A typical critique of postmodernism from the right is that it flies in the face of "logic, reason, and objective truth." The idea that everything is relative, a "narrative," is offensive to those of us that adhere to traditional ideas of politics and culture.
On the contrary, the postmodernists are exactly right that there is no objective truth, and that everything is a narrative, and usually a narrative for power.
Presumably ever since mankind began to be self-conscious we have searched for the truth and the meaning of life, the universe and everything. And in every religion, every culture, every philosophy, every political program, we think we have found it.
But our present astonishing civilization is built on the realization, that began, let us say, with Descartes, that "we don't know." Descartes thought he had solved the problem with "I think, therefore I am." But he didn't.
To me, the central insight is that of Kant, who argued -- using reason and logic -- that we cannot know "things-in-themselves" but only sense impressions. When you "see" an object out there, according to post-Kantian theory, you are interpreting in your brain the response of the rods and cones in your eyes that were irritated by lots of quanta of electromagnetic radiation, photons that were transmitted from the surface of the object and then processed and concentrated by the lens in your eye. So what is really real in all that?
Probably there is something really real out there, but my interpretation of Kant is that we should be really careful before we announce that, here, finally, is the final word on that object out there. In my view the whole success of modern science from relativity -- hey, space and time are relative -- to quantum mechanics -- hey, the basic unit of the universe is a probability -- is based on the narrative that we are not observing things-in-themselves but only sense impressions processed by our brains.
On this view, relativity is a "narrative," but it is a really good narrative, and if you believe it is true you can launch GPS satellites into orbit that let you use a map app on your smartphone and get where you want to go.
On this view, capitalism is also a "narrative," and a really good narrative. Following the narrative we humans have increased per-capita income by 30 times, 3,000 percent, in the 200 years of the Great Enrichment. There has been nothing like it, ever.
On this view, socialism is a "narrative," and a really bad one. Following its narrative socialist leaders have plunged their peoples again and again into poverty, famine, and death. See the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and now Venezuela.
In other words, everyone has a narrative. The question is, does it work? Here's Shakespeare's Harry
Hotspur.
The narrative of the postmodernists is that the fact that some 80 percent of tech company employees are white or Asian men is an injustice, and that government force should be used to redress it. But what about a counter-narrative? There are, you might argue, a lot of innocent reasons why white and Asian men might dominate tech employment, but you are not allowed to raise those questions, as the defenestration of Google employee James Damore demonstrated.
So, on the one hand we have a narrative that says, in effect, that we should let the white and Asian male nerds do their thing in Tech-land and not get too exercised about the gender and race statistics, although certainly it would be nice for all walks of life to participate in the tech experience, and there is plenty of room to disagree.
On the other hand we have a narrative that says that any gender or racial imbalance in the workplace is an injustice that must be rectified by government power and you are not allowed to disagree.
Since all narratives are relative and a narrative for power, you figure out which narrative you would like to live under.
So what does this all mean?
In my view, it all makes sense if you regard the left as a reactionary movement that believes that political power and government force are the means to create a just and peaceful world. This used to be true before the industrial revolution when food was life and the only way to survive in the world was to find land on which you could grow food and defend your land against all comers.
Today, all that has changed. Today it doesn't matter who owns the food-growing land. All that matters is that food is available to buy and sell on the market. All that matters is that everything is available to buy and sell on the market, because then there is no need to use force.
But if the world doesn't need so much political power and force, what happens to people that are interested in power? Perfectly simple. They start looking in dark corners for occasions where force is the only answer. Back in the 19th century Marx decided that force was the only answer to the inevitable immiseration of the workers under capitalism. But in fact the workers thrived under capitalism. Then came the Frankfurt School and postmodernism and decided that women and blacks and colonized peoples were horribly exploited and marginalized. So the white patriarchs gave women the vote and got out of imperialism, and gave civil rights to blacks and other racial and sexual minorities. So what's the problem?
The problem is that some people still believe, after all the evidence of the last 200 years, that force is the answer. On my narrative, they are dead wrong.
My narrative is that, while government force and political power are still needed, because there are still people that worship power and want to dominate other men, there is only a very narrow area where political power and government force are beneficial. That's because in the market system, anyone suffering under exploitation and marginalization can quit and go down the street and get a job somewhere else.
And Marx's basic prophecy turned out to be wrong. He thought that the new industrial era would replace the lord's domination of the peasantry with the bourgeoisie's domination of the workers. But he was wrong, and for a curious reason. It turned out that the bourgeoisie was not that interested in power. It was more interested in building businesses in transportation, energy, electricity, manufacturing, computers, and the internet. Hey, let's go to Mars, say the billionaires.
But some people are still interested in power, and they worship it. Instead of the bourgeoisie bidding for political power we got a New Class of educated youth that wanted power and that developed a narrative to justify it.
I would say that wherever this New Class has obtained power it has rained misery and division upon ordinary people, because of one simple fact. We humans are social animals, and we thrive by minimizing the need for force. The whole point of social animals is reducing the need for force. Any narrative that wants to increase the use of force is going against the fundamental proposition of social animals, to reduce the use of force among "us."
Let us tell a story.
In the story of humanity, initially hunter-gatherers, the range of social cooperation was small, just an extended family. Every male was involved in defending the territory by force and the result was that 500 people per 100,000 died a violent death each year. But then humans invented agriculture. Now the size of the territory was much bigger and only marcher lords and their retainers were needed to defend the territory. A lot more people could engage in the social cooperation of growing food and building temples and pyramids and cathedrals. The annual violent death rate dropped to 50 people per 100,000 population. But then humans invented manufacturing and global trade and steam transportation and on and on. Now only a small professional army was needed to defend the borders, and a navy to patrol the sea lanes, and nearly everyone could work in the market system in peace. The annual violent death rate dropped to 5 people per 100,000 population. Oh, and the per capita income grew by 30 times in 200 years.
On this narrative the progressive left is a vile and evil band of troublemakers, picking at the few remaining scabs of injustice in a society that is otherwise astonishingly just and peaceful.
It is up to us to rise up and send them packing.
On the contrary, the postmodernists are exactly right that there is no objective truth, and that everything is a narrative, and usually a narrative for power.
Presumably ever since mankind began to be self-conscious we have searched for the truth and the meaning of life, the universe and everything. And in every religion, every culture, every philosophy, every political program, we think we have found it.
But our present astonishing civilization is built on the realization, that began, let us say, with Descartes, that "we don't know." Descartes thought he had solved the problem with "I think, therefore I am." But he didn't.
To me, the central insight is that of Kant, who argued -- using reason and logic -- that we cannot know "things-in-themselves" but only sense impressions. When you "see" an object out there, according to post-Kantian theory, you are interpreting in your brain the response of the rods and cones in your eyes that were irritated by lots of quanta of electromagnetic radiation, photons that were transmitted from the surface of the object and then processed and concentrated by the lens in your eye. So what is really real in all that?
Probably there is something really real out there, but my interpretation of Kant is that we should be really careful before we announce that, here, finally, is the final word on that object out there. In my view the whole success of modern science from relativity -- hey, space and time are relative -- to quantum mechanics -- hey, the basic unit of the universe is a probability -- is based on the narrative that we are not observing things-in-themselves but only sense impressions processed by our brains.
On this view, relativity is a "narrative," but it is a really good narrative, and if you believe it is true you can launch GPS satellites into orbit that let you use a map app on your smartphone and get where you want to go.
On this view, capitalism is also a "narrative," and a really good narrative. Following the narrative we humans have increased per-capita income by 30 times, 3,000 percent, in the 200 years of the Great Enrichment. There has been nothing like it, ever.
On this view, socialism is a "narrative," and a really bad one. Following its narrative socialist leaders have plunged their peoples again and again into poverty, famine, and death. See the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and now Venezuela.
In other words, everyone has a narrative. The question is, does it work? Here's Shakespeare's Harry
Hotspur.
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.Now, the narrative of the postmodernists is that under the rule of the patriarchy white males have accumulated "white privilege" that has harmed and marginalized everyone else, from white women to "people of color" to LGBT sexual minorities. The postmodernists offer a range of government policies that they argue will rectify the marginalization and injustice suffered by these victims of the patriarchy. One of their central policies is to us government power to rectify "under-representation." It is argued, for instance, that white and Asian men are over-represented in Silicon Valley tech companies, and that the tech companies should make a special effort to hire women and non-Asian minorities to redress the balance.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
The narrative of the postmodernists is that the fact that some 80 percent of tech company employees are white or Asian men is an injustice, and that government force should be used to redress it. But what about a counter-narrative? There are, you might argue, a lot of innocent reasons why white and Asian men might dominate tech employment, but you are not allowed to raise those questions, as the defenestration of Google employee James Damore demonstrated.
So, on the one hand we have a narrative that says, in effect, that we should let the white and Asian male nerds do their thing in Tech-land and not get too exercised about the gender and race statistics, although certainly it would be nice for all walks of life to participate in the tech experience, and there is plenty of room to disagree.
On the other hand we have a narrative that says that any gender or racial imbalance in the workplace is an injustice that must be rectified by government power and you are not allowed to disagree.
Since all narratives are relative and a narrative for power, you figure out which narrative you would like to live under.
So what does this all mean?
In my view, it all makes sense if you regard the left as a reactionary movement that believes that political power and government force are the means to create a just and peaceful world. This used to be true before the industrial revolution when food was life and the only way to survive in the world was to find land on which you could grow food and defend your land against all comers.
Today, all that has changed. Today it doesn't matter who owns the food-growing land. All that matters is that food is available to buy and sell on the market. All that matters is that everything is available to buy and sell on the market, because then there is no need to use force.
But if the world doesn't need so much political power and force, what happens to people that are interested in power? Perfectly simple. They start looking in dark corners for occasions where force is the only answer. Back in the 19th century Marx decided that force was the only answer to the inevitable immiseration of the workers under capitalism. But in fact the workers thrived under capitalism. Then came the Frankfurt School and postmodernism and decided that women and blacks and colonized peoples were horribly exploited and marginalized. So the white patriarchs gave women the vote and got out of imperialism, and gave civil rights to blacks and other racial and sexual minorities. So what's the problem?
The problem is that some people still believe, after all the evidence of the last 200 years, that force is the answer. On my narrative, they are dead wrong.
My narrative is that, while government force and political power are still needed, because there are still people that worship power and want to dominate other men, there is only a very narrow area where political power and government force are beneficial. That's because in the market system, anyone suffering under exploitation and marginalization can quit and go down the street and get a job somewhere else.
And Marx's basic prophecy turned out to be wrong. He thought that the new industrial era would replace the lord's domination of the peasantry with the bourgeoisie's domination of the workers. But he was wrong, and for a curious reason. It turned out that the bourgeoisie was not that interested in power. It was more interested in building businesses in transportation, energy, electricity, manufacturing, computers, and the internet. Hey, let's go to Mars, say the billionaires.
But some people are still interested in power, and they worship it. Instead of the bourgeoisie bidding for political power we got a New Class of educated youth that wanted power and that developed a narrative to justify it.
I would say that wherever this New Class has obtained power it has rained misery and division upon ordinary people, because of one simple fact. We humans are social animals, and we thrive by minimizing the need for force. The whole point of social animals is reducing the need for force. Any narrative that wants to increase the use of force is going against the fundamental proposition of social animals, to reduce the use of force among "us."
Let us tell a story.
In the story of humanity, initially hunter-gatherers, the range of social cooperation was small, just an extended family. Every male was involved in defending the territory by force and the result was that 500 people per 100,000 died a violent death each year. But then humans invented agriculture. Now the size of the territory was much bigger and only marcher lords and their retainers were needed to defend the territory. A lot more people could engage in the social cooperation of growing food and building temples and pyramids and cathedrals. The annual violent death rate dropped to 50 people per 100,000 population. But then humans invented manufacturing and global trade and steam transportation and on and on. Now only a small professional army was needed to defend the borders, and a navy to patrol the sea lanes, and nearly everyone could work in the market system in peace. The annual violent death rate dropped to 5 people per 100,000 population. Oh, and the per capita income grew by 30 times in 200 years.
On this narrative the progressive left is a vile and evil band of troublemakers, picking at the few remaining scabs of injustice in a society that is otherwise astonishingly just and peaceful.
It is up to us to rise up and send them packing.
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