While discussions about the philosophical foundations of judgements of right and wrong are often framed in terms of rational versus irrational perspectives, viz. those based on the enlightened values of science and reason as opposed to those based on authority or faith, this is not altogether an accurate view of where the real centre of moral debate currently lies. The game-changer has been the arrival of postmodern ideology and the hegemony which it has established over most debate about public policy and morality. This assertion may come as a surprise to many who are aware of the existence of a philosophical perspective called “postmodernism” but do not see it as having much to do with how they frame their moral judgements or how society around them is ordered. They would I suggest probably be wrong to believe so.
In understanding postmodernism, it is important to recognise that it arose not as a logical corollary of the efforts in the “Enlightenment” period to establish a rational foundation for addressing moral dilemmas and resisting the tyranny of religious and traditionalist worldviews in the 18th and 19th centuries, but as a rejection of that project. While Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Hume, Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach vied with one another to provide a theoretical foundation for moral discourse, ultimately none was able to prevail.
The great prophet who was ultimately to sound the death-knell of the enlightenment was probably Friedrich Nietzche in his portrayal of the madman running around with a lantern proclaiming that God was dead. His suggestion was that the madman represented the enlightenment philosophers who, in their critique of traditional values, looked to construct in their place a system of values which pared away the superstition and retained the essence; but that there was no such essence. Freed from the constraints of the prior expectations of our peers, we are free to steer whichever course we choose.
Postmodernism builds on this insight pushing the corollary that there are no objective standards of right and wrong, only differences of perspective. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica
Reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourses; hence they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of modern science, when considered apart from the evidential standards internal to it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative perspectives, including (for example) astrology and witchcraft. Postmodernists sometimes characterize the evidential standards of science, including the use of reason and logic, as “Enlightenment rationality.”
This point of view is often portrayed as moral relativism, but to do so is to miss an important feature of the postmodernist position: although it holds that there is no one correct point of view on questions of right and wrong, all points of view are not necessarily equal in validity. Indeed, echoing Orwell’s critique of communist society in his Animal Farm, some points of view are in practice “more equal than others.” For, as stated above, values are seen as arising in practice in “discourses” taking place in different social groups or communities. And some groups have greater power or “hegemony” to impose their view on other relatively disempowered groups. Without taking a position on whose views are more correct between the relatively more or less powerful group, postmodernists argue that it behoves us to take the side of the relatively disempowered group so as to help redress the intrinsic injustice of the situation.
So the conversation moves from one about being right to one about having rights. While a traditional perspective on human rights would be to argue that all human beings possess rights equally, the postmodernist position is that greater rights have to accrue to the relatively disempowered and so greater emphasis given to defending their values. Thus is born the concept of group rights: women’s rights, gay rights, transgender rights, black rights, Muslim rights, etc. It is one of the great achievements of the postmodernist agenda that, without any need for moral discourse, it has become possible to dismiss almost any moral position which is portrayed as disrespectful of any of those group rights, particularly if that moral position can also be portrayed as promoting the interests of some relatively more powerful group.
Not surprisingly, this approach leads quite quickly to inconsistency and even incoherence. For example, it is often argued in the corporate environment that “diversity” policies are necessary to ensure that the best people are chosen, by which is meant a sufficient number from relatively disempowered groups. But if that is one’s position, one needs to argue that members of different groups bring different talents and perspectives to the table by virtue of their belonging to those different groups, so there is a fundamental inequality between groups that demands to be recognised. This it would appear is acceptable if one were to suggest, say, that women bring a greater degree of empathy into leadership than men and should on that basis be favoured more than at present. But if one were to say something suggesting that men by virtue of being men are more likely to have some quality or qualities that qualify them for leadership, there would be outrage and claims of sexism or misogyny. Whether any of the supporting claims has a basis in truth or not is entirely irrelevant. The morality of the issue is determined by whose interests are served by taking a claim seriously.
Thus is the new irrationalism born, where matters of fact and evidence are swept aside in favour of identity politics which is elevated as the determining principle in all disputes between competing moral perspectives. Just as within 19th century European society, as Nietzche argued, Christianity exercised hegemony on the basis of authoritarian structures enforcing a morality which society internalised as the natural order of things, postmodernism has achieved a similar hegemony by virtue of backing up its strictures with laws and regulations which carry stringent penalties and ensuring that its point of view is taught in all educational institutions, often even to the exclusion of parental rights to assert an alternative position.
Basing its power on an enforcing authority backed up with persistent indoctrination, it has effectively managed to marginalise dissenting opinions and severely curtail moral debate in the public space. It is the new orthodoxy with divine-like authority to make truth claims on the basis of consistency with its asserted principles which are immune to disproof or falsification by reason or evidence. Indeed those seeking to bring evidence to contradict its claims are routinely vilified and marginalised. Thus have we come full circle in recreating the very conditions that the Enlightenment set out, but on its own terms failed, to address.
Happily, the inconsistency and incoherence of the postmodernist perspective is increasingly being challenged by a new generation of thinkers from across the political spectrum. For example Ken Wilber in his Trump and a Post-Truth World notes how postmodernism has played itself out and in attempting to create a new basis for determining truth has ultimately undermined it.
And thus postmodernism as a widespread leading-edge viewpoint slid into its extreme forms (e.g., not just that all knowledge is context-bound, but that all knowledge is nothing but shifting contexts; or not just that all knowledge is co-created with the knower and various intrinsic, subsisting features of the known, but that all knowledge is nothing but a fabricated social construction driven only by power). When it becomes not just that all individuals have the right to choose their own values (as long as they don’t harm others), but that hence there is nothing universal in (or held-in-common by) any values at all, this leads straight to axiological nihilism: there are no believable, real values anywhere. And when all truth is a cultural fiction, then there simply is no truth at all—epistemic and ontic nihilism. And when there are no binding moral norms anywhere, there’s only normative nihilism. Nihilism upon nihilism upon nihilism—“there was no depth anywhere, only surface, surface, surface.” And finally, when there are no binding guidelines for individual behavior, the individual has only his or her own self-promoting wants and desires to answer to—in short, narcissism. And that is why the most influential postmodern elites ended up embracing, explicitly or implicitly, that tag team from postmodern hell: nihilism and narcissism—in short, aperspectival madness. The culture of post-truth.
Wilber looks forward to an evolution beyond postmodernism to a developmental model which is more “integrated” or “systemic”. His view is that when a system is broken, as ours currently is, it reverts back to the last point at which it functioned effectively. Let’s hope he is right. Such ideas are a welcome breath of fresh air in a political culture in which the discourse revolves less and less around facts and evidence and consists more and more of ad hominem attacks on detractors and dissident voices launched from within the relative security of group identity siloes. Voices of those who like Wilber are critical of the failings of postmodernism and emphasise the need for new ideas are increasingly being heard, particularly on social media where many of the new currents in popular thought are increasingly finding receptive audiences. It will be interesting to watch how all this plays out.
It’s a terrible article. If this truly wishes to uphold logic as an accomplishment of the Enlightenment, then they fail in the beginning when they state that Postmodernism does not logically follow from that which came before it. I would assume from the contents of this article that this author would find my objection to be absurd; however, I would trust this author’s opinions more if 1 of 3 things could have happened. 1) In my first logic textbook, which was given to me by my professor when I told him I was trying to teach myself logic and which I accomplished over a summer of working at Wal-Mart during the day and studying in a Denny’s at night, one rule has always stood out to me: in Robert Paul Churchill’s Logic an Introduction pages 59 and 60 are stated 4 Ethicals Principles. The rule in question is Number 3 The Principle in Charity, in which the “principle requires that we try and make the best possible interpretation of the discourse being evaluated.” In the present case, there in no charity in the interpretation of Postmodernism. Rhetorical question: how could there be when no direct sources of literature are quoted or named?
This leads to point 2), in which there is no attempt to quote or read authors that are labeled under the moniker Postmodernism. It is always the case that famous ones are named–Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard–and if you read Postmodernism and Its Critics by John McGowan, then you should include Richard Rorty. However, any attempt to expound upon the ideas of Postmodernism are never carried through. One possibility to bring up is that Derrida is not against the truth of Semiotics of Ferdinand de Saussure; rather, where Saussure makes the connection between the signifier and the signified, Derrida goes further to suggest that the In-Itselfness which Saussure examined, giving it only to the object signified, was inaccurate because it failed to understand the In-Itselfness of the signifier. The dichotomy is normally understood as word – tree – and object “tree.” Derrida’s critique is that the Semiotic structure of Saussure fails to understand this in the synchronic evolution of language.
Another Philosopher that is hardly never mention, or if he is mentioned, his worse book is mentioned. This philosopher is Gilles Deleuze and the book that is brought up if he is mentioned is Anti-Oedipus which is an attempt to synthesize the Deleuzian understanding of Nietzsche with the Enlightenment Critique of Karl Marx. The reason I bring up Gilles Deleuze is because he is brilliant. Even if Anti-Oedipus is his worst book (in my opinion), it is still upheld as brilliant. A book that should be read, if it is the author of this post, or some bystander that just happens upon this, is Nietzsche and Philosophy by Gilles Deleuze. In which it gives credence against Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant and Hegel while giving greater understanding to Nietzsche in the foreground with Spinoza and Hume in the background. What else is important for this book? It challenges the Cartesian Image of Thought (image should be taken from the Bergsonian understand of Metaphysics which you can read in Gilles Deleuze’s book Bergsonism). The problem with the Cartesian Image of Thought which has persisted into modern culture is that it equates the concept of Thought to the concept of Truth. If one wants further understanding of concepts and their importance to Deleuze’s Philosophy, then one should read his book What Is Philosophy? Gilles Deleuze proposes another Image of Thought in which thought is to be the main principle in which it is composed of Sense and Value. This comes from the influence of Nietzsche. I highly recommend you read the book as there are so many things which I cannot cover in a short space. One such thing is that Deleuze’s Metaphysical philosophy is also based upon Henri Bergson’s concept of Multiplicity which made philosophical the functional aspects of Riemann’s Multiplicities. Alain Badiou goes to far with this an attempts to make it a Set Theoretical Logic based on these Multiplicities.
Furthermore, this new proposition for the Image of Thought relates to the third possible thing that this author could have done to make this more credible. That being the misunderstanding of Truth in the Postmodern understanding. I would again recommend Gilles Deleuze’s book here. The Postmodern conception of truth is not that there is no truth; rather, since there is a conception of Sense and Value in truth claims, it must be examined what the Sense and Value is assumed unconsciously in truth claims. The reason to propose this understanding of truth is not to undermine the functions found in Scientific discoveries; rather, it is to extend the conception of truth in which it can envelop Sciences which are not as Epistemologically stable, e.g., Sociology and Psychology. The old Image of Thought cannot extend to these Sciences. Yes these Sciences have functives–see What Is Philosophy? for that understanding–however, their extend would be lessened if they were in the Cartesian Model that Thought and Truth are equivalent. If it were the case that the equivalence of the sociological factors were that which were ready at hand, then thought and truth could coexist; however, that is not the case as we see the issues which are systemic in our culture. An example of this is the nature of the Poverty in the United States and the Racist Housing measures during and after the Jim Crow Era.
I do hope that this does end up challenging the author in which they can reflect upon their bad article on the matter.
I thank Mr Denys for his cogent and well-written critique of my article. I would not wish to take issue with any of the claims there made and will look to follow up on some of the reading suggestions.
In defence of my article I would make two points. First it was not my intention to offer a scholarly critique of postmodernism. To do that would have required a much lengthier article and the process of lengthening would have lost me most of my intended audience. Rather my intention was to provoke thought and discussion and in that I appear to have been successful.
Secondly, it was not my intention to represent, misrepresent or denigrate the views of any particular postmodernist writer. Rather my concern was to shed light on the influence postmodern thought has had on the way in which public discourse is conducted these days. While the intent of individual postmodernists such as Habermas may been been to facilitate discourse, it is in my view the case that, under the influence of strains of postmodern ideology, discourse has come to be fragmented and curtailed. Indeed I would suggest that in the main most of those expressing views in the public arena based on a postmodernist frame of reference are unaware that they are doing so. Postmodernism cannot be absolved of responsibility for the consequences of this any more than Karl Marx can escape blame for the horrors committed in the name of Soviet Communism, Maoism, etc., horrified though he may have been by their actions had he lived to see them.
Whether postmodernist thought can reform itself to address these issues or whether some new intellectual current will be needed to reverse the current trend towards fragmentation and narrowing of the parameters of public debate remains to be seen.