Started here. More specifically, here.
Well, okay, it isn't exactly a contest, because I have nothing to offer for the best entries but electronic applause. But it could be fun to read the entries.
Pro-Pomo bumper stickers need not apply.
Suggestions may be placed in the combox here or over on Extra Thoughts. (Please excuse this blatant promotion of my personal blog.)
Comments (37)
My metanarrative can beat up your metanarrative (that won't admit its metanarrativity).
Posted by Maximos | March 29, 2008 10:25 AM
Act before you think.
Hillary for Weight Watchers.
Digestus ergo sum.
Posted by johnt | March 29, 2008 11:08 AM
If all truth-claims are about power, who are the Others the postmodernists repress?
Posted by Maximos | March 29, 2008 11:13 AM
Digestus ergo sum.
This is a marvelous one, in my opinion.
Posted by Maximos | March 29, 2008 11:38 AM
Derrida Typed, People Hyped
Objectivity is My Frame of Reference
[picture of a cart on a slope] Descartes: It Was All Downhill From There
Patriarch On Board
I Attended University, and All I Got Was This Lousy Uncertainty
Deconstruct THIS
Posted by Chris Floyd | March 29, 2008 12:11 PM
I'd prefer to say it was all downhill from Hegel...or maybe Kant.
"Objectivity is my frame of reference" is my favorite so far. :-)
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2008 12:37 PM
"Question skepticism"
Posted by Scott W. | March 29, 2008 12:50 PM
"Atheism is a meme."
Posted by Scott W. | March 29, 2008 1:01 PM
Well, the case for Descartes as the beginning of the slope is pretty strong; it was Descartes, after all, who originated the criteria of certitude, the type of rational assurance, against which postmodernism rebels. They're quite right to resist Cartesianism, sometimes mistaken in their methods. I don't know that the opposition is quite so clear in the cases of Hegel and Kant, or Locke.
Posted by Maximos | March 29, 2008 1:05 PM
I'll shift your paradigm!
All subtext and no text.
I spent 7 years in grad school and all I got was this lousy case of logorrhea
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must affect loquacity.
Your simulacrum is showing
Posted by Kevin Jones | March 29, 2008 1:07 PM
I'd prefer to say it was all downhill from Hegel...or maybe Kant.
Po-mo imprimaturs for H and K, but a pass on Descartes? Hmmm.
Posted by KW | March 29, 2008 1:41 PM
I hate to sound shallow, but the best case for Descartes on a bumper sticker is the picture of a cart. :-)
"Atheism is a meme" isn't exactly anti-postmodern--more anti-New Atheism, anti-Dan Dennett--but it's a great one. In that vein, I can't resist,
Atheists should be disarmed and caged.
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2008 1:45 PM
Perhaps this would be better on a T-Shirt:
"Please excuse my intellectual mess--I'm deconstructing."
Posted by thebyronicman | March 29, 2008 1:53 PM
"I Attended University, and All I Got Was This Lousy Uncertainty"
Love it. Put it on a t-shirt and I'll give you $18.
Posted by thebyronicman | March 29, 2008 1:54 PM
OK, I won't win a prize with this sticker, but Descartes did:
"Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed"
Posted by KW | March 29, 2008 2:39 PM
When we start goofing on the moderns, my entry will be;
"Locke Kant save your Bacon now."
Posted by Kevin | March 29, 2008 2:45 PM
If you can read this, you're too closed-minded.
My other car is nothing but a subjective homo-erotic fantasy of its manufacturer.
Posted by George R. | March 29, 2008 2:55 PM
It's too long for a bumper sticker, but I heard on a video (at Scott's blog) a great line from Mark Steyn:
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2008 4:11 PM
Cheat harder, everyone else is.
If the answer is postmodernism, it was a ridiculous question.
Knock, knock. Who's there? An enigma of possibilities colliding with destiny.
Posted by Step2 | March 29, 2008 4:21 PM
The cart was definitely a major factor, Lydia. I can respect any objection to my formula (heck, what bumper-sticker-length phrase can go without qualifiers?), but you should allow us wannabe-medievalists our bugbears.
Posted by Chris Floyd | March 29, 2008 4:49 PM
They're all good. I'm too intimidated to participate.
Posted by William Luse | March 29, 2008 5:42 PM
Entirely understood, Chris.
I like both of George R's, because they're both very funny, but I'm not sure I'd want "homo-erotic fantasy" written on anything in public. Perhaps I'm too literal-minded.
I should probably pick a date by which I'll announce my own entirely subjective top picks. :-) Others are welcome to do the same.
When we were moving from graduate school to my husband's first job, many-a year ago, we had a great contest for giving away stuff that somebody might want but that we couldn't easily transport long distance (e.g., a half bottle of olive oil). We got our friends together for a party and had them bid for the items by saying, "I wouldn't give you ______ for that" filling the blank in with something really bad. For example, "I wouldn't give you a batch of chocolate chip cookies baked by Hillary Clinton for that." The funniest line won the item in question. I can recommend the method for both amusement and practicality.
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2008 5:42 PM
but I'm not sure I'd want "homo-erotic fantasy" written on anything in public.
Yeah. That's a little icky.
I'm not too familiar with the post-modernists. I was just under the impression that that was the sort of thing they were into.
If you wanted to substitute some absurd post-modernist jargon, it would probably work better.
Posted by George R. | March 29, 2008 5:53 PM
How about
"My other car is just a social construct."
:-)
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2008 6:25 PM
Since postmodernists typically privilege that which is "interesting" over that which is true, perhaps the following would scare some people out of their postmodern tendencies?
Postmodernism? (yawn)
or simply,
Postmodernism is boring.
Posted by Michael | March 29, 2008 6:37 PM
Much better.
Posted by George R. | March 29, 2008 6:38 PM
These might be effective bumper-stickers.
"Is hunger a social construct?"
or
"Is genocide a social construct?"
Posted by Michael | March 29, 2008 6:39 PM
I have a feeling that something amusing could be done with "stick shift," "automatic shift" and "paradigm shift," but nothing is immediately coming to mind.
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2008 7:25 PM
"I'm a hegeMAN baby."
Posted by Scott W. | March 29, 2008 7:40 PM
--Nominalism Happens
--Think Liberally. Act Tyrannically.
--I break for abstractions
--Honk if you love agitprop
--Murder is not a liberating value
--Tolerance: The new and improved tyranny
--Save Liberalism--Steal children from the Christians
--Self-righteous Egalitarians Suck
--Picture of the Darwin fish/bird/thing with Xed eye and speared by the cross
Posted by Silly Interloper | March 30, 2008 12:20 AM
How about,
"Celebrate bad ideas."
or
"Postmodernism: self-refuting since [insert somewhat arbitrary date]."
Posted by Michael | March 30, 2008 3:54 AM
If Embryos were in Anwar, Liberals Would Want to Drill There.
Posted by Francis Beckwith | March 30, 2008 11:50 AM
Paradigm shift happens
Your gnosticism may be true for you, but it's not true for me (--my wife, Frankie, thought of that one)
Oppression, who's to judge?
Don't worry, be happy: past "injustices" are just social constructions
Outsource diversity training
Male lesbian on board
Diversity is the new conformity
Michael Moore is gravitationally challenged
Practice purposeful kindness and thoughtful acts of beauty
My inner child grew up a long time ago; yours should do the same
Planned Barrenhood
Sects in the City
I not only believe the Apostles' Creed; I think it's true.
Hey New York!: a whoring governor will make you go blind.
Posted by Francis Beckwith | March 30, 2008 12:36 PM
Outsource diversity training
I not only believe the Apostles' Creed; I think it's true.
Posted by Lydia | March 30, 2008 3:07 PM
I like both of those.
Posted by Lydia | March 30, 2008 3:08 PM
I've seen the following on a T-shirt:
"God is dead." -Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead." -God
Posted by Michael | March 30, 2008 11:30 PM
here are some ideas
"Are you sure that nothing is certain?"
"Truth Happens!"
"The truth shall set you free"
if you can know that truth can't be known, you pretty much just blew your theory.
"fight for Christian Rights"
"I'm anti-Anti"
"man + wowan = Baby"
'save the humans'
Posted by Joe | June 8, 2009 4:22 PM