> Yes, we do know better now. Sure, the Romantics SEEMED to be continuing
on
> with the cultural impetus that began with the Enlightenment, but in fact
they
> represented a turn down a blind alley of relativism and subjectivism.
> Perhaps the standard academic post-modernist canon taught in the liberal
arts
> establishment makes it seem like the progression from the rationalism of
the
> Enlightenment to the subjectivism of Romanticism was some kind of
inevitable
> historical necessity, but it wasn't. Sure the young Byron and the young
> Shelley cut a fine figure tossed by their emotional winds, but their
passions
> lead historically to the confused subjectivist dogmas of the 20th century
> and, also as a matter of historical fact, to the passions of such
political
> dogmas as modern nationalism and the intellectual glorification of violent
> social revolution.
Ah yes, but without that impulse towards revolution, where would we be?
(This is where I begin to scream that I'm not a robot. All present, please
plug your ears.)
> In the 50s "cool" people read Meade and Marcuse and Marx and could feel
good
> about maintaining their ideological progressiveness in the face of the
> conformity of "the man in the gray flannel suit"; today people in the know
> read Dawkins and More and Kurzweil and look forward to a REAL revolution,
> while the mainstream of academia slowly dissolves in a self-congratulatory
> puddle of subjectivist nonsense.
Subjectivism isn't nonsense- the entire discipline of hermeneutics depends
on this concept. Although I agree that post-modernism is a dead paradigm
that hasn't had it's funeral yet, I can't agree with a paradigm which denies
the relevance of my existence. Not that the ideological progressives of the
1950's were any better (Karl Marx? Communist Materialism?!?)... I'll agree
that Romanticism is lousy as a base from which to work, or a social
paradigm, but it's a wonderful way to live one's life. In my opinion, the
best philosophy isn't that which achieves the most universal happiness, but
the one that tells the best story in the end. Wars, revolutions, love,
hate, death- this is what makes life interesting!
> > Well then, zeig heil!
>
> I wonder what this could mean.
Extrobots seldom seem to grasp the concept of "meaning".
-Nicq MacDonald
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:35 MDT