Postmodernism & the Englightenment (was Re: Religion and schools: a query)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>From James Farmelant to Gordon:
>Well,  the fundamentalist may not wish to publicly acknowledge
>that they are standing with you but if spend any time reading
>creationist literature especially the stuff that argues that
>creation and evolution both represent two equally legitimate
>scientific theories, it soon becomes evident that these creationists
>subscribe to an epistemology that is closely akin to that of
>the pomos.  When you start seeing creationist authors quoting
>favorably from Thomas Kuhn or even from Feyerabend, you
>know that the gap between the creationists and the pomos
>is not all that wide at all (BTW Feyerabend was known to
>make statements that were sympathetic towards the
>creationists' cause).
>
>As long as we are on the subject of the relations between
>religious fundamentalisms and pomo, it is interesting to note
>as Meera Nanda has pointed out in India, pomo which was
>originially introduced there by leftist intellectuals has been
>taken up with some enthusiasm by right-wing Hindu nationalists,
>who have found it a useful tool for bashing Enlightenment ideas
>as being "colonialist".
<snip>
>>On the contrary, there is no way of proving that what we
>>apprehend as physical reality is "real."  The issue has been
>>in play for several millennia and I doubt its resolution any
>>time soon.  Phenomena, yes -- we know about them.  Surely
>>the _Ding_an_sich_ is still behind the veil, or if someone
>>has brought it forth, I have not heard the news.
>
>In other words, metaphysical idealism is to be used as a
>rationale for not teaching schoolkids basic scientific
>concepts (after all they only apply in the phenomenal
>realm not in the noumenal realm).  No doubt such a view
>would prove useful to those who want biblical revelation
>taught in the schools as TRUTH.

I agree with you on the last part of my citation of your post, so I think
that it is not quite accurate to say that postmodernism is
"anti-Enlightenment" in substance, for all their anti-Enlightenment
rhetoric.  It may be closer to the truth to say that postmodernists are
generally neo-Kantian in epistemology and left-Hegelian in their idealist
use of dialectics.  Cultural relativism and primitivism of the sort we see
in postmodernism can be also traced back, for instance, to some writings by
Voltaire and Denis Diderot (and I note here that Voltaire and Diderot made
a progressive anti-racist use of such tactics, when judged by the standards
of their times).  In other words, postmodernists make use of some strands
of the Enlightenment philosophy (which was a quite complex affair, as you
know well) against other strands of it.  The same can be said about
Marxism; it's just that we learned a better lesson from the Enlightenment!

As Carrol said, I think that radical nominalism is sometimes useful if used
consciously only as a rhetorical tool, for instance, when you are putting
down moralism, but if adhered to as an article of faith (as postmodernists
do), it basically undermines the possibility of science and progressive
accumulation of knowledge.

That said, I agree with you also that postmodernism may very well
legitimate a reactionary politics as well.  Meera Nanda's article in
Monthly Review is a must read.  I also recommend her "'History Is What
Hurts': A Materialist Feminist Perspective on the Green Revolution and Its
Ecofeminist Critics," _Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference,
and Women's Lives_ (Eds. Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, NY:
Routledge, 1997).

Yoshie