You Learn Something Every Day

There hasn't been much from the sty about Aus politics since the Federal Election. Although on the record stating that Labor couldn't win, the magnitude of the loss came as a shock. I needed some time for reflection on what occurred.

No need for reflection for bloggers on the right. Winners are grinners, and didn't they let us know it.

One academic blogger stated that the result was a rebuttal of 'Postmoderism.' Many seemed to agree.

This came as a surprise to your tech head correspondant and others who don't hold an arts degree; those who'd never heard of 'postmoderism.' The view from outside the ivory tower was that the government won the election due to the economic concerns of over-indebted voters.

Sadly, all this talk on 'postmoderism', 'nihilism' and 'deconstructionism' didn't spur me to any research on the subject. These things are best left to people with too much time on their hands.

Moving on to Christmas Eve, the editorial writer for the Sydney Morning Herald brought up the subject of Postmodernism with regards to the Christmas message. At least s/he used the first few column inches to give a brief description of the philosophy. It seems a Frenchman name Derrida argued that facts mean different things to different people, and are open to interpretation. There are no firm truths, only peoples' interpretations of them, (perhaps) up to a point ....

Derrida might not have agreed with the lengths to which his ideas have been taken. There is no contradiction, for instance, between what he wrote and the need for moral principles such as equality, justice and generosity. And while Derrida did argue that objective truth is beyond our grasp, that is not to say that it does not exist, only that it can never be entirely understood or communicated with precision.

I may well be off the mark with the above interpretation. I'm not sure I completely understood the theory from the brief description given. Apologies to those in the know.

Anyway, I now see why conservatives don't like Postmodernism. Conservatives want immutable facts, not ideas open to interpretation. They certainly don't want their preconceptions 'deconstructed.' They're not comfortable with the thought that others interpret their facts and events differently.

Conservatives want the world to be predictable. Right and wrong as black and white. Rulers to rule, and the rest to know their place.

The way of the conservative world is the way of constant conflict. Agree or be swept aside.

The conservative ascendancy won't last forever. It's up to the more broadminded among us to start to espouse the more balanced world view.

The Pig's political arm is reopening for business.