Bad ideas are like bad pennies. Despite my promise to self to have put the issue of postmodernism (pomo) to bed with “Galindo’s Last Postmodern Rant” the concept remains one of those “ideas people fall in love with.” Here’s a piece by Andre Gucksmann on pomo and the current financial crisis from City Journal, titled “The Postmodern Financial Crisis.” Here’s an excerpt:
Postmodernism, which places itself “beyond good and evil,” beyond true and false, inhabits a cosmic bubble. It would be a good thing if fear of a universal crisis allowed us to burst the mental bubble of postmodernism—if it washed away the euphoria of our pious wishes and brought us once again to see straight. That may be no more than another pious wish. But we should not succumb, as so many did in the 1920s, to a catastrophic sensibility. Yes, history is tragic, as Aeschylus and Sophocles knew. And yes, it is as stupid as set forth in Aristophanes or Euripides. No roll of the dice and no act of God or of mathematically refined finance can abolish chance, corruption, or adversity; the providence of the stock market cannot save us any more than that of the state. Let these lines from Plato be inscribed at the entryway to future G-20 meetings: “Is there not one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?—and that is wisdom.”
