In an essay entitled “Richard Rorty and the Postmodern Rejection of Absolute Truth” Dean Geuras, Professor of Philosophy at the Southwest Texas State University wrote:
There is much that both Christians and non Christians can learn and apply from the dead-ended emptiness of postmodernism.
Jean-François Lyotard – as a leading figure in the postmodernist movement - described Postmodernism as a historical/cultural condition based on a dissolution of master narratives or meta-narratives, a crisis in ideology when ideology no longer appears transparent. Frederic Jameson himself described Postmodernism as a movement in arts and culture corresponding to a new configuration of politics and economics, or what he calls "late capitalism": transnational consumer economies based on global scope of capitalism, which I would call Global Monopolistic Corporate Capitalism. Lyotard was also responsible for the infamous phrase ““The Postmodern would be that which in the modern invokes the unpresentable in presentation itself”.
In many ways, postmodernism has pervaded almost all niches of what could be called the consumerist strata of society. Its influence is to be seen everywhere, from marketing, sales and advertising through to popular music, fashion and automobile design. This could mean that from some perspective that we are being subliminally accustomed to aspects of postmodernism, which in itself is both shocking and amusing. Amusing in that it can put a different twist on seemingly inane artefacts and events or it can also mean that we are becoming accustomed to lose any sense of criteria beyond what is simple and sensorial – postmodernism, in a way, is turning the new generations into Pavlov’s fashion-dogs.
Judging from the name alone, one might be forgiven for assuming that postmodernism was a natural continuation of modernism, in the sense that post-impressionism followed impressionism, that national health care evolved eventually from private and charitable care or that in general, the older we are the more we know. This, in my opinion, is not the case, as postmodernism, when one cut through the morass of charmless and pretentious verbosity, has nothing more to commend it than somewhat shallow reworking of old stuff. Which together with a kind of provincial small mindedness – for example in the pettiness manifested in, for example, the attraction towards philosophical nit-picking - and a propensity for tasteless, showy and gaudy artefacts, gets touted around as something novel, significant and indescribably pervasive.
Some people have hailed the outing of postmodernism as one of the greatest paradigm shifts of the last 75 years. However, how was postmodernism, which states that there are neither absolute truths nor rules of logic, used to project a bizarre form of USA Grand Strategy? We can view postmodernism, from a certain perspective, as not unlike the philosophical equivalent of train spotting, or, an awkward amalgam of pastiche, kitsch and gregarious incongruity. However, for a child of the 60’s, postmodernism comes across as remarkably similar to the presumptuous quip of “do your own thing baby”, and “anything goes”, a world in which you can do what you like so long as it doesn’t frighten the big guys horses. It’s a “when I’m okay everything’s okay” attitude, a type of philosophy that is charmingly simplistic, pretentiously vague and thoroughly open to manipulation. Postmodernism is open to manipulation because it claims to be open but isn’t, for example, postmodernism in an evident inconsistency, rejects some beliefs. It denies that there can be any source of truth, morality, and intelligibility other than man.
Therefore, postmodernism speaks to us, it tells us that anything that is said to come from God, whether it is by way of Christianity, Judaism or Islam isn’t acceptable in terms of truth and morality. Which may be acceptable for some, but it makes the whole notion of the complete openness of postmodernism to be a farce – postmodernism, in effect, contradicts itself. Others may take the view that postmodernism Is like a vast, dusty and cavernous junk shop, a repository for a wide range of bizarre, banal and completely meaningless artefacts and senses.
What we have witnessed has been a comic form of nihilism, and a tessellation of litter, of cheap transient brashness and incoherence, a movement that takes pride in it’s apparent meaningless and emptiness. So much so, that one may wonder if postmodernism isn’t after all some huge and elaborate dadaist joke - flouting as it does modern aesthetic and cultural values by reflecting ideas marked by nonsense, travesty, and absurdity. Indeed, there are a number of very curious elements of postmodernism, from the surrealistic explanation that it is actually an anti-theory, to it’s inability to deconstruct and verify it’s own reasoning – that is, it is not even capable of untying it’s own shoelaces.
But most of all, Postmodernism is all about working on the marginal, it homes in on highly selective details of popular concern and expands them from side-issues into key issues that take on a life and meaning of their own in their own self-contained worlds. The side issues then become the only issues and the core issues get lost in the confusion. To this extent, a whole generation of scientists was lost to history and consigned to oblivion simply through following and developing the vague promises of postmodernism. As I have been told more than once by critical philosophers such as Professor Reitemeyer, we lost a whole generation of scientists who got mislaid in the marginal issues - the peripheral stuff, such as women's liberation without gender equality, animal rights, etc – of course, the postmodernists, like the Blairites, will call this pluralism. But it it’s a pluralism that means losing sight of principles, losing vision of the central issues, losing sight of real human rights, general ethics, everywhere in the world – be it Indonesia or America, Afghanistan or France, or anywhere else.
Politicians have used postmodernism to justify ignoring, obliterating or debasing human nature in favour of animal nature; it favours the jungle society over civil society, instinct over reason, Nietzsche over Marx, Bush over Kennedy. This was why they killed Kennedy, but not the idealism and reason of the Kennedy era, indeed, if Kennedy had survived, America would be different now. John F. Kennedy wrote in his manuscript for his famous speech in Berlin: “Ish bean ine bear-leener” his phonetic interpretation of the words he wished to say in German, “Ich bin ein Berliner” - at one time even the President of the USA tried harder to make people feel less alienated.
So, postmodernism is hugely contradictory, vastly inconsistent and frequently deceptive – but most of all, it’s just a grandiose way of dealing with side issues without having to address the central issues, it’s a piecemeal approach to understanding, reasoning and thinking of ways to change what is not desired. Postmodernism is about treating some of the symptoms and ignoring the causes, even if these symptoms have to be invented. Postmodernism, in emphasizing individuality and equal validity of individuals and groups, is seeking to remove substantial legitimacy from valid social movements by leveling their relevance and authenticity to that of every other individual and social movement, what postmodernists fail to answer is how they address the issues of dissent amongst groups and individuals in the face of injustice and oppression? Maybe the destruction of legitimate working class, progressive and social reform movements is actually part of postmodernism’s raison d’être.
Why have politicians been attracted to postmodernism? I can tell you, that the neo-conservatives and neo-liberals parties really adore postmodern philosophy, even if they do not fully understand it. The neo-conservatives and neo-liberals embrace postmodernism not because it is novel, or that it is coherent or meaningful, but because it provides them with a surrogate for democracy, discourse and ethics and, more importantly, it challenges Marxism and the objections to the market – the relationship between postmodernism and Marxism is clearly hostile. It’s a bloody strange way to choose allies, but in the short-term this has been the case.
As most postmodernists would have us believe, Marx and Marxism has seen its day, it’s old hat now, and really not relevant anymore. Sure, they may say, it had its moments, maybe 150 years ago, but we must now consign it to the recycling bin of history, and why do we say that? Well, I’ll tell you why.
The face of capitalism has changed, it has had a makeover, a la Absolutely Fabulous, and the postmodernists say that "it is now nothing at all like it was in the days of the gloomy cotton mills of the north of England", when there was an induced movement of people from the countries to the unhealthy towns. Nor does it carry the repulsive odor of the exploitation of the sweatshops or the sordid use and mistreatment of child-workers, in a nation once declared imperiously to be “the workshop of the world”. This is what we get these days, and you just imagine the very picture of the postmodern philosophy hacks, ensconced as semi-permanent fixtures on the sidewalk of some Parisian cafe, bar or saloons, surrounded Oscar Wilde-like by their toadying contemporaries. Here are the free spirits with their free will, basking in the sunny adulation of their followers, getting high on a heady postmodern concoction of absinthe, drugs, sensuality, excess and mutual rapture. Collaring those who might want to listen, as well as those that don’t, arguing incessantly that the left and right are dead, that capitalism has miraculously reinvented itself and that nothing is meaningful anymore.
However, not all is lost. I am delighted to write that I suspect that these very same “prophets” do not even like relativism when it comes to looking at Marx and postmodernism because it blows their meager cover and shallow intellectual rigor. Subsequently they have been unmasked and stripped naked of all their irrational trappings, bluff and bluster for obvious and sometimes undemanding reasons.
First example is quite simple, the prime factor of all business is the profit motive, businesses will strive to maximize their profit rate at the expense of all those involved, including the worker. This hasn’t changed once in the history of capitalism. The second reason is a little more involved. Most workers are no more true masters of their destiny than they were 150 years ago, most people still are well and truly exploited, they are underpaid, overworked, worry about losing their job, or not getting a promotion, often have oppressive and obnoxious bosses - and many times more than one boss, - and, in a nutshell, are generally badly treated. In some countries the stress of work is compounded by the fact that if one falls ill you can virtually say goodbye to life savings, if your luck enough to be in the position to have savings in the first place.
Add to this the serious alienation caused by work, an alienation which hasn’t diminished over the last 30 years, but in fact, with the availability of cheap gadgets such as mobile phones and computer laptops, has increased by extraordinary leaps and bounds. To paraphrase comedian and writer Mark Steel, people do not only work more than forty hours a week these days, but they are even expected to work on the way to work!
Not only that, but to add insult to injury the postmodernists are even against the very idea that workers (employed or unemployed) should form any sort of cooperative, union or collective in order to defend their limited rights and to be able to live a decent life. I wonder what Marx would have to say about all of this? Imagine the savoury words he would have used to describe such bourgeois crassness, mental sloppiness and lack of decency, especially in the context of the flaky claims of the postmodernists that Marx is now irrelevant. Yes, he would say, go and stick your destructive theory of the “grand narrative” up your collective nihilistic vacuum.
The non-scientific politics of Postmodernism are essentially conservative and therefore it is not surprising that the movement despises any notion of collective action; social movements such as trade unions; popular mobilizations; the raising of big issues and the creation of broad alliances, and will attack them all from both a practical and theoretical basis. The post-modern movement, in its clear alignment with conservatism shows how reactionary, archaic and confused it is. Postmodernism would happily take us back to the dark-ages; remove every shred of enlightenment; make knowledge the sole purview of kings and priests; and would cast a debilitating sense of uselessness of action on all and sundry. Postmodernism is essentially a tool for giving pre-eminence to a doctrine of radical liberalism, a way of avoiding the real issues by playing with the absurd – little wonder then that it became so attractive to the new-conservatives and neo-liberals.
In terms of politics and postmodernism, the bottom line is clear, as Lisa Macdonald in The Politics of Postmodernism writes “Those of us active in radical politics are encountering postmodernism everywhere we turn. But whether it is postindustrialism or post-Fordism in economics, post-structuralism in philosophy or post-feminism in women's collectives, in the last analysis it all boils down to basically the same thing: middle-class liberalism with all its attendant features of naivety, irrationalism and idealism. Despite its left veneer, it ultimately leads to reactionary conclusions.”
Print | posted on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 12:00 AM