“Postmodernism” is a famously confusing term, but I am here using it to refer to the position of “you cannot compare goodness across different societal perspectives, you always have to evaluate a moral system from within that society and can’t make comparisons that aggregate across multiple moral perspectives”. This is of course only one of the 15 things that “postmodernism” means, but it’s the one I was referring to here.
The thing you are describing here is more typically called moral and cultural relativism. Cultural relativism in the social sciences largely originates with Franz Boas (pioneer of modern anthropology) in the 19th century; moral relativism in philosophy goes back to antiquity. It is in any event much older than the various movements in 20th-century anthropology, art, and other fields that attracted the “postmodernism” label.
Sure! I think cultural relativism is a major strand of postmodernism, and the “postmodernist” version of it is the one I am interested in responding to and engaging with. I certainly agree that aspect of postmodernism is much older!
This post is in a meaningful sense a defense of modernism, and so it seems natural to engage with postmodernist critiques of it, of which this is one of the standard big ones.
My understanding is that the way these words are used in sociology, anthropology, etc., cultural relativism is very much present in modernism. The thing you are calling “modernism” seems to be something else; something more connected to naïve realism, traditionalism, conservatism, reaction, etc.
I am confused what you mean by “modernism” here? I mean this thing that Wikipedia is talking about:
It is also often perceived, especially in the West, as a socially progressive movement that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge, or technology.[c] From this perspective, modernism encourages the re-examination of every aspect of existence. Modernists analyze topics to find the ones they believe to be holding back progress, replacing them with new ways of reaching the same end.
To be clear, I am maximally sympathetic to all of these words being super vague and abstract and hard to use, so I am very happy to use different words. But I do also find it helpful to have handles for this kind of stuff.
The thing you are describing here is more typically called moral and cultural relativism. Cultural relativism in the social sciences largely originates with Franz Boas (pioneer of modern anthropology) in the 19th century; moral relativism in philosophy goes back to antiquity. It is in any event much older than the various movements in 20th-century anthropology, art, and other fields that attracted the “postmodernism” label.
Sure! I think cultural relativism is a major strand of postmodernism, and the “postmodernist” version of it is the one I am interested in responding to and engaging with. I certainly agree that aspect of postmodernism is much older!
This post is in a meaningful sense a defense of modernism, and so it seems natural to engage with postmodernist critiques of it, of which this is one of the standard big ones.
My understanding is that the way these words are used in sociology, anthropology, etc., cultural relativism is very much present in modernism. The thing you are calling “modernism” seems to be something else; something more connected to naïve realism, traditionalism, conservatism, reaction, etc.
I am confused what you mean by “modernism” here? I mean this thing that Wikipedia is talking about:
To be clear, I am maximally sympathetic to all of these words being super vague and abstract and hard to use, so I am very happy to use different words. But I do also find it helpful to have handles for this kind of stuff.