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Stingray comments on Open thread 7th september - 13th september - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Elo 06 September 2015 10:27PM

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Comment author: ike 07 September 2015 04:14:20AM 3 points [-]

(Reposted from the previous OT)

One of my professors claimed that postmodernism, and particularly its concept of "no objective truth", is responsible for much of the recent liberalism of society, through the idea of "live and let live". (Specific examples given were attitudes towards legalization of gay marriage and drugs.) I pointed out that libertarianism and liberalism predated postmodernism historically, and they said that that's true, but you can still trace the popularity back to postmodernism.

Is this historically accurate? If not, is there something I can point to that would convince them? It seems to me that the shift in society is much more a shift on the object level questions than on the meta level "should we ban things we disagree with", but I don't know very much recent history of philosophy (it isn't strictly their field either, so I'm justified in not taking them at face value).

Comment author: Stingray 07 September 2015 05:50:20PM *  1 point [-]

Widespread popularity of drugs predates WWI, let alone postmodernism, which became popular (outside architecture) only after 1960s (mostly in 1970s).

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 07 September 2015 06:22:49PM 6 points [-]

Widespread popularity of drugs predates WWI

Yes, and at the time the social response to this was too ban them.

Comment author: ike 07 September 2015 06:41:12PM 0 points [-]

He said that polls show the younger someone is, the more likely they are to support legalization, and this appears to be true. You can't explain that with anything going back to 1910.

Comment author: Stingray 07 September 2015 07:12:40PM *  1 point [-]

I think that it is likely that pre-WWI drug usage levels survived during 1920s-1940s in certain subcultures, such as. jazz scene, who influenced beatniks, who, among others, were among those who formed the zeitgeist of 1960s and drug culture. Up until that point, postmodernists cannot be said to have any influence, because most works of philosophers most often associated with postmodernism (Baudrillard, Lyotard, Derrida)came only in late 1960s and 1970s. Many 1960s hippies became influential members of society, university professors, and I think that was what gradually pushed drugs into mainstream. Can we call them postmodernists? Well, some of them probably were, but was it a significant number? I'd say that people like Timothy Leary were much more important than Jacques Derrida

Edit: and I think that popularity of drugs among rockstars must have influenced young people as well.

Comment author: ike 07 September 2015 07:43:57PM 0 points [-]

What post-dictions does this make?

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