Postmodern Relativism Research Articles

Conservative Christianity and the Creation of Alternative News: An Analysis of Focus on the Family's Multimedia Empire

AbstractIn this article, I explore how, from 1977 through 2009, the conservative Christian media empire, Focus on the Family, acted as a model for and a creator of alternative news long before the 2016 election. In particular, since 1977, Focus linked proper Christianity with recognition of a world of hazards by defining danger as those people and institutions who refused to submit to God, especially feminists, secular universities, and the welfare state. Through the creation of a closed-media network, Focus taught Christian conservatives to see the mainstream news as undermining biblical Truth by espousing stories that supported postmodern relativism over God's singular truth. Simultaneously, Focus generated its own news sources to fill the vacuum left by the mainstream with stories highlighting the political and social structures needed to support the Focus-defined traditional family. Soon, other conservative media outlets began using these frameworks to attract listeners and to add veracity to their stories. Although mainstream media portrayed Focus as passé by 2009, I argue that the model that Focus developed led seamlessly to the creation of Fox News and, later, to the formation of internet communities around outlets such as Breitbart and to the believability of Russian bots.

Epistemologia do traduzir: normas de uso e sua descrição 'a parte post'

Discutem-se aqui traços fundamentais das condições de possibilidade para ato tradutório, como reflexão teórica de cunho pragmático e perspectivista, entre o essencialismo da tradição e o relativismo pós-moderno. Tais aspectos remetem a uma epistemologia do traduzir tributária, dentre outros, da epistemologia do uso desenvolvida por Arley Moreno a partir da terapia conceitual de Ludwig Wittgenstein e da noção de estilo de Gilles Gaston Granger. A discussão parte do conceito de normas tradutórias de Gideon Toury e duas críticas que lhe foram dirigidas, sob diferentes perspectivas: (1) sociologia da tradução; (2) desconstrução. Pano de fundo argumentativo é o entendimento de que a abordagem de Toury é plenamente compatível com a concepção de linguagem do Wittgenstein tardio, não somente na aplicação da noção wittgensteiniana de semelhanças de família ao campo da tradução, mas também na forma como mobiliza o conceito de norma subjacente ao uso que se quer descrever. Defende-se que as normas tradutórias no sentido de Toury explicitam o caráter a parte post que Granger atribui aos fenômenos do estilo e que Moreno investiga na função transcendental da linguagem. Por fim, sugere-se que os polos adequação vs. aceitabilidade na proposta de Toury revelam dois momentos lógicos no processo tradutório: analogia inicial (entre o que é diferente) e acomodação digital na chegada.

Postmodern thinking and relativism theory in the field of pedagogy

Postmodern thinking and relativism theory in the field of pedagogy

ЭДВАРДИАНСКИЙ КОД В АНГЛИЙСКОЙ ПРОЗЕ ХХI ВЕКА

The article considers the references of modern authors to the traditions of Edwardianism. This period can be characterized as a vibrant cultural era, with writers who were determined to break away from the stifling influence of preceding Victorian literature and provided the cultural foundation for the coming century. The ‘Edwardian code’ fully developed in literature of the interwar decades (1920s–1930s) and revived in the early 21 st century. It includes such elements as the image of the manor house, the motifs of Arts & Crafts movement, the theme of childhood and associated themes of the English fairy tale, which went through its ‘golden age’ in the abovenamed period. The code also comprises motifs of social change and other related issues. All parts of the Edwardian code are found in A. Byatt’s novel Childhood`s Book (2009). The novel covers the period from 1895 to the end of the Great War. It represents a tangle of many fates, each of which is concerned with the conflicts of the era and the general atmosphere of the Edwardian time. The characters are united by the desire to formulate a clear goal of their existence and specific personal qualities determined by the artistry of the era. In the 21st century, the ‘Edwardian code’ is found in non-fiction literature, in TV series and in the aspiration of the national consciousness to the value orientations of Edwardianism. A typical example is J. Nicolson’s The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm (2008). The Perfect Summer chronicles a glorious English summer a century ago, when the world was on the cusp of irrevocable change. Through the tight lens of four months, Juliet Nicolson’s rich storytelling gift rivets us with the sights, colors, and feelings of the bygone era. This book is a vividly rendered glimpse of the twilight of the Edwardian era. The commercial success of the novels with the Edwardian code reflects the interest of the reading public to it. The goal-setting required in this code and its distinct axiology evidence the over­coming of postmodern moral relativism. The author of the paper makes an assumption about the formation of ‘Neo-Edwardianism’ in the modern culture of Great Britain.

Beyond Realism

A complex and controversial novel, Atonement is at the core of a lively critical debate, opposing those who focus on the impossibility of Briony’s atonement – also in relation to the author’s atheist views – to those who conversely explore the redemptive quality of her “postlapsarian” painful self-fashioning. Far from concerning simply the destiny of a literary character, this debate has to do with the impact Postmodernist relativism has on both the conception of the human subject and the discourses of the past, from memory to history and fiction. Discarding any potentially nihilistic interpretations of Atonement as disempowering, this article delves into Ian McEwan’s multi-layered text in order to comprehend its ambivalences, its subtle investigation of the human condition, and its status as a postmemory novel reconnecting us to the events of World War Two.

Resisting Loss: Guilt and Consolation in Ian McEwan's <em>Atonement</em>

Ian McEwan's Atonement re-traces the development of twentieth-century fiction from modernist amorality to postmodern relativism, incorporating their shared acknowledgements of the subjectivity of narrative. However, the novel both draws upon and moves beyond these modes of subjectivity as part of an ethically committed exploration of memory and history. On the one hand, McEwan's writer-figure, Briony, fails to grapple ethically with historical memory, preferring consolation to the real historical record. McEwan's novel itself, in containing Briony's work within a measure of critical distance, does not offer consolation. Rather, it creates an experience in which readers must move beyond Briony's shortcomings and toward a more nuanced acceptance of history's traumas, of the damages of war, and sexual violence: a way to truly do justice to historical memory.

Rhetoric and Economics, Analysis and History

Rhetoric and Economics, Analysis and History

Literature and Truth in Enrique Vila-Matas

A postmodern approach helps the Spanish novelist Enrique Vila-Matas overcome the dichotomy between literature and reality and between desire and facts as the solution is to combine both elements. However, this does not mean he accepts all postmodernist characteristics, as accepting hermeneutic truth allows him to propose an aesthetic and even moral ideal that affirms the existence of a truth and certain values that go beyond absolute postmodern relativism.

Naive and Game in Primitivism as a Strategy for Overcoming Post-Modern Relativism

Naive and Game in Primitivism as a Strategy for Overcoming Post-Modern Relativism

From Radicalism to Perspectivalism: US Feminist History, 1970–2010, and the Example of Linda Gordon

This article examines the scholarship of the women’s historian Linda Gordon and argues that she has developed a sophisticated mode of historical analysis that maintains allegiance to objectivity while supporting her feminist commitment to women’s equality and related democratic goals. Gordon’s perspectivalism can be traced to 1970s socialist feminism and its attempt to mediate criticism of gender relations and criticism of the inequalities of economic class. From dual systems theory came a more deliberate effort in the 1980s to identify and move between several subject positions within the same analytical frame; amid postmodern relativism and poststructuralist linguistic determinism, Gordon stressed the virtues of (a qualified) objectivity, which included an effort to identify one’s own interests and biases while at the same time pursuing instrumental value between historical scholarship and democratic politics. Perspectivalism came into full bloom in Gordon’s two leading books, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (1999) and Dorothea Lange (2010).

Seven salutary warnings for the humanities: a brief glimpse into how the liberal arts have fallen from grace

Uma dizimação das artes liberais está em curso. O estudo das humanidades tem declinado acentuadamente em todo o mundo na última década, e isso vem seguido de uma combinação terrível de crises internas e externas. Por um lado, a queda no financiamento e a ascensão da tecnologia e dos negócios estão desempenhando um papel vital nessa ruína; por outro, a própria alma das artes e dos estudos culturais está cada vez mais distante dos valores centrais do pensamento liberal. Os departamentos de humanas estão sendo invadidos pela cultura da vitimização, modelos pedagógicos disfuncionais e um sério enfraquecimento do bem comum e da liberdade de expressão. Resgatar as humanidades deste atoleiro não é tarefa fácil, mas é algo que precisa ser feito logo, pois a supremacia da ciência e da tecnologia não é uma garantia de direitos naturais a nenhuma nação. Nesse sentido, o objetivo deste ensaio é traçar um breve panorama das principais razões pelas quais as humanidades caíram em desgraça. Olhando especialmente para os fatores internos de autossabotagem, sete alertas saudáveis serão discutidos como incentivos para a tomada de decisões nos departamentos. Sobretudo, não limitar a análise da natureza e dos assuntos humanos ao relativismo epistemológico pós-moderno e às teorias construtivistas radicais já significaria um pequeno avanço. Mas mudanças mais drásticas precisam ser feitas. A área de Humanidades precisa se livrar, entre outras coisas, de sua rigidez institucional e das vicissitudes de ideologias redentoras. Um currículo mais diversificado e um quadro docente mais politicamente equilibrado têm de ser perseguidos. E o método socrático de ensino-aprendizagem poderia funcionar como um antídoto para o mal-estar disciplinar na academia atual.

Hieratismo en movimiento: Rubén Darío, Stéphane Mallarmé y “La página blanca”

Under the drive of postcolonial and postmodern relativism of cultural studies and the geopolitical obsolescence of area studies, two recent interpretative paradigms have reinvigorated interest in Spanish-American modernismo. Both in terms of the agenda of a Latin Americanism focused on the discussion around world literature as for the one based on transatlantic studies, modernismo seems to be the seed of an internationalization of culture that reorganizes the local literary map. For these approaches, modernismo displaces the concern about national boundaries and identities towards the idea of a world composed by asymmetrical flows between centers and peripheries and a system, unequal as well, of legitimation relationships and aesthetic configuration. Taking as its basis an analysis of Rubén Darío’s literary project in the portraits of Los raros and in the poem “La página blanca,” this article aims to make a critical evaluation of the contact between the Nicaraguan poet and Stéphane Mallarmé in order to reconsider two important problems in the history of readings of modernismo: the translation of languages, aesthetics and semiotic systems, and the cultural networks, which trace, in modernismo, a virtual and future American polis.

Postmodernism, positive psychology and post-traumatic growth within a Christian ideological surround

The ideological surround model (ISM) of the relationship between religion and the social sciences uses innovations in standard research methods to demonstrate how the challenges of postmodern relativism can be addressed. In this project, ISM methodologies evaluated the Post-traumatic Growth Inventory-Short Form (PTGI-SF), a measure relevant to positive psychology. The PTGI-SF correlated predictably with religious variables and with psychological well-being, and such relationships also appeared with a Christian version of the PTGI-SF created through ISM empirical translation scheme procedures. In ISM comparative rationality analyses, all PTGI items proved to be ‘rational’ relative to Christian commitments, and Christian rationality assessments of these items fully or partially mediated relationships of both the psychological and Christian expressions of post-traumatic growth with other constructs. These data demonstrated how ISM methodologies can document compatibilities between the rationalities of Christianity and contemporary positive psychology and more generally can address the challenges of postmodern relativism.

Релативизација ауторитета у постмодерном добу: „Закон о деци“ Ијана Макјуана

Hierarchy of moral values and relevant authorities, in the public as well as in the private sphere of society, has never been so vague as in the postmodern age, which is primarily influenced by the social philosophy of capitalism and globalism, thus changing forever the image of the traditional family, relationships between members of closer community, as well as the way in which people perceive themselves. The novel Children Act by Ian McEwan presents court cases related to problematic situations of children, usually innocent victims of various unfortunate circumstances, legal regulations, decisions and personal beliefs of adults. During the settlement of these disputes, the focus is on the struggle for supremacy between different socio-regulatory authorities: the secular court, religious communities, institutions of medical and social sciences, whereas each of these parties offers their own view of an acceptable solution. In some situations, the court often does not have a real solution, and the only option is to make a choice between less deterimental options, in accordance with the law. In an atmosphere of postmodern ambiguity and relativism, there is no one “correct” answer or solution, but multiple individual perspectives, each representing the truth from their own point of view. Th is paper deals with issues of public authority and personal autonomy, their mutual relationship and the consequential impact on the lives of ordinary people. The Court, as an instrument of the state, in some cases grants legitimacy to a certain solution, while in others it enforces a solution, thus putting an individual in a rather isolated position. The only way individuals can overcome these challenges and obstacles is to achieve internal stability by building their own moral standards, despite the conflicts and contradictions of the surrounding world.

Postmodern relativism and the challenge to overcome the “value-vacuum”

Making use of hermeneutic phenomenology and constructive interpretivism as methodological apparatus, this article challenges the premise that postmodern relativism supposedly created a “value-vacuum”. We conclude that while postmodernism seems to have deprived the grand narratives of the past of their power to prescribe to people (their adherents) what they should be ascribing or attaching value to, it caused the resultant value-gap to be filled in by the values that individuals obtained by “shopping around” in the current value supermarket, and also by resorting to a post-post-foundationalist orientation in terms of which their value-systems play an inconspicuous role in the background of their thinking. We also illuminate what we consider to be important implications (of this shift from the application of grand narrative value systems to the post-post-foundationalist application of the rather more individualistic value systems of modern-day people) for religious institutions, particularly for the church as a societal institution, and for education as an interpersonal relationship.

Translation, Sprache und Wahrnehmung

Traditional issues of hermeneutics on language, comprehension and interpretation are retak-en here in their relation to translation studies, under the less common philosophical perspective of the late Wittgenstein, taking into account also some aspects of linguistic pragmatics. Main target is a prophylaxis of the dogmatism that emerges when properties of the theoretical model are projected into the object under examination. Two kinds of necessity are to be distinguished: on one hand, a necessity derived from internal relations, which are the conditions of possibility for the system as a whole; on the other, a system-external necessity which is simply taken as granted. The current debate often ig-nores that any theory is organized in different layers, which leads some arguments to move off others, simply because they do not operate at the same level. To avoid conceptual confusion, one should acknowledge the different spheres in which these intertwined layers operate. As an alternative to the dichotomy between the traditional essentialist perspective and postmodern relativism, I propose a rad-ically pragmatic language conception, blending insights from the later philosophy of Wittgenstein with some central ideas of hermeneutics. The so resulting concept of translation/interpretation reverses the conventional relationship between commensurability and translation.

“Cut in more subtle angles”: History, Historicisms, and the Art of Representation

In this essay, Anthony Parr examines Kevin Sharpe’s trilogy on images of rule in the light of the New Historicist “turn” in study of early modern culture. He considers the ways in which these three books take the Revisionist historical project into a postmodern debate about whether the chronicle of the past can be described as anything other than a set of competing narratives or representations, all of which are available to us only as texts or images. He finds Sharpe ultimately committed to a belief in historical evidence that yields a trove of information about all of the reigns examined but also raises questions about the focus on a conception of power and authority vested almost exclusively in the monarch. From the perspective of literary studies, this analysis of Sharpe’s project asks where his study of historical representation might take us and how future work can avoid the intellectual cul-de-sacs of postmodern relativism and purely instrumental readings of literature.

The Dialectic: Not just the Absolute Recoil, but the World’s Living Fire that Extinguishes and Kindles Itself. Reflections on Slavoj Žižek’s Version of Dialectical Philosophy in "Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism".

Slavoj Žižek shows in his book Absolute Recoil (and previous Hegelian works such as Less than Nothing) the importance of repeating Hegel’s dialectical philosophy in contemporary capitalism. Žižek contributes especially to a reconceptualisation of dialectical logic and based on it the dialectic of history. The reflections in this paper stress that the dialectic is only the absolute recoil, a sublation that posits its own presuppositions, by working as a living fire that extinguishes and kindles itself. I point out that a new foundation of dialectical materialism needs a proper Heraclitusian foundation. I discuss Žižek’s version of the dialectic that stresses the absolute recoil and the logic of retroactivity and point out its implications for the concept of history as well as Žižek’s own theoretical ambiguities that oscillate between postmodern relativism and mechanical materialism. I argue that Žižek’s version of the dialectic should be brought into a dialogue with the dialectical philosophies of the German Marxists Hans Heinz Holz and Herbert Hörz. Žižek’s achievement is that he helps keeping alive the fire of dialectical materialism in the 21st century. Such a dialectical fire is needed for a proper revolutionary theory.

Ontologies of Interdependence, the Sacred, and Health Care: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Home

Marilynne Robinson's two most recent novels offer a compelling ethical framework for contemporary readers. After reviewing the shift in how her seminal novel Housekeeping has been received, this article demonstrates how Robinson's more recent fiction focuses on responsibility, generosity, and interdependence, all founded in a system of belief her protagonists have accepted. Robinson's work invites readers to reconsider humanistic concerns in ways that speak back to neoliberal hegemony and postmodern relativism.

The human intellect is the source of its own problems: Ligands of fancy

Fundamental scientific epistemology requires that a strong claim is supported by strong and convincing proof. As an example, the proposition of a ligand bound to a target protein in a precise conformation and pose presents a very strong claim, and confirming (positive omit difference) electron density will provide the correspondingly strong experimental evidence. A survey of ligand structure models has revealed that in an unexpectedly large number of ligand structures, the required electron density is not present or does not sufficiently support the proposed ligand pose. Upon detailed analysis, it emerged that the origin of such fanciful models lies in the simple neglect of the most basic fundamentals of scientific epistemology, which appears not to be formally taught in some science curricula. A brief introduction into the importance of evidence and its balance with prior expectations in a Bayesian system of empirical reasoning on hand of protein-ligand complex structure examples is therefore provided for young and aspiring scientists. It particular affects early career researchers when fictitious models intended to support bio-medically relevant hypotheses delay the progress of science by unsupported claims: grants cannot be funded when they contradict models believed to be true, and valuable taxpayer money can be squandered trying to pursue science based on false premises. Poor and at minimum self-deceptive work threatens to become systemic and accepted over the course of time unless young researches take full ownership and responsibility for their exciting and important work and resist any postmodern relativism threatening to erode the credibility of their profession.