ABSTRACT
I don’t like isms. They should all become wasms but they seldom do. I fear them for they essentialize and thrive on the power of so-called academic networks, especially those in the social sciences, that see themselves free from the need to present empirical evidence to support their arguments. Science should have no tolerance for them. Education unfortunately seems to lack this intolerance. Both modernism and postmodernism are not as modern or postmodern as we might think. Metanarratives have been with us for as long as we have recorded history and anti-foundationalism has been too. Their sins against that which is human are similar: modernism supports enlightened foundationalism while hiding the fact that its declared criteria of objectivity, rationality, and truth are not self-evident but practiced discursive modes seeking supremacy and postmodernism evades evidence and adds little to empirical knowledge.
