后现代主义是后真相的罪魁祸首?
Truman Chen

17 February 2017

The famous American philosopher Daniel Dennett is currently touring the UK to promote his new bookFrom Bacteria to Bach and Back, but the reality of Trump's presidency couldn't escape his thoughts. As he put it, "I begrudge every hour I have to spend worrying about politics."

Inan interview withThe Guardian，他的语气迅速转变，他直接把责任归咎于后现代主义，认为它是一种“邪恶”的思想流派。在对美国政治现状的回应中，丹尼特认为:“哲学在处理这一问题时，并没有让自己沾沾自爱。也许人们现在会开始意识到哲学家并不是那么无害的。有时候，景色可能会带来可怕的后果，而这些后果可能真的会变成现实。我认为后现代主义者的做法是非常邪恶的。他们要对知识界的一时风尚负责，这种风尚使得对真相和事实的冷嘲热讽成为一种体面的行为。你会让人们到处说:‘好吧，你是那群仍然相信事实的人中的一员。'"

There are a couple reasons here to doubt the soundness of Dennett's admittedly harsh accusation.

First, the accusation carries the assumption that "post-truthism" is something that occurred after the emergence of postmodernism, whereas one might have good reason to think that fake news and post-truthism had always been around—not to mention ignoring all the other historical factors at play here. After all, for all the people reading Hannah Arendt'sThe Origins of Totalitarianism纳粹政权崛起的一个基本特征不就是不区分真相和谎言吗?

其次，在这个大多数人似乎都在哀叹哲学普遍缺乏影响力的时代，援引“后现代”妖怪甚至合理吗?凯莉安·康威在读德里达吗?

Third, might blaming postmodernism here be the reverse of what we should be doing? As it was put inclever tweet将后真相、另类事实和臀部归咎于后现代主义，就像将不满意的婚姻关系归咎于浪漫小说家一样。这是一个很好的观点，因为它引出了相反的潜在解读:即，后现代主义从已经存在的现实中创造了一些东西。就像浪漫小说家使用不令人满意的浪漫故事作为素材一样，后现代主义者对后真相世界进行了诊断和预测。This argument has at least beenmade by Andrew Jones, a teacher in the UK. That is, maybe we should be thanking "postmodernism" for giving us frameworks and vocabularies to make sense of this world we live in.

Dennett may be asserting that postmodernism brought about this reality when it's really the fact that reality lived up to and confirmed postmodernist theory.

Comments(2)

werewolf500's picture

werewolf500

Sunday, February 19, 2017 -- 1:10 PM

Post Truth?

Re: "isn't a fundamental feature of the rise of the Nazi regime the disrespect for distinction between truth and lies?" not having read the book in question I can only say; nope the problem with the Nazi regime was more the difference between 80-90% truth 20-10% lie.

HelenPluckrose's picture

HelenPluckrose

Tuesday, October 3, 2017 -- 2:36 AM

1) We don't have to claim

1) We don't have to claim that post-truth never existed before postmodernism to argue postmodernism to be instrumental on our current problem. In fact, it makes much more sense to say that motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and generally making shit up is the default human way of thinking but the modern era, the scientific revolution, the age of reason gave us tools to mitigate it and humanity thrived as a result of it. Now, PoMo and its attack on all these things is undermining it again.
2)不，我们没必要宣称凯莉安·康威读《德里达》是整个后真相问题的一部分。知识相对论已经成为当今文化家具的一部分，而后现代对此负有很大的责任。即使是SocJus的积极分子也常常不知道他们在做什么。凯南·马利克说得好:“当我早些时候提出‘另类事实’的概念借鉴了‘最近几十年被激进分子使用的一套概念’时，我并不是说凯丽安·康威(Kellyanne Conway)或史蒂夫·班农(Steve Bannon)，更不是说唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)，一直在研读福柯或波德里亚的著作……而是学术界的部分人士和左翼人士在最近几十年帮助创造了一种文化，在这种文化中，对事实和知识的相对观点似乎不令人不安，因此，反动右派不仅可以更容易地重新挪用，而且可以更容易地促进反动思想。”[12]
3) There are two ways to look at post-truth via postmodernism. 1) The postmodernists like Baudrillard were right and we are heading into an era where we have lost touch with the real due to technological advances and globalism and it's an observation rather than anything they brought about. 2) Postmodernism is instrumental in undermining the cultural and intellectual respect for & belief in objective knowledge. I would suggest both are true and fatally colliding.

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