Beyond Absurdity

Having just finished a little book on the subject of postmodernism, I feel able to tackle a blog post. There are a few questions here, namely, what is postmodernism, what are the problems with it, and what are the solutions.

Regardless of our philosophical outlook, we are living in a postmodern world. I am so far entrenched in it that I am often blind to its influence. Yet as pervasive as it is, one of the biggest problems with postmodernism is that it is difficult to define. The foremost technique of the theory is a process called Deconstruction (with much thanks to Derrida and Foucault) by which we analyse texts to find out that they mean absolutely nothing. And by texts, I mean anything and everything. So essentially, postmodernism cannot have a definition, because by defining itself it opens it up to Deconstruction, and sets it up to be an essentially meaningless theory.

However, the irony is that Deconstruction makes postmodernism a meaningless theory even without defining it. By stating that because everything can be reduced to nothingness (as the title of this post suggests), postmodernism is making a vague claim that the truth does not exist. It sets itself up as anti-anything that claims to have the truth, especially anything remotely rational like science. However, this can sometimes be beneficial instead of just destructive. The problem with any theory and any claim to truth is that it often forces itself on others. And this is where I have to point out my bias as someone who never knew a world that was not fully entrenched in postmodernist theory. Certain peoples have been "put in their place" by those who believed they knew better. Many of those marginalised have now been given a voice thanks to this theory. If everything is up for interpretation, and no one interpretation is better than the other, then all may speak freely. However, the downside to this is that it created a society of victims. The insane amount of political correctness that haunts us today is a product of postmodernism. For even though what we say is meaningless, it can be interpreted to mean what we didn't intend for it to.

Where do we go from here? Any so called established "truth" is being destroyed, and dialectic, the backbone of truth-seeking, is also being torn down. I believe that the world will not tolerate this for that much longer, for as much as we enjoy basking in our helpless state of victimhood, the truth will win out. We must realise that people have an insatiable craving for the truth, and will find it wherever they can-why do you think Bush is on his second term? He promises what others refuse to. We will continue to lose people to idiocy if we cannot find our way out of this corner we have painted ourselves into.

"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art." -Susan Sontag
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." -Freud

Recommended reading: Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Butler