Monday, 7 February 2011

Pluralism and relativism

Pluralism is a belief that there is no one answer to anything, which is much like postmodernism. There are two types of pluralism:

Firstly there is Normative pluralism/relativism (or nihilism) is the acceptance of all narratives, expressions and norms, claiming that no one is better than all the others, which is a very bleak view.

Secondly, (the view we have looked at) there is a kind of postmodernism which is pluralist in the sense that it accepts different views, without denying that something is better than other things. For example accepting someone’s view, but not agreeing with it. It is this second kind, which allows some form of rebuttal to criticisms of Postmodernism (like those put forward by Jameson) and perhaps stops it being so annoyingly smug a theory.

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