I recently read Mary Klages’s Literary Theory, a great introduction to one of the hottest academic topics of the past few decades. Klages does a good job explaining the modernism/humanism of the 20th-century, the push-off point for postmodernism, which itself emerged largely after 1980, and of explaining the main theorists of postmodernism (Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, and those who came in their wake). When she started assigning political values to these theories, though, I’m not so sure.
Her link of (pre-postmodern) modernity to Enlightenment thinking (i.e., using reason as a primary tool to establish order and to determine universal principles) is clear and convincing. But let me quote one paragraph at length (a postmodern critique of modernity) because I think it encapsulates one of the key problems with postmodernist discourse.
Modernity is fundamentally about order: about rationality and rationalization, creating order out of chaos. The assumption is that creating more rationality is conducive to creating more order, and that the more ordered a society is, the better it will function (the more rationally it will function). Because modernity is about the pursuit of ever-increasing levels of order, modern societies constantly are on guard against anything and everything labeled as ‘disorder,” which might disrupt order. Thus, modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between ‘order’ and ‘disorder,’ so that they can assert to superiority of ‘order.’ But to do this, they have to have things that represent ‘disorder’ — modern societies thus continually have to create/construct ‘disorder.’ In Western culture, this disorder becomes ‘the other’ — defined in relation to other binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational (etc.) becomes part of ‘disorder,’ and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society. (p. 168)
The paragraph begins harmlessly enough. Modernity privileges order and rationality as things that make for a better society. Point well-taken. But then, in a move that I suspect is common in postmodernist writing (my readers can weigh in here), Klages rather quickly gets on a slippery slope toward sweeping generalizations. First, the baby steps into unproven generalization, as believing in an orderly society is conflated with a more pathological obsession with “ever-increasing levels of order.” And then to the claim that “modern societies constantly are on guard against anything and everything labeled as ‘disorder.'” It is rhetorical snowballing into more and more sweeping generalizations without evidence. My own life in US ‘modern society,’ from classrooms to blues clubs, sometimes aligning with and sometimes breaking with community standards and laws, leads me to think that yes, some value is placed on order, but the rest of the passage seems basically a fictional flight into generalization. It’s a bit like Ayn Rand’s critique of compassion (e.g., in Ellsworth Toohey), wherein she argues that if we consider compassion a virtue, then we must wish others to suffer so we can express that virtue. Of course, this is nonsense. Of course, I can feel compassion for my daughter when she is sick without “wishing” her to be sick. Likewise, one can value order without sinking into the pathological rigmarole of continually constructing disorder.
The paragraph concludes with a breathtaking leap of logic — a society that values order and reason, through the paragraph’s slippery slope of “thus” and “thus,” is doomed to end up trying to eliminate anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational, etc. Not only is it a leap in logic, but also seems empirically false. Enlightenment-based societies, with their core tenet of reason-based universal rights that apply irrespective of one’s identity group, seem to fare better at inclusiveness and multiculturalism than the non-Enlightenment, tribal societies that don’t share that core tenet.
This leads me to question another of Klages’s assumptions (though I think she presents it as an inference rather than as an assumption) that I think is probably widespread in postmodernist circles. She allows that both modernism/humanism and postmodernism might have diverse political uses (good), but that “the desire to return to the pre-postmodern era (modern/humanist/Enlightenment thinking) tends to be associated with conservative political, religious, and philosophical groups” (175).
This assumption that anyone critical of postmodernism is probably conservative seems false to me. It seems more accurate, or at least equally accurate, to say that the Enlightenment view of equal rights based on rational principles that apply to all, regardless of race, gender, etc.; the confidence in scientific inquiry to approach more universal truths by a scientific method that tends over time to eliminate tribal bias — these are still the tenets of a liberal world view. The pre-postmodern conservatives resisted these ideas in favor of racist/tribal/religious world views. And postmodernists, by attacking the “totalizing” tenets (universal rights discoverable through reason, universal truths discoverable through science) of Enlightenment thinking, seem a throwback to pre-Enlightenment tribal thinking — conservatism on steroids if you will.
So if I resist a movement that sorts people into identity groups and denies the “totalizing” claims of the Enlightenment (per scientific method and universal human rights), does that, as Klages and the postmodernists suggest, make me a conservative? I don’t think it does. I don’t think their conclusion here follows from the premise. But I am not an expert in postmodernism, so I’m open to clarifications (or amens or corrections or ad hominem attacks or what-have-you) from any readers who may have given more thought to, or thought differently about, these matters.
P.S. To shift the context slightly, I’m reminded of a question that came up on Twitter per what the difference might be between a “liberal social justice” platform and a “woke social justice” platform. A tweeter named Tim Urban (whom I don’t otherwise know but has a lot of followers) had the following to say, and I wonder what readers might think about (1) the accuracy of Urban’s list (he’s obviously more polemical than I), and (2) whether postmodernism aligns with “woke,” whereas Enlightenment humanism aligns with the “liberal” social justice side:
LIBERAL SOCIAL JUSTICE : WOKE SOCIAL JUSTICE ::
Pro free speech : anti free speech
Achieves goals using persuasion : achieves goals using coercion
Interested in dissent : tries to punish dissenters
Wide and diverse : narrow and conformist
Thinks America should be improved : thinks America is fundamentally evil
Treats issues as nuanced : treats issues as black and white
Treats people as individuals : treats people as monolithic groups
Strives for unity : strives for division
Fosters compassion : fosters resentment
Truth matters most : activist goals matter more than truth
Thinks liberalism is good : thinks liberalism is the problem
Historically effective at making positive change for disadvantaged people : historically ineffective at making positive change for disadvantaged people
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