In previous posts, we’ve explored postmodernism and its dangers to USA version 1 (as well as version 2). In this post, I would like to give some concrete suggestions for inoculating USA version 2 against these effects. Unfortunately, much like my post on Bureaucracy, I have little to offer that I know works. I will make a few suggestions, but since USA version 1 seems rather lost in the weeds of postmodernism (or postmodernism-adjacent damage) at the moment, I can’t promise results.
Vigilance
Postmodernism itself has vanished from the academic scene (at least it’s not as open as it once was) but remember the account of Pluckrose and Lindsay discussed here: it’s really just morphed into an “applied” form. In the future, it will also be easy to imagine that “postmodernism” has gone, but one should realize that there will always be some similar academic theory lurking, lying in wait to make nihilism intellectually respectable. Don’t fall for a change in packaging!
Education
Probably the main vector through which postmodernism has infected the body politic has been through education. When postmodernism was only a fringe theory that academics talked about in grad school seminars, it seemed benign enough. But, like Marxism before it, postmodernism could be discussed with little downside, but when it was assumed (and its corollaries taught as fact), one generation of philosophy profs teaches a generation of history major undergrads, who go on to grad school where they teach education major undergrads, who go on to teach in K-12 schools. Foucault died in 1984 and Derrida’s major works were in 1967; few academics were openly using postmodernism past the 1990s, but their students and grandstudents are teaching our children and grandchildren postmodernism-inspired and postmodernism-adjacent propositions today.
One of the few salutary effects of the recent pandemic panic has been that parents have been able to actually see what and how their children are being taught. This has resulted in widespread school board outrage (and obvious Federal government overreach), with some actual positive effects, some discouraging results, and some remarkable dropping-of-the-mask.
Make no mistake: the postmodernism-inspired wreckage is widespread in the public (and private) education system in this country. Regarding the thoroughly disreputable 1619 project, and the ongoing effort to demonize Columbus personally, Glenn Reynolds has said repeatedly, “The history they’re peddling is the sort of thing a conqueror might impose on a defeated people to break their spirit.”*
I applaud parents who are willing and able to get involved and work to oversee and change what and how their children are being taught, but I am very much afraid that this may be a rear-guard effort. I am personally a product of public K-12 education, as are (for the most part) my children, but the time may be coming when we realize that our public school system itself represents a single point of failure that can be (or perhaps has been) exploited by progressive nihilists to destroy this country, presumably in the hope that they will be in charge of whatever rises from the wreckage; perhaps public education, as currently constituted, is counterproductive to societal stability. We certainly need an educated populace, but we do NOT need a miseducated, indoctrinated populace. Robust parental school choice (including both home schooling and charter options) is likely a necessity for USA version 2.
Personal courage and effort
Postmodernism (and Marxism in a different way) focuses on the misery of “out groups.” It gets intellectual traction in this because human suffering is real and ubiquitous. Where it fails is that postmodern (and Marxist) prescriptions for society uniformly fail to alleviate any of this suffering.
So, if human misery is real and ubiquitous, and postmodernism doesn’t help anything, what can be done? The first step is to realize that human society is extremely complex, and most top-down, global, revolutionary changes are likely to make things worse, not better. In part, this is due to the Knowledge Problem, in part to the fact that different people value outcomes differently (recall Sowell’s axiom: there are no solutions, only trade-offs). Thus, improvements are most likely to occur only in a distributed fashion, where individuals have the freedom to make their own choices. Yes, some will use those choices poorly and cause misery for themselves and others, but others will not: voluntary associations and local communities will form to help alleviate the suffering of those whose suffering can be assessed directly and correctly, with reference to their own preferences and values (not the preferences and values of the policymakers in Washington). Dicta and resources from on high, however well-intentioned and well-informed, are ineffective (and may in fact be counterproductive) when compared to help from a neighbor.
A second step is to take to heart Chesterton’s fence analogy:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
The main point here (having built a lot of fence myself) is that building fence is much harder than taking fence down – construction is much harder than demolition – and therefore, one must take great care regarding the demolition of social institutions since the skill, ingenuity and labor required to construct a replacement may be beyond you. Postmodernism (correctly) sees suffering and wishes to demolish institutions that it (perhaps incorrectly) sees as contributing to this suffering, without a plan for sensible replacement of any of those institutions.
Jordan Peterson has some recommendations for reducing human suffering by working on a small scale with things that are under your own control. As an orthodox Christian, my specific recommendations for doing the same thing would differ from his. On the other hand, I heartily commend to USA version 2 the notion that alleviating human suffering is best (and perhaps only) done locally with oneself and one’s family and neighbors.
*But see here for a terrific alternative to 1619: Robert Woodson’s “1776 Unites” project. Also, see here for more discussion of the damage poor-quality education can do, specifically in generating oikophobia.