The grand narrative of the post-modernists is that they don't believe in grand narratives. I was reminded of this as I watched a Jordan B. Peterson speech on YouTube titled "Identity Politics and the Lie of White Privilege."
Peterson correctly told his audience that the post-modernists sail under the flag of "no grand narratives." He provided a slide with a definition of post-modernism (at 32:01):
So here is my grand narrative.
Peterson makes a very powerful point. He says that hierarchy in this world is about 350 million years old, and the point of hierarchy is to reduce the need for power. In other words, any social animals in a group need to arrange themselves in a hierarchy so they are not constantly fighting among themselves. When the post-modernists rail against hierarchy and power they are missing the point.
Hey kids. Do you realize that anyone who wants to fight hierarchy is actually saying that they want a world with more conflicts over power?
But the post-modernists miss an even bigger point, and that is that the modern world since the industrial revolution has needed much less power. That's because in the old days the only thing that mattered was to defend your food-growing territory from others. For that you needed power. But today territory is nothing; the whole world is a market and you can buy anything, anywhere, for a price.
Today, real power is the power of knowledge, what the World Bank calls "intangible capital," the knowledge inside men's minds that manifests itself encoded in everything from smart-phones to LED lights. It is the power, the Great Enrichment, that has raised per-capita real income from $1-3 per day in 1800 to over $100 per day right now.
What does political power, what does ideological power, what does territorial power mean when you can buy a smart-phone for $100 and access all the knowledge in the world?
Now, our post-modernist friends have got one thing right. It is perfectly true that there is no such thing as objective knowledge. The warrant for knowledge is not that it comes from God or that it is self-evident, or that it is objective. The modern revolution in knowledge that starts, if you like, with Descartes, and certainly with Kant, is that we don't know what the really real is. Instead, we have knowledge that works. Special relativity must be valid knowledge because we use it in GPS technology. Quantum mechanics must be valid knowledge because we assume it is true when we make LED lights.
One fine day, I dare say, relativity and quantum mechanics will be superseded by new and deeper knowledge about the structure of the universe. But meanwhile both theories are highly serviceable. Notice that relativity and quantum mechanics reveal themselves to the world through the competencies of physicists and engineers and the folks that make stuff. Without that competence they would be merely airy-fairy theories about how many quanta fit on the head of a pin that people would argue about in coffee houses.
There is another form of knowledge that has transformed the world. It is the market and its prices. At its basic level it solves the problem of getting access to physical resources. Time was that the only way you could get access to resources was by invading another guy's territory and taking it. But with the price system you can say: wow, our tribe really needs more grain. How about we buy some from you? And the answer is: oh yeah? How much are you willing to pay, pal?
But hey, getting access to physical resources is just the beginning.
The point is that the modern world, by dethroning the "power" of hierarchy as the be-all and end-all of everything, has unleashed the unimaginable power of competence, of knowing how to make things and do things and distributing those things all across the world.
The interesting question now is: what is their problem? How can these post-modernists not see what is right in front of their eyes, that "power" in our modern era has been utterly transformed, and that the guys with a real raging "grand narrative" fever are the folks that imagine they have conquered "grand narratives."
Peterson correctly told his audience that the post-modernists sail under the flag of "no grand narratives." He provided a slide with a definition of post-modernism (at 32:01):
Postmodernism: an attitude of skepticism: irony toward/rejection of grand narratives, ideologies and universalism, including objective notions of reason, human nature, social progress, absolute truth, and objective reality.Then he lays out the findings of the post-modernists (at 44:30):
- The Enlightenment's objective of an objective and reasoned basis for knowledge, merit, truth, justice, and the like is an impossibility...
- The Enlightenment itself merely replaced one socially constructed view of reality with another, mistaking power for knowledge
- There is naught but power
So here is my grand narrative.
- The post-modernists' notion of a world without grand narratives is an impossibility. Of course, there is no such thing as objective knowledge, but there is knowledge, usually understood by humankind in the form of grand narratives, that is really useful for wiving and thriving in the world.
- The post-modernists have merely replaced one socially constructed view of reality with another, completely missing the point that traditional concept of "power" in our modern age is in radical decline.
- Not power but competence.
Peterson makes a very powerful point. He says that hierarchy in this world is about 350 million years old, and the point of hierarchy is to reduce the need for power. In other words, any social animals in a group need to arrange themselves in a hierarchy so they are not constantly fighting among themselves. When the post-modernists rail against hierarchy and power they are missing the point.
Hey kids. Do you realize that anyone who wants to fight hierarchy is actually saying that they want a world with more conflicts over power?
But the post-modernists miss an even bigger point, and that is that the modern world since the industrial revolution has needed much less power. That's because in the old days the only thing that mattered was to defend your food-growing territory from others. For that you needed power. But today territory is nothing; the whole world is a market and you can buy anything, anywhere, for a price.
Today, real power is the power of knowledge, what the World Bank calls "intangible capital," the knowledge inside men's minds that manifests itself encoded in everything from smart-phones to LED lights. It is the power, the Great Enrichment, that has raised per-capita real income from $1-3 per day in 1800 to over $100 per day right now.
What does political power, what does ideological power, what does territorial power mean when you can buy a smart-phone for $100 and access all the knowledge in the world?
Now, our post-modernist friends have got one thing right. It is perfectly true that there is no such thing as objective knowledge. The warrant for knowledge is not that it comes from God or that it is self-evident, or that it is objective. The modern revolution in knowledge that starts, if you like, with Descartes, and certainly with Kant, is that we don't know what the really real is. Instead, we have knowledge that works. Special relativity must be valid knowledge because we use it in GPS technology. Quantum mechanics must be valid knowledge because we assume it is true when we make LED lights.
One fine day, I dare say, relativity and quantum mechanics will be superseded by new and deeper knowledge about the structure of the universe. But meanwhile both theories are highly serviceable. Notice that relativity and quantum mechanics reveal themselves to the world through the competencies of physicists and engineers and the folks that make stuff. Without that competence they would be merely airy-fairy theories about how many quanta fit on the head of a pin that people would argue about in coffee houses.
There is another form of knowledge that has transformed the world. It is the market and its prices. At its basic level it solves the problem of getting access to physical resources. Time was that the only way you could get access to resources was by invading another guy's territory and taking it. But with the price system you can say: wow, our tribe really needs more grain. How about we buy some from you? And the answer is: oh yeah? How much are you willing to pay, pal?
But hey, getting access to physical resources is just the beginning.
The point is that the modern world, by dethroning the "power" of hierarchy as the be-all and end-all of everything, has unleashed the unimaginable power of competence, of knowing how to make things and do things and distributing those things all across the world.
The interesting question now is: what is their problem? How can these post-modernists not see what is right in front of their eyes, that "power" in our modern era has been utterly transformed, and that the guys with a real raging "grand narrative" fever are the folks that imagine they have conquered "grand narratives."
You are misquoting what Jordan has stated. What you outline is a superficial reading, a sketch of what Peterson has said. There are variables that take what Peterson has said in account. Your argument is a generality, very one-sided argument of Peterson and doesn't construct a deeper argument of what he says. Take it further. Where are you going with this? Construct a legitimate argument and then your blog would be elevated beyond the norm.
ReplyDelete