Postmodernists

>Learn more about history
>Become a postmodernist

Is this the natural progression of the historian? Anyone else like this?

I'm a Monarchist, so you know, of course I am.

You just found a theory that conformed to your previous biases.

Maybe, but when you see all of the oppression of women and people of color on the basis of unscientific societal bullshit throughout history, it does shift your views.

>Anyone else like this?
I'm an archaeologist, but yes. When I first started getting into the field, I thought theory was bullshit, but I quickly realized that artifacts by themselves don't actually say anything, so theory is necessary for narratives. Then I thought processualism (which is basically modernist) made the most sense, both because it's still basically what most archaeologists follow (so it's always presented well), and I liked how science-y it sounded. After a while, I quickly started seeing some pretty big holes in applying that kind of materialist mindset to archaeology (humans are complicated as fuck and something like natural laws really can't be assigned to them, at least not anything that isn't very broad and reductionist - the fact that none have been discovered in about 60 years of processualism is proof enough of that); from there, I also came to realize that it's completely unrealistic to assert that a narrative based on interpretations of materials made by completely different cultures can ever be objective.

Because of that, the idea that interpretations should focus on smaller, more specific interpretations that are fully aware of their own biases seemed to make the most sense. When I talk about theory with archaeologists, this usually gets agreement; in some ways, it's a much more common sense approach than most people are taught, but for whatever reason, most archaeologists still completely reject postmodernism as a useful theoretical tool (at least in name). In very basic terms, I think it works well as a way to acknowledge the limitations of what archaeology is (and what it can do), and to begin a dialogue about how to effectively use/practice it within a useful framework.

I felt this. Learning about the Churches repeated denial of women in their movements made me a postmodern catholic feminist.

>inb4 cuck/soyboy/faggot

>denial of women
>oppression of women and people of color on the basis of unscientific societal bullshit
>begin a dialogue
Yep you're definitely a post-modernist.
I'll never know why you people are so reliant on cliches like these.

The exact opposite happened to me.

Cathar fags fuck off

They're reliant on shallow emotions and can't come up with anything that isn't an expression of that.

>not becoming an ends-justify-the-means edgelord

Yeah I went the opposite direction

>unscientific
Oh sweetie

Dunno but it's the natural progression of a sociologist when old theories gets falsified in the sense you simply can't apply them any more and new ones are used to make sense of what's happening around you. So you'll use a post-modern toolbox for grounded theory.

>Blowing yourself out with your own inb4

>A "postmodernist" shilling for equality and sciencism

>A "postmodernist" shilling for equality and Catholicism

These are the only meaningful posts here.

>how to effectively use/practice it within a useful framework.


And how is that exactly?

Franz Boas is not a postmodern

By introducing ways of viewing behavior that actual reflect the complex factors that go into society, instead of trying to reduce them to simple factors like environmental determinism. Sometimes, focusing on smaller-scale things helps you get a much better picture of what was going on in the day-to-day, which is what archaeology is really concerned with. A really stereotypical example is the presence of European goods at Native occupation sites in the Americas; this used to be seen as proof that people were becoming less indigenous, but paying more attention to the dating has shown that a lot of the time, these things are basically old hand-me-downs that would have been cheap (cheaper than making stuff traditionally), which says a lot about how people were living and acquiring goods. Similarly, some goods, like plows and guns, were seen as spiritually powerful because of how effective they were, which also had an impact on how they were treated, and acknowledging that lets you build a much more accurate picture of how people actually used those artifacts. For the most part, it's all about nuance and better understanding the little details of everyday stuff. This is a pretty huge topic, but it's pretty easy to find the useful stuff if you're willing to research it.

Plus, things like community based archaeology are the direct result of postmodern thinking, and that's a huge help to the field. People are interested in their past, and engaging with the public helps spread knowledge people actually care about, and awareness of heritage management issues. When you guys get mad about historic sites being destroyed, this is the solution. Sort of related to that is the whole field of pragmatic archaeology, which is primarily concerned with research that has real-world benefits for the places research is happened.

>Proved he's a retarded LARPer in his second post in the thread
Why is OP such a faggot?

Obviously. I'm not talking about Boas. I'm talking about people like Hodder and Preucel.

It seems to be me dating should have been step number one before anything else. I don't see what that has to do with being a postmodernist. Postmodernism comes with an enormous amount of baggage, but I realize I have a biased introduction to it. My english prof used to have assignments telling us to use feminism, cultural marxism, and postmodernism to deconstruct things. As far as I understand it, postmodernism rests on the ethic of equality at any price, promoting diversity arbitrarily at the cost of cohesion, and employing deconstructive methods on traditional forms regarding everything from philosophy to visual form. The whole thing seems slimy to me. I really don't see what any mechanic or perception it provides is useful.

This.

>It seems to be me dating should have been step number one before anything else.
It's more about trying to understand what that dating meant. For example, I worked on a site that's a pretty good example of this cliche. It was known to have been occupied during a certain time, and European ceramics from about 30 years prior to that time were found; instead of trying to reconcile that with all the other details at the time (including radiocarbon dating) that showed the house was definitely in use during the time everyone knew it was, an old report just concluded that it must have been occupied earlier, and the people there started abandoning Native stuff earlier than everyone thought; the work we did turned up even more of that trend (lots of stuff contemporaneous, except for old ceramics), and the idea that they were buying cheap shit secondhand seemed like a much better answer, even though it hadn't even occurred to people working in the 60s. And again, that's a narrow example.

>As far as I understand it, postmodernism rests on the ethic of equality at any price,
Than you have a very poor understanding of what postmodernism actually is, and how it's applied to social sciences (instead of humanities, like literature). The really key thing is that it's not a unified movement at all (its only real defining trait is that it's skeptical of metanarratives), so any simple characterization you encounter is most likely wrong. At least you admit you had a biased introduction to it. You should probably do some more research, and don't rely on those idiotic youtubers who clearly don't know what postmodernism is, and do nonsensical things like conflate it with Marxism.

I'm a Modernist.

Po-mo is too ironic and mistrusts Big Ideas.

>the oppression of women and people of color on the basis of unscientific societal bullshit
>unscientific
Keep telling yourself that.

>study sociology and philosophy
>political position goes off the rails
Who else?

Lets live in a society where we are all either philosophical god kings, or gassed in ovens.

You're making a lot of assumptions based on absolutely nothing.

I don't see what's postmodernist about re-interpreting old report. Isn't that what your job actually is? Doing research and then coming up with what seems to be the most logical conclusion?

>You should probably do some more research, and don't rely on those idiotic youtubers who clearly don't know what postmodernism is, and do nonsensical things like conflate it with Marxism.

user told you how he saw the two of them being used together. Plus, I don't remember Peterson(or maybe you were talking about someone else?) saying the two are the same things.

>Learn more about history
>Read philosophy
>Find out Adorno was literally correct about everything (I burned all my jazz records when I found out)
>remain a monarchist and use Adorno to prove everything after Voltaire was a big mistake
This is the true Veeky Forums end

>As far as I understand it, postmodernism rests on the ethic of equality at any price, promoting diversity
No, postmodernism is all about the fact that objectivity and subjectivity both dont exist.

>I don't see what's postmodernist about re-interpreting old report
It's not just that the reinterpretation happened. I guess I wasn't clear enough, but it's entirely in the theory that went into the reinterpretation. The old report was basically functioning under the idea that technological progress could have been the only explanation for the artifacts, and that because the Natives were adopting European ceramics, it meant they saw the inherent superiority of those ceramics, adopted them because of that superiority, and were losing their identity in the process. The new interpretation was built from acknowledging that more than one factor could have influenced that adoption, and came from thinking about social roles and economic factors, instead of just technological ones. And yet again, this is a huge topic with 0ver 30 years of research behind, if you actually care, it's easy to look into this stuff.

And I wasn't specifically talking about Peterson; I was thinking more about ecelebs like Sargon. I do consider Peterson part of that crowd, though; he directly never says they're the same thing, but the way he discusses Marxism's influence on postmodernism clearly shows he doesn't understand that history; in short, pomo was a reaction against Marxism, not people applying a new word to Marxism, which is his usual assertion. I also think that user severely misinterpreted what his professor was actually talking about. It's already clear enough that his idea of postmodernism is completely wrong. My guess is that he already hated the idea of postmodernism (probably because of you mostly see it nowadays used as a term for "things I don't like" by people who don't understand it - his use of "cultural marxism" is a huge clue that's what happened, because no college professor would seriously use it), and was operating based on an emotional reaction and assumptions.

>People who "learn" and "study" something by infographs and youtube videos
>Claims they're not post-modern.

Modernism >>> postmodernism

Marxist analysis is the best available method for understanding capitalist societies

>oppression of women and people of colour
Then read about the history of said "people of colour" a term, that, in itself, is the most insulting label i can imagine. They also oppress women and their minorities.
You are not a postmodernist, you are a constructivist, in that you presuppose societal conditions, and extrapolate meaning and frame from confirming your biases. Your observation of your surrondings, where i'm assuming you see the "oppression of women and people of colour" is then attached to a selectively edited conclusion about the nature of human history.
Grow up, think for yourself, society isn't built to oppress the aforementioned groups, it is the way the wind goes, women have been "oppressed" for a reason, everyone in history, also oppressed those not like them, it is how humanity has always worked, your childish attachment to concepts so new, they may as-well be the infants of nation and society building. You're not a postmodernist.

Your entire ideology is a walking contradiction.

I know you're meming but how can you like Adorno and also support monarchy?

He was convinced that hierarchical systems, requiring perpetual expansion and violent reinforcement, inevitably give way to barbarism.

>Adorno justifies my monarchism
kys

t. Useful idiot

>anything I don't like is a narrative

Marxist analysis, is possibly one of the worst ways to understand capitalist societies in the modern day. Kapital, and all of the writings of the early Marxists and anarchists, is grounded in a specific state of economic and social development, a specific place, a specific time, with specific means.
Marxist analysis is not useful in our modern conception of a capitalist society, which is so utterly divorced from the context of the writings, that it is broadly not applicable.
However! i'd agree that Marx was right, in his critique of the inefficiencies of capitalism, and its ability to be exploitative, but that is something that can apply to any economic system, as no system is eternally self regulating in perpetuity.

For whom? Why?

I have to disagree. Capital hasn't changed, the rules that governed economic relations back then govern then today. Really the only significant changes to the global economy have been the automation of several industries and the rise of middle management, which has created a comfortable middle class proletariat in the developed world.

All of the central precepts of Marxist historical analysis (alienation, proletarianization, false consciousness) and 20th century Marxist developments (Lenin's imperialism, DeBord's spectacle, Zizek's ideology) are very good tools for unpacking the complexities of our society, whether you're looking at wealthy economies in the developed world or poorer regions of the global south.

You claim that the rules that govern economic relationships are the same, yet admit to the evolution of automation on a large scale, management structures, and also, i'd assume, many of the other changes (outsourcing as an institution being one of the primary ones). These structures and this new nature of capitalistic construction are what govern economic relationships. the rules are the structure, they are not imposed. Capital really has changed to a great degree also, we no longer live in primarily export, import economies, that rely on goods to determine value. Stock markets, debt, loans are now such an unbelievably enormous part of the economic backbone of the world that the notion of proletarianisation is one that would necessitate a direct, understanding and interaction, something most people don't have.
Further, false consciousness is the best ideological example of a kafka trap, it is not useful or applicable, as its ascription and denial are entirely subjective and designed only to deny the ideas of another.
Marxist developments all have their own contextual issues, Lenin's imperialism as you state, only has applicability in societies that are almost split between feudalism and industrialisation, something that only existed in China afterwards.
If one wishes to combat capitalism, something i'm not sure of, but understanding of, they need to assess their own context, as i've said, some of Marx's core ideas and conceptions do apply, but many are contextually contingent, and serve only to build a 'revolution' that relies entirely on the conceptual, and leads to mismanagement. This, in my eyes is why Russia failed with socialism, it didn't understand its contextual needs, Lenin and many other Bolsheviks did to an extent, but to maintain the group, they had to adhere to Marx's rigid conceptions.
I'd agree, some are useful for unpacking societal complexities, but only in so far as the context conforms, >

For example, i'd happily use Marxist theory to analyse British India in the early 20th Century, Germany, France and Britain in the mid 19th Century, and possibly even some areas of revolutionary France, but i wouldn't feel comfortable applying it to say, the modern Singaporean economy, or modern British economy, and also the economy of the Byzantine or Ottoman Empires.
Marxist analysis has its strong points, but also many weak points, and is very much, context based in my eyes.

>being a monarchist and using a marxist's critics in the same mind