Whatever other -isms they believe, most professors believe in postmodernism. My definition of that term is: "The belief that there is no absolute Truth, there are only 'truths' that are constructed in our minds. Dialogue is, therefore, not a tool that can be used to discover Truth, but merely a word-game that people use to construct 'reality' in their minds."
That isn't an exhaustive definition of postmodernism, but I think that's a fair summary. Where does this idea come from? I'm sure Beregond can give us its supple, nuanced intellectual history, beginning with Decartes' revolutionary idea that knowledge begins with one's intellect and not the senses, and extending through his (Beregond's) bete noir, Immanuel Kant.
However, I am not an intellectual, and although I do not doubt the role of ideas in the formation of the postmodern critique (for it is surely not a philosophy), often I look to more concrete things when I ask why someone thinks a particular way. I submit that one of the reasons is the university library.
Not just the library, to be sure -- there is also the Registrar's office, the deans, the Faculty Senate, and all the other little rule-making and -enforcing entities on campus. But the library is the entity I am mad at tonight, so the library will be my example.
You may know, if you've read Catholic Light before, that I'm finishing my M.A. thesis project (Open Source Shakespeare). To accompany the site, I am writing a substantial paper, and so I have checked out books from the library. Tonight, I realized that 13 of them are overdue, and I owe the library $32.50.
I figured I'd pay the fine and renew the books. Not so fast! the library Web site said. There is a hold on my library privileges. I called the library, where a recording told me that I would have to bring in the books before I could renew or check out books.
"That's got to be a mistake," I thought. "I'm done with classes, and I'm rarely on campus. Surely they aren't going to make me physically go to the circulation desk."
I called the circulation desk. A nice young lady confirmed that yes, indeed, I would have to drag 13 books halfway across the county in order to get my records cleaned up.
"Is this some kind of collegiate hazing?" I asked. She didn't get the joke. "Let me get this straight: if I come in, I can renew the books, right?"
"Yes, absolutely. Come to the desk, and we'll check them in, and check them back out to you," she explained.
"And why can't we do that over the phone?"
"They have to be checked back in, because they're late."
"I know they're late, and I'll pay the fine. I have no problem with that. But I'd rather not have to make a 40-mile round trip just to renew some books."
"Hold on for a moment, please." Sound of a brief, muffled conversation. "Yeah, my supervisor says you have to come in person. Otherwise, we'd have to do an override."
I thanked her and hung up, without asking the obvious question: what's bad about giving me an "override"? Would it disturb the balance of the universe if they simply said, "Yes, Eric, you can keep the books you need. Don't worry about using your vacation time at work, or leaving your family for most of an evening. We'll renew the books and you can pay the fine the next time you're on campus"?
Nobody else has requested any of the overdue books. I'll pay the fine, or else they won't give me a diploma. Either this is a petty punishment for forgetting the due date, or it's a dumb rule that nobody has thought about but must be followed unquestioningly.
Library book regulations are a small thing, to be sure. But they are part of the web of intricate, arbitrary rules that make up the modern university. Other American institutions (except governments) actively try to make things easier on the people they serve. Not universities, which are run like medieval fiefdoms, complete with their own legal systems.
It's unsurprising that academic professionals — who know no other life, having spent their adult years in this milieu — would think that Truth is a construct and words are weapons used to advance one's personal will. That is precisely what their workplace teaches them.
Other American institutions (except governments) actively try to make things easier on the people they serve.
Isn't your college a state college? If so, your college is the government. There'd be cause for concern if it didn't have stupid little rules that make you want to pull your hair out.
Isn't this standard procedure for libraries? I figured they wanted you to bring the books in just to confirm that you had not lost them.
Yes, it's a state school, but from my friends that went to private schools, I know that "the rules" can be just as inflexible.
If I had lost the books, they'd charge me for them before I applied for graduation. Had I renewed them on August 27, they wouldn't check to see if I had lost them -- it's only because I should have returned them several days ago. I don't see how that would increase the likelihood of loss.
Well gee I can hear, from elsewhere in St. Blogs, post-modernism blamed not merely for having such a one-dimensional standard of "power=reality" that the rules define the world, but I can also hear post-modernism blamed for mindless consequentialism -- any-end-justifies-every-means with no regard for supposedly-universal rules and all of that.
Sorry to snap, Eric, but the academic life is not the only context where there might be existential resonance to "power=truth" (but is there anyone who actually *believes* that, in the fullest sense). Nor is post-modernism (or modern philosophy) guilty of half the sins it's blamed for. Not that "half the sins" isn't still a whole lot -- but the anti-intellectualism of the pre-mo right is barely more attractive than the anti-intellectualism of the po-mo left.
Stoicism was called "the philosophy of the porch" in ancient Greece, referring to where its adherents held discussions. Today postmodernism is "the philosophy of the circulation desk," referring to where it is inflicted upon patrons.
Just kidding...thanks Eric for the kind words. Neither you nor Paige should have to drag your three kids (who can't just be put on "pause" for two hours) all the way to GMU so you can renew books, when the function could easily be done over the phone. If you're a student in good standing, it seems to me unjustified.
The postmodernist or hermeneuticist school of thought emerged out of existentialism. The French scholar Jean Grondin has argued, correctly I think, that postmodernism/ hermeneuticism takes "defense against unprovable truth claims," as its purpose. "Every statement is already an interpretation," the basic hermeneuticist presupposition goes.
But I think another of Grondin's points is the real issue: this school takes suffering as the basic datum of human existence. Not happiness, or beatitude, or self-emptying; but that people suffer and inflict suffering upon each other. Because postmodernists have rejected the philosophical facts that a) there is objective truth, and b) that things have immaterial natures accessible to the human intellect, they conclude that we don't really know things outside of ourselves.
In this worldview, we just know our own pain--and that others can inflict pain upon us, sometimes in the name of metaphysical truth claims.
Which is a rather bleak worldview, and thankfully a false one. But if you reject the fact that the human being can know metaphysical reality outside of oneself, you're left with your interiority, and no coherent understanding of the world by which to evaluate it.
You must be going to a podunk school. At my alma mater, The University Of Arizona(R), grad students can check books out for a year! AND you can renew them over the internet.
Ah, Gordon. Ever the soul of tact.
40 miles round trip? I guess Texas really is big - that's considered a lunch rendezvous (or randdaysvooz, in Texan).