Karen: welcome! (I'm still very much a newbie myself. Be fearless)
>
> Here's my question. Why is Foucault considered post-modernist, and why
> are post-modernists so heavily criticized?
>
Hmmm...I think think these two questions are closely related. Foucault
is really only associated with a tendency called post modernism as he is
unthinkingly slotted on the same bookstore shelves with other recent
french surnames whose book titles perplex sales people, store managers
and clerks. Even worse, the quick piece-meal work of curiculum
committees, where reading lists are strategically negotiated through
favours and compromises, loosely group Foucault's work with an
uncomfortable collection of characters. I don't think Foucault ever
endorsed the term, and I've heard it
argued that Post modernism, is
largely due to a taxanomical error of the American intellectual culture
industry.
This is maybe the beginnings of an answer to your first questions. As
for the second: "why are post-modernists so heavily criticized?" well,
for every post modernist who is unthinkingly dismissed, there are two who
are equally blindly embraced. In short, postmodernists think it's more
fun to make things difficult or impossible than to make them easy and
managable. This pisses off industry managers whose main interest is in
facilitating production. For example, try doing social science without
an agent. try doing literary theory without an author. try doing
philosophy without a subject. Postmodernism (God, now I'm using the
term) delights in kicking the supports out from underneath all these
convenient categories. The assembly line grinds to a hault.
sam...
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