On Wednesday, June 19, 2002, at 12:44 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>>
>> actually, i think it's more cynicism than "postmodern relativism"
>> (i've never understood exactly what that is, anyway, speaking of straw
>> men)
>
> "There's no such thing as value - there's only supply and demand."
> - chief investment officer of a large insurance company, circa 1988
do you think that's actually an expression of something postmodern?
well, it seems in any event a good example of something jameson would identify as an example of postmodernism, and arguably about something you could call postmodern relativism. but insofar as i've ever understood the phrase, i've always understood it as applying--or perhaps rather, *seen* it applied--more to jameson, for example, than to any of the phenomena about which he writes. moreover, insofar as many see the resurgence of fundamentalisms as precisely a postmodern phenomenon, that would belie the broad brushstroke of "postmodern relativism."
j