Through a Portanl and Finding Remnants: An Incomplete Report

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-6-2018

Publication Title

Educational Philospohy and Theory

DOI

10.1080/00131857.2018.1461407

Abstract

For a moment, postmodernism was alive, but it is not dead. It has just morphed into playful hybrids. I always viewed postmodernism as a portal leading to other ways of thinking, and we have passed through it still trying to understand what might be on the other side. This is why our current moment is marked by the rise of so many different intellectual endeavors from speculative realism to posthu-manism, new materialism to information studies, and more. However, what is crucial to remember is, like a science fiction horror film, dangerously misshaped modernist forms have made it through the portal as well such as relativism, neoliberalism, and humanism. Too often relativism was an accusation levied against those who developed postmodern forms of thinking, yet relativism is merely what Donna Haraway (1997) referred to as a ‘god trick’. To accuse postmodernists and their progeny of relativism is to admit to not having read Nietzsche. The theatrics of Relativism is not a challenge for educational theory. The challenge is creating educational theories guided by a dancing perspectivalism that are not deluded by sober thinkers who deal in god tricks and other power plays.

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