Is postmodernism responsible for the distraction of our society? Irish weather

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Is there a philosophy we can blame for everything that has gone wrong with human reasoning? Some think this is called postmodernism.

A method of thought that has its roots in Europe in the years following World War II, postmodernism rejects traditional concepts of rationality, objectivity and universal truth. Instead, it emphasizes the diversity of human experience and the multiplicity of perspectives.

Its figureheads are continental intellectuals like Nazi sympathizer Martin Heidegger and turtleneck liberal Michel Foucault. While postmodernists are left and right, they are united by what historian Richard Wolin describes as a rejection of the Enlightenment project, the idea that scientific reasoning is the best way to gain knowledge.

In his scathing critique of postmodernism, The Seduction of Unreason, which he wrote nearly 20 years ago, Wolin proclaimed that one of the peculiarities of our time is that Counter-Enlightenment arguments, once the exclusive prerogative of the political right, have found new life. among the representatives of the cultural left.

Prominent postmodernists today include Slavoj iek whose paradoxical statements have earned him the title Borat of philosophy and Judith Butler, an influential new wave feminist who argues that gender is a social construct or performance.

On the one hand, postmodernism has been described as the philosophical parent of awakening. American philosopher Susan Neiman is one of its leading critics on this front, blaming postmodern identity politics for dividing the left. On the other hand, postmodernism has been accused of creating distrust in social institutions for the benefit of the far right, hence Donald Trump has been described by some as the first postmodern president.

But is postmodernism misrepresented? Like any label, it can be somewhat fluid.

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In literature, James Joyce is considered the last great modernist and Samuel Beckett the first great postmodernist. Their two styles reflect the evolution of Western philosophy. Joyce’s work is rooted in history and place, drawing on centuries of scientific and cultural references. Beckett’s work is stateless, and in the ordinary sense the characters without plot are without nationality and sometimes without bodies.

The horrors of World War II are important for postmodern thought. The fact that European civilization could give rise to the Holocaust not only shook faith in progress, but also gave impetus to the key idea of ​​postmodernism, namely that objectivity is a disguise of power. . Globalization and technological development have undoubtedly accelerated the postmodern advance.

Postmodern individuals feel comfortable almost everywhere, but they don’t belong anywhere. They have made instability and changed their way of being and feel no strong attachment to any particular place, writes Adrin Gordaliza Vega in a new book, The End of Everything: A Society in Transition (PL Press).

They are globalized individuals, heedless of the past or the future, always immersed in a changing present. . . And this applies not only to the physical or geographical space they inhabit but also to their ethical, aesthetic and political thinking. Liquid, or fragmented or postmodern individuals (depending on which version one prefers), do not necessarily have such strict and firm values, they can change them according to each situation.

Vega, a Spanish-British philosopher, admits that it is very difficult to find 100% postmodern individuals. However, in Western capitalist societies, we all have a varying percentage of postmodern sensibility within us.

One of the main charges leveled against postmodernists is that they are wrong about the key ethical issues of the day. By suggesting that every power dynamic is inherently evil, they confuse minor injustices with major atrocities. At worst, postmodernism can seem complacent or even cynical.

Wolin cites the example of postmodern responses to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. iek had described them as a Hegelian lesson that taught the West its own record of evil. Although Ieks’ revulsion at the attacks was never in doubt, his reflection that America got what it fantasized about is cited by Wolin as further evidence that postmodernism is morally impotent and politically ignorant.

Fast forward to 2023 and you may find plenty of what political scientists call useful idiots defending regimes like Russia and Iran (it’s not that iek falls into that category). How many of them, however, are pure postmodernists? It is unlikely that any of the agent provocateurs and relativists who make excuses for Vladimir Putin, or who argue that human rights are a Western construct, have read Foucault or ever intend to.

The other main accusation against postmodernism, and this fits a little better, is that it ignores the cost of overthrowing old certainties and abandoning historical traditions. For Wolin, postmodernists take advantage of the freedoms of political liberalism. . . by biting the hand that feeds them. By promoting difference rather than a universal human perspective, they create a political movement where reason is little more than the ideological facade of Eurocentrism and its horrors. By making what is different the same or the same, reason, it is argued, is implicitly totalitarian.

Even the most open-minded individuals can lack patience with postmodernism. It can have a similar effect to watching a Beckett play too often, it was smart the first time you saw it, but after a while you start to crave something factual.

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Vega expresses this frustration when considering the postmodern approach to national identity. Let’s say an individual was born in Germany and lives in Berlin for a large part of his life. Is this person German? What does it mean to be German? Are all Germans the same? Does the essence of Germany exist? Everything that modern philosophy considered objective, in postmodern philosophy becomes subjective. Everything that supposedly defines us, gender, nationality, profession, social class, marital status, studies, etc. is questioned.

The concern is that if we continue to doubt, we become hopelessly lost. Postmodernity challenges any attempt to describe or define people and things, says Vega.

However, asking what it means to be German only seems silly to someone settled into their German identity. This is a very relevant, and even urgent, question for someone like an Afghan asylum seeker in Düsseldorf who is trying to find a place somewhere in the world where he does not feel persecuted or unwelcome.

Here we come to one of the main defenses of postmodernism. Her focus on individual experience rather than the collective means she can help give voice to marginalized groups. If postmodernism is gaining prominence in Western society, it is because certain groups have hitherto felt ignored.

As Nelson Mandela said, it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle. If individuals feel that the dominant discourse excludes their experience, postmodernism is a weapon to advance their cause.

ask a wise man

Can anything be accepted as true?

Michel Foucault replies: It must be admitted… that power produces knowledge…; that power and knowledge are directly implicated; that there is no power relationship without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor knowledge that does not presuppose and at the same time does not constitute power relationships.

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