Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 09:08:06 EST From: "H-German Ed. Norm Goda" Reply to: H-NET List on German History To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN Subject: Postmodernism Submitted by: William C Schrader I have followed with some interest the exchanges on H-German concerning Postmodernism since I recently joined the list. Unfortunately, I missed the beginning of the discussion, but I have read the messages of Jonathan Sperber and others. If one permits the intervention of a mere provincial, I will put in my two cents worth. I do not see why the supporters of Postmodernism bother to defend their position. If I understand it correctly, that position is that there is no objective truth about the past, but rather the (subjective) truth is whatever one wants to believe, or, as Thomas Schmitz put it, we "privilege" one version of reality over another by "consumers ... accepting this interpretation over that one." If that is one's perspective, why get upset when someone else has a different interpretation? Why should it bother a Postmodernist that I have a belief in an objective truth about the past? From his/her perspective, is my view not just another one of the interpretations of the past, all of which are equally subjective? While this may be intellectual fun and games, as Sperber and, on a lighter note, Feldman point out, ideas do have consequences. If we all decide to believe that Berlin is on the sea, does that make it true that Berlin is indeed on the sea? If we all decide to believe that "Aryans" are a superior race and Jews are inferior, does that justify the Holocaust? For my part, I opt to side with Hajo Holborn, when he writes in the third volume of his HISTORY OF MODERN GERMANY (p. 813) that one cause for the rise of Naziism was the German educational system, which produced people "lacking not only in the most primitive preparation for civil responsibility but also in a canon of absolute ethical committments." William C. Schrader Department of History Tennessee Technological University IN%"WCS9226@TNTECH.EDU" .