These are public posts tagged with #postmodern. You can interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
When the value of science, the humanities, and legal precedent all collapse, cuz nobody believes in anything anymore, we’ve gone fully medieval post-modern.
You NEVER go the full medieval post-modern.
#science #humanities #law #medieval #postmodern #history #futurism
The opening moment of the workshop on Methodological Strategies for Real-Life Theorising was unintentionally profound. A story of a seagull crieing above the glass façade of the Blavatnik School of Government – a building that stands as a temple to the #deathcult of the last 40 years of #neoliberal culture. In hindsight, that seagull metaphor may have been the wisest participant at the event.
The sessions that followed offered a painful reminder of just how entrenched and constipated academic political theory can be. Many of the speakers, well-meaning, no doubt, spoke in dense, self-referential language, seemingly unaware (or uninterested) in the world burning outside. We are living through accelerating #climatechaos, surging right-wing extremism, and widespread social fragmentation. Yet here, the main concern is career-building through opaque frameworks and method fetishism. One can’t help but wonder how many in the room truly believe they are doing good?
The crisis is deeper than any single workshop. The very career paths that brought these scholars here have been shaped, filtered, and “concreted” by 30 years of neoliberal funding models. The result is a form of political theorising that appears to want to find a way out, but only by squeezing itself through the tightest gaps in the #postmodern mess. And even then, only while clutching tightly to the privileges and assumptions granted by the current paths.
Constipated Language, Abstract Struggles
Throughout the first sessions, there was a recurring sense of people talking to themselves. Even the attempts to make theory “concrete” – to move into empirical territory – felt more like power grabs than inquiry. There was talk of “transient theory,” of “mid-level normative frameworks,” of “ethnographic insights”, but very little clarity on what any of this meant in real practical or political terms.
Instead of confronting the deeply ideological assumptions embedded in liberal academia, the speakers soft-stepped around them. One could sense them trying to smuggle ideology back into a discipline that’s been left hollow. The “heroic era of theory” is dead, and what we’re left with is a ritual performance of relevance. At one point, the liberal impulse to block discomforting inputs in public policy was laid bare. This is ethics as insulation, not action. There was repeated deference to “existing norms and frameworks,” – the very architecture of the #deathcult, now warmed up and served again as policy advice.
The Seagull Still Watches
By the end of the day, some fresh air drifted in. A few scraps of cloth were handed out to the otherwise naked theorists. There was genuine engagement with normative complexity. Questions like “what is mutable?” began to shift the conversation. “Engaged political philosophy” and talk of “normative judgments” began to inch the discussion closer to the ground.
The presentation on restitution, for instance, highlighted real political dilemmas. Who decides what gets returned, and why? Is it justice, diplomacy, or geo-political calculation? One question noted that giving back looted objects is not just about ethics, it’s about giving back the values they represent. But this was quickly hedged with talk of “choice.” Liberal hedging again. No one wanted to say: yes, do it, without compromise.
Even here, markets remained the baseline. The dominant “common sense” is still economic flow. Value is defined by trade, not meaning. Discrimination itself can to easily be reframed as a market distortion, another cost to be corrected, not a systemic condition to be fought. The anti-market perspective, grounded in actual social justice, in living memory, in reparative truth, is invisible to meany people until it becomes a threat. At that point, the strategy shifts to distraction and buying off. That’s the logic of #neoliberal containment.
From Political Theory to Political Theater
What we witnessed was not just a methodological workshop, but a staged performance of institutional survival. Theories were dressed up, displayed, but never walked out into the street. Real political agency remained absent. The political philosopher, once imagined as a public actor, now hides behind peer-reviewed paywalls, while the world asks different questions entirely.
Still, by the end, perhaps there were reasons for the seagull to hold off its stone throwing – for a while. A few voices showed signs of life. A few questions struck true. But it will take more than scraps of normative cloth to cover the nakedness of political philosophy today.
The seagull will be watching.
The event: Many political philosophers theorise not only for the sake of pure theory, but also because they want to convince citizens and policymakers to bring about changes in the real world.
Such policy-oriented research often draws on interdisciplinary methods, integrating empirical insights and normative and conceptual arguments. This, however, raises methodological challenges of its own. For example, how to deal with the fact that the social sciences are fragmented and different disciplines work with different paradigms and methodologies? How can philosophers, who bring their own normative assumptions openly to the table, deal with the – sometimes implicit – normativity that is also inherent in many other lines of research? What level of abstraction of normative arguments, eg basic normative theories or mid-level overlapping principles, should philosophers draw on when discussing with policymakers? And how to deal with the fact that in the current political climate in many countries, distrust towards “experts” also extends to philosophers?
Workshop agenda
Day 1: Thursday 24 April 2025
Methodological Strategies for real-life theorising
Chair: Jonathan Wolff, Blavatinik School of Government
Liron Lavi, Bar-Ilan University and Nahshon Perez, Bar-Ilan University: Conceptual Concretization in Empirically Informed Political Theory: What Makes a Concept ApplicableCarmen E Pavel, King’s College London: Mid-Level Theories of Justice and Public PolicyKian Mintz Woo, University College, Cork: Explicit Methodologies for Normative Evaluation in Public Policy
Theorising between values and cases
Chair: Daniel Halliday, University of Melbourne
Rouven Symank, Free University, Berlin: Integrating Ethnography with Political Theory in Policy-Oriented Research: Challenges and Insights from Cultural Restitution DebatesFlorence Adams, University of Cambridge: Discrimination as an Object of Social ScienceErika Brandl, University of Bergen: Measuring the justice of architectural development policies:debates on temporal scopes and indicators in the Hillevåg plan
My notes on this event:
The seagull is perhaps a good metaphor for nature fighting back against the last 40 years of human #deathcult culture that this building is temple of.
The language is constipated, a growing feeling that these people are pissing funding and focus against the wall while the world burns from #climatechaos and hard right social breakdown.
I wonder how many people here think they are doing good?
The problem on this career path is that it has been shaped by #neoliberalism for the last 20 years, funding and status have both been ground through this mess, and now reflect it.
After the first session I feel they are trying to squeeze themself out of this post modernist mess. By going back to basics, but it’s so constipated it’s hard to see if there is any value in this.
Looking at them talk and answer questions, you can feel them being lost. It still feels like they are talking to themselves.
A power grab, by making theory concrete, to build empirical research. They dodge this by saying the theory is transient.
If this is a bios? They fix this by making the bios visible. They find this question hard to answer as its a root issue.
They are “soft” sneaking ideology back into the current dead Political Science and theory world they work in.
The heroic era of theory is challenged for making public policy. They argue that we should start from the existing norms and frameworks. This from the #deathcult we get wormed up #deathcult worship as policy. Mess. Of course liberal rights have priority in the end, “we must also include institutional facts”.
The seagulls at the start of this event might be the wisest one here. The rest have no cloths, and the language is so constipated that the smell is likely off putting for any real outreach that they need in the scrabbling for coverings to continue their careers.
The liberals start to talk about #blocking the inputs that make them uncomfortable. In ethical public policy making.
From a working insider view, the people doing this don’t have the skills or knowledge if we focus on philosophy and theory only.
Good question, what is given, what is mutable is very mutable. So the Liberal “common sense” is likely a strong #blocking on the path of the change we need.
“Engaged political philosophy” “normative judgments” as we go on they start to be more relevant. “where there is convergence and divergence”
The event starts naked and smelly but as it goes on the air clears at times and some scraps of cloth are provided.
Relevant information that is easily excessable,
The power in a committee is the appointment of the people sitting on the committee rather than the committee process it self. The answer to this is hesitant and bluff, and distaste to cover this.
A chair or witness roll is different in committees.
Why restitution, why now.
Liberal
Justice
Reperatition is politics, not just ethical, geo politics and funding, based on former colonist will, is a tool for “ethical diplomacy”
Can any of these be seen as a reason not to do it. Don’t have an answer. Normative lessons.
When we give back objects that we value from our looting, we are giving back our values. We still chose.
My parents work is displayed in our #mainstreaming institutions, but these institutions are not interested in the objects, as they do not fit into there existing story’s and category. Subject archives will take them. But this is still shaping history.
Markets as the dominant “common sense” everything is economic flows. Value is defined by this.
Discrimination is contested with the hard shift to the right #DUI
Distortion in the market, function efficiently.
Discrimination is about greed, American greed, a moral dilemma. Liberal but not to liberal. Talk about the market path, let the market do its thing.
Markets aligned characteristics, money the logic of the #deathcult
As my work is anti market they can’t see any value, so put no resources and focus on the path in till it becomes a threat then distraction and buying off become the difficult paths.
Trump now is turning this neoliberalism around as discrimination. What is this, discrimination against nation states, rather than economics/market.
At the end the might be reasons for the seagull to hold off the stone throwing for a while.
The Blavatnik School of Government is closed for almost…
BBC NewsPostmodern geometry meets postal bureaucracy.
ポストモダンな形状と郵便業務が交差する場所
#streetphotography #nagoya #japan #ricohgr #ricohgr3 #griiix #postmodern
The Timeless Magic of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities at 50
https://lithub.com/the-timeless-magic-of-italo-calvinos-invisible-cities-at-50/
Chesterland, Ohio, 1979 I’m six years old and watching…
Literary HubFramed by sculptural concrete brackets, the whole structure reaches skyward with the kind of confidence only money and glossy optimism could buy.
予算は気にしない、合理性もほどほどに。高く、美しく、ちょっと過剰。
#streetphotography #monochrome #nagoya #japan #ricohgr #ricohgr3 #griiix #postmodern
Signal-to-noise is a hard conversation to have. In our #postmodern world, the very idea of common agreement on what constitutes signal or noise feels elusive, even when it’s often obvious to the community.
The undermining of shared narratives fractured our sense of collective reality. In the absence of common ground, every perspective risks becoming its own echo chamber, amplifying what it values as signal while dismissing conflicting views as noise. This dynamic plays out in countless social and political spaces, shaping how movements grow or fracture.
Take the #climatecrisis: for decades, scientists have raised alarms, presenting real evidence of human-driven climate change. To the scientific community, this is pure signal — an urgent call to action. Yet, in the polluted information ecosystem of #dotcons social media, this signal is drowned out by noise: conspiracy theories, corporate disinformation, and nihilistic fatalism. The noise isn’t random; it’s cultivated to create doubt, intentionally distorting the clarity of the signal.
In activist communities, the tension between signal and noise surfaces as the #fluffy vs #spiky debate. The push for kindness and inclusivity (#fluffy) is valuable, but when weaponized to silence critique and #block hard conversations, it becomes noise that stifles necessary friction. Conversely, sharp, uncompromising confrontation (#spiky) can cut through noise to deliver a clear message, but this is too easy to #block, by “common sense” dogmatism and can also all too easily tip into performative aggression and endless infighting, it drowns the original signal in static.
The same dynamic unfolds in the political sphere. Movements like Black Lives Matter or Palestinian solidarity campaigns face relentless attempts to distort their message. The core signal, calls for justice, equality, and liberation, gets obscured by deliberate noise: fearmongering narratives, tokenizing gestures from corporations, or bad-faith actors hijacking discussions to sow division.
Yet, communities often have an intuitive sense of what is and isn’t noise. They might not always agree on the edges, but collective experience and shared values act as a compass. The challenge lies in cultivating enough trust to navigate that together, to hold space for disagreement without succumbing to the paralysis of endless debate or the allure of easy scapegoats.
In the end, the conversation itself is part of the signal. The flows of discussion, the messiness of negotiating meaning, and the work of collective sense-making, all of this generates the compost from which new understandings can grow. But that only works if we resist the temptation to #block, dismiss, or isolate ourselves entirely.
The goal isn’t to eliminate noise (an impossible task) but to build resilient communities that can amplify signal through the static. Because in a world where everything is contested, the most powerful act is to keep listening, keep speaking, and keep tending the roots of shared meaning.
@jeffjarvis Yes. This is the #postmodern nazism: Just claim that you are not a nazi while being a nazi. What’s real, anyway?
“Illuminated by lightning flashes of descriptive brilliance, Brown’s prose evokes melodrama, Greek tragedy and postmodern alienation…”
You can download a free ebook edition of THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS from @gutenberg_org
5/5
Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by…
Project GutenbergLocation & dis-location in George Douglas Brown’s THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
Benjamine Toussaint, Études anglaises 70/4, 2017
4/5
https://shs.cairn.info/article/E_ETAN_704_0429?lang=en&ID_ARTICLE=E_ETAN_704_0429
“To pick up a pen is to place oneself outside the community in the act of being self-conscious about it. As Burns discovered, it is not really possible to write about community and remain uncompromised within it.”
—read Dorothy McMillan’s essay “Rural Realism”, on George Douglas Brown’s THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
3/5
What follows is the text of the McNeillie Lecture,…
The Bottle Imp“I remember the first novel in English I read through was a Scottish novel called THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS. […] When I read that, I wanted to be Scotch.”
—Jorge Luis Borges, interviewed by the Paris Review in July 1966
2/5
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4331/the-art-of-fiction-no-39-jorge-luis-borges
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #modernism #postmodern #Borges #JoseLuisBorges
Jorge Luis Borges. Photographer unknown. This…
www.theparisreview.orgGeorge Douglas Brown (1869–1902) was born #OTD, 26 Jan – best known for his 1901 novel THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
“…the TRAINSPOTTING of its day… an angry young man’s response to the misrepresentation of contemporary Scottish life and the industrial and spiritual changes taking place”
A
1/5
https://list.co.uk/news/39535/george-douglas-brown-the-house-with-the-green-shutters-1901
Remember folks, this is not the fascism of your great grandfather, this #postmodern #fascism
Denial of doing fascism while letting you know and rubbing it in your face is integral. Trolling and manufacturing reality in a way which is designed to trap you while trying to dispute their camoflage is by design.
Projection of power & total domination of the script has not changed though. Neither has the victimhood rhetoric.
This is a watershed moment. The apologists are clear, like in the 1930’s.
@SnowshadowII A liar need not be considerate of the truth
It’s going to the same direction as Trumpian politics: You know it’s not real, but it’s so enjoyably pushing all the buttons you want to be pushed (racism, homophobia, whatever your poison), and because ”it’s not real” it’s not harmful those buttons get pushed, so you go along and even pay money for it
The #postmodern nightmare society is here: First it’s all a WWF wrestling show, eveywhere. But you can’t tell where it ends!
One word #kayfabe : Acknowledging the staged, scripted nature of (US) professional #wrestling
This is what unlocks the Trump presidencies: His relationship with the audience that acknowledges kayfabe, and are now enjoying the show in #uspolitics
This #audience is not moved by ”Trump is a threat” or ”Trump is evil”, that just means the kayfabe is working
The script can be flipped, realities rolled-in at any time to become a part of it. The most #postmodern show
1/2
Conspirituality · Episode
SpotifyYou do realise that ideologies are not a hard object, they are a way of understanding the world. So when you say you don't believe in ideology, then you are saying you don't believe in understanding the world. This is the normal #mainstreaming #postmodern head down worshipping of the #deathcult, in no way radical or alternative, rather the mess we need to compost #KISS
Do you have a shovel #OMN
Why the western world is falling for lies right now, is because we don’t know our #postmodern theory.
If we did, we would have understood politics is about narrative, not facts.
We would have understood our own privileged position thinking politics is about that.
We would have understood limited choices of the poor or poorly educated make them appear stupid from the point of view of the more privileged.
This is also woke. Apply it to yourself. The #altright sure does!
Es war für mich heute eine sehr beindruckende Vorstellung: Lucinda Childs Dance Company "Dance".
Eigentlich 3 alte Stücke heute in einer Überlagerung der originalen SW-Filme aus den frühen 70er Jahren mit synchronen Lifetänzer:innen auf der großen Bühne des Haus der Berliner Festpiele. Auch die Lifeperformance wirkte durch eine Gaze wie ein Film und es war ein spannendes Spiel mit Maßstäben zwischen den Originalfilmaufnahmen und dem Tanz im Jetzt, die sich fließend durchmischten. Dazu die treibende repetitive Musik von Philip Glass, die das Publikum wie in Trance eines LSD-Trips aus der Zeit des Entstehens brachte.
Ich war erstaunt, wie gut Film und #Tanz hier zusammengingen. Am Sa. will ich zu einer weiteren Aufführung dieser Ikone des #postmodern #dance gehen, wo die 84jährige selber tanzen wird. Ich freue mich sehr, denn due heutige #Performance machte Lust auf mehr.
@fediarts
When a postmodern right meets a postmodern left, everything falls apart. This is why we urgently need #metamodern reconstruction after #postmodern deconstruction.
For decades, liberals have hoped for the de-Christianization…
jacobin.com