Talk:Postmodernism

"In popular culture" section title

"In popular culture" may be a poor choice for a section heading.

• It's vague, imprecise: a bit of a throwaway phrase. Almost anything can be fit in there.
• Can be seen as loaded, making a high-low culture distinction.
• On Wikipedia, "In popular culture" sections often serve as dumping grounds: typically, appearances of the article subject in entertainment media (eg: movies) are listed; some editors focus on removing such sections.

For this broad topic, I suggest something more particular,, like "In everyday life", "In modern life", "In mainstream culture", something along those lines. Tsavage (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Let's wait to discuss until we have content for the section. In the meanwhile, I'm fine with "In mainstream culture". Patrick (talk) 17:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

"Science wars" subsection (v.2)

I suggest the following approach, to balance the wide variety of sources and opinions on the "science wars". In probably two paragraphs, broadly described:

PARA 1

• describe the so-called "science wars": attack by scientific realists on postmodern critiques, ensuing fierce academic debate centering around a few prominent participants, subsequent major spillover into mainstream media - 1-2 sentences
• describe the Sokal hoax as a significant flashpoint: nonsense pomo paper, submitted to and published by a pomo journal of some note, and follow-up published paper detailing the hoax, as proof of pomo critiques of science being rubbish - 1-2 sentences
• describe the core of the academic debates: is science an objective reflection of reality or a social construction; (in addition to Sokal, name/list some other actors, maybe Paul Gross, Norman Levitt, Andrew Ross, Lewis Wolpert, Bruno Latour) - 2-3 sentences

PARA 2

• describe the public spillover, both at the time, and from later, using examples from media (eg: "Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science", NYT, 2018) 3-5 sentences
• place in the intellectual/theoretical context with academic commentary (eg: Harry Collins coverage) 1-2 sentences

That would explain "science wars", give due coverage to the Sokal hoax without sensationalizing it, and clearly present the impact on mainstream culture through the mainstream media coverage, in a concise format. Tsavage (talk) 18:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Something like this could work, IMO, and Latour's perspective does seem relevant to me even though - or perhaps because - it is not postmodern. However, I am concerned about the second and third bullets of the first proposed paragraph. The second bullet seems to accept Sokal's account of what he did, and what it meant, at face value in a way the secondary literature - and wikipedia's article on the subject - do not.

The third paragraph poses the question at issue as, is science an objective reflection of reality or a social construction, which is both a false dichotomy and also a tangent to postmodernism. Social construction of reality, in various forms, had been part of philosophy and social theory long before postmodernism - including most modernisms - and continues to be part of most alternatives and successors to postmodernism. So inserting "is science real?" as though it were a question about the reception of postmodernism isn't really a framing that good sources support - so I don't think this article can do that.

I do find the proposed second paragraph content generally promising. However, I have to quibble a bit with the premise: the goal should not be to present the impact on mainstream culture through the mainstream media coverage, which is essentially original research. Rather, the goal should be to present the impact on broader, non-specialist culture using the best sources available. (I also have reservations about "mainstream", which seems to import an Anglo-American ethnocentric view, but the section name is less important than its scope and purpose IMO.) Newimpartial (talk) 22:48, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the precision. And my apologies for "broadly described" not being clear. What you're referring to I intended as a rough indication of the degree of summary. It wasn't intended as a blueprint, to be literally expanded. This is a discussion page: offer alternative text if you think it makes the outline clearer.

How's: "describe the core of the academic debates: questioning science's claims of rationality and objective truth"?

What would be a great suggestion: "position as largely an American phenomenon that emerged at a time when federal research funding to both science and the humanities was diminishing - 1-2 sentences (PARA 2 or maybe 3)" Tsavage (talk) 00:38, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

To answer your questions, I think a characterization as a "largely American phenomenon" does largely apply at least to the reception of the science wars, but we'd need sourcing for that.

As far as the core of the academic debates goes, that would also depend on sourcing. I'll tell you for free what I think the debates were about: positions labelled "postmodern" were attacking claims to an objective standpoint supposedly made, on the one hand, by Marxists and, on the other, by positivist readings of science. The "science wars" phase of the debates consisted largely in certain boosters of the scientific project (mostly mathematicians and other non-scientists) attacking not only those described as postmodern but also other writers who either used science as metaphor in social domains (Deleuze and Guattari) or who pursued socio-historical understandings of scientific practice (Latour), or similar projects, but who might otherwise have little in common with more typical "postmoderists" (e.g., "poststructuralists").

There were many corners to the "science wars", and seeing the antagonists as basically a camp of "scientists" and a camp of "postmodernists" would be to accept simplistially the way Socal himself depicted the situation, which would not follow the best sources on the topic - and especially the best sources on Postmodernism, which is supposed to define the overall scope of this article. Newimpartial (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I've located and obtained a digital copy of Science Wars: The Battle over Knowledge and Reality (2021) by Steven L. Goldman. I've just barely skimmed it, but the last chapter in particular would probably be an excellent source. Anyone who wants a copy but can't access it, feel free to email me. Otherwise, at some point in the future, I will try to read it against whatever is drafted/published for the article and edit as appropriate. Patrick (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I gave the last chapter a quick read. Seems to have promise for connecting the original science wars period with the various popular denialisms around today. Tsavage (talk) 20:48, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I've added the section together with some background to the controversy. Given the context of such a broad article, this will need to be trimmed. The research, however, helped me to understand how people outside the academy came to feel attacked by something so abstruse as postmodernism. So I think some tighter version will be useful for readers. If it serves as a helpful jumping off point for other editors, so much the better!

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 17:53, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

I like the section but I've reverted adding it because it mostly isn't on topic for this article, at all. The first four paragraphs don't even touch on postmodernism. The debates do eventually converge in the "science wars", but this is way too much IMO. Perhaps the eventual framing that works will be more about "figures and positions that weren't postmodernist being lumped in with postmodernism by opponents" - which is a good frame if and only if good sources can be found. Newimpartial (talk) 18:07, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

As I said above, it will need to be trimmed. But everyone here seems to agree that we need to cover this, yet no one has produced any sourced copy. I thought about making it a page in my userspace and inviting folks here to edit it. But less people would see it that way. This is the only context in which many readers have heard of postmodernism, and I'd like them to have a place to make useful contributions.

Additions more directly about the media "debates" about postmodernism would help to clarify what parts of this background context need to get the axe.

If the issue is the absence of citations from HQ overview sources explicitly on postmodernism in order to establish the significance of Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Polanyi, I can easily fill some in. The problem is that this book is the first good source I found that actually explained how they got lumped in with poststructuralists.

Right now, my position is that something is better than nothing.

What do you suggest?

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

The first question I'd suggest starting with, is "what can be added to the Science wars article from this source?" The material youre suggesting here is all in-scope there, but I think the book may provide improved framing from what is currently contained in that other article. Newimpartial (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

I might go to the other article to make any obvious improvements or invite other editors to cannibalize anything I've written that they might find useful. (Feel free to do so yourself!) But I am not looking for another article to develop.

I've created User:Patrick_Welsh/Science_Wars, and I invite others to edit there directly. I've added two sources to the first paragraph explicitly connecting Kuhn to postmodernism so that the readers are not scratching their heads for the first few paragraphs. (It's also possible that some of this belongs up near the end of the "Historical overview". Kuhn is mentioned in the Bertens monograph that is the main source for that section. But it's too early for me to tell.)

If no one comes up with something better — either building on my draft or from scratch — I'm going to republish a slightly more concise version. This is the only version of postmodernism many readers "know", and failure to cover it at all probably contributes to the allegations that the article is some kind of an ideological cover-up (e.g., User_talk:Sgerbic#Postmodernism)—as well as the long history of unproductive arguments about the lead.

Oh, and incidentally, have you read the whole article with this kind of attention to due and proportional coverage? There are some other sections that I think need to be scaled back or integrated more briefly into another section (e.g., urban planning into architecture).

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe the version I've just published addresses the issues you raised with the previous. As before, I welcome direct improvements or general suggestions here. (Probably it does not deserve its own top-level header, but there wasn't another obvious place for it in the current version of the article.) Patrick (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I found that I could work with the new version; I've added one more mention of postmodernism, and suggested some other improvements (mostly nuances). It is still two paragraphs that are mostly not about postmodernism, but the points of connection are now more clear IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh good! It's stronger for being pared down, per your suggestions. If @Tsavage is still interested in the article, I'll be curious for their input/edits as well. I'm not wedded to any particular formulations. It's just that I found the source I located to be unexpectedly engaging, and so I read more than I intended and then decided write something up while it was fresh in my mind. Patrick (talk) 18:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Peterson's "Postmodern neo-Marxist"

For coverage here of Peterson's "postmodern neo-Marxist" as a cultural phenomenon, I suggest this general focus, broadly outlined:

• The term is Peterson's coinage.
• He brought the word "postmodernism" and a narrow popular interpretation of some of its theoretical concepts to a huge international audience through his interviews, vlog posts, speaking tours, and extensive media coverage.
• The term described his conception of an ideology that combined relativism ("postmodern") with class struggle and power dynamics ("neo-Marxist").
• It was used to support his strong critique of what he viewed as radical leftist attacks on social norms, with particular attention to gender identity and identity politics/political correctness/wokeness, especially on North American university campuses and in humanities and social sciences departments.
• He was criticized by scholars and popular commentators for a shallow, flawed, or incorrect interpretation of the theoretical topics and thinkers he mentioned (eg: postmodernism, Marxism, Derrida, Foucault).
• As background, he came to international prominence in 2016 with his public criticism of Canadian legislation related to the use of gender pronouns, expressing sharp concerns over freedom of speech and compelled speech; his peak period of public prominence was 2016-2020.

Quotes from Peterson and from media coverage could definitely improve the section, but I'd look at what to include after writing the piece. Keep the focus on the term. Tsavage (talk) 21:01, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Don't suppose there's any way we can note theologians calling his latest book postmodern in this section without violating WP:SYNTH. Simonm223 (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Right now this seems to me to propose to include more than is justified by the scope of this article's topic. The outline here makes it sound as though "post-Modern neo-Marxism" is somehow a real thing, or perhaps that it is Peterson's framing of actual postmodernist thought. I don't believe that any good sources support framing like this.

I think a discussion of narrower scope, based on secondary sources that discuss Peterson's caricatures of postmodernism, would be relevant to this article. It might be best to start by discussing good, secondary sources rather than starting with intuitions about what Peterson's interventions have meant, based on primary and low-quality sources. Newimpartial (talk) 22:37, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

You seem to have a clear idea of what "this article" is, that 'm not clear on.

I'll write a point-form outline of a framing for this article, that exists alongside Postmodern philosophy and Postmodernity. Then we can perhaps reach some sort of consensus over scope and sourcing, that will maybe allow us to avoid long, detailed discussions even over rough outlines. Tsavage (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

In no way does the content or structure of those other articles have any bearing on this one. Sections on these topics should follow the best secondary sources available. If there are non-polemical academic sources, that's great. But since these "debates" were mostly staged for the general public, the best sources are probably going to be journalistic. You are likely already familiar, but if not this is a useful resource for assessing reliability: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources. Patrick (talk) 00:45, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Here's a good article for interrogating Peterson's postmodernism. [1] Simonm223 (talk) 19:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Also, if this is too recent to cover neutrally or too remote from the actual topic of the article to merit its own subsection, we could also just give it a paragraph in the final section of the article. Right now, overview source do not cover this at all, and it is not Wikipedia's job to get out ahead of the scholarship. Really the only reason I want to include it is to directly ward off misconceptions that some readers will bring to the article. Patrick (talk) 18:13, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria and article organization

I've been trying to figure out how to establish inclusion criteria for "In the arts" and "In other fields". For well-defined topics, it's usually clear from general introductions and tertiary overview sources. No so much for postmodernism.

Nevertheless, as a first pass, I compared the TOCs of the Cambridge Companion (Connor 2004), the Routledge Companion (Sim 2011) and, for a third, an international anthology edited by Bertens and Fokkema (1997). These were selected because their TOCs made it easy. (I also reread the "postmodernism" entries from three tertiary sources, but they focused mostly on the historical and philosophical material already covered above.)

In the arts we mostly look good. Minor issues:

• There is little or no support for graphic design or sculpture.
• There is, however, support for a "Visual arts" section that could include both of those, as well as painting, photography, installations, and advertising. That could really balloon in size and create problems later, but right now I think it would be enough to encompass the two we have. I can also write a short paragraph about painting if no one else steps up.
• Even volumes that discuss specific arts, sometimes include something simply on "art". These might be useful for the section lead. I don't want to get into the weeds though—especially because the child article looks to be quite good.

In other fields, things are less clear. Of what we have, the following have support:

• Law–optionally to also address justice.
• Feminism—ideally expanded to address gender and sexuality more broadly.

There is no direct support for the other topics. We should expect, however, that this is in no small part to the backgrounds of the editors of these anthologies. Some thoughts:

• Marketing, and consumer culture more generally, come up all the time in the literature (perhaps even more in some of the primary literature). We need to address this somewhere in some way. Maybe this is it!
• Urban planning does not even have its own Wikipedia article. There is overlap, though, with architecture, and I think the former could be merged up into the latter.
• Theology gets no support, but (post-)religion does. These could be treated together under a single heading. (Edit: the support theology actually has, per my own previous arguments, is its own Cambridge Companion, an obvious reason to omit it from the general one. --Patrick (talk) 19:06, 26 January 2025 (UTC))
• Politics has support, but it may already be adequately covered indirectly throughout the article.
• There is support for science and technology. It may or may not be possible/advisable to cover this together with the Science Wars.
• One thing mentioned by the tertiary sources, but not directly covered in secondary materials I've read, is postmodernism as a style/attitude/way of life. The best sources here are probably '90s journalism from publications like the New Yorker and the style/fashion/lifestyle/criticism/culture sections of the larger newspapers. It would be a nice opportunity to say something slightly more substantial about irony. But otherwise I'm wondering if we've already adequately covered this indirectly throughout the article.

With regard to those topics not supported by this crude survey, I welcome ideas of other principled ways to establish due coverage, particularly for those outside the humanities.

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 02:24, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think looking for an inclusion formula based on the ToCs of some arbitrarily selected academic overview works is viable. It's an approach that isn't suited to this article, which is about a crossover academic-cultural subject. Wikipedia is aimed at a general audience: an organization and points of entry that make sense to that audience should be the main goal.

Trying to come up with a weighting mechanism for such a broad subject leads to awkward organization and content. Examples so far include:

• Including "Fashion" under "In other fields" rather than under "art" is a minor head-scratcher.
• The overemphasized top-level "Science Wars" section, a meandering argument that never clearly describes what the term popularly refers to and misses reported political aspects entirely.
• The failure to include Peterson's "postmodern neo-Marxism", perhaps the largest single exposure of the term to the general public.

Wikipedia is by nature open-ended. Some articles reach a natural stable state. Others are ongoing. I can't see a rule that can be upheld in this article that says we can include one discipline, say, "Anthropology", but not another, like "Archaeology", when sources are available.

The approach that makes sense here is to establish section heads that reflect the formal theoretical aspect, and the broad cultural manifestations, and allow the content of the sections to develop with their own general criteria, not to try to tie everything to a plan based on scholarly sources.

An "In mainstream culture" section seems glaringly absent, where RS media – journalism, pop criticism, popular books – are the most likely sources. This is where "postmodernism" has taken on its own usage and meaning in popular culture. Science wars (with reference to its academic connections) and postmodern neo-Marxism seem like good fits. That's enough for a start. There's no rush to some "finished" version.

(My Wikipedia time has run out for now. Dunno when I'll get back to editing, but I'll check in here. Meanwhile, I glanced at the article and notice some troubling "trimming". A couple things that jumped out were removing the Cranbrook Academy from "Graphic arts", and the list of sculptors including Jeff Koons, etc from "Sculpture", which changes the context and makes me wonder whether these trims are based on background reading, or arbitrarily for space.)

Cheers. Tsavage (talk) 22:04, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I've already acknowledged that this method is difficult and imperfect. But it is a method supported by Wikipedia guidelines, and it's the best place I know to start. Not everything that is notable enough to merit an article on Wikipedia is important enough to include in an overview article. The bare existence of sources is not enough. Coverage must be WP:DUE.

While it is crucial keep the article as accessible to as broad of an audience as is possible without distorting the subject-matter, intuitions about what might most engage readers cannot be allowed to govern the structure or topical coverage of the article. For good or ill, Wikipedia aspires to be just as dull as an old print encyclopedia.

The anthologies I used are not, incidentally, arbitrary. They are the only ones I've been able to find published by academic presses that cover postmodernism in general in the topical format used by these sections of our article. I'd be grateful to anyone who could produce a few more to better inform our eventual decisions about what to include.

Examples of broad-scope articles developed using this method that have since been promoted to FA status include Philosophy, Metaphysics, Existence, and Communication.

Postmodernism is a small enough phenomenon (however ill-defined) that the existence of a dedicated textbook or multiple anthologies or monographs by academic presses probably also supports the inclusion of a topic. This was my argument for theology, and I've found that it also supports psychology.

While I'm not in a rush to even provisionally "finish" the article, I have put in enough work to want to establish a strong TOC based on HQRS. This should probably include a section were stuff that doesn't meet the bar for its own section can still be described in a sentence or two with any relevant wikilinks.

Tertiary sources support the addition of an "In mainstream culture" section, for which, I agree, many of the best sources would be journalistic rather than academic. If you want to take this on, that would be fantastic.

Please do also improve the Science Wars section. No need for advance clearance here. I also agree that it should not have its own top-level section, but it wasn't obvious where to put it. The incorporation of your research might help in this regard.

If you want to discuss any of my individual edits, please revert with an explanatory description, and I will be happy to explain my reasoning.

Oh, and I'm also going to review all of the quotes embedded in references. Material that belongs in the body will be promoted. Points that are significant but just don't quite belong in the article will be converted to footnotes. The rest I will remove. It's a non-standard practice using inconsistently in the article, and I'm concerned that it might look like it's being used to work around guidelines on blockquotes—or just be distracting to readers. If there's a reason not to do this, please say so now. But if they're just for your use as you work on the article, they are just as easily accessed from a previous version in the article history.

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Ideally I think you’d have another subsection and give a sentence or two to disciplines that are least due (Like at Philosophy#Other traditions), so you would have three levels of due (section, subsection under “Other fields”, prose under another subsection), but idk what it’d be titled. Kowal2701 (talk) 13:56, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Did you mean to link to Philosophy#Other_major_branches? I think that or something like it is a good idea. My concern is to present readers with an overview reflects the amount of scholarship, art, and attention accorded to the various arts and fields. The amount of text devoted to a topic conveys a message about its relative significance that might even be stronger than its actual content. Patrick (talk) 21:00, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, WP:PROPORTION is important Kowal2701 (talk) 21:32, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Historiography

Unsure whether this is due a subsection, but some sources:

• Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (Iggers 2005)
• On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath (Breisach 2003)
• From Modern to Postmodern Historiography? The ‘Contingent Turn’ (Susen 2015)
• Postmodern philosophy of history and reading its traces in postcolonial (re)writing (Kirca 2022)
• Postmodernism and History (Thomspon 2004) (tertiary)
• Postmodernist History (Himmelfarb 1999)

Kowal2701 (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

That sounds great. I'm going to try to condense archeology, anthropology, and urban planning into a sub-section of "In other fields" provisionally entitled "Further developments" (one short paragraph each, better heading suggestions very much welcome). Would this fit there, or do you think it should be its own section? Please do draft up and publish either way! Cheers, Patrick (talk) 21:07, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, it might take me a while though. That sounds good. Are you assessing WP:Due on how prominent/important the field is or how influential postmodernist thought is in it (or both) (edit: actually your methodology above addresses this)? Tbh I think historiography deserves its own subsection, but I’ll try to keep it short relative to the others. I would’ve thought anthropology would have a subsection given how dominant postmodernist thought is in it. Agree with archaeology and urban planning getting less coverage. Apologies for starting a new TP topic per WP:MULTI, should’ve used {{od}} Kowal2701 (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)