Chomsky on Post-Modernism

his arguments about the lack of penetration of logical positivism into French thought could equally apply to Post-Modernism and Anglo Saxon thought.

ugh

tl;dw version: (and please correct me if i'm missing the point of what he's trying to say)
the insularity of french intellectual culture leads to french ppl making up crazier and crazier ideas, and eventually whatever "crazy" ideas have come into fashion end up spreading to the third world and discouraging people from tackling problems or thinking about them in rational ways

i guess there's no transcript version of this? i'd like to watch it but in work atm

The Flaming Maoists is an excellent name for a band.

]his arguments about the lack of penetration of logical positivism into French thought could equally apply to Post-Modernism and Anglo Saxon thought.

― Arvo Pärt Chimp (Neil S), Monday, August 6, 2012 10:30 AM (1 hour ago)

i don't think this is true at all. he's talking about a gap of some 50 years between the publishing of foundational texts and their having any impact on french intellectual life (for instance, being published in french). structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, etc. all had a fairly rapid and substantial impact on anglo-saxon thought. i'm under the impression that important texts were translated fairly quickly.

del otm about the short form. third worlders can't handle french-style irrationality.

structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, etc. all had a fairly rapid and substantial impact on anglo-saxon thought

and a disastrous impact on English prose

There's a definite theatricality in the writing of the usual French po-mo suspects, a delight in a sort of conceptual and verbal wizardry. But I find it hard to swallow the notion that Foucault, say, or Badiou (or Bourdieu! -- but something tells me Chomsky would say he gets a pass), have bewitched Third World intellectuals and made them abandon the popular struggle. TBH I find it laughable.

I generally respect Chomsky but these feel to me like lazy, half-baked, curmudgeonly "notions" -- and by the way, they are just a variant of the standard, facile charge levied at the French theorists ("irrational", "nihilistic", etc.).

(and sometimes leveled, duh)

And by the way I don't see disciples of A.J. Ayer storming the barricades either.

contenderizer: I think post-modernism in English-speaking nations is often discussed in exactly the kind of way Chomsky does, as a straw man rather than serious thought or as a challenge to ideas about the Enlightenment, power, language, narrative etc. In this sense, I think it arguably has had as little intellectual effect as logical positivism had in France (though TBH I don't even know if that's true anyway- anyone?).

really? cuz i feel i hear a LOT of english-speaking philosophy people talking seriously about challenging power, language, narrative, etc.

The Flaming Maoists is an excellent name for a band.
hahaa totally had this same thought!

ugh
also had this thought

chomsky and his ilk are seriously in thrall to a mode of cultural critique that "postmodernism" (which isn't really a term i find all that useful except as the idea for taking modernity seriously rather than remain nostalgic for the foundationalist critiques or "unveilings" that remains Chomsky et al's stock-in-trade) has abandoned as an irredeemable flawed project.

believe it or not the "postmoderns" are on the side of philosophy as philosophy, and the necessity and utility of that as a form of rigorous and relentless questioning. that doesn't forestall action or induce apathy, quite the contrary.

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i really don't get his attachment to the idea that postmodern critical theory is irrational.. i mean it's been awhile but most of the writers who come to mind - jameson, butler, barthes - to name a divergent trio - have a pretty good "grasp on reality"

well, i suspect that it's a forest vs. trees objection. dependent on the idea that intelligent people can use their rational faculties to rational or irrational ends, and doing the latter well often gives useless nonsense the veneer of reasonable thought. chomsky seems to view much of what passes for postmodern philosophy and theory - especially where class struggle is concerned - as a form of self-amusement with little practical value.