What is Postmodern Political Philosophy?

[@Bruh-el9js]

Hey man I just want to thank you for all the content you've produced, it made my learning so much easier and faster.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Glad to help! Thanks for watching. :)

[@lbdeuce]

Your graphical data point was a good touch

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks!

[@OrdnanceLab]

Great video that captures the nuance very well, instead of whatever Peterson is yelling about today.

[@savyblizzard6481]

If there's something valuable PM contributed to politics, it would have to be the suggestion that maybe we're being too dogmatic with our commitments to certain predictions of history.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

That incredulity of overly simplistic explanations/metanarratives that so often appear in political campaigns can be useful, even if the broader project of philosophical postmodernism fails.

[@savyblizzard6481]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Agreed! I'm unfamiliar with the approach taken on the further abstracted levels of analysis, but I do have that suspicion. I look forward to your video on it.

[@Wbjpen]

This channel is a goldmine! Warning, potential meta-narrative ahead: I can see why pundits would want to misrepresent PM, it preaches humility and caution!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks! Postmodernism says that things might be more complicated than the simple clear meta-narrative you have been told, which seems to make a lot of people that hold tight to those meta-narratives mad.

[@Pfhorrest]

If political postmodernists think that socialism *is right* about some things and capitalism *is right* about other things, then they are *not* completely dismissing the possibility of any correct political metanarrative, because by saying that this view gets one thing right and that one gets another right, they're admitting that there is such a thing as "getting it right", and therefore a possibility of some view getting it *all* right.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

The question is whether there is a narrative that ties all of those things together. Metanarratives tell simple stories that people can latch onto and believe. Political postmodernists don't necessarily go so far as to claim there is no truth of the matter, or that language lacks objective meaning (we'll see those postmodernists soon). Rather they claim that that we should be skeptical of the metanarratives pedaled by politicians like "big government is good" "immigrants are bad" "X Politician is just like you" "the country was so much better 100 years ago" which rely on hyper-real simulacra that are often divorced from reality.

[@tomcollector9594]

Not sure if you are familiar with the popular "Kane B" youtube channel about philosophy. But the guy said "Skepticism is a position you can't even hold". And when I pushed him on it in the comments. He said the following: "Since people who claim to be skeptics are (a) averse to using the word "belief" but (b) still need to make the kind of distinctions between representational states that the rest of us use that word to track, they end up muddying these differences." he said this in response to me pointing out the non-trivial difference between proclivities and beliefs. I told him he should debate you (since he believes skepticism cannot rise above semantic complaining and aversion to the word "belief" as he put it). PLLEEEASSEEE debate that guy. You're my skeptical hero, it would be an amazing thing to see you dismantle that dude. This guy was so confident skepticism is an insanely stupid position (historically significant) but foolish as he seems to think.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I would be happy to debate Kane B. In the world of propositional attitudes, philosophers famously are a bit of "belief chauvinists" obsessed with only one kind of relationship to propositions, ignoring the wide variety of other propositional attitudes.

[@tomcollector9594]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene I let him know you said you would debate. And I'm pretty sure he thinks that argument is trivial nitpicking about words. Please make this happen, there are far too few debates that include true philosophical skeptics. This really needs to happen. Should you guys reach out to each other now what is the next step? Seriously this would be so awesome!!! Please make it happen for the few true skeptics like me!!!

[@guillaumethemapler]

I think i just found out I might be a postmodernist? I mean once you actually understand it...

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Glad to help you understand! And you might be a postmodernist about politics, but more of a modernist about architecture or language. Just because you are a political postmodernist does not in any way logically commit you to the other positions in other disciplines called postmodernism.

[@lorenzodavidsartormaurino413]

I was thinking exactly The same

[@AndrianTimeswift]

So, my stance with regards to political metanarratives is that, while the data will likely never be sufficient to distill one single correct metanarrative (that is to say, the data will always be underdetermined), some metanarratives will fit the data better than others. In that sense, I agree with the postmodernists. However, the disagreements that arise between people will be the result of more than this underdetermination. Many factors go into which political metanarrative a person will adopt, including their personal values, their intellectual capabilities, and how familiar they are with the various metanarratives. Thus it is not the case that there is a simple explanation for why people adopt the political metanarratives they do. To illustrate the point regarding personal values, I have found myself in disagreement with others who, during the course of debate, have stated core values with which I completely disagree. For example, I might believe that it is undesirable for people to die of preventable causes, such as treatable diseases, starvation, exposure, etc. If my interlocutor does not agree with me that this is undesirable, or places some conflicting value (say, the right to own and control property) as being of much greater importance, then there is no way that I can convince them to adopt my own political views. The only way to change a person's mind at that point is to change their core values, which is not something that can be achieved through rational debate or presentation of data. Such changes are fundamentally emotional and generally occur at a subconscious level. It is as futile arguing with such a person as trying to teach arithmetic to an earthworm. We may be comparable in rationality and intellectual ability, but we will never agree upon the basic premises necessary to reach any given conclusion. This has been a rather discouraging realization for me. That said, I do consider it possible for individuals with largely incompatible values to reach compromises. Certain values are so deeply-ingrained into the human psyche as to be almost universal. Self-interest, for example. While someone might not care if others are starving, they certainly will care if they themselves are starving. This creates the possibility of diplomacy and/or coercion, and is essentially how society is held together at the most basic level.

[@AndrianTimeswift]

@@sisyphus1326 Karl Popper has been a big influence on my own views! In regards to philosophy of science, I consider myself to be an instrumentalist, but not to the extent that I'd assert there isn't an objective reality out there, but rather that there's an impermeable epistemic barrier between conscious observers and that reality. We can never know for sure if our models of the universe are accurate representations of reality, but that doesn't matter as long as they work for producing desired sensory outputs.

[@Dayglodaydreams]

Are you going to cover literary theory or mostly analytic philosophy of language in your Postmodernist philosophy of language video? I believe literary theory is the heart of postmodernism. Linguistics and Literary theory are the hearts of post-structuralism and deconstruction.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Each of the next three videos will cover a pair of philosophers, one continental one analytic. For language we are covering Wittgenstein and Derrida. We will touch on Derrida's work on literary theory, but not go into too much depth, saving a full review for a future series/video on post-structuralism and deconstruction.

[@ranytith5581]

Really great explanation, only one critique is I'm not sure what your X-axis and Y-axis are suppose to represent when showing these graphs. But nevertheless the way you explained how a theory is suppose to work as a means to connect the data points is a very good analogy. Just like how machine learning is just very special curve fitting, theories we make in general are used to fit data points where the data points are events and we want to somehow connect these points. If that is the case, I would say you are getting a directed graph (vertices and edges). Very nice though! Cheers.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks! The graphs are meant to be abstractions that call up the idea of Simpson's Paradox without getting into it explicitly (stay tuned for an upcoming video on Simpson's paradox).

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

Idk anything about post modernism, but I have no idea how this escapes a very facile objection that post modernism is itself a meta narrative because the data point it's trying to explain is why so many can look at the same data and come away with different meta narratives. If it's not supposed to be a meta narrative, then how could it predict observing the data point of people disagreeing about meta narratives?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

It depends on how exactly psotmodernism is framed, if it is an affirmation of the claim that all metanarratives are false, they it is prone to such an objection, but if the advocate frames it more skeptically as the denial of each individual metanarrative they might be able to avoid the claim. Additionally it is at least possible that the metanarrative that all other metanarratives are false is in fact true (and in fact every metanarrative makes the claim that all other metanarratives are false, all postmodernism is doing is making that same claim but not offering an explanation)..

[@hellwolf4liberty]

but and meta narrative maybe have more internal consistency in explaining a set of bundles of data points being examined

[@cristiancaicedo8830]

Nice

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks!

[@rafilosofo]

I'm curious if this is just descriptive or if Carneades is (or has become) postmodern. The videos in this series are seeming to me particularly taking a side. It may be just my misinterpretation.

[@lynnixvarjo9150]

Carneades is a sceptic, and Postmodernism is also sceptical about many things, so there's an overlap with what he already openly declared he believed. To me it seems more that he is really fucking tired from all the Bullshit and just completely wrong characterisations of Postmodernism à la Jordan Peterson and therefore tries to clearly enunciate this position in a way that is more reasonable than the obviously extremely biased propaganda (yes it is propaganda if a mischaracterisation is being made explicitly for making a political point or advancing ones own position) about it. So really he is just trying to bring some balance into an otherwise already biased debate, and thus might look biased himself as he is straying from the concensus of discourse

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

A fair question. @Lynnix Varjo is correct, I am trying to dispel some misconceptions about postmodernism, particularly with this video. That said I do have my own objections to postmodernism, which will come more to the fore in the next three videos as we delve into philosophical postmodernism, and be very apparent in the final video on the series where I look at Skepticism vs postmodernism.

[@werrkowalski2985]

One could also attempt to deconstruct the metanarratives one doesnt like under the guise of postmodernism, there is no such thing as true neutrality, so a postmodernist will almost always be more favorable towards certain metanarratives. I would say this is what often happens, and since scepticism of metanarratives inevitably logically leads to certain forms of relativism, why should reason or logic stop a postmodernist, if rationalism is just another metanarrative?

[@werrkowalski2985]

@Ben F So you disagree that there is no true neutrality? Buddha wasnt neutral, he valued pursuing spiritual enlightenment. To be truly neutral one would need to hold no moral values as true and to make no moral judgements, or to somehow hold all infinite number of moral values as equally valuable, neither of which is possible.

[@werrkowalski2985]

@Ben F "If a tiger eats someone you love, is the tiger good or evil?" What does a tiger have to do with a human? Animals dont have morality, yes, they have just instincts. Look, let me maybe give you a simpler example. Buddha valued meditation, if you came up to Buddha, and told him that he shouldnt meditate, that he is wasting his time, that it is stupid, he would disagree, because he valued meditation. Therefore he wasnt perfectly neutral, simple as. "Literally a conversation with Buddha that is on the books. True neutrality. The entire point of Buddhism is trained apathy." Its one thing to teach apathy and another to be perfectly neutral, I just showed you that there were some things Buddha valued. If you value the Buddhist teachings and not just apathy, then you arent perfectly neutral. "that we achieve nirvana, or "the state of unbeing, being."" Why would a perfectly neutral person care about achieving Nirvana? That is not perfect apathy.

[@saltmysoul]

I might be misunderstanding something here, but I just don't understand how the claim that "No one metanarrative perfectly explains the facts and the right way to govern" is not in of itself a metanarrative, and therefore no good. Here's my best attempt to order my thoughts on this: If the observation that there are multiple ways to interpret the same data and arrive at different outcomes can be considered a "data point", then I believe I can come to a different conclusion from the post-modernists: that we simply haven't found this perfect metanarrative yet. Regardless of whether or not this conclusion is true, the fact that I have been able to come to it suggests that both me and postmodernists have constructed different metanarratives about the nature of our world using the same data point. Therefore, the idea that "there is no one metanarrative that perfectly explains the facts" is itself a metanarrative. If it is indeed a metanarrative, shouldn't postmodernists be critical of it? That's my best attempt at constructing a formal argument. I hope it's at least understandable.

[@confusedarmchairphilosopher]

when people speak of trump as the ultimate postmodern president, and even if most acknowledge that trump himself holds no principal positions, I don't think they think of it as trump himself indorses postmodernism or the rejection of metanarratives, but rather that the trump phenomenon is a byproduct of the postmodern condition, ala what you described at 13:02. This is very different from the Petersonesque accusations of "postmodern neo-Marxism" wherein it is the individuals themselves that are accused of holding postmodern positions, a lot of which have nothing to do with postmodernism at all (political correctness and so on..)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Yes. Trump is not going around deconstructing language and quoting Foucault. However he embodies the very ideas that the postmodernists talked about (his claims and persona are often a representation of a representation unconnected from reality). That is importantly different from either the Marxist advocating for using historical materialism to replace common metanarrativesa about history with different metanarratives or a postmodernist questioning all the metanarratives, including the Marxist metanarrative. Postmodernism is inherently opposed to Marxism or any other metanarrative, which is why Peterson is arguing against a self contradictory straw-man that no one really holds.

[@justafighter1346]

Good video

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed.

[@betho7307]

yaaaasss slay

[@SenorCitrone]

In your description isn't postmodernism then a meta-narrative itself?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

A common critique of postmodernism which echos back to a critique of academic (as opposed to Pyrrhonian, using the definitions from Sextus Empiricus) skepticism. We will cover this more in the final video in the series.

[@tesali9554]

Who would you say ‘main’ or most influential post-modernist(s)?

[@szilveszterforgo8776]

Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari and Baudrillard may be the most influential ones

[@tesali9554]

@@szilveszterforgo8776 Yes, I would also add Lyotard and Baudrillard.

[@szilveszterforgo8776]

@@tesali9554 I wrote Baudrillard And I've only avoided Lyotard because I didn't remember the spelling of his name :)

[@tesali9554]

@@szilveszterforgo8776 sorry I can’t read

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Both correct at least when it comes to philosophical postmodernism (as we saw earlier in this series, architectural or theatrical postmodernism are different beasts entirely, though there is some crossover). In the next three videos we will dig more into Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault (with Baudrillard getting his main treatment for the series in the video on Simulacra), though as I am more on the analytic side of the divide, I pair each with an analytic philosopher that I think makes a similar case.

[@laprankster3264]

I wonder how all of these concepts would apply in the case of say a world government.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

It probably depends on what exactly you mean by a world government.

[@laprankster3264]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene i guess if it were something similar to the United States model, with the nations similar to individual states and a representative body making laws that apply to the entire world.

[@elischmidt4501]

Is the claim that even an omniscient observer could not determine a true meta-narrative, or is it a more practical claim? that we don’t have a method for finding true meta-narratives?

[@lynnixvarjo9150]

No, the claim is that there is no omniscient observer, and that there cannot be a method for finding true meta narratives, since exactly this omniscience is impossible and even science cannot achieve it (See: Postmodern Science)

[@AndrianTimeswift]

Funny thing about omniscience... it's impossible, not just in practice, but in principle. Even a being which might believe itself to be omniscient would not be able to know if it really is omniscient. There could be things such a being does not know it does not know. For an example of an unknown unknown, imagine someone in Neolithic period. Not only would such a person not know how a radio broadcast tower works, but they would not even have conceived of a radio broadcast tower in the first place, thereby not knowing that they do not know how a radio broadcast tower works. Doubtless there are countless numbers of topics which you or I do not know we do not know anything about. Imagine, for a moment, a being which knows as much as it is possible for it to know. There's always a possibility that there might be something that such a being does not know it does not know, and such a being would certainly know this. Thus, any being which might approach omniscience would be able to know with certainty that it is not omniscient, because it would know of the possibility of unknown unknowns. I hope I've explained that in a way that makes sense. Basically, in order to be omniscient, you have to know you're omniscient, but knowing that you are omniscient is impossible, which in turn makes omniscience itself impossible.

[@lynnixvarjo9150]

@@AndrianTimeswift Yes exactly! Omniscience and therefore also 'Objectivity' are impossible because of this,and also the Problem of Induction, you can be wrong about the things of which you think you know how they 'objectively' are, without ever being able to know, or without ever being able to tell, or able to be sure. There is no such thing as absolute Knowledge or absolute Truth, because you can never know everything, and of the things you know, you can never know whether they actually reflect reality, because things could change or be revealed at any moment. All you have is really temporary hypotheses and paradigms that can always be wrong, without you having any real certainty about it

[@chrisstott3508]

Postmodernism holds that good governance is impossible? Surely all societies should reject any philosophy seeking to destroy the possibility of good governance?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Not necessarily. It is more than an one theory of good governance that attempts to explain the correct way to govern in all situations is likely incorrect (despite perhaps being easier to sell politically). The ideas of "big government is always bad" or "higher taxes for the rich are always good" may good slogans that motivate voters, but the real world is likely more complicated and messy. It is less that good governance is impossible, and more that anything that can fit on a bumper sticker or a campaign sign is probably a gross oversimplification of reality.

[@chrisstott3508]

​@@CarneadesOfCyrene I'd be laughed out of the room if I claimed that statements are more true (or more false) because they are short. I'd rightly be accused of dishonesty if I demanded that statements which don't completely describe a system, ought be rejected. I guess my point is that a complaint that people shouldn't make simple claims about complex systems, isn't a philosophy, it's just a tactic, and usually a dishonest one.

[@Pfhorrest]

Political postmodernists may not all be politically post-truthers, but post-truthers per se are all postmodernists per se.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

If you are a postmodernist about truth, it is hard to be a modernist about politics or science. Though you might still enjoy modernist performance or architecture, it would be hard to hold the ethical claims of an architectural modernist or a aesthetic modernist.

[@Meta-trope]

Let me know the flows in my logic. But this gives me the idea that postmodernism inclines you towards the center of the political spectrum, since you acknowledge the pros and the cons in sides of the spectrum. Moreover, a dynamical centrism looks like it can give you the tools to orient in an effective way since the pros and cons from all sides can change over time. However, that would require more logical effort, perception of the world around and critical thinking, and it looks like the majority of the population is not capable of those just yet (for a democratic system at least; a technocratic oligarchy could be specialized on preserving equilibrium imo).

[@only20frickinletters]

The "political spectrum" is just a metanarrative. It can be construed to serve the right ("right is individual freedom, left is government tyranny"), the left ("right is investors' interests, left is workers' interests"), or in your case the center ("left and right are biases, center critically examines all positions").

[@Meta-trope]

@@only20frickinletters I like they way you put it.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Postmodernism might incline you to centrism, or it might make you disillusioned with the political process entirely. That said, the question of democracy vs technocracy is itself a debate between two competing metanarratives, so I am skeptical that a true postmodernist would embrace either as the clear solution.

[@Meta-trope]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Correct, but I wasn't stating one of the 2 being a clear solution, just that one Could be more capable than the other. But that heavily depends on the people applying it.

[@plastic2666]

Political Postmodernism does not express skepticism about empirical claims. It is skeptical of the stories we tell ourselves about empirical matters. Ie I can state that there are currently 50 states in America or that some war was reported to kill *insert reported death toll here*. Acknowledgment of particular facts puts you radically outside of the center. So, Political Postmodernism does not commit you to be a centrist.

[@JTKroll12]

seems based

[@Dayglodaydreams]

I remember post-modernism being this "new" thing people in the Evangelical church were talking about (as a new idea, and possibly as a threat to Christian Conservatism) in the 00s. The irony is this "new" idea was as old as the late 70s, and had effect in the popular culture in the 80s and 90s (american academia moved on in the 90s). Now, the new "threat" is critical theory. "Cultural Marxism" and "Critical Race Theory" are the new whipping-boys that stand in for "Postmodernism".

[@revoltagainstfear]

Post-modernism leads to pragmatism.

[@cromi4194]

It can't because you must decide what to value more than something else, to be pragmatic. Pragmatists deal with what works well. Where do you get these valuejudgemts from? Your meta-narrative.

[@ExMachina70]

TIL: Postmodernism doesn't identify with the ideals of Postmodernism.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Just because you think something is true, doesn't mean you want it to be. :)

[@ExMachina70]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Postmodernism is great in every generation but this one. These Tiktok idiots just want to call everything wrong regardless of what scientific evidence backs it up.

[@jerensteffen]

Did CNN write that definition of "Trumpism". That was hilariously wrong. I listen to almost all your content and you do a great job and I understand nobody is prefect. But golly gee, you might want to consider digging a bit more on that portion.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Do you think that Trump is not playing on the idea of "taking America back to a perceived golden age"? What do you think "Make America Great Again" means? If you think Trump always tells the truth, you are simply proof of the point that people can take the same information and draw different conclusions, because most reputable sources rank him as one of the most mendacious presidents in history. I'm a skeptic, I don't know who is right, but for the postmodernist, the fact that you can arrive at completely different conclusions given the exact same facts, is evidence for postmodernism.

[@jerensteffen]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene I'm definitely a skeptic as well and don't blindly believe anything anyone says. My profession is even based on my willingness to question everything that I'm told, even if it's coming from executives. Respectfully, your Trumpism analysis is very strawmany and riddled with conjecture. Given you are an educator and Trump is a politician, who do you think should be held to a higher standard when it comes to misinforming a population? The easiest example is your multiple assertions that Trump and/or his followers desire some male dominated ethnostate is rediculous. Name one policy he persued, promoted, or passed that exemplifies this. Furthermore, if this were the case, why in the last election did he achieve the highest minority voter base of any republican in 60 years (by percentage) and his largest lost voter base was of white men? I believe you described a symptom of postmodernism being a variety of interpretations. How is this different that the logical idea that individuals are different and therefor are very likely to interepret things differently. Ultimately, it seems much more distopian if everyone had the exact same interpretation of something (something like the almost uniform, yet false, association with racism and trumpism). Beyond that, most of what you described can be attributed to 99% of politicians, current and past. I would assume when one describes "Trumpism" that there would be something unique to differentiate it.

[@jerensteffen]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene Look, it may be that you are more intelligent than I am based on how well you understand these complex topics, it's quite impressive. But I would argue, given your analysis aligns perfectly with the propaganda dictated by our legacy corporate press, that your ability as a skeptic is lacking or at least compromised in this realm.

[@mylesleggette7520]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene This is kind of beside the point, (also: 11 months ago, lol), but I just want to point out that for many people "Make American Great Again" is indeed NOT about taking America back to a perceived golden age. Rather than being about changing America into something it used to be, it is about changing how Americans think about America. Remember, at the time Trump was creating his campaign, a central plank of the Democratic Party culture and campaign narrative was that America is a country whose very structure and design is not just flawed, but specifically created with malevolent intent for malevolent purposes (Structural Racism), that the country has been and is a net negative influence on the world, and that only by breaking down and rebuilding America's fundamental institutions and restructuring the country can this problem be solved. One of Obama's campaign slogans was that he was going to fundamentally transform the nation, and he often talked about how America cannot claim to being exceptional (great) any more than any other nation. The MAGA slogan was about encouraging and validating Americans who want to see the nation's founding principles and structures as fundamentally well designed and good, and who want to see the nation as a positive force in their lives and the world, without needing to rebuild its foundations from the ground up. It's not about advocating for a return to the rules and culture of a prior era, it is about returning the spirit of patriotism of prior eras, about saying that a vote for Trump is a vote to say that, yes, it is okay to think of America as a great nation again.

[@InventiveHarvest]

While post-modernism is not the same as marxism, its founders were neo marxists who created post-modernism as a means to resurrect marxism from utter refutation. While I can agree that there is no "right" political philosophy, as capitalism has a few short-comings; post-modernism does not stop marxism from being wrong.

[@Kyssifrot]

"its founders were neo marxists who created post-modernism as a means to resurrect marxism from utter refutation" I'm not sure how this can even be justified. I've seen this being said by a lot of people who are against postmodernism, but I've never seen any justification of it, only the fact that the founders were close to neo-marxism, but I don't see how it's sufficient to infer a "strategy" from their founders to protect Marxism from refutation (and to be honest, if that was the goal, that's a pretty weird way to do it).

[@enquiredmind2425]

“It’s founders were neo Marxists”. Been watching a bit too much Jordan Peterson haven’t you bud? Lyotard, who coined the term was not a neo Marxist, neither were some of the biggest names, like: Foucault, Baudrillard, Deleuze and Derrida. In face most of them were extremely critical of Marxism and many postmodernists remain critical of Marxism. There are Marxist theorists who recognise that we live in a postmodern society but they’re not postmodernists because they still wholly cling to meta-narratives (Fisher, Jameson).

[@enquiredmind2425]

@Mike Kane Yeah but the inverse is just as true. Eric Weinstein, who coined the intellectual dark web was heavily inspired by postmodernism and has used Deleuze to prop up Peterson, Harris etc as the foremost intellectuals of our era. To question or scrutinise something isn’t the same as going to war against it altogether. What’s more, it seems you’ve fallen into the trap of reductio ad absurdum by insinuating that the mere presence of language as a construct ipso facto means that scary Marxist bogeyman have taken over. Also, deconstructionists speak against relativism and positioning language as such because of its impracticality. Derrida himself spoke against this. What Marxist theorists are you quoting right now? “By the definition of them being constructionists they wouldn’t set up camp within a territory schematic that strengthened the idea of hierarchy.” It’s in bad faith to lump in a range of perspectives and school of thoughts together because you disagree with aspects of their teachings. Marxists believe, like Hegelians, in the role of history to lead to and end, and that an authority was pivotal in reaching this end.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@enquiredmind2425 While Foucault rejected the label, it is easy to see Marx's influence on his writings which focused on power dynamics. Baudillard was a neo-marxist that focused on consumption instead of production. Delleuze was a neo-marxist that combined the ideas of Marx and Freud. Derrida was a neo-marxist who referred to deconstruction as a radicalization of a certain spirit of marxism.

[@enquiredmind2425]

@@InventiveHarvest I’ll let the theorists themselves do the talking: Foucault: “Marxism exists in 19th century thought like a fish in water; that is, it is unable to breathe anywhere else.” Baudrillard: “Marxism is therefore only a limited petit bourgeois critique, one more step in the banalization of life toward the ‘good use’ of the social!” Now Deleuze and Derrida were definitely informed my Marxism but so were many theorists in the 20th century. My main argument is that the conflation between Marxists and postmodernists only serve to arm the right wing ,who argue in bad faith, with a lefty bogeyman with which they can rile a hoard of people who can’t be bothered to read and interpret theorists for themselves and so defer to pundits who don’t read the theorists either.