I hope that readers will allow a little leeway for me to vent about a pet peeve: pundits and sometimes even supposed scholars pointing the finger at “postmodernism” as an explanation of our woes: loss of respect in institutions; loss of faith in “universal values”; the rise of nationalism, tribalism, and neofascism; the replacement of an appreciation for truth with what Stephen Colbert famously and wonderfully named “truthiness”; and so on.
Here is a good recent example: a contribution to Persuasion by Damon Linker titled, “Welcome to the Postmodern Presidency: Before there was Trump, there was French theory.” Linker’s piece is better than most in that he denies that he is making a direct causal claim: “I don’t want to suggest that Trump or his advisors are taking their cues from Derrida or Foucault—or that we’re living in a world these and other French theorists somehow conjured into existence with their books.” Nevertheless, in line with all such analyses, he writes: “But I do think the political events of the past decade have vindicated the critics of postmodernism.”
There is so much wrong with this and with the essay, which contains a number of contradictions, that it is hard to know where to start. I’m not going to give a detailed critique of Linker’s piece, but I would like to make some general comments about pieces of this nature.
First, let me say that I have studied so-called postmodernist thinkers for almost fifty years, with special attention to Jean-François Lyotard, who was actually one of the very few to speak of “postmodernism” or “postmodern theory.” I have tremendous respect for his thought and for that of others such as Foucault and Derrida, and my sense is that most pundits who talk about this stuff have not really put in the time to understand what they are reading. More importantly, they have not tried hard enough to understand how very different these thinkers all are. There are plenty of criticisms to be leveled against any of them, and plenty of important contrasts to be made among them and between them and others like Theodor Adorno, Jürgen Habermas, Emmanuel Levinas, Iris Murdoch, and Richard Rorty who were concerned with similar issues of societal and political organization, pluralism and cultural hegemonies, the legacies of the Enlightenment, and more. As Alfred North Whitehead said, it is more important for a theory to be interesting than to be true (a kind of “postmodernist” point in itself) — and I find all of it tremendously interesting.
I have no reason to group Linker with those writers who just don’t understand, and he shows some respect for the position he is criticizing. But his piece includes some failings similar to others.
First, aside from the fact that “postmodernism” is an incredibly nebulous term, there is often a conflation of postmodern theory with postmodern society, i.e., postmodernity. This conflation is evident in the sentence quoted above, which speaks of the “vindication” of the “critics of postmodernism.” Critics of postmodern theory can only be “vindicated” if their arguments on theoretical grounds prevail. I’m enough of a pragmatist to include in such arguments the practical outcomes of theoretical positions, when those positions are put into practice. But for the most part, post-modernity is not the result of postmodernist thinking. If anything, the latter is a critique (in the technical sense) of the former. And if what the pundits are criticizing is postmodernity, please don’t confuse that with postmodern thinkers.
Second, and I think more importantly, these condemnations of postmodern thought as a source of many of our ills fail to recognize that a lot of what has happened — is happening — in the US at least is driven by actual forces and conditions on the ground, so to speak, not by ideas or theories. There is an infrastructure, in a sort of Marxian sense, at work.
Most polling shows that a vast majority of Americans genuinely align on what are basically liberal values. And, most Americans seem to agree that many of our institutions have not operated effectively for public good, for the people, in some time. And I agree with that, for the most part. But what has given us Trump and has pushed us into a confrontation with nationalist, white supremacist, neofascist forces in our midst has a lot more to do with the combination of oligarch-fueled rightwing activism and material conditions than with theoretical or even cultural pronouncements. I’m thinking of things like:
- The Republican activism beginning with Reagan and put on steroids by Newt Gingrich and later Mitch McConnell to:
- erase the barriers between news and entertainment divisions in media corporations and to allow the monopolization of information across media markets.
- give Republicans hegemony from the local school board on up to the federal government.
- implement a massive shift of resources and protections away from the general populace and to the upper, upper classes (massive tax cuts for the wealthy, reduction in social programs, etc.)
- Electoral structures such as (1) the Electoral College and the make-up of the Senate, (2) ever-more-sophisticated gerrymandering, (3) the universal adoption of a primary system for nominating candidates that only empowers extremes and promotes polarization, all of which have superempowered a minority of the electorate and given the oligarchs a massive lever to influence governance — i.e., which have facilitated the rightwing activism.
- The fragmentation of our communications environment due to technological developments and the commandeering of major information channels by ideologues and oligarchs pushing propaganda — Fox, Sinclair, X, etc.
Given these conditions — including that apotheosis of Repubilcan activism, the complete abrogation of the authority of Congress — can it really be that surprising that we could go from Reagan to Reaction in four decades?
And if that could happen, then we the people can alter the conditions over time, if the Democrats — or someone — engages in its own aggressive democratic activism.
Affirming Democracy, Gathering Resistance 