ellauri069.html on line 40: Postmodernism is the Swiss Army knife of critical concepts. It’s definitionally overloaded, and it can do almost any job you need done. This is partly because, like many terms that begin with “post,” it is fundamentally ambidextrous. Postmodernism can mean, “We’re all modernists now. Modernism has won.” Or it can mean, “No one can be a modernist anymore. Modernism is over.” People who use “postmodernism” in the first, “mission accomplished,” sense believe that modernism—the art and literature associated with figures like Picasso and Joyce—changed the game completely, and that everyone is still working through the consequences. Modernism is the song that never ends. Being postmodernist just means that we can never be pre-modernist again. People who use it in the second sense, as the epitaph for modernism, think that, somewhere along the line, there was a break with the assumptions, practices, and ambitions of modernist art and literature, and that everyone since then is (or ought to be) on to something very different. Being postmodernist means that we can never be modernist again.
ellauri100.html on line 319: However, it was not momentous events but a bit of seemingly irrelevant analysis that administered the coup de grâce to my naïve “liberalism”. It happened in the early 1970s, when my boss asked me to concoct grand measures of effectiveness for the armed forces (i.e., summary measures of antisubmarine warfare capabilities, of tactical strike capabilities, and so on). I struggled with the problem, and made a good-faith effort to provide the measures. But in the end I had to report to my boss that he had given me “mission impossible”. Why? Because, no summary measure could capture the effects of the many factors that would determine the effectiveness of the armed forces: the enemy, the characteristics of his forces, the timing and geographic particulars of any engagement, and so on. (See “Hemibel Thinking” in this post for a précis of my argument.) That was the first time I got sacked. But I returned as soon as my boss got fired.
ellauri156.html on line 412: I should also add that Joab is already being drawn into the conspiracy. Joab obeys David's command to send Uriah, and my guess is that Joab knows something is up. He may even have heard about David's liaison with Bathsheba. When he sends Uriah to Jerusalem, he has to give him some mission, some task to perform. Joab and Uriah may have sensed that this was no “mission impossible” (as you would give a mighty warrior), but that is a “mission incredible.” In any case, the web of deceit and deception is already being woven, and more people are being drawn into the conspiracy. Wow, this is prime material for a soap opera. Maybe there already is one, must check. OF COURSE there is:
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