
But
if by "a reliable condemnation" you mean a condemnation rooted in
values, priorities, and a sense of right and wrong that no one would
dispute and everyone accepts, then there is no such condemnation,
for the simple reason that there are no such universally accepted
values, priorities, and moral convictions. If there were, there would
be
no deep disputes.
Now, I would not be misunderstood. I am not saying that there are no
universal values or no truths independent of particular perspectives.
I
affirm both. When I offer a reading of a poem or pronounce on a case
4
in First Amendment law, I do so with no epistemological reservations.
I
regard my reading as true–not provisionally true, or true for my
reference group only, but true. I am as certain of that as I am of the
fact that I may very well be unable to persuade others, no less
educated or credentialed than I, of the truth so perspicuous to me.
And here is a point that is often missed, the independence from each
other, and therefore the compatibility, of two assertions thought to
be
contradictory when made by the same person: (1) I believe X to be
true and (2) I believe that there is no mechanism, procedure,
calculus,
test, by which the truth of X can be necessarily demonstrated to any
sane person who has come to a different conclusion (not that such a
demonstration can never be successful, only that its success is
contingent and not necessary). In order to assert something and mean
it without qualification, I of course have to believe that it is true,
but I
don’t have to believe that I could demonstrate its truth to all
rational
persons. The claim that something is universal and the
acknowledgment that I couldn’t necessarily prove it are logically
independent of each other. The second does not undermine the first.
Once again, then, a postmodern argument turns out to be without any
deleterious consequences (it is also without any positive
consequences, but that is another story), and it certainly does not
stand in the way of condemning those who have proven themselves to
be our enemies in words and deeds. Nor should this be surprising, for,
after all, postmodernism is a series of arguments, not away of life or
a
recipe for action. Your belief or disbelief in postmodern tenets is
independent of your beliefs and commitments in any other area of
your life. You may believe that objectivity of an absolute kind is
possible or you may believe that it is not, but when you have to
decide
whether a particular thing is true or false, neither belief will
hinder or
help you. What will help you are archives, exemplary achievements,
revered authorities, official bodies of evidence, relevant analogies,
suggestive metaphors–all available to all persons independently of
5
their philosophical convictions, or of the fact that they do or do not
have any.
In the end, the post-9/11 flap about postmodernism is the blowing of
so much smoke, sound and fury signifying very little apart from the
ignorance of those who produced it. There’s no there there. This is
not
true, however, of what succeeded that flap in the popular and
semipopular
media, the question of whether this is or is not a religious
war. That question was asked against the backdrop of the Bush
Administration’s desire that the war not be characterized as a
religious one. Any public embrace of Samuel Huntington’s clash-
ofcivilizations
thesis would have at least three bad consequences. First,
key Islamic nations could not be persuaded to support, or at least to
refrain from denouncing, U.S. military operations. Second, millions of
U.S. citizens of the Islamic faith would be come the large core of an
antiwar coalition. And lastly, the United Nations would become
polarized along religious lines, with the possible result that any
U.S.
attack would be censured. In the context of these and related
anxieties, the official party line emerged almost immediately:
Although
Al Qaeda said that its warriors did what they did in the service of
Allah, theirs was a perverted version of the Islamic faith, and
therefore
their claim to be acting in its name was false and illegitimate; they
simply did not represent Islam and had misread its sacred texts.
If you think about it for a moment, this is an amazing line of
argument
that begs the questions contained in its assertions. Who is it that is
authorized to determine which version of Islam is the true one? What
religious faith has ever looked outside the articles of its creed for
guidance and correction? What is the difference between the confident
pronouncements that the Al Qaeda brand of Islam is a deviant one
and the excommunications and counter-excommunications of
Catholics and Protestants, and within Protestantism of Baptists,
Anglicans, Lutherans, not to mention Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-
Day Adventists, Mormons, and Mennonites? Merely to
…

For the longest time I was convinced that I was not happy unless I had
a partner to share my life with. I just knew that having someone to
share glorious sunrises and romantic sunsets would make me happy. I
even came close to marrying someone who made me feel as if I was the
happiest person on the face of the earth only to find out that it was
not actually him that made me happy. This is the mistake most all of
us make when we are dating and even more so when we have been married
and have become accustomed to having someone around all the time then
suddenly we are thrust back into this crazy dating world that has
changed so much since we were gone that we need to go to Dating
College to get educated and learn the lingo not to mention the new
rules to even be a player in the game. OK, so you think you know the
answers, what makes you happy, what will keep you happy and that
special something that will attract you and keep you attracted? I
think you are going to be surprised at what I have to say.

The greatest lesson I have learned if I have learned anything in my
dating trials and tribulations is that I am the only person on this
earth that is responsible for my happiness. The only place that
happiness lives forever, with or without a partner is within you. You
have the power to create and maintain your own happiness. Love is
great to have and share, but in order to share what you have to offer,
you must first find that happiness within yourself and the person that
sees that happiness in you will want to be part of that happiness. So
you see, the search and the quest for that fulfillment is endless as
long as you choose not to look inside yourself.

Enjoy the journey, experience what life has to offer, always keeping
your happiness in focus, first and foremost. YOU, are the reason for
your happiness, let it shine, share it with the world and you will
receive that happiness back in your heart ten fold.

http://www.dontplayplay.com/html/Dating/20060925/9957.html

Ward Cleaver was my great inspiration

<http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/14/Opinion/
Ward_Cleaver_was_my_g.shtml>
http://tinyurl.com/2thpd5

By Bill Maxwell, Times Columnist
Published February 14, 2008

What was the most important image in your life when you were growing
up?" a student asked me last year when I addressed a high school
honors class in St. Petersburg.

"It was Ward Cleaver’s den in Leave It to Beaver," I said.

Ward’s den/office always caught my attention. Here, Ward disciplined
his totally normal sons, Beaver and Wally, made telephone calls and
balanced the family checkbook.

I vividly recall the episode when Ward shared with his sons the joy of
reading Mark Twain and the lessons he learned about life from Twain’s
books and short stories. In another episode, with Beaver and Wally at
his side, Ward read from Huckleberry Finn aloud. I imagined myself one
day doing the same with my children, which I did.

I learned a few years ago that Ward and June, the perfect wife, rarely
read anything other than newspapers and magazines. As a child, I
missed this fact. The image of that wall of books and Ward’s frequent
allusions to the moral lessons he learned from books left me with the
impression that the Cleavers read voraciously away from the cameras, a
kind of enveloping reality.

Since then, my living space always has been a library/den. The
wonderful thing about having books around is they entice you to read
them. As far as I am concerned, a home is not a home if it does not
have books and, by the way, a globe.

[excerpted]

‘for if hume is the strong (though unacknowledged)  precursor for much
of what passes for current postmodernist wisdom, then it is in kant,
or the criticisms which kant brings against hume, that this wisdom
encounters the greatest challenges to its powers of creative
misprision.’

the truth about postmodernism
christopher norris
p.82

(why is it all the randite dickheads (oops redundant me) are to be
found on usenet and not at uni?)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=B9856_xv8gc

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/human_prop.htm

I have permission from Carolina Academic Press to distribute an
excerpt from the book, "Alive and Kicking: Legal Advice for Boomers,"
by a couple of wisecracking elder law experts.

Kenney F. Hegland is a professor of law at the University of Arizona.
Robert B. Fleming is an elder law specialist. Together they are almost
insufferable.

Their jokes are corny, their banter is sometimes profane, and their
book is anti-do-it-yourself. Yet the authors are wise and blunt,
quickly cutting to the chase on end-of-life legal matters facing baby
boomers and their parents.

For example, the excerpt I’m distributing is entitled: "Self-Abuse:
Vegas, Booze, and the Question of Guns." It deals with legal options
concerning seniors who are determined to gamble away or drink down
their life savings. The excerpt gives a good sense of how Hegland and
Fleming tackle delicate subjects with humor and hard-earned advice.

The excerpt from "Alive and Kicking" is located at the following URL,
or I’ll send a text-only version upon request.

http://legaladviceforboomers.com/excerpts.html

STEVE O’KEEFE
AuthorViews: Authors Making News

That old jewish intelligence myth busted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

Sample rank, country, IQ average.

1       South Korea     109
3       Japan              105
7       Germany         102
15     United Kingdom 100
23     United States    98
33    Israel                94

It explains why Hollywood movies are so dumb.

Many
Blessings!

Linda

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