Chris Trottier on Nostr: A further example of how postmodernism’s jockeying for radical social positions is ...

A further example of how postmodernism’s jockeying for radical social positions is Bruno Latour’s stance that an ancient Egyptian pharaoh couldn’t have died of tuberculosis because the term “tuberculosis” only became a medical term in the 19th century. Instead, Latour maintained, we should refer to the illness by what the ancient Egyptians as “pthisis”.

Neat. You’re calling out a power structure.

But how did that pharaoh die? You can challenge the language pertaining to the death, but you’re not changing the cause of death itself.

A radical position does not equate to a radical change.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039368106000975?np=y