Also, the culture of science is inescapably post-modern. The new era aggressively rejects the Enlightenment bases of science such as the supremacy of fact, the weakness of subjectivity, resolving issues by reason, empowerment by our intellects, etc.
As somebody who's interested in postmodern philosophy, I'm not sure I'd characterise it as being against reason or intellectual empowerment. It's primarily skeptical of metanarratives, like the idea of historical progress or the inevitable triumph of reason. The big one it expresses skepticism towards is the modernist project, but that doesn't mean a rejection of reason. After all, postmodern philosophy uses arguments from reasoning to make its case!
Social constructivism and the like also aren't anti-facts or pro-subjectivity (assuming that's what you were implying, just a guess though) - it's about acknowledging which things we consider objectively true are actually only true by convention or tradition rather than being rooted in physical laws. Also how the human mind models knowledge and the relations between our models of reality and reality itself, so we don't mistake the map for the territory.
> As somebody who's interested in postmodern philosophy, I'm not sure I'd characterise it as being against reason or intellectual empowerment.
I agree completely! The "new era" to which I referred is not post-modernism, but what I describe as the current 'reactionary' era in my earlier post (the GGGP, beginning "An hypothesis ..."). Sorry if that was confusing.
So what do you think? Are we in a new period after post-modernism? What would you call it? When and how did it start? I can't be the first to think it - by who and where is it talked about?
Some humantities and social science academics I know disdain post-modernism, with all the scholarly reason and social momentum of being 'no longer cool' in high school - 'you're still wearing those shoes?'. I asked one, in front of their friend, about the post-modern person on whom they wrote their thesis. They changed the subject and then later told me quietly, 'I don't read that anymore'.
For all the ridiculousness of that, it's serious business. Post-modernism contained the weapons and armor against fascism and other ideology, and we've disarmed ourselves. What do people intend to replace it with?
