Interesting piece on postmodernism; rather a critique of those ideas. It may be useful for those who are not familiar with term and ideas associated with it .
These are the ideas we discussed days and nights from mid eighties to mid nineties. In those years in Pune University, structuralism, post structuralism, post modern conditions, hermeneutics, semiotics, epistemic etc were the terms that were seen as a gateway to university varieties of academic intellectualism in humanities and social sciences. Though I did read most of these books(and got a big collection of them) and participated in those discussions, I outgrew that phase when started working directly with communities and people. There I learned the vast difference between the so called academic debates and the real issues of people on the ground.
When I began to live in diverse communities, realized many of these academic debates in the metropolitan centers were far away from the very diverse modes of lives and living conditions. There were people living in conditions of what academics would say 'primitive ' or ' pre -modern' conditions. There was no point in discussing pre-modernity, modernism or post modernism to a hungry child or those were worried more about their next meal or those communities lived a happy life far away from what is termed as 'modern life' Their multiple realities taught me more social learning / insights than the one's in vogue in University seminar halls.
In retrospect, many of these postmodern discussions were also like the flavour of the times and at least some of the high-sounding discussions with full of jargons etc were simply pretentious fads in the university humanities /social science circuits. It did help me to understand multiple perspectives, though I outgrew those discussion for the sake of it as I sought possibilities of actions on the ground as I moved from university to slums and villages in North East India and later working with tribal communities.
As Marx rightly said, philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
In retrospect, many of these postmodern discussions were also like the flavour of the times and at least some of the high-sounding discussions with full of jargons etc were simply pretentious fads in the university humanities /social science circuits. It did help me to understand multiple perspectives, though I outgrew those discussion for the sake of it as I sought possibilities of actions on the ground as I moved from university to slums and villages in North East India and later working with tribal communities.
As Marx rightly said, philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
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