Once Were Positivists: A Reply to Aya

Tbere are two basic issues in tbis essay. The first is tbe sloppy use of tbe term 'postmodernism' to designate a more or less organised collection of unsavoury academics, who (it is argued) subscribe to various forms of nihilism and epistemological hypochondria for some, as-yet-to-be-determined but clearly nefarious, ends. The exact composition of this group is left vague (although the author clearly has bis own list). It presumably includes a fair sampling of theorists of the French persuasion, most feminists, authors who are interested in the entwining of power and knowledge in human life, and nearly all 'relativists' who reject monistic certainty. For Aya, the term clearly saves time, basically by assuring himself that there has been little really worth reading in the social sciences (at least in anthropology) for the past quarter century or so.