Chapter 1. What Is Postmodernism?

Postmodernism can be described as a relatively new intellectual movement that has sprung from the idea that modernism is finished and has not survived the onslaught of critique. This movement has branched into many schools of thought: deconstruction, post-structuralism, some forms of feminism, and critical theory, to name a few. Each has attempted to fill the void in a variety of intellectual spaces, especially in academia and particularly in the humanities and social sciences, but also in popular culture. Its proponents self-identify as “critics” of one field or another.

Normally, criticism is thought more useful if the criticizer has a superior idea to replace what they have attempted to prove inferior, but this is not the manner in which postmodernism functions. Offering criticism alone without proposing solutions might be likened to the practice of the Sophists from Ancient Greece, who revelled in the skills of rhetoric and sought to find strong arguments against any stance whatsoever for the purposes of politics and persuasion. In more recent times, these rhetorical tactics have been adopted by many postmodernists in various intellectual circles. A few of its representatives are given in Table 2 below:

Table 2: Sample authors who have applied postmodern lenses to fields of study

Example Authors Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Richard Rorty

Stanley Fish, Frank Lentricchia

Catharine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin

Jacques Lacan

Robert Venturi, Andreas Huyssen

Luce Irigaray

Field

Philosophy

Literary criticism Feminist legal criticism Psychology Architectural criticism Science criticism

We can find a common theme if we sample quotations from a few of these examples. From philosopher Richard Rorty, “this talk of correspondence brings back just the idea my sort of philosopher wants to get rid of, the idea that the world or the self has an intrinsic nature.” Or French intellectual Michel Foucault, who declared, “it is meaningless to speak in the name of—or against—Reason, Truth, or Knowledge.” In a similar vein, Stanley Fish remarked that his method of criticism “relieves me of the obligation to be right … and demands only that I be interesting,” having dismissed “illusory objectivity.”

These quotations, about which we will have more to say later, display a pattern of postmodern thought—strict criticism without affirmations. Postmodern writers seek to unravel a singular target: modernism. Generally, they declare that science and reason are ungrounded in their claims toward building a single “Truth,” and as a result, they are

merely claims to what we might call a truth imperialism, or simply power, for “reason and power are one and the same,” as Lyotard declares. The concepts of reason, truth, and therefore reality or what is real must be deconstructed to reveal their “real” purpose: dominance of one group over another, as one group might propose rules for a game that favors their success over their opponents.

If we assume for a moment that postmodern criticism is correct—that there are no grounds to claim statements to be true or objects to have a certain nature—then their conclusion is intuitive. For anyone asserting baseless claims, it is arbitrary to accept some baseless claims instead of other baseless claims. This is the plea of postmodernism: if all claims to truth are baseless, accepting some claims over others can only be for the sake of convenience, and that arbitrary selection of claims will always pit some people over others or will promote one way of life over another—and none of this favoritism can be justified. Instead, postmodern justice would demand that we end these advantages and start to “spot, confront, and work against the political horrors of one’s time,” as pointed out by Lentricchia. In other words, disadvantages to some are caused by the “truth package” we have accepted. While problems are found in all societies, postmodernists have been particularly interested in targeting what they see as the dominant societies of the West.

Another major battleground of postmodernism is culture. Differences in wealth, success, and happiness among races and genders prompt many postmodernists to investigate and declare the “winners” to have succeeded unfairly. Success has been due to this view of the arbitrariness of the conditions of success set up by those with an unfair advantage. Women, for example, have tended to be framed as

oppressed, as earning less, and as unempowered to achieve. Postmodernists tend to claim that women are primarily viewed socially as home dwellers, mothers, or sex symbols. Andrea Dworkin, for example, claims that pornography is a social construction that unfairly characterizes all women as the playthings of men. It purveys a dominant-slave relationship between men and women and therefore must be part of the perpetuation of differences in the outcome of the sexes. She also argues that even the practice of sexual intercourse, which she purposefully terms “fucking,” is always framed in pornography as one (the male) dominating the other (the female). As can be seen, postmodernism routinely sets up a binary analysis, identifying dominant and oppressed, subjects and objects, or a default and an “Other.”

A precursor to this binary analysis can be found in the ideas on class of Karl Marx, who took a similar approach, such as inventing framing terms like “alienation,” which is comparable to the postmodern term “othering.” Marx and postmodernists claim winners always unfairly compete against the losers. For example, postmodernists argue that capitalistic economic systems betray their citizens by offloading the problems generated onto other (oppressed) groups, including whole nations. Lyotard (infamously) argued along these lines to create sympathy for Saddam Hussein, implying that he and his Iraqi dictatorship are a “product of Western departments of state and big companies.”

As another example, the postmodern equivalent today of the Marxian domineering bourgeoisie is the average white male—their “advantages” are only possible due to the burdens and costs imposed on the “Other:” women, racial minorities, and the poor. While some might argue all

people have benefited from modern democracy, free markets, and equality before the law, postmodernists instead declare such an idea as self-serving rhetoric that attempts to hide the brutality of capitalism by emphasizing “winners” and ignoring the losers. Where capitalists might point to poor decision-making or lack of effort for the cause of the “losers,” postmodernists deny this capitalist myth of equal opportunity, and declare these groups oppressed, differently “abled,” and suffering not due to their own actions, but from a hostile or uncaring society.

As a final example, and another binary, Foucault describes the rawest form of domination within our social institutions: Prison is the only place where power is manifested in its naked states, in its most excessive form, and where it is justified as moral force. … [F]or once, power doesn’t hide or mask itself; it reveals itself as a tyranny pursued into the tiniest details; … Its brutal tyranny consequently appears as the serene domination of Good over Evil, of order over disorder.

The implications here are that society, culture, or politics are careful constructions that implement power in a masked or hidden form. While some may feel like they are a “free people,” living in modern democracies rather than dictatorships and working in capitalistic economies rather than socialistic economies, all these situations still operate power structures in subtle ways, and each perpetuates difference among the outcomes of various groups. Each power structure creates a winner and a loser, an insider and