When he mentions the logical contradictions...this summarises the cognitive dissonance I've been experiencing relative to our culture for YEARS without being able to articulate them 😯 Thank you!
The problem with humans (including your culture) is Continued Universal Human Cluelessness, which my philosophy is a response to and corrects. Read it.
I love Jordan Peterson, but often his furnace of a mind, burns too hot to be readily understood by the average person. THIS man lays it all out calmly with crystal clarity. Must-see viewing for all of us who are in the fight to return this country to sanity. Thank you, Free Speech Club.
This is the kind of organized delivery that would make Jordan Peterson a more effective speaker. JBP tends to ramble and become tangential, and thereby loses his audience here and there. I guess that’s why I’ve watched many of his videos multiple times over-so I can catch the thread I may have lost in previous listenings. In any case, I wish I had professors like these guys when I was in school.
I fully admit that I am looking at all soucres of information to understand postmodernism and our current world. I really appreciate this lecture. There is no doubt that Hicks is more than qualified to speak on this subject. I don't agree with all his conclusions that is why I am weighing multiple sources. Many of the negative comments I see below are ad hominem attacks that don't make sense. He is fully credentialed and an academic. You may not agree with his conclusions then make a logical defense of that point of view. I hope to see more of these discussions from all types of thinkers and not be so close minded. I really learned so much and will follow up by reading primary sources as well.
One had to be extraordinarily naive or „willing to believe“ to actually come back from a visit of Eastern Bloc countries with glowing reports. I still remember what Czechoslovakia and Hungary were like at the time, and find it actually hard to put that dreary and depressing atmosphere into words. The one word that kind of keeps coming to mind when thinking back to what these countries were like under communist rule is „gray“. Everything looked and felt gray, not merely drained of color, but kind of muddy, as if a veil had been draped over everything. „Thank God I don’t have to live here“ was the one thought that kept occurring to me. Nowadays I often reflect on the fact that representatives of the left for some reason seem to have zero sense of humor, which I find an eerie characteristic that in a way serves as a big warning sign. But it is perhaps not all too surprising considering that the world they envisage for us to live in is definitely not funny. I would actually call it double-plus-unfunny.
Pater - You have written such an evocative description of what you saw and remembered that I shuddered. I guess we are all concerned, and many realize the danger inherent in this form of thinking. Beautifully put, poetic, and yet alarming. Their "Utopia" is a fearful place. Regards.
Grey housing estates, memorial monuments, spartakiada (google it), queues for toilet paper and oranges, no homeless people, no unemployment, Tuzex, JZD, surveillance, forbidden radio stations, very rich underground culture 😈 (Czechoslovakia of my youth)
@Pater Tenebrarum -- Problem with the young left-wingers and socialists today is that they don't know anything about the USSR or Eastern Bloc Countries. They were never taught history. Too close to reality. Might muddle young minds into reality and turn them away from post-modern ideas.
I’ve been waiting for this confrontation for 30 years. I’m 48, and when I first went to college and enrolled in a liberal arts program, the notion that nothing is real, and life is only a power game of identity politics, had already taken root.
Yeah his book is full of errors. I do agree with his hypothesis that the failures of Marxism and communism played a key role in driving the likes of Foucault and Derrida into coming up with postmodern philosophy. However, I don't think that they themselves are directly responsible for today's identity politics or so called "cultural Marxism". I think what is more likely is that postmodern philosophy is intended as a descriptive analysis of how power and social and mental structures work - postmodernism essentially states that 'our ability to understand the world is limited by both the power structures that comprise it, and by the workings of the human mind that cause us to perceive the world through our own biased frameworks'. That in and of itself is not necessarily a problem. The problem is that critical theory - which just so happens to include Foucault's critique and analyses of power structures - became highly influential in other fields that were also predicated on conflict theory (i.e. feminist theory, race theory, postcolonial theory), and this just so happened to coincide with the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war draft which saw a large number of people on the left fleeting to Universities to study social justice. Come a few decades later, and the left-right ratio in academia has become incredibly uneven (around 10:1), and we now have a large population of left/left-leaning faculty using ELEMENTS of postmodern thinkers' work to fuel their own revolutionary agendas. But Derrida, Lyotard, and arguably Foucault, regardless of their own leftist political beliefs, did not intend for their philosophies to be used in such an ideologically-driven manner. They were intended to be used in a descriptive manner, and to help us think more deeply about, social power structures, the nature of reality, and how we perceive said reality. Also, I find Jonathan Haidt's explanations for today's campus riots and protests to be far more plausible and reasonable. I'm much more of a fan of Haidt than I am of Peterson. ua-cam.com/video/4IBegL_V6AA/v-deo.html
@Oners82 - You call Hicks a "fraud" and a liar yet you fail to present even one single piece of evidence for those assertions? You're clearly a master of post-modern argumentation aren't you, super genius?
@@jonah_da_mann - You claim "his book" is "full of errors", but you fail to identify *which book* (there are several) and you fail to identify *even one single error,* then you proceed to bloviate subjective irrelevancies as a substitute for supporting your claim. "Full of errors" yet you can't cite a single one? Looks like you're also a master of post-modern (non-)argumentation, just like Oners82. Way to go, super genius #2! You should team up with Oners82 and publish a textbook on how to write inane, unpersuasive YT comments.
@Oners82 - thanks for the very interesting link. I watched it. Great video. "Destroyed" is optimistic, but it's an excellent critique. Wasn't triggered, just pointed out your total failure to present an argument. Sorry.
Unfortunately, while this talk was competently delivered, the topics hadn't been thoroughly researched. I recommend wathing this: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html In any case, picking up an academic publication on the history of philosophy can never hurt. They tend to be both engaging and informative :)
I am reading C. Frankel's book "The Case for Modern Man" (1954) which takes on the critics of liberal values that were emerging post ww2. It is essentially a discussion of modern v postmodern in the realm of philosophy and politics. His defense of the modern is very solid. Very worth reading on the subject.
You might enjoy Alan Gowans, The Restless Art, The Unchanging Arts and Learning to see, three books that changed my life, got me awards, and a full time existence as a writer and visual artist.
Yeah, no - the problem there is that 'post-modernism' as it should be properly understood as the 'commodification of experience', wouldn't really come into existence until the late 1950's. There is no 'war' between the modern and the post-modern, they are just cultural shifts of emphases. Frankel's book isn't essentially anything to do with the emerging post-modern. Similarly, Hicks' account isn't so much a critique as a politically motivated fiction. The so called neo-liberal right are always strawmanning identity politics as a contemporary attack on free-speech, but it isn't. There is no institutional 'anti-capitalism' but Hicks and his ilk identify the 'free-market' as a bastion or guarantor of free-speech... so, y'know... Enemies everywhere!
@@stueyapstuey4235 What you said makes me wonder if was there institutional 'anti-capitalism' in Russia prior to revolution of 1917? Or was it bunch of divided (proletariat vs burgeons) minds riled up to carry out course of the history to follow? Perhaps I can agree with you that there is a straw-man in equating identity politics as an attack on free-speech. However that doesn't refute the fact that free speech isn't attacked. In Canada there is an "Anti-Islamophobia" Law under which state restricts your ability to criticize Islam and it's followers. I don't believe both of your arguments have any factual basis.
I praise Dr. Stephen Hicks for his courage in taking a stand against postmodernism and for doing it in a very intelligent way. The antiscience stance of postmodernists has caused ecology, a branch of biology that studies the relationship of plants and animals to their physical and biological environment, to be replaced by environmentalism (activism around the environment), also referred to as ‘Marxist Ecology’.
Been a fan of this guy for many years. At one time he would interact with people who posted on his website and there were not many of us doing it back then. So glad to see he is starting to become well known.
Hicks is complete thinker. His comment about Kant's critique of reason and why he was skeptical of the 'absolute' in regard to reason was well stated and clarifying.
1:08:09min Yes, it is like Hume pointed out "You cannot derive and ´ought´ from and ´is´" People are responsible for creating, inspecting, and detecting the effectiveness of ethical norms they adhere to. No one else will do it for them.
Great talk! As a person that believes in reason, logic and real world practical consequences, I find post-modernism a cancerous ideology. I wish countries start to wake up and reduce the number of post-modernism content in university courses, specially in the humanities and sociology.
He is actually very disingenuous. There is a reason why his book was not peer reviewed or publish by a reputable publisher. "Explaining Postmodernism" is actually a thinly veiled critique of Postmodernism.
Alexandre Santos this guy misrepresents not only postmodernism but almost every other philosopher he‘s talking of. his work is nothing but illiterate strawmanning the subject. if you want to know what pomo is about, don‘t get your knowledge from this guy.
American Fuel TV he calls kant a counterenlightement philosopher, who is against logic and reason. this should be enough to discredit hicks’ whole work
Unfortunately, while this talk was delivered very well, Hicks' positions aren't researched very thoroughly. For comprehensive criticism, I recommend this video review of his book: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html I also highly recommend picking up any peer-reviewed book on the history of philosophy. Those are usually written in an engaging style while giving you the most important details.
@@Faeron1984 Let's see what consensus we can reach. SH and Zizek focus on the same problem: political correctness, today's morbid liberal culture, and the deeper philosophical trend behind them, i.e. postmodernism. What I appreciate in Zizek is that he doesn't buy into the cheap dichotomy the American public gets (liberal/conservative; Biden is bad, so we should get Trump, etc.) My problem with SH is that the only thing in Continental philosophy that interests him is the conservative side Nietzschean thoughts (which have already been criticized a lot on the Continental side) and he basically ignores the entire history of labor and economy from late 19th c. to today (which is a common problem in all those conservative "critics of postmodernism").
@@tianyiliu856 Jordan didn't do nearly as poorly as the faithful perceived in his confrontation with Zizek. Jordan has a much larger repertoire of issues he covers. Even with Zizek's command of Marxist ideology, Peterson held his own by focusing on implementation. Marxism continues to influence despite the dead bodies in its wake, because the problems with capitalism are explicit, not because Marxism has demonstrated empirical merit by comparison. Marxism is a dead end, unfortunately, because it's fundamentally flawed in its relation to human nature. Capitalism has significant problems, but it's much more serviceable. There's a better way to do capitalism and that's what I'm personally working on. Hicks doesn't ignore the history of labor from the late 19th century to today. The data overwhelmingly favors his argument in that time frame. And the Peterson/Zizek debate isn't an answer to Hick's arguments. That's ridiculous.
@@kenhiett5266 Thanks for your reply. Now as you are honest that capitalism is in trouble, I hope you would agree that what we call Marxism actually includes at least two parts: first is Marx's diagnosis of capitalism (if you have really read Marx's Capital you would have known that Marx did NOT really propose any clear solution; what he did is a careful analysis of the dynamics of capitalism down to its basics, especially most mainstream economists till this day do not mention or try to avoid, i.e. unemployment, employment replaced by automation, etc.), second is Marx's solution (Communist Manifesto, which is outdated, for sure; Critique of Gotha Program, which is the basis of Leninism). I would argue that only the second is a dead end; the first is more relevant than ever, and as Zizek argues, Marx didn't even realize how correct he was (in the sense that he was basically analyzing Western economics but today basically the entire planet is involved in the capitalist system, which is also why the Marxist analysis gains more and more audience globally) and his method of analysis is the only way to explain today's capitalist crisis. What IS a dead end is the Soviet model of planning. Right now there are groups in America and in Asia that still support this model, and I am against them. If you call "market" capitalism and believe that it can and will exist for a very long period of time, then I agree with you, but capitalism is not just market, otherwise the Ancient Greeks lived in capitalism. Capitalism involves free exchange of means of production and the right to determine the distribution of profits by the owner of means of production. If you believe Hicks doesn't ignore the history of labor from the late 19th century to today, then tell me where he quotes anything like Balzac/Zola/Dickens's novel or labor historians like Eric Hobsbawm (not to mention Engels's classic "the Condition of Working Class in England" which literally reappeared in China in the last 3 decades) or any evidences of the condition of working men in Americas or Asia or anything like that. I also hope we would agree that what will really work for the future is at least a mechanism or consensus, whatever you call it, of redistribution of the profits; and since automation is replacing jobs, and eventually almost all necessary labor can be replaced by automation, the automatic machines and factories themselves should not only be owned by just a few people of the society (in what way they should be owned, I don't know, but it has to be collective) otherwise only the owners of the machines get profits and the rest of us are jobless. The ruling class can also have another option, which is what is happening globally: arrest all labor activists, run nationalist propaganda and WWIII, send the un-/under-employed of every country to kill each other, and hope the world will be "normal" after this grand massacre.
He is actually very disingenuous. There is a reason why his book was not peer reviewed or publish by a reputable publisher. "Explaining Postmodernism" is actually a thinly veiled critique of Postmodernism.
The term "critique" implies a thorough investigation (As in "Critique of Pure Reason"). That is not what has taken place here :D At least some people, like Habermas, make an effort to actually understand postmodernism before criticising it.
Excellent explanation of Enlightenment and Postmodernism. This is what they need to teach in high school. It is liberating to understand that meaning and truth are subjective - it empowers us to accept our own intuitive reasoning for guiding us through life. Wish I had access to these talks 30 years ago!
I love lectures such as this, the topic of free speech is of grave importance and needs to be constantly reiterated, spoken of, intellectually contemplated and written about. Why is there only one video for this channel on a issue of such magnitude, that is the centerpiece of American ideology and fundamentally the very foundation for which all freedom loving people will fight and gladly die for?
Ah optional thinking and, if I can be bothered, emotional thinking. Things are sufficiently challenging that we are now teaching critical thinking to first year undergraduates (in a top 10 global Higher education institution). It is not the student's "fault" - teaching to grades and the Internet has muted curiosity in favour of simplistic solutions to complex problems. We are evolving ourselves out of history at pace. And there are no moral authorities left to ask the question : where is your evidence?
Funny enough that’s the perfect description for people who don’t bother to read about postmodernism or postmodern literature. Yet at the same time accept everything Hicks and Jordan Peterson say without doubting it at all.
AnarchoRepublican lmao what are you on about just read a book fam. You just gotta critically think for once or google the history of postmodernism/ enlightenment. Hicks misrepresents both and can’t figure it out at all.
Hey There! I have read an extensive amount of postmodern thought: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze (my favorite) etc. I am also very well versed in German Idealism (including Nietzsche), Modern Philosophy (Rationalism and British Empiricism) and Phenomenology (besides Husserl), but also have an academic grounding in Analytic Philosophy and Logic. I am of the opinion that postmodern thought is an important and inevitable development of philosophy, and can be understood, appreciated and even applied without any sort of leftist or identity politics related agenda. I myself am not any sort of leftist, and actually consider myself completely opposed to identity politics. I believe these 'postmodern' thinkers to have made seminal contributions to Ontology, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Ethics and, yes, political philosophy (though in absolutely no way by establishing identity politics). Anyone want to have a rational conversation about this topic? Please respond with your grievances against or perceptions of postmodern thought and we can discuss! I am definitely prepared to shift my view in the face of a rigorous critique, it happens to me all the time!
I’m interested. How do you solve the problem of action? If I can’t act like something is more true than something else, then how can I do anything at all?
How is not a complete non-starter at its core? They say there is no objective truth, which is an objective truth statement. They could pull back and say "there's no objective truth in my experience" to placate the whole objection to objectivity. Then it becomes an objective truth statement that there's no objective truth in their experience. That's even before trying to progress to things like "everything can be reduced to power" which is again a whopper of an objective claim. So what can it put forward that isn't automatically wrecked by its own core principals? Why should it be treated as a development when it can't even get itself off the ground?
@@cartoune which post modernist said "there is no objective truth" (an actal quote would be nice) and how do you know all the other post modernists agreed with it? And who said that thing you mentioned about everything being power relations or something? Was that an actual quote? Those are gross oversimplifications at best.
I've noticed that a few leftists are deep into the Frankfurt/Marxist/Critical Thinking "Philosophy"......meaning the destruction of ALL non communist/socialist thoughts and the naughty child acceptance of "I'm right and everything else is wrong" Mao Zedong coined the phrase "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS " =PC.....now warmly embraced by the luny-left. Shows where they truly spawned from.
man, great great talk explaining not only the frame of reference that informs postmodernism but also the history of philosophy and how it has evolved/developed overtime
As someone who "missed the culture train" years ago, I find Dr. Hick's presentation to be just what I needed to get acquainted with post-modern thinking. It now makes sense to see how our society has strongly divided views and, in a sense, lost its way in a world of relativism. Thanks to the UBC Free Speech Club for hosting the event and offering the information through UA-cam.
His reading of a number of philosophers is highly tendentious. His account is therefore quite unfit for someone newly aquainting themselves with pomo philosophies. I highly recommend picking up any introductory book on the history of philosophy at your local bookstore.
The explosion of complex music was made possible by the equal temper tuning system that gives rise to our “closed loop” harmonic 12 tones. That development may be thanks to the enlightenment but it’s a distinction worth pointing out.
Stephen is brilliant and dispassionate - and that's a good thing. Well organized and presented. In the words of the Monkeys, 'I'm a believer.' In the words of Peterson, 'Post-modernist neo-Marxism, - that's a BAD THING, a BAD THING!'
Woah... I was on board until he mis-characterized Kant & neglected to discuss the idea of a- priori reasoning in a really unprofessional way. Kant was not advocating for a subjective form of epistemology... Our legal justice system wouldn't work without Kantian ideas. WTF!?
ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html this video debunks Hicks and explains how he lies and mischaracterises everything like a first year undergrad who suffered a severe head wound.
James Lindsey is the pre-eminent critic of POMO current year. First he sees the contradictions between the post-modernists and modern activism, how popular ideology misuses post-modernism and what the problems are with post-modernism itself. www.doseofleadership.com/dr-james-lindsay/
@@tombrown407 This is just another example of what post modernism is, and how it's creation of current identity politics is a result of what this pseudo philosophical fad: Postmodernism, Identity Politics, and Other Political Influences in Political Psychology Peter Suedfeld "In the last couple of decades, humanists and to some extent social scien- tists have experienced increasing pressure from colleagues who, under the label of postmodernism, have rejected the possibility that objective truths can be discovered, or even that such truths exist, in the domains of these disci- plines. Instead, they argue that all truth is “construction,” a function of his- torical, cultural, and geographical context interacting with demographic categories such as sex, class, ethnicity, and so on. One hallmark of this view is the use of derogatory quotation marks around the word “truth” wherever it appears. Each of these demographic groups supposedly has different “truths,” and should insist that only their own members can understand (and, a fortiori, teach or write about) any aspect of the group (“particularism”). Regressing to earlier racist and sexist assumptions, they argue that members of differ- ent groups have mutually incompatible ways of learning, thinking, and behavior. Therefore, they need special and often separate courses, read- ings, professors, students, advisors, dormitories, campus centers, et cetera, whose primary task is to advance their group’s recognition and agenda through political as well as intellectual means (“identity politics”). Identity politics is an offshoot of postmodernism in its denial of universal, objective truths (and of the position that Wnding such truths is the goal of scholar- ship), but many researchers have accepted the implications of constructiv- ism without knowingly subscribing to it as a general philosophy of science. Paradoxically, practitioners of postmodernism and identity politics criti- cize the adherents of traditional scientiWc objectivity for not having lived up to their ideals, and simultaneously argue that objectivity is inherently impossible to attain and, anyway, morally wrong. They have suggested that the primary purpose of research and teaching should be to reshape society for the beneWt of particular groups (Gross & Levitt, 1994; Searle, 1993- 1994), and that research that might hamper such social change should (a) not be conducted, (b) if conducted, not be published, and (c) in any case, certainly not taught.
You say he mischaracterized Kant. How? Where? Where are your quotes from Kant's work that shows how Hicks missed the mark? He backed up his thesis with data and examples. You have not done so with your criticism.
@@lmb1931 OK, I did make remarks identifying how he misrepesented Kant. If you have studied philosophy you would see my counter points. I'll explain. One of Kant's big claims to fame is his ongoing debate with David Hume. They both made really good points. Hume argued that the best way to find truth is through observation and rigorous testing via scientific method. The mind by itself is not reliable enough to find truth. Kant countered with the idea that there are hypothetical situations that can test ideas through pure logical thought processes: a-priori. You can think your way through a set of ideas and come to reliable results. So you are operating only from the power of the mind. Like I said originally legal arguments are built on tests of pure reason, with the qualifier of truth being: does actor X do you harm via action Y. To say that Kant was promoting "subjective epistemology", or subjective knowledge making is woefully wrong. Kant was a very logical philosopher. He just believed you could build an argument in your conscious mind based on proven facts. You could learn this in a philosophy 101 course.
Thank you so much for this video. He is so clear. I wish I had a course like this and a professor like him when I was in university. Really made me think about how important philosophy is and how concepts so abstract can land in my personal everyday reality. ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias!
uaoooooooooooooo! This is fantastic! I will buy books of this Professor! I have to understand why he "does not" find relevant IK and why he links IK to postmodernism... Thank you "The Free Speech Club" for making this available!
As someone who was raised in the Soviet Union I immensely regretted it had not collapse some 15 years earlier than it did. That would make me born and spend my formative years in capitalism that followed.
Thinking Hicks is an intellectual is like thinking Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food or that Britney Spears is a classically-trained vocalist. He publishes on his own vanity press and is factually wrong about a variety of philosophical points.
Jeff Maehre Whats the point of your comment if you’re not going to be specific? You might as well have commented “Hicks is a poopy head”. Its fine if you have that opinion but voicing that opinion beyond catharsis has no value for anyone else unless you are willing to go into specifics. Thinkers gave disagreed for millennia, big deal, how do you know that your interpretation is more accurate? Supposing you’re a postmodernist it would be hypocritical of you to even claim a better grasp on anything.
What is wrong with people? This guy is giving gold in his speech and people baby crying over his use of fillers? Is that where your priorities are? Damn he's not even a bad speaker and he's talking complex stuff here, and people complaining. It's ridiculously childish!
He is talking black and white, as he has been taught to do and to think. Reality would produce a different graph, one wherein the grays would be blended and we could more clearly see how things happened. He ascribed the word magic to the age of faith - yet Gutenberg creating the printing press thus unchaining the Holy Scriptures from the Church and giving it to the masses was a Christian himself - he did not prostrate himself at the feet of the ruling Religion, his Christian faith in no way disallowed his use of reason, as one example of the broad array of examples, another being “The work of recording and classifying the contents of nature, which, as Bacon had indicated, was the first step in creating a modern universal science, was led in chemistry by Boyle. In biology, the comparable work was carried out by John Ray.” John Ray born in 1627 was a Christian - his faith in no way precluded him from engaging in a rational scientific endeavor, I would go so far as to say perhaps his faith, i.e. reverence for life itself aided him in his scientific inquiry. I see reality as an overlapping of circles - reflecting the flow effect as in casting a stone to skip upon the surface of the water, and I find the linear approach in graphs etc, to be limiting and reflective of a dogmatic historical approach - I find it counter-productive in that the blend of intellect and faith are divorced to a large degree and much is obscured which could easily be included. But then that brings into question, not the professor's approach, but the scaffolding upon which academia was fashioned. We have some fine examples of brilliant minds who were taught with tutors and did not suffer the doctrinal structures of formal higher education.
He's a good speaker but he doesn't know enough to make visuals that are readable. Add this to a camera operator who thinks it's more important to see the speaker than read the visuals and this presentation would get a barely passing grade in any decent graduate school seminar class. In the USA anyway, Canada, well...
In tracing the rise of modernist, he seems to reduce Christianity to fideism. But modern philosophy was the suppression of scholasticism, which was based on classical philosophy, as modern science was a suppression of classical science. Galileo was suppressed less because he went against Scripture than because he went against Aristotle.
I never looked at Kant this way but it does make sense regarding the historic timeline on this lecture. During his lifetime I thought Kant was trying to find a compensating concept for a fundamental problem that logic and reason have. What to do with what is unknown. It can be practical and comforting to have principles of faith and ethics and aesthetics where the shadow of the metaphhysic stares back at you. How do you explain the affection that music or poetry can spark in us? Is it just a firework of nerves or is there more? During the second half of his philosophical development it was a constructive contribution to the fear of the unknown. I never thought of Kant as a anti-realism or even anti-enlightenment philosopher. He just refused to bieleve that logic and reason is the only source of insight. He did not suggest to replace logic and reason. Instead he suggested that faith could or should coexist with reason and logic in order to hace acces to all sources of insight. Maybe this was for him a certain way to alleviate the abrupt transition from the age of faith to the age of reason. Or you could say he wanted to preserve to achievments of the thousands of years of the age of faith.
Fantastic put together by Hicks. 7 people disliked it so far but I wonder if they're the ones in favor of subjectivism (in which case they shouldn't evaluate anything - it should, supposedly, be meaningless to them) or is it because they wanted more from Hicks.
C_R_O_M__________ or maybe you and hicks both misunderstand postmodernism. So you're conclusions are wrong and you are unable to understand why they dislike the video.
Andrew Feist Yes, that's a possibility but it's highly unlikely. Did you actually watch the lecture? How do you answer his questioning on the incentives behind postmodernism and the inconsistencies between what they preach and what they actually practice? How is it possible for a bunch of people that preach relativism and subjectivism to adhere ONLY to Marxist ideology? How is it possible that postmodern philosophy, which claims that all views are equally valid, nothing can be seen as the truth therefore also its opposite has no objective merit, to fuel authoritarian behaviour such as the one displayed by radical SJW groups? Why isn't relativism and subjectivity applicable when it comes to SJW issues? There is an elephant in the room and you are sitiing on him.
For one, they are not Marxists. They left marxism and there has been a tension between marxists and postmodernists ever since. The fact that many of them were marxists is not surprising because almost all continental philosophers were Marxists at the time. Post modern philosophers are not the same people as "radical SJW groups" who are mostly children who have not read these thinkers. The general themes of your argument are problematic because they group a bunch of different people into a single box, and label them //post modern//. Then you use what you consider to be the essence of this label, relativism of various sorts, across all them uniformly and expect a coherent picture to emerge. Well if there is anything which unites post modernists, its a skepticism of categorizing and essentializing, exactly because arguments become meaningless when you discuss them as such an abstract level. If you want to refute a postmodernist thinker, pick one in particular, and actually read their thought. Find out if, and on what arguments, they are an absolute relativist. Then see if what they did is inconsistent. The most extreme relativists, like Derrida, were not really political. And their relativism was criticized by Marxists for being apolotical. Whereas Rorty wrote about politics but in a very consistent way, maintaining value judgments, but trying to develop a framework that isnt overly essentialist; he argued for politics on vague notions like an opposition to cruelty, but said we shouldn't be categorical about it. But sure. I think a lot of people who have picked up the banners of post modernism in harmful ways. But that happens with literally every ideology. So its meaningless.
It's only natural for an advocate of post-modernism to end his thought with the phrase "It's (sic) meaningless", that's exactly what these guys contributed to society, nihilism, lack of meaning, etc. when all evidence points that a life imbued with nihilism is one that most likely produce any range of the worst of human tendencies. Post-modernism, which I have tried to read (but fed up with them and never followed through, I perceived it to be a waste of my precious time) when I participated in a doctorate program of existential psychotherapy, are wrong in so many of their initial assumptions (like the one that proclaims "failure" for the enlightenment movement - juct like Hicks pointed out in this lecture) that the only point that's worthwhile about them is to discuss how is it possible for admittedly very intelligent humans to come up with so arbitrary initial assumptions that of course led them to equally wrong conclusions. In science and philosophy the most important thing we can do when starting an inquiry is to establish the bedrock of assumptions underneath our scientific or philosophical structure(s). As a psychologist, who have been following brain studies from the beginning of my academic path, the answer to the utterly nonsensical track of thought of postmodernism lies in the works of Sperry and Gazzaniga (split-brain studies) who identified our left brain as the "interpreter". Our left brain, where the language centre usually resides, is prone to misinterpreting reality. It was a consistent find in the aforementioned studies, so much so that Gazzaniga named the left brain "the interpreter" to point out that our left hemisphere without the help of our holistic processor, our right brain, is most likely mistaken about the nature of reality. You can read Iain McGilchrist's "the master and his emissary" and/or "who's in charge" of Gazzaniga for more. Humans, especially those that adhere to theory and never in their life had enough friction with reality (not the case, for example with Spinosa who worked in fixing lenses, or Aristotle who was probably one of the first field biologists), are very prone to such mistakes. That's why Nietzsche and others underlined the importance of "acting out" your philosophy in the cosmos because reality will show and correct you (sometimes very harshly) where's necessary. The postmodernists had all strictly academic careers as adults. It's a tell-tell sign of how alienated they were from practical reality, the one that crushes your skull when you attempt to test it against the sidewalk from a 5 story-high building. You tend not to adhere too much to subjectivism/relativism when you have experienced friction with the cosmos. P.S. Please don't judge from my command over the English language so as to dismiss or not my comment. I'm not a native speaker nor do I live in an English speaking country.
What is so scary to me is the huge number of young people today who have the pre-1950 belief that Communism is the kind and compassionate way that society should be arranged, but they don't even have the postmodernists' realization that this belief turned out to be false. It's like they are still living in 1945. So in that sense maybe postmodernism is succeeding after all.
I’m only an hour in, but this is one of the most important and urgently relevant things I’ve stumbled upon. Thank you so much for making this available 🙏
@@kenhiett5266 Everywhere, literally everything he says is incredibly wrong. There's a good analysis here: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html&ab_channel=Jonas%C4%8Ceika-CCKPhilosophy
Very nice indeed. The Complexity Theory here is that we are not in the philosophical realm, but in the political and social science realm. Because there is no category of Philosophy that is either for or against social policy. Thus philosophers like Nietzsche, Machiavelli, etc. are not philosophers. You can therefor say the same for all movements like Arianism pre-Hitler, or Marxism pre-Lenin. This contrasts marketly from even the most diabolical religious instruction of the general public (as opposed to Tribalism.)
Postmodern man is even more lost than modern man. Modern man gradually pushed God out of the picture while postmodern man has completely shut Him out. Just like the former the latter can use his reason to make sense of things, but he too has found that reason alone leads to no answers and thus is a dead end. As a result, man is still in a period where irrationalism is king. If he continues down the path where God does not exist, then he will continue to see himself as an insignificant abnormal wart in a universe that doesn't care either way. If he ever does wake up out of his irrational coma and legitimately considers "In the beginning God," then he will have all the answers he needs and more.
I despise postmodernism. However, when I was in University I had to take a course on Michel Foucault. I think he had a valid point on the birth of the prison and how the panopticon is a tool of self-oppression.
18:29 _"steam engine , there was one that actually had more energy output as energy input ...."_ Eeerm, no. That would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and there is no record of any such case, in particular no steam engine has ever done that.
Ya... I caught that too. I think what he meant was the first steam engine that was actually efficient in any meaningful way. Steam "engines" had been in use for years prior (mostly to pump water from deep mines). But they were woefully primitive beasts.
I don't know if such an engine existed, but it wouldn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics only apply to a closed system, but we don't live in a closed system. That's why heat pumps are able to get 500% efficiency, even though the laws of thermodynamics says that it's impossible to get 100%+ efficiency. They achieve that efficiency by exploiting the temperature difference in the air (because the heat pump isn't a closed system, it can exploit energy outside of itself). Of course the entropy of the *universe* goes up (because the universe is a closed system), and so from the universe's perspective the efficiency is less than 100%, but from the perspective of the human who is paying money to power the heat pump, the efficiency is 500%. So in other words, the heat pump is 500% efficient at using electricity, but in order to do that it has to increase entropy in the air. So the balance is maintained and thermodynamics isn't violated. So yes, it is possible to create machines that output more energy than they are given as input (because they steal the energy from someplace else).
Hicks is the man! I think, best way to get someone to snap out of the allure of post modernism, is to tell them that there are people who think we can’t know anything, or prove anything in politics or philosophy; That ideas ultimately don’t matter in that arena. “The mind is the tool we use to discover what’s already there.”- M
What's your proposition, that only people who have personal lives ordered in ways of which you approve can have any ideas worth discussing? Isn't that essentially ad hominem?
@Steeltrap Yes indeed it is. Not everyone has the tools necessary to criticize an abstract concept. Nor should we expect everyone to. I would counter this to say that Foucault' ideas are worth discounting as to criticize modernism is simply to criticize the contemporary and that entire approach is a counter productive to any actual positive solution. This is the same reason I take issue with Nietzsche' criticism of enlightenment. As far as I can tell many of the thinkers to which post-modernism can attribute its roots completely fail to understand the enlightenment as a tool of progress, attributing much more to it than was prudent or sensible. The chaos preceding and following the French revolution are much more aptly laid at the foot of the catholic church and the monarchy. All enlightenment ever did was shine a glaring light on their corruption and logical fallacies. In all of these philosophers writings not once have I seen a valid criticism of enlightenment values nor have I seen anything other than bitter complaining about the "bourgeoisie". To generalize the bourgeoisie is the same as generalizing the proletariat as some unified group. It can not be done to any accurate degree and only disaster results when you try.
@Brendan Oh, yes, I'm no fan of PM. I just found the OP's comment a bit ridiculous when we've seen a 2+ hour video of a clearly highly knowledgeable speaker criticising PM in great detail while also going out of their way to acknowledge (more than once) people such as Foucault were undoubtedly extremely clever (I believe he even refers to them as 'brilliant') with some interesting if ultimately inadequate ideas.
Exactly! one can be brilliant and well thought out while still having a poor understanding of core principles. I do however agree the irony is entirely palpable in this context.
Just an outstanding summary of what has happened to our societies since the Enlightenment. Everyone should watch this video to obtain an understanding our current culture. One thing I would argue with him on is his dismissal of religion as being unscientific. On the contrary, Christianity started the science field of study & welcomes scientific examination. We see more & more scientific & archaeological findings confirming our faith, creation & there is a creator.
@@pd4165 Well, Christians did start Oxford University for the purpose of learning more about God's creation. And it's still one of the best universities in the world. There are many different kinds of Christians. I'm pro-science, as are many Christians I know.
Watching videos like these, faithfully agreeing with everything that's said, reinforcing your own assumptions and making edgy comments about stuff you haven't personally read of it's the norm now.
It's all subjective and your view is meaningless...... Sounds like a three year old having a tantrum. Not worth reading a books worth. Yours sincerely a prole.
I completely lost my ability to focus about 30 minutes in when I started to notice his “right” tick. I started to question whether or not this was some technique to make his arguments more convincing, subliminally. Lol
Ohhh, that was tough. But the guy speaks so well, otherwise, that I'm sure he became aware of it eventually. He must be all PTSD on it now and does not use the word at all anymore, under any circumstances. Now, things are only "correct," "conservative," "90 degrees," and "turn east." Heck, I might never use that word again, myself.
I just listened to Mr Hicks' talk about post-modernism in 1998, very interesting to hear this talk 20 years later. The guy is a genius thinker, so ahead of his time.
"The Ecstasy of communication, the vertigo of information overload, the banality of a Transparent society; can any of these postmodern symptoms show us the way out of the 20th Century and toward a new construction of the human? Can we find meaning in the "world" that is already upon us? It is our task to try."
What a nice talk. Truly a condensate of the book, though there are more data and some deeper insights in the book, which is very much worth having. Disheartening how much confusion in the general popularion today, exemplified in some of the questions. Possibly the consequence of already 50 ys of postmodernist education and media.
@@thadtuiol1717 yea... he does bring a bit of a common man perspective. But, it's kind of nice to have a moderator that isn't an ideological ass taking up valuable time from the guests.
@@tombrown407 Interesting but just one person's opinion. I care about facts and do not think Hicks is a joke; therefore your statement is factually untrue.
@@kamiltrzebiatowski3745 I think he (Hicks) is a failed joke, ie. one that isn't funny, but merely risible... so Tom Brown's statement is at least partially true and your statement, well, if you truly care about facts, is now refuted.
Thanks Professor Stephen Hicks for you wonderful lecture. I understand now why trying to read modern philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Heiddeger , Sartre, Foucault was so boring. And why I enjoyed reading Thinkers like Spinoza, Diderot, Goethe, Jankelewitch.
I don't think there are too many people, even at universities, who take postmodernism seriously as a philosophy, since it ultimately doesn't go anywhere. In my experience, postmodernism is now for the most part a debating tactic that intersectional feminists and cultural marxist social justice warriors selectively employ to demoralize opponents and derail discussions. The people who employ postmodernist tactics reveal that they aren't committed to postmodernist propositions because, if you look closely, you'll see that they very much believe in truth, which they think they possess, and in facts, which they claim to have mastered and which they say support their beliefs.
Dr. Hicks, you might get a kick out of this: I have started to listen to your lectures because of Dr. Peterson. (I wanted to "fact check" Dr. Peterson myself.)
A fantastic presentation. Thank you for sharing. It's interesting that the obsession with a subjective "reality" and relativism at the heart of Post Modernism was anticipated by the developments in the Visual Arts in the early 20th century through artistic Movements such as DaDa , Cubism and to some extent Surrealism and later Abstraction. It seems as though the Arts anticipated the Post Modernists by at least 50 years.
Feminism, postmodernism, marxism, microaggressions, queer theory, etc. all have the same fundamental problem: conflict theory - they view everything as a struggle for power, usually between an "oppressor" and an "oppressed". The problem with such a worldview however is that it is so all-encompassing, to the point that it can even be extended to minor verbal disagreements over purely trivial matters (i.e. if two or more people are expressing views or opinions that the other disagrees with, they are competing for power and trying to assert dominance/oppression over the other's own power and/or status). There's an obvious danger to this kind of tunnel vision: it paints everything that one dislikes or disagrees with as "oppression" - something evil and oppressive that must be destroyed in order for there to be peace. In other words, "there will never be peace until everything that I personally find 'harmful' or 'oppressive' has been eradicated." But here's the thing: a world without harm ("oppression") is impossible due to the limitations of human psychology. Like any other organism, our species evolved to do one thing and one thing only - survive and pass on our genes. And what do you have to do in order to survive and pass on your genes? You have to be wary of threats. You have to make sure that there is no harm or danger or otherwise negative stimuli that could possibly harm you or your offspring. This need to be wary of threats has given us what psychologists call the "negativity bias" - we focus more on the negative than the positive, regardless of how positive things are 'in the big picture'. This is because all stimuli enters our brain through the thalamus, which classifies it as either "positive", "negative", or "neutral", and then sends it en route to our frontal cortex, which then determines how we should react to said stimuli. The catch however, is that our brains prioritize negative and neutral stimuli over positive stimuli. The amygdala, which is basically a "shortcut" from the thalamus to the frontal cortex, only allows neutral and/or negative stimuli to pass through (i.e. threats). This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective - if you're living in the wild, the consequences of NOT responding to negative stimuli (such as a danger) can be far more consequential and thus threatening to one's survival than the consequences of NOT responding to positive stimuli (such as an opportunity). This is why we tend to dwell on the negative despite us having the freedom to enjoy life in what is undoubtedly the most peaceful and prosperous era in all of human history; we're ungrateful for what we have because our species evolved to focus on the negative so that we can be wary of danger and keep away from anything that could possibly decrease our chances of survival. Thus, there is a fundamental paradox to human nature: we want to be safe from negative stimuli (i.e. harm/danger/threats/"oppression"), but our minds evolved to constantly be on the lookout for things to feel threatened by. And this leads me to another important point. The negativity bias means that WE CANNOT ACHIEVE HAPPINESS BY TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD AROUND US. This has been a fundamental teaching of all the major religions around the world for thousands of years - Buddhists are encouraged to accept the fact that life is difficult and to be content with one's suffering. Christianity teaches more or less the same thing - be grateful for everything that God has given you and delight in your struggles, for they will ultimately make you stronger and allow you to live a more fulfilling life. This philosophy extends into other cultures as well, and has been adopted by the likes of Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Haidt. As Peterson put it: "You can't fix the world, but you can fix yourself". In fact, it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said that "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Those are, of course, broad generalizations - there are diseases and health conditions that can seriously weaken you - but for the most part, it's true. Nassim Taleb says pretty much the exact same thing in his book "Antifragile", and Jonathan Haidt addresses it in Chapter 7 of his first book, "The Happiness Hypothesis". Now, I am not denying that there are injustices in the world that we should try to ameliorate. Rape, Torture, Genocide, Unlawful Arrests, etc. are all serious problems that we should strive (and continue striving) to address, but we have to realize that there is a limit to how much we can improve our imperfect world and make our lives better in the process. We also have to remember that ONE CANNOT BE TRULY HAPPY UNLESS THEY ARE GRATEFUL FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD IN LIFE. True happiness comes from appreciation for what one has. If you're going to waste your time disproportionately focusing on what is "wrong" with the world, or complaining about things that you don't like, then you are destined for a life of bitter resentment and misery. Does that sound familiar? It should, because it's the attitude of a spoiled 5-year-old. Children, when they first come into the world, lack the experience required to accept and tolerate the adversities of life. They have not yet learned how to overcome hardship, nor how to be grateful for what they have, nor have they come to accept that fact that things do not always go the way that they would prefer them to. These are things that any responsible parent understands and should try to instil in their children. A parent who gives their child everything that the child asks for will only end up spoiling them by creating the illusion that the world exists to serve THEM, and if you go into "the real world" expecting everything to change to suit YOUR ideals, then you're destined for a life of misery. Besides, giving a child everything that they ask for will not even make them happy in the short term, because you can't be grateful if everything gets handed to you. This is why nobody every thinks of such a spoiled child as being happy, much less polite. Responsible parents on the other hand, know better than to just give their child everything that the child asks for. Responsible parents instead raise their children to recognize the fact that life is difficult and that you don't always get what you want, and certainly not without some kind of personal investment of hardship. This is because a responsible parent understands that life, by in large, is about adaptation. You cannot survive in this world if you refuse to adapt and learn to overcome adversity. And that brings us back around to conflict theory and all of its manifestations. The fundamental problem with Marxism, postmodernism, third-wave feminism, microaggressions, queer theory, etc. is that, in their most extreme forms, they teach people to view everything that they dislike as "power and oppression". They are the worldview of a spoiled 5-year-old who expects the entire world to change in order to suit THEIR ideals and MAKE them happy, which is a relatively futile endeavour because, as detailed above, a world without hardship/suffering/"oppression" is psychologically impossible. Viewing everything through a lens of conflict theory (or "the oppressor and the oppressed") is completely maladaptive because it means BLAMING ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS ON THE WORLD, rather than admitting one's own faults and stopping to ask oneself "how can I change myself so that I can be a better person?" If conflict theory and all of its incarnations were truly committed to fighting actual injustices in the world - women being sold into sexual slavery, or being discriminated against just because they are women - then everything would be fine. In fact, a lot of good actually HAS come out of them for that very reason. While I usually reject labels and try to avoid labeling others, I AM a first-wave feminist and I firmly believe that everyone should be TREATED fairly (proportionally, socially, legally, or otherwise), and that "you should not do onto others what you would not have them do onto you". If you consider yourself a feminist, activist, socialist, etc., and the above two principles are at the heart of your ideals, then I see no problem. Your goals are perfectly noble and something that I agree that we should all strive for in a civilized society. The real problem is that conflict theory, as it exists in its current forms, is so all-encompassing that it classifies everything from genocide to mild verbal disagreements as 'harm and oppression'. This in turn causes the adherents to develop an egocentric victimhood complex that ultimately leads to a culture of 'spoiled children in 20-something skin' (my words) whom naively think that they can achieve happiness by demanding that the entire world change to suit their own egocentric ideals. Which, again, is impossible due to the limitations of human psychology. I guess what I am trying to say is that: conflict theory and all of its modern incarnations - feminism, marxism, postmodernism, microaggressions, queer theory - fail to draw a clear line between 'righteous indignation', and just being an unpleasant, ungrateful, and spoiled little brat.
His history of religion is so limited... He takes aspects of Christianity and thinks they are universal. They don't really apply outside of Christianity and its offshoots.
If only the whole world could hear and understand this lecture and it's implications... I truly believe many leftists are motivated by purely good intensions, but just haven't thought it through or given consideration for unintended consequences. If they could just take that good will and point it in the 'right' direction then who's to say how much we could achieve as a species. I guess JP's catchphrase of 'clean your room' is a simplification of this thought, stop worrying about what everyone else has and focus on your own life, and in that way we all benefit.
JP is a huge proponent of postmodern thought except he rails against it every chance he gets. His metaphoric truth and pluralist view of truths are very postmodern ideas. His battle against grand narratives is inline with most pomo stances. His acceptance of Kuhn and Nietzsche's work shows his respect for the ideas of these 2 great postmodernists. So in the interest of being charitable, I would say he's not against postmodernism itself but the actions and ideas of a few postmodern theorists that have been taken out of context by the likes of Hicks and popular culture. I would say, if only the world could understand what postmodernism really is, they'd know that they are living and breathing it everyday because it has already underpinned the very thoughts and ideas they are currently espousing.
Super great speach. The sound gets much better after introduction. It is kind of a sad thing when free speach clubs have to host FREE SPEACH LECTURES, that should be obvious to everyone, or even cancel them.
Unfortunately, Hicks' speech isn't all that well-informed. I recommend picking up a more neutral book about the history of philosophy some time. They tend to be both engaging and informative. There's also this book review: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
A personal enlightenment can't be undone by exposure to postmodernism. Once a person experiences the power and joy that comes from discovering truth through careful observation and logical deduction that person is immune from postmodern claptrap. This is why purveryors of postmodernism must focus on young people who have never had a personal enlightenment.
So sad to see modern education failing in the matter of teaching young people to think, and instead simply trying to cram them full of the ‘correct’ beliefs. My father left school at 13 during the 1930s, but eventually became an Oxford don specializing in political science. I disagreed with many of his ideas, but I believe he would have been sickened by modern academia. Excellent teaching by Stephen Hicks, at least there are exceptions to the rule.
It is very irritating and difficult to ignore too. Not everyone can be a prolific speaker like Jordan Peterson who has great knowledge along with extra-ordinary speaking and debating skills.
One of the main points of his talk starts right after the 1:37 mark. This is the point now where we are in the political and cultural wars in the West.
AUTOGRAPHED books still available here: www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/0983258406/ref=tmm_hrd_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=&sr=
Nice! Glad I saw this before I ordered a copy elsewhere, you have my order!
@Allan 112358 pay attention he elaborates in detail right after said statement
Thanks for making this available! Got my copy.
is this still an autographed copy?
And what about taking a look at a critique of Hick's thesis: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
When he mentions the logical contradictions...this summarises the cognitive dissonance I've been experiencing relative to our culture for YEARS without being able to articulate them 😯 Thank you!
The problem with humans (including your culture) is Continued Universal Human Cluelessness, which my philosophy is a response to and corrects. Read it.
ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.htmlsi=EqgCKuAcobc-Yyta
This video addresses hicks in a very educational way
I'm a Hungarian living in Canada. Very thankful for Stephen Hicks for his work, and for his presentation. Spot on.
He is full of shit
@@richardgamrat1944 care to elaborate?
I love Jordan Peterson, but often his furnace of a mind, burns too hot to be readily understood by the average person. THIS man lays it all out calmly with crystal clarity. Must-see viewing for all of us who are in the fight to return this country to sanity. Thank you, Free Speech Club.
I actually think Hicks is much more philosophically sound than Peterson, as well. He has tons of lectures online if you're interested.
Something to be said for an architect turned philosopher.
Understands the structure of things.
I find Jordan Peterson quite confused about things, philosophically inept, and intellectually underwhelming.
I know what you mean, sometimes Peterson is like an episode of Rick and Morty.
This is the kind of organized delivery that would make Jordan Peterson a more effective speaker. JBP tends to ramble and become tangential, and thereby loses his audience here and there. I guess that’s why I’ve watched many of his videos multiple times over-so I can catch the thread I may have lost in previous listenings. In any case, I wish I had professors like these guys when I was in school.
I am afraid I agree. So used to rambling profs from college, I sometimes forget it's not necessarily an added bonus. Love, LOVE, JBP. But yes, ditto.
Love your name 😂
I wouldn't call it rambling I would call it a different style or even being able to keep up.
I fully admit that I am looking at all soucres of information to understand postmodernism and our current world. I really appreciate this lecture. There is no doubt that Hicks is more than qualified to speak on this subject. I don't agree with all his conclusions that is why I am weighing multiple sources. Many of the negative comments I see below are ad hominem attacks that don't make sense. He is fully credentialed and an academic. You may not agree with his conclusions then make a logical defense of that point of view. I hope to see more of these discussions from all types of thinkers and not be so close minded. I really learned so much and will follow up by reading primary sources as well.
One had to be extraordinarily naive or „willing to believe“ to actually come back from a visit of Eastern Bloc countries with glowing reports. I still remember what Czechoslovakia and Hungary were like at the time, and find it actually hard to put that dreary and depressing atmosphere into words. The one word that kind of keeps coming to mind when thinking back to what these countries were like under communist rule is „gray“. Everything looked and felt gray, not merely drained of color, but kind of muddy, as if a veil had been draped over everything. „Thank God I don’t have to live here“ was the one thought that kept occurring to me.
Nowadays I often reflect on the fact that representatives of the left for some reason seem to have zero sense of humor, which I find an eerie characteristic that in a way serves as a big warning sign. But it is perhaps not all too surprising considering that the world they envisage for us to live in is definitely not funny. I would actually call it double-plus-unfunny.
Pater - You have written such an evocative description of what you saw and remembered that I shuddered. I guess we are all concerned, and many realize the danger inherent in this form of thinking. Beautifully put, poetic, and yet alarming. Their "Utopia" is a fearful place. Regards.
Definitely, a population under communism is bleak beyond words. Gray is a perfect description.
Grey housing estates, memorial monuments, spartakiada (google it), queues for toilet paper and oranges, no homeless people, no unemployment, Tuzex, JZD, surveillance, forbidden radio stations, very rich underground culture 😈 (Czechoslovakia of my youth)
@Pater Tenebrarum -- Problem with the young left-wingers and socialists today is that they don't know anything about the USSR or Eastern Bloc Countries. They were never taught history. Too close to reality. Might muddle young minds into reality and turn them away from post-modern ideas.
I’d like to know who the leftists you think represent them cause leftists aren’t exactly a monolith
I’ve been waiting for this confrontation for 30 years. I’m 48, and when I first went to college and enrolled in a liberal arts program, the notion that nothing is real, and life is only a power game of identity politics, had already taken root.
Yeah his book is full of errors.
I do agree with his hypothesis that the failures of Marxism and communism played a key role in driving the likes of Foucault and Derrida into coming up with postmodern philosophy. However, I don't think that they themselves are directly responsible for today's identity politics or so called "cultural Marxism". I think what is more likely is that postmodern philosophy is intended as a descriptive analysis of how power and social and mental structures work - postmodernism essentially states that 'our ability to understand the world is limited by both the power structures that comprise it, and by the workings of the human mind that cause us to perceive the world through our own biased frameworks'.
That in and of itself is not necessarily a problem. The problem is that critical theory - which just so happens to include Foucault's critique and analyses of power structures - became highly influential in other fields that were also predicated on conflict theory (i.e. feminist theory, race theory, postcolonial theory), and this just so happened to coincide with the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war draft which saw a large number of people on the left fleeting to Universities to study social justice. Come a few decades later, and the left-right ratio in academia has become incredibly uneven (around 10:1), and we now have a large population of left/left-leaning faculty using ELEMENTS of postmodern thinkers' work to fuel their own revolutionary agendas.
But Derrida, Lyotard, and arguably Foucault, regardless of their own leftist political beliefs, did not intend for their philosophies to be used in such an ideologically-driven manner. They were intended to be used in a descriptive manner, and to help us think more deeply about, social power structures, the nature of reality, and how we perceive said reality.
Also, I find Jonathan Haidt's explanations for today's campus riots and protests to be far more plausible and reasonable. I'm much more of a fan of Haidt than I am of Peterson.
ua-cam.com/video/4IBegL_V6AA/v-deo.html
@Oners82 - You call Hicks a "fraud" and a liar yet you fail to present even one single piece of evidence for those assertions?
You're clearly a master of post-modern argumentation aren't you, super genius?
@@jonah_da_mann - You claim "his book" is "full of errors", but you fail to identify *which book* (there are several) and you fail to identify *even one single error,* then you proceed to bloviate subjective irrelevancies as a substitute for supporting your claim.
"Full of errors" yet you can't cite a single one? Looks like you're also a master of post-modern (non-)argumentation, just like Oners82. Way to go, super genius #2!
You should team up with Oners82 and publish a textbook on how to write inane, unpersuasive YT comments.
@Oners82 - thanks for the very interesting link. I watched it. Great video. "Destroyed" is optimistic, but it's an excellent critique.
Wasn't triggered, just pointed out your total failure to present an argument. Sorry.
@@coffeyjjj Here are the errors that I'm referring to: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
I totally wasn't prepared to watch the whole video but he convinced me to stay. Brilliant lecture!
Unfortunately, while this talk was competently delivered, the topics hadn't been thoroughly researched.
I recommend wathing this: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
In any case, picking up an academic publication on the history of philosophy can never hurt.
They tend to be both engaging and informative :)
If you liked this and you enjoy intellectual debate, you'll love hearing this lecture be debunked in full ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
@@sebastianbiller2815 no. Shit video which has already been debunked.
Like what more important did you have to do, sheesh
I am reading C. Frankel's book "The Case for Modern Man" (1954) which takes on the critics of liberal values that were emerging post ww2. It is essentially a discussion of modern v postmodern in the realm of philosophy and politics. His defense of the modern is very solid. Very worth reading on the subject.
You might enjoy Alan Gowans, The Restless Art, The Unchanging Arts and Learning to see, three books that changed my life, got me awards, and a full time existence as a writer and visual artist.
Yeah, no - the problem there is that 'post-modernism' as it should be properly understood as the 'commodification of experience', wouldn't really come into existence until the late 1950's. There is no 'war' between the modern and the post-modern, they are just cultural shifts of emphases. Frankel's book isn't essentially anything to do with the emerging post-modern. Similarly, Hicks' account isn't so much a critique as a politically motivated fiction. The so called neo-liberal right are always strawmanning identity politics as a contemporary attack on free-speech, but it isn't. There is no institutional 'anti-capitalism' but Hicks and his ilk identify the 'free-market' as a bastion or guarantor of free-speech... so, y'know... Enemies everywhere!
@@stueyapstuey4235 What you said makes me wonder if was there institutional 'anti-capitalism' in Russia prior to revolution of 1917? Or was it bunch of divided (proletariat vs burgeons) minds riled up to carry out course of the history to follow? Perhaps I can agree with you that there is a straw-man in equating identity politics as an attack on free-speech. However that doesn't refute the fact that free speech isn't attacked. In Canada there is an "Anti-Islamophobia" Law under which state restricts your ability to criticize Islam and it's followers. I don't believe both of your arguments have any factual basis.
@@stueyapstuey4235 I guess it takes a fiction to critique a fiction. But its all subjective now, isn't it?
I praise Dr. Stephen Hicks for his courage in taking a stand against postmodernism and for doing it in a very intelligent way. The antiscience stance of postmodernists has caused ecology, a branch of biology that studies the relationship of plants and animals to their physical and biological environment, to be replaced by environmentalism (activism around the environment), also referred to as ‘Marxist Ecology’.
Interesting. By whom is it referred to like that and why?
Been a fan of this guy for many years. At one time he would interact with people who posted on his website and there were not many of us doing it back then. So glad to see he is starting to become well known.
Hicks is complete thinker. His comment about Kant's critique of reason and why he was skeptical of the 'absolute' in regard to reason was well stated and clarifying.
No he's shit. He reads the title "Critique of Pure Reason" and actually thinks Kant is against reason.
1:08:09min Yes, it is like Hume pointed out "You cannot derive and ´ought´ from and ´is´" People are responsible for creating, inspecting, and detecting the effectiveness of ethical norms they adhere to. No one else will do it for them.
Great talk!
As a person that believes in reason, logic and real world practical consequences, I find post-modernism a cancerous ideology.
I wish countries start to wake up and reduce the number of post-modernism content in university courses, specially in the humanities and sociology.
He is actually very disingenuous. There is a reason why his book was not peer reviewed or publish by a reputable publisher. "Explaining Postmodernism" is actually a thinly veiled critique of Postmodernism.
Alexandre Santos this guy misrepresents not only postmodernism but almost every other philosopher he‘s talking of. his work is nothing but illiterate strawmanning the subject. if you want to know what pomo is about, don‘t get your knowledge from this guy.
But you offer no replacement. Try my Philosophy of Perpetual Universal Survival and Morality (for the Space Age, no less).
Mr. Numi Who how about reading foucaults works for example?
American Fuel TV he calls kant a counterenlightement philosopher, who is against logic and reason. this should be enough to discredit hicks’ whole work
I am floored by how good this talk was.
richard brewster Then study Leonard Peikoff because thats where he learned a lot of it.
Unfortunately, while this talk was delivered very well, Hicks' positions aren't researched very thoroughly.
For comprehensive criticism, I recommend this video review of his book: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
I also highly recommend picking up any peer-reviewed book on the history of philosophy. Those are usually written in an engaging style while giving you the most important details.
you seem to be very easily impressed ...
@@sebastianbiller2815 The verdict is in. Choose your faith, postomodernist: Mussolini, Maria Antoinette or Ceausescu.
@300bpm you clearly didn't watch the video... or read any Kant...or post modern philosophy
I am so, so grateful for this! Thank you for uploading and sharing this important content
Stephen Hicks is a genius.
Watch the debate between Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson and then decide if SH is a genius. He is just a dilettante in philosophy.
@@tianyiliu856 Zizek is a troll.
@@Faeron1984 Let's see what consensus we can reach. SH and Zizek focus on the same problem: political correctness, today's morbid liberal culture, and the deeper philosophical trend behind them, i.e. postmodernism. What I appreciate in Zizek is that he doesn't buy into the cheap dichotomy the American public gets (liberal/conservative; Biden is bad, so we should get Trump, etc.) My problem with SH is that the only thing in Continental philosophy that interests him is the conservative side Nietzschean thoughts (which have already been criticized a lot on the Continental side) and he basically ignores the entire history of labor and economy from late 19th c. to today (which is a common problem in all those conservative "critics of postmodernism").
@@tianyiliu856 Jordan didn't do nearly as poorly as the faithful perceived in his confrontation with Zizek. Jordan has a much larger repertoire of issues he covers. Even with Zizek's command of Marxist ideology, Peterson held his own by focusing on implementation. Marxism continues to influence despite the dead bodies in its wake, because the problems with capitalism are explicit, not because Marxism has demonstrated empirical merit by comparison. Marxism is a dead end, unfortunately, because it's fundamentally flawed in its relation to human nature. Capitalism has significant problems, but it's much more serviceable. There's a better way to do capitalism and that's what I'm personally working on.
Hicks doesn't ignore the history of labor from the late 19th century to today. The data overwhelmingly favors his argument in that time frame. And the Peterson/Zizek debate isn't an answer to Hick's arguments. That's ridiculous.
@@kenhiett5266 Thanks for your reply. Now as you are honest that capitalism is in trouble, I hope you would agree that what we call Marxism actually includes at least two parts: first is Marx's diagnosis of capitalism (if you have really read Marx's Capital you would have known that Marx did NOT really propose any clear solution; what he did is a careful analysis of the dynamics of capitalism down to its basics, especially most mainstream economists till this day do not mention or try to avoid, i.e. unemployment, employment replaced by automation, etc.), second is Marx's solution (Communist Manifesto, which is outdated, for sure; Critique of Gotha Program, which is the basis of Leninism). I would argue that only the second is a dead end; the first is more relevant than ever, and as Zizek argues, Marx didn't even realize how correct he was (in the sense that he was basically analyzing Western economics but today basically the entire planet is involved in the capitalist system, which is also why the Marxist analysis gains more and more audience globally) and his method of analysis is the only way to explain today's capitalist crisis.
What IS a dead end is the Soviet model of planning. Right now there are groups in America and in Asia that still support this model, and I am against them. If you call "market" capitalism and believe that it can and will exist for a very long period of time, then I agree with you, but capitalism is not just market, otherwise the Ancient Greeks lived in capitalism. Capitalism involves free exchange of means of production and the right to determine the distribution of profits by the owner of means of production.
If you believe Hicks doesn't ignore the history of labor from the late 19th century to today, then tell me where he quotes anything like Balzac/Zola/Dickens's novel or labor historians like Eric Hobsbawm (not to mention Engels's classic "the Condition of Working Class in England" which literally reappeared in China in the last 3 decades) or any evidences of the condition of working men in Americas or Asia or anything like that.
I also hope we would agree that what will really work for the future is at least a mechanism or consensus, whatever you call it, of redistribution of the profits; and since automation is replacing jobs, and eventually almost all necessary labor can be replaced by automation, the automatic machines and factories themselves should not only be owned by just a few people of the society (in what way they should be owned, I don't know, but it has to be collective) otherwise only the owners of the machines get profits and the rest of us are jobless. The ruling class can also have another option, which is what is happening globally: arrest all labor activists, run nationalist propaganda and WWIII, send the un-/under-employed of every country to kill each other, and hope the world will be "normal" after this grand massacre.
You know society has hit rock bottom when you need a CLUB for free speech!
Incredibly thorough, clear overview and explanation. Thank you for posting this full talk.
He is actually very disingenuous. There is a reason why his book was not peer reviewed or publish by a reputable publisher. "Explaining Postmodernism" is actually a thinly veiled critique of Postmodernism.
The term "critique" implies a thorough investigation (As in "Critique of Pure Reason"). That is not what has taken place here :D
At least some people, like Habermas, make an effort to actually understand postmodernism before criticising it.
its actually an illiterate, uneducated, muddled butchery of the Western canon
I would like to direct you to this video: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
@Buttercup If haven't received a formal education you have no way of knowing whether academic material is credible or not.
They will always say “You can’t make an omelette without breaking the eggs” and we will always respond “Where is the omelette?”
Excellent explanation of Enlightenment and Postmodernism. This is what they need to teach in high school. It is liberating to understand that meaning and truth are subjective - it empowers us to accept our own intuitive reasoning for guiding us through life. Wish I had access to these talks 30 years ago!
Hicks is full of shit, he does not understnad postmodernism.
They'll never teach this in high school because he's wrong about literally everything
How did you conclude from this talk that truth and meaning are subjective? That's bizarre.
I love lectures such as this, the topic of free speech is of grave importance and needs to be constantly reiterated, spoken of, intellectually contemplated and written about. Why is there only one video for this channel on a issue of such magnitude, that is the centerpiece of American ideology and fundamentally the very foundation for which all freedom loving people will fight and gladly die for?
the 'contradictions' part is just genius!
This is an outstanding take on what we are seeing in society today. Woke insanity must be defeated or we are all done for.
Enlightenment: "let's use science to see if we can figure out what's going on" - Postmodernism: "Not necessary, I already know what I feel".
Well said.
Ah optional thinking and, if I can be bothered, emotional thinking. Things are sufficiently challenging that we are now teaching critical thinking to first year undergraduates (in a top 10 global Higher education institution). It is not the student's "fault" - teaching to grades and the Internet has muted curiosity in favour of simplistic solutions to complex problems. We are evolving ourselves out of history at pace. And there are no moral authorities left to ask the question : where is your evidence?
Funny enough that’s the perfect description for people who don’t bother to read about postmodernism or postmodern literature. Yet at the same time accept everything Hicks and Jordan Peterson say without doubting it at all.
Hicks is clown, he does not understand postmodernism.
AnarchoRepublican lmao what are you on about just read a book fam. You just gotta critically think for once or google the history of postmodernism/ enlightenment. Hicks misrepresents both and can’t figure it out at all.
This is a great lecture! The book he is mentioning at the end is a longer treatment of this topic. It's available for FREE online as a PDF.
I agree, just the "right" word occurring a touch too often, I started to await it while listening
Hey There!
I have read an extensive amount of postmodern thought: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze (my favorite) etc. I am also very well versed in German Idealism (including Nietzsche), Modern Philosophy (Rationalism and British Empiricism) and Phenomenology (besides Husserl), but also have an academic grounding in Analytic Philosophy and Logic. I am of the opinion that postmodern thought is an important and inevitable development of philosophy, and can be understood, appreciated and even applied without any sort of leftist or identity politics related agenda. I myself am not any sort of leftist, and actually consider myself completely opposed to identity politics.
I believe these 'postmodern' thinkers to have made seminal contributions to Ontology, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Ethics and, yes, political philosophy (though in absolutely no way by establishing identity politics). Anyone want to have a rational conversation about this topic? Please respond with your grievances against or perceptions of postmodern thought and we can discuss! I am definitely prepared to shift my view in the face of a rigorous critique, it happens to me all the time!
Quite useless with these people who deem themselves as liberal rationalists.
I’m interested. How do you solve the problem of action? If I can’t act like something is more true than something else, then how can I do anything at all?
How is not a complete non-starter at its core? They say there is no objective truth, which is an objective truth statement. They could pull back and say "there's no objective truth in my experience" to placate the whole objection to objectivity. Then it becomes an objective truth statement that there's no objective truth in their experience.
That's even before trying to progress to things like "everything can be reduced to power" which is again a whopper of an objective claim.
So what can it put forward that isn't automatically wrecked by its own core principals? Why should it be treated as a development when it can't even get itself off the ground?
@@cartoune which post modernist said "there is no objective truth" (an actal quote would be nice) and how do you know all the other post modernists agreed with it? And who said that thing you mentioned about everything being power relations or something? Was that an actual quote? Those are gross oversimplifications at best.
I've noticed that a few leftists are deep into the Frankfurt/Marxist/Critical Thinking "Philosophy"......meaning the destruction of ALL non communist/socialist thoughts and the naughty child acceptance of "I'm right and everything else is wrong"
Mao Zedong coined the phrase "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS " =PC.....now warmly embraced by the luny-left. Shows where they truly spawned from.
Hicks is a hero
He sure is. Read his book, it's very well written
he is a con artist: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
a hero of my ass
@@TheHerrUlf Apart from the fact it fucks up on the first page and misrepresents dozens of "postmodern" thinkers
@@nimaxx con is that video. Quiet
man, great great talk explaining not only the frame of reference that informs postmodernism but also the history of philosophy and how it has evolved/developed overtime
As someone who "missed the culture train" years ago, I find Dr. Hick's presentation to be just what I needed to get acquainted with post-modern thinking. It now makes sense to see how our society has strongly divided views and, in a sense, lost its way in a world of relativism. Thanks to the UBC Free Speech Club for hosting the event and offering the information through UA-cam.
His reading of a number of philosophers is highly tendentious. His account is therefore quite unfit for someone newly aquainting themselves with pomo philosophies.
I highly recommend picking up any introductory book on the history of philosophy at your local bookstore.
The explosion of complex music was made possible by the equal temper tuning system that gives rise to our “closed loop” harmonic 12 tones. That development may be thanks to the enlightenment but it’s a distinction worth pointing out.
Agreed!
From flexibility, freedom. Potential power to develop...
Not without a price... But different wonders were then made.
In other words...a discipline...
@@anthonybrett constraints are what promulgate creativity
The closed loop here, in this sense, is your thinking.
Stephen is brilliant and dispassionate - and that's a good thing. Well organized and presented. In the words of the Monkeys, 'I'm a believer.' In the words of Peterson, 'Post-modernist neo-Marxism, - that's a BAD THING, a BAD THING!'
Robert Field Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!
We can learn a thing or two from the lobsters...
Woah... I was on board until he mis-characterized Kant & neglected to discuss the idea of a- priori reasoning in a really unprofessional way. Kant was not advocating for a subjective form of epistemology... Our legal justice system wouldn't work without Kantian ideas. WTF!?
ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html this video debunks Hicks and explains how he lies and mischaracterises everything like a first year undergrad who suffered a severe head wound.
James Lindsey is the pre-eminent critic of POMO current year. First he sees the contradictions between the post-modernists and modern activism, how popular ideology misuses post-modernism and what the problems are with post-modernism itself.
www.doseofleadership.com/dr-james-lindsay/
@@tombrown407 This is just another example of what post modernism is, and how it's creation of current identity politics is a result of what this pseudo philosophical fad:
Postmodernism, Identity Politics, and Other Political Influences
in Political Psychology
Peter Suedfeld
"In the last couple of decades, humanists and to some extent social scien- tists have experienced increasing pressure from colleagues who, under the label of postmodernism, have rejected the possibility that objective truths can be discovered, or even that such truths exist, in the domains of these disci- plines. Instead, they argue that all truth is “construction,” a function of his- torical, cultural, and geographical context interacting with demographic categories such as sex, class, ethnicity, and so on. One hallmark of this view is the use of derogatory quotation marks around the word “truth” wherever it appears.
Each of these demographic groups supposedly has different “truths,” and should insist that only their own members can understand (and, a fortiori, teach or write about) any aspect of the group (“particularism”). Regressing to earlier racist and sexist assumptions, they argue that members of differ- ent groups have mutually incompatible ways of learning, thinking, and behavior. Therefore, they need special and often separate courses, read- ings, professors, students, advisors, dormitories, campus centers, et cetera, whose primary task is to advance their group’s recognition and agenda through political as well as intellectual means (“identity politics”). Identity politics is an offshoot of postmodernism in its denial of universal, objective truths (and of the position that Wnding such truths is the goal of scholar- ship), but many researchers have accepted the implications of constructiv- ism without knowingly subscribing to it as a general philosophy of science.
Paradoxically, practitioners of postmodernism and identity politics criti- cize the adherents of traditional scientiWc objectivity for not having lived up to their ideals, and simultaneously argue that objectivity is inherently impossible to attain and, anyway, morally wrong. They have suggested that the primary purpose of research and teaching should be to reshape society for the beneWt of particular groups (Gross & Levitt, 1994; Searle, 1993- 1994), and that research that might hamper such social change should (a) not be conducted, (b) if conducted, not be published, and (c) in any case, certainly not taught.
You say he mischaracterized Kant. How? Where? Where are your quotes from Kant's work that shows how Hicks missed the mark? He backed up his thesis with data and examples. You have not done so with your criticism.
@@lmb1931 OK, I did make remarks identifying how he misrepesented Kant. If you have studied philosophy you would see my counter points. I'll explain. One of Kant's big claims to fame is his ongoing debate with David Hume. They both made really good points.
Hume argued that the best way to find truth is through observation and rigorous testing via scientific method. The mind by itself is not reliable enough to find truth.
Kant countered with the idea that there are hypothetical situations that can test ideas through pure logical thought processes: a-priori. You can think your way through a set of ideas and come to reliable results. So you are operating only from the power of the mind. Like I said originally legal arguments are built on tests of pure reason, with the qualifier of truth being: does actor X do you harm via action Y.
To say that Kant was promoting "subjective epistemology", or subjective knowledge making is woefully wrong. Kant was a very logical philosopher. He just believed you could build an argument in your conscious mind based on proven facts. You could learn this in a philosophy 101 course.
Thank you so much for this video. He is so clear. I wish I had a course like this and a professor like him when I was in university. Really made me think about how important philosophy is and how concepts so abstract can land in my personal everyday reality. ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias!
uaoooooooooooooo! This is fantastic! I will buy books of this Professor! I have to understand why he "does not" find relevant IK and why he links IK to postmodernism... Thank you "The Free Speech Club" for making this available!
Kant, by brilliantly demonstrating the limitations of pure reason, was the tipping point to postmodernism.
As someone who was raised in the Soviet Union I immensely regretted it had not collapse some 15 years earlier than it did. That would make me born and spend my formative years in capitalism that followed.
My mind is blown by this man, absolutely fantastic in every sense.
Thinking Hicks is an intellectual is like thinking Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food or that Britney Spears is a classically-trained vocalist.
He publishes on his own vanity press and is factually wrong about a variety of philosophical points.
Jeff Maehre Whats the point of your comment if you’re not going to be specific? You might as well have commented “Hicks is a poopy head”.
Its fine if you have that opinion but voicing that opinion beyond catharsis has no value for anyone else unless you are willing to go into specifics.
Thinkers gave disagreed for millennia, big deal, how do you know that your interpretation is more accurate? Supposing you’re a postmodernist it would be hypocritical of you to even claim a better grasp on anything.
@@colloredbrothers ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html There you have it.
When reason is against a man, he will soon turn against reason - David Hume.
What is wrong with people? This guy is giving gold in his speech and people baby crying over his use of fillers? Is that where your priorities are? Damn he's not even a bad speaker and he's talking complex stuff here, and people complaining. It's ridiculously childish!
He is talking black and white, as he has been taught to do and to think. Reality would produce a different graph, one wherein the grays would be blended and we could more clearly see how things happened. He ascribed the word magic to the age of faith - yet Gutenberg creating the printing press thus unchaining the Holy Scriptures from the Church and giving it to the masses was a Christian himself - he did not prostrate himself at the feet of the ruling Religion, his Christian faith in no way disallowed his use of reason, as one example of the broad array of examples, another being “The work of recording and classifying the contents of nature, which, as Bacon had indicated, was the first step in creating a modern universal science, was led in chemistry by Boyle. In biology, the comparable work was carried out by John Ray.” John Ray born in 1627 was a Christian - his faith in no way precluded him from engaging in a rational scientific endeavor, I would go so far as to say perhaps his faith, i.e. reverence for life itself aided him in his scientific inquiry. I see reality as an overlapping of circles - reflecting the flow effect as in casting a stone to skip upon the surface of the water, and I find the linear approach in graphs etc, to be limiting and reflective of a dogmatic historical approach - I find it counter-productive in that the blend of intellect and faith are divorced to a large degree and much is obscured which could easily be included. But then that brings into question, not the professor's approach, but the scaffolding upon which academia was fashioned. We have some fine examples of brilliant minds who were taught with tutors and did not suffer the doctrinal structures of formal higher education.
He's a good speaker but he doesn't know enough to make visuals that are readable. Add this to a camera operator who thinks it's more important to see the speaker than read the visuals and this presentation would get a barely passing grade in any decent graduate school seminar class. In the USA anyway, Canada, well...
HooKares? Did you really have problems reading the power point? Really? Really?
Wasn't Oxford founded on the overtly stated the principle of discoverign GOD's handiwork in creation?
Julian Blake...Please go to 29:29 and tell me what that slide says. He even apologized for the small font for this venue.
Who needs to go to university when you can go online? Thank you.
In tracing the rise of modernist, he seems to reduce Christianity to fideism. But modern philosophy was the suppression of scholasticism, which was based on classical philosophy, as modern science was a suppression of classical science. Galileo was suppressed less because he went against Scripture than because he went against Aristotle.
Precisely. His knowledge of intellectual history is a bit basic.
Yup. This is like Bertrand Russell's view of the history of philosophy redux.
I never looked at Kant this way but it does make sense regarding the historic timeline on this lecture. During his lifetime I thought Kant was trying to find a compensating concept for a fundamental problem that logic and reason have. What to do with what is unknown. It can be practical and comforting to have principles of faith and ethics and aesthetics where the shadow of the metaphhysic stares back at you. How do you explain the affection that music or poetry can spark in us? Is it just a firework of nerves or is there more?
During the second half of his philosophical development it was a constructive contribution to the fear of the unknown. I never thought of Kant as a anti-realism or even anti-enlightenment philosopher. He just refused to bieleve that logic and reason is the only source of insight. He did not suggest to replace logic and reason. Instead he suggested that faith could or should coexist with reason and logic in order to hace acces to all sources of insight. Maybe this was for him a certain way to alleviate the abrupt transition from the age of faith to the age of reason. Or you could say he wanted to preserve to achievments of the thousands of years of the age of faith.
Fantastic put together by Hicks. 7 people disliked it so far but I wonder if they're the ones in favor of subjectivism (in which case they shouldn't evaluate anything - it should, supposedly, be meaningless to them) or is it because they wanted more from Hicks.
C_R_O_M__________ or maybe you and hicks both misunderstand postmodernism. So you're conclusions are wrong and you are unable to understand why they dislike the video.
Andrew Feist Yes, that's a possibility but it's highly unlikely. Did you actually watch the lecture? How do you answer his questioning on the incentives behind postmodernism and the inconsistencies between what they preach and what they actually practice?
How is it possible for a bunch of people that preach relativism and subjectivism to adhere ONLY to Marxist ideology?
How is it possible that postmodern philosophy, which claims that all views are equally valid, nothing can be seen as the truth therefore also its opposite has no objective merit, to fuel authoritarian behaviour such as the one displayed by radical SJW groups?
Why isn't relativism and subjectivity applicable when it comes to SJW issues? There is an elephant in the room and you are sitiing on him.
For one, they are not Marxists. They left marxism and there has been a tension between marxists and postmodernists ever since. The fact that many of them were marxists is not surprising because almost all continental philosophers were Marxists at the time.
Post modern philosophers are not the same people as "radical SJW groups" who are mostly children who have not read these thinkers.
The general themes of your argument are problematic because they group a bunch of different people into a single box, and label them //post modern//. Then you use what you consider to be the essence of this label, relativism of various sorts, across all them uniformly and expect a coherent picture to emerge. Well if there is anything which unites post modernists, its a skepticism of categorizing and essentializing, exactly because arguments become meaningless when you discuss them as such an abstract level.
If you want to refute a postmodernist thinker, pick one in particular, and actually read their thought. Find out if, and on what arguments, they are an absolute relativist. Then see if what they did is inconsistent. The most extreme relativists, like Derrida, were not really political. And their relativism was criticized by Marxists for being apolotical.
Whereas Rorty wrote about politics but in a very consistent way, maintaining value judgments, but trying to develop a framework that isnt overly essentialist; he argued for politics on vague notions like an opposition to cruelty, but said we shouldn't be categorical about it.
But sure. I think a lot of people who have picked up the banners of post modernism in harmful ways. But that happens with literally every ideology. So its meaningless.
It's only natural for an advocate of post-modernism to end his thought with the phrase "It's (sic) meaningless", that's exactly what these guys contributed to society, nihilism, lack of meaning, etc. when all evidence points that a life imbued with nihilism is one that most likely produce any range of the worst of human tendencies.
Post-modernism, which I have tried to read (but fed up with them and never followed through, I perceived it to be a waste of my precious time) when I participated in a doctorate program of existential psychotherapy, are wrong in so many of their initial assumptions (like the one that proclaims "failure" for the enlightenment movement - juct like Hicks pointed out in this lecture) that the only point that's worthwhile about them is to discuss how is it possible for admittedly very intelligent humans to come up with so arbitrary initial assumptions that of course led them to equally wrong conclusions.
In science and philosophy the most important thing we can do when starting an inquiry is to establish the bedrock of assumptions underneath our scientific or philosophical structure(s).
As a psychologist, who have been following brain studies from the beginning of my academic path, the answer to the utterly nonsensical track of thought of postmodernism lies in the works of Sperry and Gazzaniga (split-brain studies) who identified our left brain as the "interpreter".
Our left brain, where the language centre usually resides, is prone to misinterpreting reality.
It was a consistent find in the aforementioned studies, so much so that Gazzaniga named the left brain "the interpreter" to point out that our left hemisphere without the help of our holistic processor, our right brain, is most likely mistaken about the nature of reality. You can read Iain McGilchrist's "the master and his emissary" and/or "who's in charge" of Gazzaniga for more.
Humans, especially those that adhere to theory and never in their life had enough friction with reality (not the case, for example with Spinosa who worked in fixing lenses, or Aristotle who was probably one of the first field biologists), are very prone to such mistakes. That's why Nietzsche and others underlined the importance of "acting out" your philosophy in the cosmos because reality will show and correct you (sometimes very harshly) where's necessary.
The postmodernists had all strictly academic careers as adults. It's a tell-tell sign of how alienated they were from practical reality, the one that crushes your skull when you attempt to test it against the sidewalk from a 5 story-high building. You tend not to adhere too much to subjectivism/relativism when you have experienced friction with the cosmos.
P.S. Please don't judge from my command over the English language so as to dismiss or not my comment. I'm not a native speaker nor do I live in an English speaking country.
@@C_R_O_M________
Watch this dissection of his book.
ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
What is so scary to me is the huge number of young people today who have the pre-1950 belief that Communism is the kind and compassionate way that society should be arranged, but they don't even have the postmodernists' realization that this belief turned out to be false. It's like they are still living in 1945. So in that sense maybe postmodernism is succeeding after all.
I’m only an hour in, but this is one of the most important and urgently relevant things I’ve stumbled upon. Thank you so much for making this available 🙏
thank you so much for watching
It's absolute bullshit, he hasn't a clue what he's talking about.
Try reading literally any of the people this dumbass is attacking. This guy would fail a fucking freshman course in philosophy.
@@pietzsche Where is he going wrong specifically?
@@kenhiett5266 Everywhere, literally everything he says is incredibly wrong.
There's a good analysis here: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html&ab_channel=Jonas%C4%8Ceika-CCKPhilosophy
But Nietzsche is not anti-enlightenment? For his clear commitment to enlightenment, see Daybreak/Dawn 197
That five minutes summary of Kant is so bad I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
Please help me improve it, then. Corrections welcome.
Classy, Mr. Hicks!
You can do both. You laugh first and you start to cry when you realize people actually believe it.
Brilliant presentation. Thx for post
That tiny little "right" after almost every point bahahaha
right
Just so brillant and exhaustive. I will certainly buy his books.
Small point, I've heard that the statistically low life expectancy of former times is mostly due to high infant mortality.
True but this does not invalidate the point. High infant mortality is a product of poor medicine
Very nice indeed.
The Complexity Theory here is that we are not in the philosophical realm, but in the political and social science realm. Because there is no category of Philosophy that is either for or against social policy. Thus philosophers like Nietzsche, Machiavelli, etc. are not philosophers. You can therefor say the same for all movements like Arianism pre-Hitler, or Marxism pre-Lenin. This contrasts marketly from even the most diabolical religious instruction of the general public (as opposed to Tribalism.)
Postmodern man is even more lost than modern man. Modern man gradually pushed God out of the picture while postmodern man has completely shut Him out. Just like the former the latter can use his reason to make sense of things, but he too has found that reason alone leads to no answers and thus is a dead end. As a result, man is still in a period where irrationalism is king. If he continues down the path where God does not exist, then he will continue to see himself as an insignificant abnormal wart in a universe that doesn't care either way. If he ever does wake up out of his irrational coma and legitimately considers "In the beginning God," then he will have all the answers he needs and more.
@David Hargreaves I pushed God out for years too, but He is always ready to welcome us back. ❤️
Lion of Judah wonderful
Trully excellent. Congratullations.
I'm reading Explaining Postmodernism and it's really informative and enlightening.
I'd you still believe his take on postmodernism is recommended you check out this video
ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.htmlsi=EqgCKuAcobc-Yyta
I despise postmodernism. However, when I was in University I had to take a course on Michel Foucault. I think he had a valid point on the birth of the prison and how the panopticon is a tool of self-oppression.
So the only post modernist you know the work of had a valid point and you despise post modernism.
Born in a prison? Yes we are.... some people are literally born in a prison camp
18:29 _"steam engine , there was one that actually had more energy output as energy input ...."_
Eeerm, no. That would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and there is no record of any such case, in particular no steam engine has ever done that.
perpetuum mobile !!!!
Ya... I caught that too.
I think what he meant was the first steam engine that was actually efficient in any meaningful way.
Steam "engines" had been in use for years prior (mostly to pump water from deep mines). But they were woefully primitive beasts.
When it goes downhill...
I don't know if such an engine existed, but it wouldn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics only apply to a closed system, but we don't live in a closed system.
That's why heat pumps are able to get 500% efficiency, even though the laws of thermodynamics says that it's impossible to get 100%+ efficiency. They achieve that efficiency by exploiting the temperature difference in the air (because the heat pump isn't a closed system, it can exploit energy outside of itself).
Of course the entropy of the *universe* goes up (because the universe is a closed system), and so from the universe's perspective the efficiency is less than 100%, but from the perspective of the human who is paying money to power the heat pump, the efficiency is 500%.
So in other words, the heat pump is 500% efficient at using electricity, but in order to do that it has to increase entropy in the air. So the balance is maintained and thermodynamics isn't violated.
So yes, it is possible to create machines that output more energy than they are given as input (because they steal the energy from someplace else).
It's pretty clear what he meant: the steam engine does more *work* than the work required to operate it.
Hicks is the man! I think, best way to get someone to snap out of the allure of post modernism, is to tell them that there are people who think we can’t know anything, or prove anything in politics or philosophy; That ideas ultimately don’t matter in that arena.
“The mind is the tool we use to discover what’s already there.”- M
How anyone can trust Foucault after knowing how he conducted his personal life is beyond me. Fantastic lecture.
What's your proposition, that only people who have personal lives ordered in ways of which you approve can have any ideas worth discussing? Isn't that essentially ad hominem?
@Steeltrap Yes indeed it is. Not everyone has the tools necessary to criticize an abstract concept. Nor should we expect everyone to.
I would counter this to say that Foucault' ideas are worth discounting as to criticize modernism is simply to criticize the contemporary and that entire approach is a counter productive to any actual positive solution. This is the same reason I take issue with Nietzsche' criticism of enlightenment. As far as I can tell many of the thinkers to which post-modernism can attribute its roots completely fail to understand the enlightenment as a tool of progress, attributing much more to it than was prudent or sensible. The chaos preceding and following the French revolution are much more aptly laid at the foot of the catholic church and the monarchy. All enlightenment ever did was shine a glaring light on their corruption and logical fallacies. In all of these philosophers writings not once have I seen a valid criticism of enlightenment values nor have I seen anything other than bitter complaining about the "bourgeoisie". To generalize the bourgeoisie is the same as generalizing the proletariat as some unified group. It can not be done to any accurate degree and only disaster results when you try.
@Brendan
Oh, yes, I'm no fan of PM. I just found the OP's comment a bit ridiculous when we've seen a 2+ hour video of a clearly highly knowledgeable speaker criticising PM in great detail while also going out of their way to acknowledge (more than once) people such as Foucault were undoubtedly extremely clever (I believe he even refers to them as 'brilliant') with some interesting if ultimately inadequate ideas.
Exactly! one can be brilliant and well thought out while still having a poor understanding of core principles. I do however agree the irony is entirely palpable in this context.
judge not least ye be judged LOL
Just an outstanding summary of what has happened to our societies since the Enlightenment.
Everyone should watch this video to obtain an understanding our current culture.
One thing I would argue with him on is his dismissal of religion as being unscientific. On the
contrary, Christianity started the science field of study & welcomes scientific examination.
We see more & more scientific & archaeological findings confirming our faith, creation & there is a creator.
You forgot to claim the wheel and fire. Where, exactly, did you get your PhD in bullshit and how much did you pay?
@@pd4165 Well, Christians did start Oxford University for the purpose of learning more about God's creation. And it's still one of the best universities in the world.
There are many different kinds of Christians. I'm pro-science, as are many Christians I know.
Standup comedians need to realise that postmodernism is an absolute goldmine of material
Well, Hicks already realized that, didnt he?
Watching videos like these, faithfully agreeing with everything that's said, reinforcing your own assumptions and making edgy comments about stuff you haven't personally read of it's the norm now.
Truth. It takes long-term dedication and humility to learn enough of a craft to understand it, much less critique it.
Yep. There are thousands of comments like that here. It's sad.
It's all subjective and your view is meaningless...... Sounds like a three year old having a tantrum. Not worth reading a books worth. Yours sincerely a prole.
"Right?" - Stephen Hicks
"Right?" - Everyone else
"Oh, that's hot" - Stephen Hicks' great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.
Probably.
I completely lost my ability to focus about 30 minutes in when I started to notice his “right” tick. I started to question whether or not this was some technique to make his arguments more convincing, subliminally. Lol
“-ight...”
Ohhh, that was tough. But the guy speaks so well, otherwise, that I'm sure he became aware of it eventually. He must be all PTSD on it now and does not use the word at all anymore, under any circumstances. Now, things are only "correct," "conservative," "90 degrees," and "turn east." Heck, I might never use that word again, myself.
I just listened to Mr Hicks' talk about post-modernism in 1998, very interesting to hear this talk 20 years later. The guy is a genius thinker, so ahead of his time.
lol read more
The logical conclusion of Kant is relativism??...curious...can anyone explain how that works? I really like Kant :)
This answer is it doesn't. This lecture is a joke
"The Ecstasy of communication, the vertigo of information overload, the banality of a Transparent society; can any of these postmodern symptoms show us the way out of the 20th Century and toward a new construction of the human? Can we find meaning in the "world" that is already upon us? It is our task to try."
Brilliantly insightful! Thank you
Great lecture! I learned a ton!
1:11:52min That is a very post-modern way to summarize, and interpret things.
what on earth does that mean
@@des.esseintes I am there with you. And not delivered until you specified what gasped you into writing that.
What a nice talk. Truly a condensate of the book, though there are more data and some deeper insights in the book, which is very much worth having.
Disheartening how much confusion in the general popularion today, exemplified in some of the questions. Possibly the consequence of already 50 ys of postmodernist education and media.
I enjoyed this. Would like to see these two in Joe Rogan type format for a few hours just talking.
Joe Rogan is too short for that ride.
@@thadtuiol1717 yea... he does bring a bit of a common man perspective. But, it's kind of nice to have a moderator that isn't an ideological ass taking up valuable time from the guests.
It might be enjoyable but I' afraid Hicks is a joke to anyone who cares about facts and reason, ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
@@tombrown407 Interesting but just one person's opinion. I care about facts and do not think Hicks is a joke; therefore your statement is factually untrue.
@@kamiltrzebiatowski3745 I think he (Hicks) is a failed joke, ie. one that isn't funny, but merely risible... so Tom Brown's statement is at least partially true and your statement, well, if you truly care about facts, is now refuted.
Thank you for posting this professor. I feel honoured to be in your class.
Stephen Hicks: “right” and “so forth” // Slavoj Zizek: *spits into mic and “so on and so forth”
Right.
This would be the Dark Souls difficulty of drinking games.
Right?
Maybe, i don’t know - read a book?
We are now in the Second Age of Faith. And it is insane.
Absolutely incredible lecture
Your right on.
An excellent lecture.
Excellent speaker and an excellent lecture.
If truth goes out the window, so does inequality and power. You can't determine what's fair and what's unfair without reason.
Thanks Professor Stephen Hicks for you wonderful lecture. I understand now why trying to read modern philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Heiddeger , Sartre, Foucault was so boring. And why I enjoyed reading Thinkers like Spinoza, Diderot, Goethe, Jankelewitch.
I don't think there are too many people, even at universities, who take postmodernism seriously as a philosophy, since it ultimately doesn't go anywhere. In my experience, postmodernism is now for the most part a debating tactic that intersectional feminists and cultural marxist social justice warriors selectively employ to demoralize opponents and derail discussions. The people who employ postmodernist tactics reveal that they aren't committed to postmodernist propositions because, if you look closely, you'll see that they very much believe in truth, which they think they possess, and in facts, which they claim to have mastered and which they say support their beliefs.
@Muffslam I would be shocked to learn that there is a good number of post-modernists of any sort that isn't zero.
Dr. Hicks, you might get a kick out of this: I have started to listen to your lectures because of Dr. Peterson.
(I wanted to "fact check" Dr. Peterson myself.)
A fantastic presentation. Thank you for sharing.
It's interesting that the obsession with a subjective "reality" and relativism at the heart of Post Modernism was anticipated by the developments in the Visual Arts in the early 20th century through artistic Movements such as DaDa , Cubism and to some extent Surrealism and later Abstraction. It seems as though the Arts anticipated the Post Modernists by at least 50 years.
This was an excellent talk.
Feminism, postmodernism, marxism, microaggressions, queer theory, etc. all have the same fundamental problem: conflict theory - they view everything as a struggle for power, usually between an "oppressor" and an "oppressed". The problem with such a worldview however is that it is so all-encompassing, to the point that it can even be extended to minor verbal disagreements over purely trivial matters (i.e. if two or more people are expressing views or opinions that the other disagrees with, they are competing for power and trying to assert dominance/oppression over the other's own power and/or status).
There's an obvious danger to this kind of tunnel vision: it paints everything that one dislikes or disagrees with as "oppression" - something evil and oppressive that must be destroyed in order for there to be peace. In other words, "there will never be peace until everything that I personally find 'harmful' or 'oppressive' has been eradicated."
But here's the thing: a world without harm ("oppression") is impossible due to the limitations of human psychology. Like any other organism, our species evolved to do one thing and one thing only - survive and pass on our genes. And what do you have to do in order to survive and pass on your genes?
You have to be wary of threats. You have to make sure that there is no harm or danger or otherwise negative stimuli that could possibly harm you or your offspring. This need to be wary of threats has given us what psychologists call the "negativity bias" - we focus more on the negative than the positive, regardless of how positive things are 'in the big picture'.
This is because all stimuli enters our brain through the thalamus, which classifies it as either "positive", "negative", or "neutral", and then sends it en route to our frontal cortex, which then determines how we should react to said stimuli. The catch however, is that our brains prioritize negative and neutral stimuli over positive stimuli. The amygdala, which is basically a "shortcut" from the thalamus to the frontal cortex, only allows neutral and/or negative stimuli to pass through (i.e. threats).
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective - if you're living in the wild, the consequences of NOT responding to negative stimuli (such as a danger) can be far more consequential and thus threatening to one's survival than the consequences of NOT responding to positive stimuli (such as an opportunity).
This is why we tend to dwell on the negative despite us having the freedom to enjoy life in what is undoubtedly the most peaceful and prosperous era in all of human history; we're ungrateful for what we have because our species evolved to focus on the negative so that we can be wary of danger and keep away from anything that could possibly decrease our chances of survival.
Thus, there is a fundamental paradox to human nature: we want to be safe from negative stimuli (i.e. harm/danger/threats/"oppression"), but our minds evolved to constantly be on the lookout for things to feel threatened by.
And this leads me to another important point. The negativity bias means that WE CANNOT ACHIEVE HAPPINESS BY TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD AROUND US.
This has been a fundamental teaching of all the major religions around the world for thousands of years - Buddhists are encouraged to accept the fact that life is difficult and to be content with one's suffering. Christianity teaches more or less the same thing - be grateful for everything that God has given you and delight in your struggles, for they will ultimately make you stronger and allow you to live a more fulfilling life.
This philosophy extends into other cultures as well, and has been adopted by the likes of Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Haidt. As Peterson put it: "You can't fix the world, but you can fix yourself". In fact, it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said that "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Those are, of course, broad generalizations - there are diseases and health conditions that can seriously weaken you - but for the most part, it's true. Nassim Taleb says pretty much the exact same thing in his book "Antifragile", and Jonathan Haidt addresses it in Chapter 7 of his first book, "The Happiness Hypothesis".
Now, I am not denying that there are injustices in the world that we should try to ameliorate. Rape, Torture, Genocide, Unlawful Arrests, etc. are all serious problems that we should strive (and continue striving) to address, but we have to realize that there is a limit to how much we can improve our imperfect world and make our lives better in the process.
We also have to remember that ONE CANNOT BE TRULY HAPPY UNLESS THEY ARE GRATEFUL FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD IN LIFE. True happiness comes from appreciation for what one has. If you're going to waste your time disproportionately focusing on what is "wrong" with the world, or complaining about things that you don't like, then you are destined for a life of bitter resentment and misery.
Does that sound familiar? It should, because it's the attitude of a spoiled 5-year-old. Children, when they first come into the world, lack the experience required to accept and tolerate the adversities of life. They have not yet learned how to overcome hardship, nor how to be grateful for what they have, nor have they come to accept that fact that things do not always go the way that they would prefer them to.
These are things that any responsible parent understands and should try to instil in their children. A parent who gives their child everything that the child asks for will only end up spoiling them by creating the illusion that the world exists to serve THEM, and if you go into "the real world" expecting everything to change to suit YOUR ideals, then you're destined for a life of misery. Besides, giving a child everything that they ask for will not even make them happy in the short term, because you can't be grateful if everything gets handed to you. This is why nobody every thinks of such a spoiled child as being happy, much less polite.
Responsible parents on the other hand, know better than to just give their child everything that the child asks for. Responsible parents instead raise their children to recognize the fact that life is difficult and that you don't always get what you want, and certainly not without some kind of personal investment of hardship. This is because a responsible parent understands that life, by in large, is about adaptation. You cannot survive in this world if you refuse to adapt and learn to overcome adversity.
And that brings us back around to conflict theory and all of its manifestations. The fundamental problem with Marxism, postmodernism, third-wave feminism, microaggressions, queer theory, etc. is that, in their most extreme forms, they teach people to view everything that they dislike as "power and oppression". They are the worldview of a spoiled 5-year-old who expects the entire world to change in order to suit THEIR ideals and MAKE them happy, which is a relatively futile endeavour because, as detailed above, a world without hardship/suffering/"oppression" is psychologically impossible. Viewing everything through a lens of conflict theory (or "the oppressor and the oppressed") is completely maladaptive because it means BLAMING ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS ON THE WORLD, rather than admitting one's own faults and stopping to ask oneself "how can I change myself so that I can be a better person?"
If conflict theory and all of its incarnations were truly committed to fighting actual injustices in the world - women being sold into sexual slavery, or being discriminated against just because they are women - then everything would be fine. In fact, a lot of good actually HAS come out of them for that very reason. While I usually reject labels and try to avoid labeling others, I AM a first-wave feminist and I firmly believe that everyone should be TREATED fairly (proportionally, socially, legally, or otherwise), and that "you should not do onto others what you would not have them do onto you".
If you consider yourself a feminist, activist, socialist, etc., and the above two principles are at the heart of your ideals, then I see no problem. Your goals are perfectly noble and something that I agree that we should all strive for in a civilized society.
The real problem is that conflict theory, as it exists in its current forms, is so all-encompassing that it classifies everything from genocide to mild verbal disagreements as 'harm and oppression'. This in turn causes the adherents to develop an egocentric victimhood complex that ultimately leads to a culture of 'spoiled children in 20-something skin' (my words) whom naively think that they can achieve happiness by demanding that the entire world change to suit their own egocentric ideals.
Which, again, is impossible due to the limitations of human psychology.
I guess what I am trying to say is that: conflict theory and all of its modern incarnations - feminism, marxism, postmodernism, microaggressions, queer theory - fail to draw a clear line between 'righteous indignation', and just being an unpleasant, ungrateful, and spoiled little brat.
Yup, I've been saying this kind of stuff for years.
His history of religion is so limited... He takes aspects of Christianity and thinks they are universal. They don't really apply outside of Christianity and its offshoots.
Here is where a lot of it came from: www.aynrand.org
Also check for Leonard Peikoff
You're right. Check this out: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
Without a perfect morality from a metaphysical ideal, we are left with ourselves, and what a dark place it leads…
Bravo! Brilliant and important stuff
Amazing lecture. Thanks for posting.
If only the whole world could hear and understand this lecture and it's implications... I truly believe many leftists are motivated by purely good intensions, but just haven't thought it through or given consideration for unintended consequences. If they could just take that good will and point it in the 'right' direction then who's to say how much we could achieve as a species. I guess JP's catchphrase of 'clean your room' is a simplification of this thought, stop worrying about what everyone else has and focus on your own life, and in that way we all benefit.
JP is a huge proponent of postmodern thought except he rails against it every chance he gets. His metaphoric truth and pluralist view of truths are very postmodern ideas. His battle against grand narratives is inline with most pomo stances. His acceptance of Kuhn and Nietzsche's work shows his respect for the ideas of these 2 great postmodernists. So in the interest of being charitable, I would say he's not against postmodernism itself but the actions and ideas of a few postmodern theorists that have been taken out of context by the likes of Hicks and popular culture.
I would say, if only the world could understand what postmodernism really is, they'd know that they are living and breathing it everyday because it has already underpinned the very thoughts and ideas they are currently espousing.
This is a brilliant lecture.
Super great speach.
The sound gets much better after introduction.
It is kind of a sad thing when free speach clubs have to host FREE SPEACH LECTURES, that should be obvious to everyone, or even cancel them.
Unfortunately, Hicks' speech isn't all that well-informed. I recommend picking up a more neutral book about the history of philosophy some time. They tend to be both engaging and informative.
There's also this book review: ua-cam.com/video/EHtvTGaPzF4/v-deo.html
THIS IS A GREATH LECTURE BRAVO STEPHEN HICKS
This is an excellent talk. Made better by my not being able to suppress the idea that this guy is a young Willem Defoe.
Stephen Hicks, born 1950; Willem Dafoe, born 1955.
A personal enlightenment can't be undone by exposure to postmodernism. Once a person experiences the power and joy that comes from discovering truth through careful observation and logical deduction that person is immune from postmodern claptrap. This is why purveryors of postmodernism must focus on young people who have never had a personal enlightenment.
This is brilliant, thankyou
So sad to see modern education failing in the matter of teaching young people to think, and instead simply trying to cram them full of the ‘correct’ beliefs. My father left school at 13 during the 1930s, but eventually became an Oxford don specializing in political science. I disagreed with many of his ideas, but I believe he would have been sickened by modern academia.
Excellent teaching by Stephen Hicks, at least there are exceptions to the rule.
Right right right right right. This is an amazing session but I’m going to blow my brains out if I hear right one more time.
It is very irritating and difficult to ignore too. Not everyone can be a prolific speaker like Jordan Peterson who has great knowledge along with extra-ordinary speaking and debating skills.
One of the main points of his talk starts right after the 1:37 mark. This is the point now where we are in the political and cultural wars in the West.
This speech is GOLD! Thank you so much for sharing. SUBSCRIBED!
1:15:00 Very important point, factual, and well argued. Probably his main concern with Postmodernism.
Watch the video A Critique of Stephen Hicks' "Explaining Postmodernism" before commenting.