Reality or Narrative? Post Modernism and Western Chaos”

We must begin philosophy not with doubt, nor with ideas, but with a simple and undeniable fact: we already know real things.

Before any theory, before any system, before any reflection—we are already in contact with reality. We see, we judge, we affirm: this is. Philosophy must begin here, or it loses the very ground it seeks to understand.
Realism, at its core, is rooted in the reality of being—the fact that things exist independently of our minds. It is not merely a theory among others, but a fundamental orientation of thought. It makes a twofold claim:

• Epistemological: we truly know things as they are (even if imperfectly)
• Metaphysical: things exist in themselves, not merely as constructions of consciousness

By contrast, idealism begins with a reversal: thought is made prior to being.
Reality becomes dependent on consciousness; knowledge begins not from things, but from ideas. The world is no longer something encountered—it is something mediated, interpreted, or even constructed.

The major idealism today is Post Modernism.

We will discuss two short papers on Post Modernism and Realism.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PKNxhfdQSmRPd1Qif-Xh-SCrSiQpvRAD?usp=sharing

Postmodernism rejects the assumption of a permanent human nature as an “essentialist allacy,” claiming instead that human beings are “constructed” by culture and language. In other words, our identity and behavior are shaped by the cultural and linguistic contexts in which we exist. This constructedness implies that human beings are largely shaped by their consciousness, which is variable and formed intersubjectively under the influence of culture, which, in turn, varies over historical time. As a result, such seemingly given categories as one’s body, sex, race, and self are taken to be forever “contested” by competing “narratives,” to be “performative” in sense of existing in what people do rather than what they are, and to be “fluid,” allowing people to shift from one self or sex to another.
Most importantly, this denial of human nature deprives ethics of its most important
anchor in the absence of metaphysical standards, such as Plato’s Idea of the Good and
Christianity’s divine revelation. In classical liberalism, we can determine how we ought to live by figuring out what enables beings of a human nature to thrive, to be happy, and to have flourishing lives, such as by practicing the virtues and by respecting the natural rights to life, liberty, and property. The postmodern denial of such a nature…takes away the one objective standard from which moderns who have given up on metaphysics can derive ethical prescriptions. As a result, morals become relative to the agents and therefore cease to exist in any solid and objective way.