[ExI] REVOLUTION NOW! all-thing.org

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Wed Nov 9 18:06:09 UTC 2011


2011/11/9 Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc>

> **
> I never equated capitalism with postmodernism. Postmodernists seem to be,
> for the most part, opposed to the Enlightenment, scientific realism, and
> universal truths.
>

I have my own doubts that in order to do technoscience or be a staunch
supporter thereof one really needs to adhere acritically to any of those
narratives...

I think however that the "tout se vaut" attitude of some postmodernists
derives from an *insufficiently radical* form of relativism, which does not
realise that positing a value equivalence of different epistemological or
axiological views implies that some objective common meter to measure them
would exist.

Full-fledged relativism, OTOH, is well aware that since even critical
theorists are not a disembodied entities they ultimately have to adhere to
one worldview or another, and base their value or epistemological judgments
on it, the main difference with naive objectivism being that its being
theirs does not really require that it be "superior" in any absolute sense.

I think that this stance allows one to be both to support unashamedly one's
ideas, *and* to avoid considering all those who do not share them as
idiots, "sinners", or just "primitives". Especially given that, at least in
my reality, Darwinist mechanisms are at work amongst worldviews, so that at
least the worst and most obstinate forms of collective hallucinations tend
to have rather short historical lifespans.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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