Postmodernism

Introduction

Postmodernism, also named poststructuralism, is a movement or a set of ideas prevalent in modern society yet surprisingly difficult to define. As a mode of thinking, it has deeply influenced many parts of academia, and through it seeped into every corner of our world. Originating in French literary and philosophical circles in the late 1960s, postmodernism challenges or simply denies the existence of absolute structures and values in society. Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), an early adaptor of postmodernism, in an article from the 1980s described the movement thus: ‘There are no definitions possible… It has all been done… It has destroyed itself. It has deconstructed its entire universe. So, all that are left are the pieces. Playing with the pieces—that is postmodern.^[1] As a definition, it tells us very little, but a key term here is ‘deconstructing’.

Postmodernism’s Relation to Nihilism

Postmodernism is a deeply nihilist movement, which states that everything is baseless, nothing has meaning – including life itself – and that we cannot know anything. Through the process of deconstruction, sometimes literally breaking things down, postmodernism, or rather, postmodern writers, academics, artists, etcetera, attempt to break down existing societal structures to show that these are meaningless. This includes every structure in society one can think off, from family, nationhood, the government, to science and even history.

Philosophical Underpinnings

Postmodernists often target Enlightenment reason, for its unfounded optimism, overt reliance upon reason alone, and indeed ‘heroic model’ of science. Whereas contemporary history of science and scholarship has vindicated some of these critiques, postmodernists often throw away the baby with the bath water and discard the entire Enlightenment or ‘modernist project’ as a misled and misleading endeavour. Instead, societal structures are being portrayed as nothing but the result of ‘power dynamics’, that is one group in society having power over another group in society. It is a mode of thought originally found with Karl Marx, who considered the economy and indeed all human society as a struggle between oppressor and oppressed.  

The postmodern, French writer, Michel Foucault’s (1926-1984) writings have become extremely influential. Foucault extended from Marx and other philosophers by focusing on the relation between power and knowledge – a differential in knowledge leads to a differential in power. Yet, in proper postmodernism fashion, according to Foucault knowledge is never absolute, but always contingent. Similarly, the perhaps just as influential Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek (b. 1949) holds that ideologies too are based on fictions instead of being based on a real, material world we can access, and is thus rooted in the unconsciousness.

Postmodernism’s Modern Influences

Many of today’s social movements can only be understood properly by considering the absolute shift that has taken place in academia and education and hence in the minds of the younger generations of today. Connected with a strong focus on the individual and one’s supposed ability to make good decisions for one’s life – whatever the term ‘good’ means here – every absolute has been relativized. What were once accepted truths based on the authority of knowledgeable scientists, teachers, politicians, clergy, or others, is now up for question.

Subjective Nature

Absolute claims are considered invalid by definition. Biological realities are now described as subjective, even by those who through rigorous medical and biological training should know better. History can be questioned and judged by the ever-changing standards of today, where the powerful West is all-evil, and the once-colonized nations hold the moral high ground. Two and two equals four is now considered by some an oppressive white supremacist structure, promoting one ‘truth’ over another. Here we see Foucault’s power-knowledge differential directly at work: as the narrative goes, by promoting one form of knowledge over another, one group holds power over another, and hence oppresses the other, who should now rightly be considered victims of an illegitimate absolute structure. It is also a self-maintaining narrative, for those who oppose this entire line of reasoning – beginning with the denial of absolute truths – are automatically classified as oppressor.

Conservative Perspective

What was once the domain of a few radical French philosophers has now become mainstream thought among left-wing thinkers and the generation they have instructed in college. An entire generation grows up to whom facts are meaningless – instead, it is all about equality and inequality, about justice and injustice, about the narrative. Conservatism, on the other hand, does not exclude the above, but has them embedded in a worldview of absolutes. What unites conservatists of all ilk is an underlying belief in an absolute reality, with absolute facts, absolute values, absolute meanings. Yes, conservatives often disagree about a fact, value, or meaning, but on the basis that there is a single, underlying truth. We may not have access to that truth – for example, based on a belief in the fallibility of human reasoning, or upon a belief that some truths cannot be accessed through reason at all but are the result of a form of (divine) revelation – but that does not undermine conservatives’ belief in the reality of truth. The same holds for morality. Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher, whose work can be read as a precursor to postmodernism, claimed that meaning and morality are imposed on actions through consensus. Helping an old lady cross the street is a morally good action, because we as society agree it is – not because there is some underlying absolute principle of absolute good and evil. As such, postmodernism is the antithesis of conservatism – which makes crossing the divide on the one hand seemingly impossible, and the other hand extremely necessary. After all, one of the absolute values of conservatism is love: a love for one-self and for our neighbour in equal measure. To see that neighbour – and they might very well be a son, a daughter, a father or a mother – succumb to the lovelessness that it postmodern, must hurt. In the end, postmodernism is based on one major lie: that human beings, individually or collectively, possess all the capacities – and willingness – to lead meaningful, peaceful, lives. The facts of past and present prove otherwise.