3 Ways Roam Research is Postmodern

Treating text as reality

Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse on Unsplash

Roam research is the perfect postmodern writing tool because it treats all text equally, understands structure as constantly becoming, and sees knowledge as serendipitous.

The postmodernists define themselves in opposition to modernism. As a movement, they claim that “everything is language.” Objective reality cannot exist independently from how we construct that reality in language. Knowledge is always a combination of our interpretations and experiences … and thus always changing.

Since the digital world is nothing but content, this view of reality matches the way most digital writers treat text.

These three postmodern principles underlay how digital writers use tools like Roam research to become more innovative and productive.

All texts are equal.

Roam research treats all text as equally important, no matter how big or small. We can’t know what is important until we write. What matters is how we put text together to create new texts. A digital writer will always see the world as a combination of text.

Structure is constantly becoming.

Roam research downplays information hierarchies. Most digital writers understand that knowledge isn’t something they can control or totally understand. Digital writers don’t presume to know what knowledge is. They explore that knowledge through the text they write.

The creation of knowledge is a random process.

Roam research is a constantly changing network of text that is always evolving. So rather than trying to force a certain type of content into a particular style, it makes more sense to use an approach that doesn’t place too much weight on the rules and instead simply allows the text to write itself.

Tools like Roam research enable digital writers to explore any topic and discover new insights. It’s like an electronic scavenger hunt in a world of flowing text. This is both a postmodern and digital approach to creating knowledge online.

Also see

A Postmodern View of Journaling
lancecummings.medium.com

How to Compose like a Digital Writer
lancecummings.medium.com

This post was created with Typeshare