Oh dear. The Independent has misplaced its marbles. It is very difficult not to choke with laughter.

No one likes to be labelled a conspiracy theorist. The term is generally associated with the sort of people who believe the world is run by aliens disguised as humans, or who think the moon landing was a hoax. But it is very important that we do not allow our desire to avoid pejorative labels blunt our critical faculties. Scepticism can be a healthy instinct.

Um…yes, it can indeed; but scepticism about what, exactly? Critical faculties in relation to what, were you thinking?

It is unfortunate that most vocal critics of the standard narrative regarding the death of Diana, Princess of

Robert Irwin says some amusing things in this interview with Scott McLemee about Irwin’s book on Said’s Orientalism. Scott asked what made a criticism of Orientalism seem worthwhile or necessary enough for a book.

I got irritated by the way some people in Eng Lit departments seemed to regard themselves as adversarial saints, robed in white and “speaking truth to power” because they read Conrad, Austen and Flaubert in strange ways. Whereas academics who read Masudi, Tabari and Ibn Khaldun were necessarily robed in black.

Yep. The adversarial sainthood thing is a big – a huge – part of why descriptions of postmodernism by fans of postmodernism tend to be so irritating. The reek of self-imputed adversarial sainthood is … Read the rest

I’ve been wondering what ‘postmodernism’ is exactly. I don’t mean what its claims are, I mean what it is itself. What kind of thing is it? What box does it go in? It’s not a discipline. It’s not a kind of philosophy, like pragmatism or utilitarianism. It’s not a kind of inquiry. What is it? I realize I don’t even know, and I’m not sure other people do either, including postmodernists themselves. Their descriptions of postmodernism tend to be notably vague around the edges. Evasive, a hostile witness might say. Like this one from the hilarious article on the reception of ‘Deconstructing the evidence-based discourse in health sciences: truth, power and fascism’ by Holmes et al. last summer, the one … Read the rest