Letter From Israel

by Ran HaCohen

March 16, 2002

Postmodernism Alive and Killing

While scores of Palestinians and several Israelis are killed every day now, while one of the world's strongest armies is bravely proving it can turn even wretched refugee camps into ashes, I feel rather uncomfortable talking about ideology.

Still, I'll do it. In a previous column I analysed several arguments of the right-wing ideology of Israeli occupation: a rather simple task, actually. More difficult, and more interesting, is the question: how do parts of the Israeli

It's hard to get around postmodernist theories, but most people simply fudge it a bit when they are the targets of violence themselves. It reminds me of the U.S. government's position on abstract expressionist painting. The style was championed as evidence of the freedom artists enjoyed in western democracies, while its lack of obvious political content presented no complicating dissent against cold war policies.

By the way, if so many people in Israel favor the dismantling of all settlements, just who is it that elected Sharon?

A: A minority. Read up on it. The Supreme Court ruled

that voters who voted for none-of-the-above should have

their votes thrown out. If their votes had counted, Sharon

would have lost and new elections would have had to have

been called.

This writer can bash postmodernism all he wants, but we are in a largely postmodern time. Truth is relative, or treated as such.

Nostalgia for a more "modern" time is just that: nostalgia. Modernism created global capitalism and industrialization. It's alienating, and dehumanizing. The idea of Israel is more modern than postmodern.

Rather than pine for a time before postmodern amorality, the students should be criticized for not pushing the theory far enough. They should be applying the theory to themselves, to explore the potential for shifting identities, to take on multiple perspectives to tease out what is "real" and what is interpretation.

They need to fall into the black hole/block of relativist action.

If you accept that there's no motivation for action, maybe the answer is that action is motivation enough. The goal isn't to identify the universal goal (the truth) and focus on achieving it, but to create multiple small goals in the same general direction, and enact each of those. If the action and goal are correct, similar actions will develop.

What's the postmodern action? Direct action, maybe not coordinated with other actions, but with deep temporary ideology. Assume the temporary identity of the direct action.

Ideology is modern, but when it's temporary, it's postmodern. You are free to take on an ideology, because you can abandon it if necessary.

totally misses the central criticism of the article. That criticism is that PoMo claims that any and all evidence is irrelevant before it has even evaluated it. What absurd arrogance! That arrogance is displayed in the anti-democratic and elitist comments made by the students in the article.

This type of thinking is fundamentally solipsistic. If it is correct then PoMo itself is absurd.

All that this philosophy can achieve in practice is that those that are certain about their Truth will ride rough-shod over others. The "uncertain" but morally-pure PoMos will stand off to the side and watch it happen, uncertain of who is doing the (kill)ing.

Fuck you. Take a stand you piece of shit or else admit that you're a fascist.