In his book Explaining Postmodernism, Stephen Hicks shows the consequences of ideas that have lead toward the postmodernist leitmotiv 'anything goes', which followed the deconstruction of reason, truth, and the destruction of correspondence between thought and reality. The most extreme ideas that were introduced during these historical processes has been carried through generations as a kind of utopian ideal political system that has to be implemented into reality whatever it takes. When socialistic revolutions failed to build that kind of society, the philosophical means were even more separated from the humanistic way of perceiving the world so ethical standards were changed together with the epistemology.
The perspective of humanism thus became more and more upside down. Instead of heading from the eye to the world with the confidence of a human being, built on the knowledge about human evolution and adaptation, this perspective became pointed more and more toward the eye as a question about human sense(s), as a threat and as a way of throwing dust into our eyes.
Aim of this project is to discuss questions about this way of reading the historical processes and, of course, about the influences to the art. Philosophical perspective, which was conceived as a program for better understand the world on the basis of measurement, logic, argumentation, and dialogue, was increasingly narrowed in the last period of modernity. This aspect especially anticipated deconstruction and breaking of all forms of certainty that have been established by humanists with the great effort and with the incredible sense of reason. The narrowest part of the humanistic perspective as symbolic form was (de)constructed by anti-humanistic program of postmodernism. And this program ran into the point, in which deconstruction of language and logic was carried out into the destruction of civilizational commitments and potentials.
One of the last living, late-postmodern 'thinkers' is the Slovenian anti-humanist Slavoj Žižek, whose portrait in nanoscale is the last in the series of portraits made for this project. The portrait of Žižek is the smallest possible artwork if we use DNA as a 'pencil' - so we cannot see it with our bare eyes or even with an optical microscope, because it is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. This portrait is a symbol of the vanishing point of postmodern perspective that has met its end. The possibilities for a new humanistic perspective could be opened only if we recognize this last part of the perspective as the end point and as a kind of lens - not only because it is transparent by itself, but because it is clear that in this very point we meet the end of the old path.
The perspective of humanism thus became more and more upside down. Instead of heading from the eye to the world with the confidence of a human being, built on the knowledge about human evolution and adaptation, this perspective became pointed more and more toward the eye as a question about human sense(s), as a threat and as a way of throwing dust into our eyes.
Aim of this project is to discuss questions about this way of reading the historical processes and, of course, about the influences to the art. Philosophical perspective, which was conceived as a program for better understand the world on the basis of measurement, logic, argumentation, and dialogue, was increasingly narrowed in the last period of modernity. This aspect especially anticipated deconstruction and breaking of all forms of certainty that have been established by humanists with the great effort and with the incredible sense of reason. The narrowest part of the humanistic perspective as symbolic form was (de)constructed by anti-humanistic program of postmodernism. And this program ran into the point, in which deconstruction of language and logic was carried out into the destruction of civilizational commitments and potentials.
One of the last living, late-postmodern 'thinkers' is the Slovenian anti-humanist Slavoj Žižek, whose portrait in nanoscale is the last in the series of portraits made for this project. The portrait of Žižek is the smallest possible artwork if we use DNA as a 'pencil' - so we cannot see it with our bare eyes or even with an optical microscope, because it is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. This portrait is a symbol of the vanishing point of postmodern perspective that has met its end. The possibilities for a new humanistic perspective could be opened only if we recognize this last part of the perspective as the end point and as a kind of lens - not only because it is transparent by itself, but because it is clear that in this very point we meet the end of the old path.
Few quotations from the book Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks:
Any intellectual movement is defined by its fundamental philosophical premises. Those premises state what it takes to be real, what it is to be human, what is valuable, and how knowledge is acquired. That is, any intellectual movement has a metaphysics, a conception of human nature and values, and epistemology.
Postmodernism often bills itself as anti-philosophical, by which it means that it rejects many traditional philosophical alternatives. Yet any statement or activity, including the action of writing a postmodern account of anything, presupposes at least an implicit conception of reality and values. And so despite its official distaste for some versions of the abstract, the universal, the fixed, and the precise, postmodernism offers a consistent framework of premises within which to situate our thoughts and actions.
Epistemologically, having rejected the notion of an independently existing reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a means of acquiring linguistic constructs for that reality, postmodernism emphasizes the subjectivity, conventionality, and incommensurability of those constructions. Postmodern accounts of human nature are consistently collectivist, holding that individuals’ identities are constructed largely by the social-linguistic groups that they are a part of, those groups varying radically across the dimensions of sex, race, ethnicity, and wealth. Postmodern accounts of human nature also consistently emphasize relations of conflict between those groups; and given the de-emphasized of eliminated role of reason, postmodern accounts hold that those conflicts are resolved primarily by the use of force, whether masked of naked; the use of force in turn leads to relations of dominance, submission, and oppression. Finally, postmodern themes in ethics and politics are characterized by an identification with and sympathy for the groups, perceived to be oppressed in the conflicts, and a willingness to enter a fray on their behalf.
We thus find in Rousseau an explicitly Counter-Enlightenment set of themes, attacking the Enlightenment’s themes of reason, the arts and sciences, and ethical and political individualism and liberalism. Rousseau was a contemporary of the American revolutionaries of the 1770s, and there is an instructive contrast between the Lockean themes of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in the Americans’ Declaration of Independence and Rousseau’s social contract oath for his projected constitution for Corsica: “I join myself- body, goods, will and all my powers- to the Corsican nation, granting to her the full ownership of my- myself and all that depends upon me”.
Lockean Enlightenment politics and Rousseauian Counter-Enlightenment politics will lead to opposite practical applications.
Postmodernism, Frank Lentricchia explains, seeks not to find the foundation and the conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change.‛ The task of postmodern professors is to help students ‚spot, confront, and work against the political horrors of one’s time‛
Any intellectual movement is defined by its fundamental philosophical premises. Those premises state what it takes to be real, what it is to be human, what is valuable, and how knowledge is acquired. That is, any intellectual movement has a metaphysics, a conception of human nature and values, and epistemology.
Postmodernism often bills itself as anti-philosophical, by which it means that it rejects many traditional philosophical alternatives. Yet any statement or activity, including the action of writing a postmodern account of anything, presupposes at least an implicit conception of reality and values. And so despite its official distaste for some versions of the abstract, the universal, the fixed, and the precise, postmodernism offers a consistent framework of premises within which to situate our thoughts and actions.
Epistemologically, having rejected the notion of an independently existing reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a means of acquiring linguistic constructs for that reality, postmodernism emphasizes the subjectivity, conventionality, and incommensurability of those constructions. Postmodern accounts of human nature are consistently collectivist, holding that individuals’ identities are constructed largely by the social-linguistic groups that they are a part of, those groups varying radically across the dimensions of sex, race, ethnicity, and wealth. Postmodern accounts of human nature also consistently emphasize relations of conflict between those groups; and given the de-emphasized of eliminated role of reason, postmodern accounts hold that those conflicts are resolved primarily by the use of force, whether masked of naked; the use of force in turn leads to relations of dominance, submission, and oppression. Finally, postmodern themes in ethics and politics are characterized by an identification with and sympathy for the groups, perceived to be oppressed in the conflicts, and a willingness to enter a fray on their behalf.
We thus find in Rousseau an explicitly Counter-Enlightenment set of themes, attacking the Enlightenment’s themes of reason, the arts and sciences, and ethical and political individualism and liberalism. Rousseau was a contemporary of the American revolutionaries of the 1770s, and there is an instructive contrast between the Lockean themes of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in the Americans’ Declaration of Independence and Rousseau’s social contract oath for his projected constitution for Corsica: “I join myself- body, goods, will and all my powers- to the Corsican nation, granting to her the full ownership of my- myself and all that depends upon me”.
Lockean Enlightenment politics and Rousseauian Counter-Enlightenment politics will lead to opposite practical applications.
Postmodernism, Frank Lentricchia explains, seeks not to find the foundation and the conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change.‛ The task of postmodern professors is to help students ‚spot, confront, and work against the political horrors of one’s time‛