David_Gerard comments on A Kick in the Rationals: What hurts you in your LessWrong Parts? - Less Wrong
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It's a reasonable question. First, I think that the linked example is not the best of post-modern thought.
More importantly, a lot of post-modern thought is co-opted and the label is forcibly excised. Here are some examples of what I think are good post-modern ideas.
There was a tendency for colonist-era Europeans to ascribe exotic virtues to Near and Far Easterners that had little relationship to the values of those communities. Orientalism is a discussion of this dynamic related to Near Eastern culture. I don't think the dynamic can be well explained by reference to in-group/out-group, but post-modernism does a good job, in my view. Consider also the phenomena of the Magical Negro (warning: TVtropes)
Death of the Author (TVtropes), the view that the author's opinions do not control a work's interpretations, is also heavily influenced by post-modern thought (or so I understand - I'm not very interested in most lit crit of any flavor)
The slogan "The personal is political" is insightful because it highlights that "political" (i.e. partisan electioneering) is not really a natural kind in political-theory conceptspace. Issues of personal identity are just as mindkilling, for essentially the same reasons. Also, post-modern theory helps explain why the legal distinction between public action and private action is not well defined in practice.
Also, post-modernism is often intentionally filled with hyperbole. For example, I'm persuaded that Nietzsche was not anti-semetic or fascist, but reading Geneology of Morals literally can easily leave that impression. There are reasonable methodological arguments about whether hyperbole is a good idea, but post-modernism is usually on the side of more hyperbole (in part because colloquial usage often does not encompass a natural kind).
Finally, post-modernism is closely clustered with anti-capitalism and anti-empiricism. I can't defend this association, but it exists. I think much of the perceived poor quality of post-modern thought is really disagreement with those other positions. I don't think those positions are an essential part of post-modern thought - for example, I think Foucault is trying to be a high quality historian. If I were persuaded that his history was bad, that would necessarily cast doubt on his conclusions from the historical evidence.
Thank you for this.
It's funny you should mention Death of the Author. I have another friend whose academic background is in literature, and he rants to the point of blind fury about how ridiculous a notion it is. I showed him the above link to get his opinion, and his most pointed comment was how the author's emphasis on academia, student debt and being forced to work menial academic positions was not a shining indictment of Roland Barthes.
Barthes is good, comprehensible and generally on the ball. He's actually not a waste of your life to read. Start with Mythologies like everyone does. (No-one who lives on the internet would find it radical these days, but it certainly was when it was published.)