As some of you may remember, a while ago I
made a video response to Dr. Layman's video
response to Computing Forever's video response
to Sargon of Akkad.
He then made a video response to my video
response to his video response, and that's
where it ended.
Well, I don't like the fact that it ended.
I enjoyed it so much that I want to do it
again, so this time I'm doing a video response
to his video response to Armored Skeptic.
Last time, the argument was around the nature
of Marxism.
This time, we are discussing postmodernism.
I have some criticism of what Skeptic and
Layman had to say on the issue, but mainly
I want to talk about what postmodernism is.
So this is round two of Serpent vs. Layman.
Let's see if Babylon shall prevail.
So, the last time we did this was when Dr.
Layman criticized Dave Cullen's characterization
of Marxism, and generally objected to the
term cultural Marxism.
I made a video response to Layman, and pointed
out that we can define some SJW ideas as cultural
Marxism, since they evolved out of Marxism,
albeit by vulgarizing it.
Layman was very happy with my video, because
apparently it was the first video response
he ever got, and responded with a video in
which he basically accepted my argument, but
pointed out that what I was talking about
was neo-Marxism.
I was very happy with his video, because this
was the first response video I ever got, and
I basically accept his argument, although
I would point out that every neo-Marxist I
ever met claims that they are the real Marxists,
whereas classical Marxists failed to evolve
with the times.
But those are semantics.
I will leave links to this discussion below,
and I suggest you watch it.
The reason why I think it is important that
you watch it is that neo-Marxism and postmodernism
are the two systems of thought that are most
influential on today's regressive left.
Which means that all anti-SJWs should be familiar
with them.
Unfortunately, the writings of Marxists and
postmodernists are very hard to understand,
even to those of us who are well-versed in
philosophy.
YouTube skeptics therefore rely on others
to explain it to them, and many of the sources
that they rely on do not do justice with these
systems of thought, and just try to denigrate
them.
Layman and myself do our best to try to explain
it in a way that will give you an idea what
they are about.
We did it for neo-Marxism.
Now let's do it for postmodernism.
What sparked this debate was a video made
by Armored Skeptic, titled "What is Postmodernism?"
Armored Skeptic, whose real name is Gregory
Fuhrer…
Fuhrer?
That can't be right.
Flu… fl…
Armored Skeptic.
I will let him explain what prompted him to
make the video.
Take it away, Mein Fluhrer.
From here, the armored one goes on to give
an eleven minute summary of postmodernism,
as he understands it.
Considering it is meant to be just a short
overview, the video isn't terrible, but I
am not sure it will advance your knowledge
of postmodernism beyond what you probably
know already.
Or think you know.
I have nothing to add to Dr. Layman's criticism
of it, although I am not as harsh as he is,
for reasons I will shortly discuss.
But he mostly just tells you what is wrong
with Greg's video, without fully explaining
what postmodernism is.
Now postmodernism is a term that covers a
lot of fields, but both Skeptic and Layman
agree that the important aspect of it is the
philosophical one.
Philosophy is my field, so I guess it falls
on me to once and for all set the record straight
on postmodernism.
I will use Dr. Layman's video as my starting
point, but then, prepare yourselves, because
we are going deep.
Layman begins by ceding that Greg's videos
are more well-made than his.
I think that that is an important thing to
point out.
We are on YouTube, and YouTube is an art slash
entertainment medium, so videos are ultimately
judged by their entertainment value.
Even when I make a philosophical vid like
this, I always try to find ways to make it
more entertaining.
And so does Dr. Layman – I doubt he would
be using that voice of his if he was giving
a lecture in the academy.
Greg was not handing in a dissertation, he
was making a YouTube video, so I'm not going
to roast him for being superficial.
His channel is much more popular than mine
or Layman's, which shows that most people
prefer his more lightweight and populist approach.
Those of us who want deeper discussions should
regard it as a good starter of a conversation,
and use this opportunity to have it.
And I think Greg would do well if he sent
his viewers to watch these discussions *cough*
Now, as I mentioned, postmodernist philosophy
is very hard to understand.
One reason why it is so hard to understand
is that most postmodernist philosophers are
French, and French philosophers of the 20th
century all fancied themselves poets.
They can't help but wax poetical in every
paragraph they write, and they often do it
at the expense of clarity.
It's not just the postmodernists – the French
existentialists and structuralists had the
same problem.
It's really annoying.
Like I said, I try to be entertaining in my
videos, and also in my writing, but when I
discuss an idea, I try to be as clear as possible.
But that is not how the French roll, so I
don't blame you if you don't read them.
Luckily for you, I am here to do the dirty
work.
There are other reasons why postmodernism
is hard to understand, but the claim that
I sometimes hear from its detractors, the
claim that it is all just gibberish, is itself
gibberish.
Yes, a lot of the things that are being written
today under the title of postmodernism are
nonsensical rubbish, but when it comes to
its major thinkers, it has a lot of merit.
Here I am going to define postmodernism by
its two main philosophers, namely Foucault
and Lyotard.
But let's begin by watching a bit of Dr. Layman's video.
When I informed Dr. Layman that I'm going to respond
to his video, he immediately guessed that
I'm going to focus on this part.
You see, Skeptic and Layman argue about the
nature of modernism here.
But I remind you that we are talking about
philosophy, and in philosophy, when we talk
about postmodernism, we are not talking about
post modernism, we are talking about post-modern-ism.
Got it?
No?
Ok, let's elaborate.
We have to discern between modern and modernism.
The idea is that until around the 1970s, we
have been living in the modern age.
In Michel Foucault's classification, the modern
era began in the late 18th century, and the
era before that is what he calls the classical
age, beginning in the mid-17th century.
Every one of these eras had a paradigm, which
determined how the people thought and acted.
I will elaborate a bit more about paradigms
later, but the important thing to remember
is that when we are part of an era, we are
not fully aware of the paradigm that controls
us.
The paradigm determines things that we see
as matter of fact and common sense, and only
when we are out of the paradigm can we see
that they are not matter of fact at all, but
structures that rule our society and our minds.
Now, in the middle of the 19th century, people
started to realize that they are living in
the modern age, and artists and thinkers started
to react to the modern world in all sorts
of ways.
In the beginning of the 20th century, this
movement started to call itself "modernism".
Modernism ruled the art world for decades,
but in the 1960s, some artists felt that it
has run its course, and started to create
art which they called post-modernist, going
against some of the tenets of modernism.
In the 1970s, the term postmodernism was picked
up by philosophers, but in their case, it
wasn't about going against the modernist movement.
The basic claim of postmodernist philosophy
is that the entire paradigm of the modern
age has collapsed, and we are now in a new
age.
One of Dr. Layman's main criticisms is that
Armored Skeptic made it seem like modernism
was about embracing science, logic and rationality,
and the ideals of Enlightenment.
He points out that a big part of the modernist
movement actually turned against these ideals.
That is true.
It's part of a bigger point he is making,
which is that Greg is generalizing about the
movements he talks about, and treating them
like a monolith when in fact they have lots
of contradicting forces.
That is of course correct.
However, whether they were for or against
science, rationality and so forth, modernists
all had one thing in common: they were all
working within the modern paradigm.
And that is why I have less of a problem with
this part of Greg's video than Layman does:
his characterizations of modernism and post-modernism
may be wrong, but if we apply them to the
modern age and the postmodern age, they come
closer to the mark.
So, to understand postmodernism, we first
of all need to talk about the earlier paradigms.
The presentation I will give now will be done
in very general terms – I just want us to
understand the principle.
So let's begin by talking about what Foucault
called the classical age.
In the classical age, the paradigm was that
the universe is ruled by divine order, and
that the human mind is capable of grasping
that order.
The rationalists and the empiricists may have
disagreed on the way to get there, but they
were both driven by the idea that Man needs
to find his place inside the divine order,
and arrange his world accordingly.
And while monarchs claimed that the divine
order put them on top, the philosophers of
Enlightenment claimed that to fit the divine
order, society should be rearranged around
the ideals of freedom and equality.
Around the end of the 18th century, the classical
paradigm collapsed.
Why?
Well, the question of when and why a paradigm
collapses is one of the questions that postmodernism
deals with, so we shall leave it for later.
For now, let's just say that thinkers could
no longer believe that our mind is capable
of grasping the order of the universe, and
that Man is capable of arranging society in
a perfect way.
Instead, they started claiming that Man is
not ready for it yet.
He needs to grow and learn more before he
can create a perfect world.
The modern paradigm was based on the idea
of progress.
More importantly than exploring nature, Man
needs to explore himself.
It is a gradual process in which Man learns
about himself, and creates better systems
based on that knowledge, systems that help
him get greater knowledge of himself.
The end of the road will be the formation
of a perfect society, and the liberation of
Man.
So, if you ever wondered why the human sciences
were only born in the 19th century, Foucault
answers: because we were driven to it by the
modern paradigm.
In the classical age, when the paradigm dictated
that Man should find his place in the divine
order, there was no point in exploring Man,
but only in exploring nature to find the divine
order.
Once the paradigm changed and dictated that
Man needs to explore himself in order to grow
up to the point where he can devise a perfect
world, the need for human sciences arose.
And the idea that Man is a being that grows
through history led to other ideas, like Darwin's
theory of evolution.
It also led to the idea that if there is something
wrong with Man, it is because something went
wrong during his growth, which led for instance
to Freud's theory that all of our psychological
problems are the result of things that happen
in early childhood.
All of these theories became possible only
after the modern paradigm was established,
and directed our thoughts towards these paths.
The paradigm is not something that we are
fully aware of, but it directs our thoughts,
and we are all controlled by it.
If we go back to Dr. Layman's point that a
lot of modern thinkers and artists rejected
science and rationalism, we will have to say
that that is true, but even they still thought
in terms of progress towards a perfect society.
They just thought that rationality and science
are not the faculties that will take us there,
but other faculties.
And even those modern thinkers who rejected
the idea of progress altogether did not escape
the paradigm, since they did not offer other
solutions to what Man should aspire to.
All they could do is say that Man has no hope
for happiness, or propose going back to old
solutions, like religious faith.
Thus, they were still affirming the paradigm.
Let's take for example the dada movement in
art.
Dada was born during world war one, when the
modern paradigm was shaken to its core.
The Dadaists could no longer believe in the
idea of progress, so they ridiculed it in
any way possible.
The main idea of dada was destroying the hierarchy
of the modern thought.
The modern paradigm, like any other paradigm,
created a hierarchy that ranked everything
in spectrums of good to bad, beautiful to
ugly, important to trivial, refined to vulgar,
meaningful to meaningless, and so forth.
Dada just took the highs and the lows of these
spectrums and mixed them together, to invalidate
the hierarchy.
But most artists could never stay long in
this chaotic stage.
For the next few decades, there were many
dada moments, in which artists found new ways
to subvert the modern hierarchy, but it always
resulted in a new movement that thought it
found the way to present the truth about human
existence, and thus help progress.
It lasted until the 1970s, and since then,
there are no more dada moments.
Why?
Because the modern paradigm collapsed, so
dada became pointless.
Dada, the disrupter of modern logic, had power
and meaning only as long as we were in the
modern paradigm.
The moderns didn't know that they were in
the modern paradigm.
The way they saw it, humans have always believed
in fairytales and superstitions, until the
Enlightenment came, and since then we are
on the path towards freeing ourselves from
these superstitions and discovering the truth.
In the process, we are also becoming better
and more moral, gradually creating a perfect
human society.
Everything, then, was judged by the measuring
rod of how it helps our progress towards that
goal.
In this paradigm, dialectic thought was born.
Dialectic thought was the first to present
the idea of the paradigm, although they didn't
call it that, and there are some essential
differences between what postmodernism calls
the paradigm and what Marx, the most famous
dialectic thinker, calls the superstructure.
But let’s call it paradigm.
The claim of dialectic thought is that every
period is ruled by a paradigm, which divides
humans into a dominant class and a subordinate
class.
But eventually, a better paradigm is created,
and the subordinate class brings a revolution
and imposes the new paradigm.
This new paradigm is truer and less oppressive,
but it is still imperfect, and still divides
society into a dominant and subordinate class.
This is how progress is made, and at the end
of the road all the contradictions will be
settled, and society will no longer be built
on a paradigm but on the truth, and will have
no classes.
At the end of the 19th century, the philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche poked holes in the modern
paradigm.
Contemporary humans, he wrote, are making
the mistake of thinking that humans have always
been the same, so when they look back at history
they see it as linear progress.
But if we examine the development of our language,
we will realize that the concepts we are using
went through transformations over the years,
and meant other things in the past.
What we think are eternal truths are merely
what our current concepts lead us to think.
And, starting from the late 1950s, Michel
Foucault combined the influence of Nietzsche
with influence from dialectic thought, to
lay the ground for postmodernist philosophy.
Michel Foucault called himself a historian
of ideas, since what he was exploring was
how our ideas develop and change.
He agreed with Marx that history moves from
one period to the other, and every period
has its own paradigm, or "episteme" as he
called it.
But while Marx believed that he found the
universal principle that determines all period
changes, and could therefore predict the future,
Foucault said that this belief was merely
determined by the modern paradigm that Marx
was in.
There is no rule by which the changes occur,
so there's no point in looking for it.
Instead, Foucault said that the historian
of ideas should work like an archeologist.
He should try to unearth the paradigms of
previous periods, and delineate the logic
that ruled them.
He should also trace the changes of ideas
within a period, leading to the moment when
these ideas caused a paradigm shift.
In this way we can understand these periods
better, and as a result, understand our period
better as well, as we will see how our ideas
developed and took their current form.
So, unlike a dialectic like Marx, Foucault
is not deterministic.
They would both agree that theories like those
of Darwin and Freud could only be born within
the modern paradigm, but while Marx would
believe that such theories are truer than
previous theories, and made possible because
the modern paradigm took us to a more advanced
place from which we can uncover those truths,
for Foucault it is much less certain.
When a paradigm changes, these is also something
lost, and paths that could have led to scientific
discoveries are being closed.
And while Marx would believe that it is inevitable
that Darwin's theory would be formulated,
for Foucault there is a lot of chance involved
in the process.
If by chance an alternative evolutionary theory
was presented instead of Darwin's, history
would have taken a different direction.
One interesting thing about Foucault is that
in exploring the history of ideas, he did
not focus on philosophers.
Instead, he shifted his look towards fields
of practical thought, such as medicine and
law enforcement, or towards scientific fields
like biology.
He shows that the changes in these fields
have repeatedly transformed our perception
of what reason is, our perception of what
life is, our perception of what man is, and
our perception of many other concepts which
we erroneously think have always meant the
same.
These changes also change our perception of
what justice, freedom and equality mean, so
philosophers must then come up with new theories.
Thus it is these practical and scientific
concepts that are the main driving force of
the history of ideas, and the philosophers
follow.
Which means that philosophy isn't really progressing
towards finding the truth, but is merely working
within what is allowed by the concepts of
the time, by the paradigm.
The whole modern story of progress, then,
is undermined in Foucault's work.
We've been looking at previous periods and
nodding our head at the senseless ideas and
brutal treatment of humans displayed in them,
and we pride ourselves for being more knowledgeable
and humane.
Foucault's archeological research shows that
when we put these ideas and actions in the
context of the paradigm they were in, they
make sense and seem rational and moral.
So what we actually have is not progress,
but a shift of paradigms.
There is of course progress in our practical
knowledge, which allows us to make human life
better and longer.
But the modern belief that we are progressing
towards the truth, or becoming morally better,
is revealed as naive.
The conclusion, then, is that philosophy should
change its outlook.
Modern philosophy, especially the dialectic
tradition which Foucault came from, was busy
trying to figure out the law that governs
the progress of Man.
Thinkers were examining history, and looking
to unearth the universal principle that can
be detected as the cause of all the changes.
Finding this principle would supposedly enable
us to figure out how to get to the perfect
state, and once we figured that out, we can
speed up the progress towards it.
But Foucault's archeological research shows
that, as Nietzsche claimed, it is pointless
to look for such a law.
Instead, Foucault says that we should focus
on the present.
All we can do as philosophers is try to figure
out the paradigm that we are in, and thus
liberate our mind from the control it has
over it.
In the revolutionary atmosphere of the late
1960s, it seemed like the revolution of the
proletariat, which the Marxists so yearned
for, was about to happen, especially in France.
Foucault was part of the radical left, but
he did not believe in the Marxist utopia.
Instead, he started to look into the power
structures in society, and examine how they
establish themselves.
He showed that, contrary to what the Marxists
believed, the power is not all in the hands
of the ruling class, and is not imposed from
above by power institutions like the police
and the army.
It is rather dispersed throughout society,
maintained in large part by all the institutions
that hold the knowledge, whether theoretical
or practical.
All the different power and knowledge institutions
are in interplay, affecting each other, creating
a grid through which power relations are set
and the paradigm is maintained.
Which means that any change made in any of
the points on this grid will have a ripple
effect that will cause changes elsewhere.
So, instead of going for a total revolution,
we can focus on a single point and cause change
through it.
And that gives individuals and groups a lot
more power than the Marxists claim they have.
After the revolutionary drums of the late
sixties quieted down, Foucault started to
talk about resisting the system on the individual
level.
The role of the philosopher is to help expose
the paradigm that rules our minds, so that
individuals and groups can escape the power
it has over them, and create their own ideas
and ways of life.
Thus, greater freedom is achieved.
In the late seventies, as philosophers were
starting to talk about postmodernism, Foucault
was considered one of its main prophets.
But he rejected the term.
He claimed that what he was doing, focusing
on the present instead of the future, is actually
the logical conclusion of the modern paradigm.
The belief in a perfect future society, he
claimed, was just a relic from the classical
age that remained in modern thought.
So what he was doing was actually being a
real modern, whereas Marx was a modern who
did not fully free himself from the classical
belief that our mind can find the perfect
order.
This view, however, was not accepted.
Unlike Foucault, who focused on the processes
that are unconscious to us, most thinkers
focused on the conscious part of the modern
age, the convictions that were driving it,
and realized that we lost our belief in those
convictions, which means that the modern age
is dead.
The main philosopher making this claim was
Jean-Francois Lyotard.
Lyotard lays it down in a 1979 book called
The Postmodern Condition.
It is basically a long essay, in which he
outlines the collapse of the modern agenda,
and asks how we should react to this situation.
He points out that in the modern age, the
belief was that we are working to free our
culture of narratives, and base it instead
on truths, believing that this will liberate
humanity and create a perfect society.
But now we've realized that all of this – the
belief in progress towards utopia, the belief
in the dialectic process, the belief that
science and philosophy give us the truth,
the belief that we are liberating ourselves
– were themselves just narratives, or rather
meta-narratives.
Western culture accepted these meta-narratives
as self-evident, so any statement that relied
on them for legitimacy was seen as valid.
But now, all these meta-narratives had collapsed,
and there's nothing that we can rely on for
legitimacy.
All that is left are competing narratives.
What we have now are many language games,
each with its own rules.
As long as you and I are within a certain
language game, we will accept each other's
statements as legitimate if that's what the
rules of the game dictate.
But they will not be seen as legitimate by
someone from a different language game.
These language games are all intertwined,
and there is no accepted meta-language to
determine which one is truer.
And this has some negative repercussions.
First, since truth is no longer perceived
as the liberator of humanity, language-games
that pursue truth, like science and philosophy,
have to find different ways to justify themselves.
Scientific research is supported only as long
as it can show it has functional value for
the system or the market.
And, even more troubling, we have no criteria
to tell us what is right and what is good.
So how do we deal with this situation?
The first thing to do, says Layotard, is to
realize that there is no way out of it.
We should acknowledge that we are in this
society where there is no universally accepted
hierarchy of knowledge, but just many intertwined
language games.
Those who want to research something that
is not seen as functional by the system, must
invent ways to make their fields attractive.
And as for morality, while it is true that
it is dangerous that we don't have a clear
criterion, it is also a blessing.
In the modern age, when good was perceived
as anything that helps our progress towards
a perfect society, movements like fascism
and communism could present themselves as
the embodiment of that progress, and justify
imposing their will on others by force.
In a postmodern society, where there are no
meta-narratives, it becomes a lot harder to
justify such totalitarian positions and actions.
So, just like Foucault, Lyotard points out
that power has been dispersed across the grid,
creating a complex network, and the hope is
that this makes society more durable against
immoral movements.
We don't have a meta-narrative to disqualify
bad ideas, but we have the freedom to create
better ideas, and the nature of our open society
will see to it that these ideas win.
If we take a contemporary example, today the
West is dealing with the threat of Islamism,
and it may seem that Islamism is stronger,
as it has much clearer convictions.
But as Islamism entered this battle, it made
Islam part of the western network, which means
it opened it to the infiltration of many new
ideas, narratives and language games, which
will eat away at these convictions.
Ultimately, the hope is that this pluralistic
grid will win.
The question is, do you believe in the durability
of this grid?
I happen to do.
I believe that most people want to live a
free and peaceful life, and want it for their
fellow humans as well, so in a free marketplace
of ideas, the good ideas will eventually triumph.
And because of this optimism, I am not afraid
of the postmodern world.
So far, what we can say about the postmodern
age is that is has been the most peaceful
and prosperous time the West has ever known.
It may have been responsible for producing
many silly and harmful ideas, but they always
got defeated before they caused any serious
damage.
Whereas truly harmful ideas that have been
inherited from previous ages, like communism
or religious fundamentalism, have lost power
when put into the postmodern grinder.
It may be too early to judge, but so far,
so good.
So what then is the problem with postmodernism?
Why does it have such a bad rep?
Well, until now we have mainly been defining
the postmodern condition, and showed that
it arises from the collapse of the modern
paradigm, which left us with no universally
accepted way to determine what is true and
what is good.
But postmodernist philosophy doesn't just
define the condition – it also tries to
offer ways to deal with it.
And here, while Foucault and Lyotard's suggestions
are generally measured and reasonable, their
followers drew very different conclusions,
which led to some negative results.
So let's examine what they are.
First of all, as we learned from Foucault,
everything is subject to change, and all the
things that we think are essential to us have
been different in the past.
Which means that humans are infinitely malleable,
and nothing in us is essential to our character.
And that leads to the belief that we are born
a blank-slate, and our character can be shaped
in any way that society sees fit.
But that is not the right conclusion.
If we go back to Nietzsche, he also believed
that humans are malleable, and he even believed
that we can change our biology if we change
our way of thinking.
But he did not see humans as a blank slate.
We are all carrying the baggage of our biology
that evolved over millions of years, and our
culture that developed over millennia.
If a man had eighty thousand years to live,
said Nietzsche, then he would be able to change
everything about his character.
In other words, everything is malleable and
nothing is essential, but because we are shaped
by humanity's past, the amount of change we
can implement at a single moment is very limited.
Foucault did not deal with the biological
level and remained on the ideological level,
but he implies the same thing: we are born
into a paradigm, so any change can only be
within the parameters of what the paradigm
allows.
There is no basis, in the writings of Foucault,
to the belief that we can shape humans as
we wish.
Another conclusion that is wrongly drawn out
of Foucault's philosophy is that our reason
is oppressive, and should be destroyed.
Foucault, as we said, shows that our concepts
developed in an arbitrary way, and could have
developed differently.
Which means that they are denying us the freedom
to think differently.
This argument is more commonly associated
with the third big name of postmodernism,
Jacques Derrida.
I did not talk about Derrida because I am
not familiar enough with his work.
I intend to make other videos about postmodernism
in the future, and by then I will remedy the
situation.
You see, one does not read Derrida if one
does not have a good reason to read Derrida,
and now I have that reason.
But judging by the little I read, I think
that it is wrong to accuse even him of this
idea that our reason should be destroyed.
It is true that there is something oppressive
about our reason.
It must be, or we won't be able to survive.
For example, our reason categorizes different
things together under the same label.
That is why when we see a lion that we never
saw before, we are still able to recognize
that this is a lion, and know that we should
run away.
So that's how our mind works, but that also
means that we are erasing individual differences,
and thus our reason is oppressive towards
individuals.
But does that mean that we should discard
it?
Of course not.
Let's go back to Nietzsche.
A large part of his writing is dedicated to
show that the foundations of our reason are
not transcendental truths, like philosophers
used to believe, but developed in an evolutionary
process.
But, he says, that is no reason to give it
up.
If it developed in an evolutionary process
over millions of years, then it is a good
instrument.
We should realize that our reason is not perfect,
we should criticize it and try to make it
better, but we should never give it up.
This is also what Foucault, and I believe
Derrida as well, are saying.
Their criticism and deconstruction of our
reason is meant to expose its oppressive sides,
to open up the way for individuals and groups
who want to think differently.
But it is not meant to destroy it.
Some of their followers, however, don't understand
this distinction, and so western reason is
under attack.
For Nietzsche, freedom from wasn't very important.
What he cared about was freedom to.
By creating a new way of thinking, you are
creating a new powerful and joyful way of
life.
Once the new way of thinking sets in and becomes
established, says Nietzsche, then you start
to fight against it, and try to create an
even more powerful way of thinking.
But Foucault and Derrida were not interested
in feeling power.
Power, for them, was all bad, so their attacks
on established thought were not aimed at establishing
new ways of thought, but only at opening up
the way for new ways of thought to emerge.
That's the main reason for the poetic language
of the postmodernists: they were terrified
of the idea that their thought will become
an oppressive doctrine, so they made it open
to many interpretations.
But something gets lost when you do that.
While Nietzsche inspires you to realize your
full potential, the postmodernists, especially
Derrida and his disciples, reduce everything
to triviality.
When your philosophy is only about freedom
from, you are not developing your spiritual
powers.
And that's one of the main negative effects
postmodernism has on our culture.
Those are the main inherent problems in postmodernism.
But the bigger problem is not with postmodernist
thought itself, but with how it makes us vulnerable
to other ways of thinking.
Most of all, how it helps those who still
hold on to modern Marxist-dialectic thought.
Instead of accepting the postmodernist criticism
and realizing that it invalidates dialectic
thought, many Marxists simply appropriated
it and are using postmodernist rhetoric as
a shield and a weapon.
What we call the regressive left are mainly
people who pretend to be postmodernists when
they are actually neo-Marxists.
And they are the ones who are responsible
for most of its bad reputation.
Let's take feminism as an example.
The Marxist feminist approach is to claim
that women were always an oppressed class,
and they use examples from history as evidence.
Now, if you take Foucault's archeological
approach and examine the gender relations
in the context of the paradigm of the time,
you realize that the picture is a lot more
complicated.
You will find that women always had power,
and that a lot of the customs that today we
deem sexist were actually created with the
intent of protecting women.
Analyzing and understanding these dynamics
can help us improve the relations between
the genders.
Alas, that is not what regressive feminists
are doing.
Instead, they are using postmodernism to claim
that western reason is nothing but a narrative,
and present the feminist narrative as a superior
alternative.
Now, in postmodernist logic, it is indeed
valid to say that western reason is a narrative,
but there is no justification to claim that
any narrative is better.
But the regressive feminists are relying on
dialectic thought, in which, as we recall,
the oppressed group is the one that represents
the next step in the progress towards Utopia,
and therefore its narrative is superior.
Other regressives from so-called oppressed
groups are doing the same thing, claiming
their narrative to be superior to the western
narrative by the sheer fact that they are
oppressed.
And since our culture still contains enough
residue from the modern age, this way of thinking
holds sway with many people.
Worse, the relativism of postmodernism leads
many regressives to argue that they don't
need to rely on facts when creating their
narratives.
Again, that is the opposite of what Foucault
espoused - his archeological approach was
always based on facts.
When you create a new narrative based on universally
accepted facts, it has power, and can help
a marginalized group gain more power and acceptance.
But those who still believe that history is
governed by the dialectic process think that
the main goal should be ensuring victory for
the oppressed group, and that this end justifies
all means.
Thus, they create narratives that have maximum
emotional power, but very little connection
to facts.
The result is that no one else accepts these
narratives, so they have no power to change
things, and only serve to marginalize the
groups they are trying to help.
Foucault and Derrida, as we mentioned, did
not want to bring down Western reason.
The idea is just to acknowledge that it developed
in a historical process, and may have proved
itself to be good, but it is not the one and
only truth, and there is oppressive power
involved in maintaining it.
With this realization, we open up space for
thinking differently.
But if you are still stuck in dialectic thought,
then you believe that western reason is a
superstructure that prevents us from achieving
utopia, and has to be overthrown.
Derrida's deconstruction techniques then become
an instrument not to make western culture
more pluralistic, but to destroy it altogether,
believing that this will open up the way for
a better alternative.
Some Regressives thus do not make an attempt
to create new ways of thinking, but just try
to destroy western thought.
The result is nihilism.
The road to postmodernism was opened when
the modern paradigm collapsed.
That happened because the paradigm could no
longer justify itself: modern thought, in
its zeal to find the truth, has exposed the
shaky ground on which its own maxims stood,
and made them crumble.
But there were also events that helped it
happen.
The atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and the
cold war, made it seem like the world could
end at any minute, and made the idea of progress
seem hollow.
The Holocaust made the notion that modern
progress is turning us into better people
seem like a sick joke.
And the catastrophic failure of the communist
states showed dialectic thought to be nothing
but fancy wishful thinking.
The project of enlightenment was meant to
create a better human society, where people
are more refined and civilized, and use the
advancements of science and technology to
create a better life for us all.
Now, in the decades after world war two, it
seemed like all it did was give them bigger
weapons to create even more havoc, and even
to destroy the entire species.
And in such an atmosphere of disillusionment,
postmodernism could flourish.
In the 1990s, however, the cold war ended
peacefully, and the world entered a period
of working to solve its problems.
Since then, confidence in the ideals of Enlightenment
has been growing again, and we have started
to look at the horrors of the 20th century
as anomalies in what is essentially a success
story.
And so, postmodernism is now under attack
for what is perceived as its anti-enlightenment
stance.
However, when it comes to offering a way out
of postmodernism, I am not really seeing anyone
suggesting any good solutions.
A good example for that is a book written
by Stephen Hicks, called Explai…
Stephen.
Hicks.
And the book is called 'Explaining Postmodernism'.
In contrast with the postmodernists, Hicks
expands the definition of the modern period,
to include the classical period as well.
For him, the modern period begins with the
17th century philosophers of Enlightenment,
who believed that the universe obeys laws
that can be deciphered by human reason.
The way he sees it, Modern thought started
to go astray when, in late 18th century, philosophers
began to doubt that human reason can totally
understand the universe.
Hicks calls this stance "anti-reason", and
provides a historical account of how it led
western thought to put more and more limits
on what human reason can know, until we got
to the relativism of postmodernism.
His solution is to go back to the belief in
the power of reason to understand the universe,
and find ways to bolster that belief against
those who try to undermine it.
Hicks' narrative is a legitimate way of explaining
the history of western thought.
The problem is that in the process, he does
exactly what he blames postmodernism of.
First, he asks us to take a leap of faith,
and accept the idea that human reason can
understand the universe, even after all the
arguments it stood on have been debunked.
Secondly, he does not refute the arguments
of those philosophers he goes against, but
rather deconstructs them, and claims that
the real motivation of these philosophers
was not the pursuit of truth but other reasons,
such as saving religion.
That is not a good answer for how we can defeat
the bad repercussions of postmodernism.
I reject Hicks' characterization of these
philosophers as anti-reason.
They were working in the name of reason, and
reason cannot accept leaps of faith.
The pursuit of truth led to the realization
that there is nothing to support the belief
that human reason can establish true statements
about the universe.
After that realization, it would actually
be anti-reason to continue to believe in what
Hicks wants us to believe.
Just like there's no going back to blind faith
in the existence of God, there's also no going
back to blind faith in reason's ability to
figure out the truth.
We are in the postmodern reality, and we have
to find the solution in it.
So, allow me to present my solution.
My claim is that the academy is about a hundred
years behind the times, and that all this
debate around modernism and postmodernism
has no connection to the reality of most people.
We have indeed been living in a new age since
the 1960s, and I call this age the Pop Age.
The reason the academy is not in tune is that
it disregards what is happening in pop culture,
the main place where the western spirit expressed
itself in the past century.
Modernist and postmodernist philosophers alike,
when discussing today's culture, are still
talking about painters and poets and playwrights,
which no one knows about outside of their
little snobbish circle.
When you look at pop culture, however, a completely
different paradigm emerges.
The first thing that you notice is that we
are no longer dreaming of a perfect society.
Our society is already good enough, and we
can discuss ways of making it even better,
but progress is no longer something that occupies
our collective consciousness.
So rather than revolutionizing the system,
we are now looking for revolutions of the
mind, breaking out of our current way of thinking
and discovering new thoughts, new experiences,
new worlds.
It is very much in line with what Foucault
suggests, the idea that we always try to expose
the paradigm and break out of it.
But there is something that Foucault, and
all the other postmodernists, had missed.
What they had missed is that throughout history,
people who thought that they discovered the
truth have reported that this discovery was
accompanied by a strong ecstatic sensation,
a feeling of being engulfed by light.
Now, if we no longer believe that it is possible
for humans to discover the truth, then we
have to ask ourselves: how do we account for
these ecstatic sensations?
If it wasn't due to connecting with the universal
and eternal truth, then what was it?
And the answer must be that they have found
the truth of their time, the thing that at
that moment felt more real than anything else.
Nietzsche's philosophy was all about this
sensation, about the ecstasy that you experience
when you break out of your old way of thinking
and create a new way of thinking that feels
more powerful and real.
Foucault may have adopted Nietzsche's philosophy
of repeated regeneration, but he left out
the ecstasy part.
In pop culture, this ecstasy is the main thing,
and it is expressed mainly through music.
Previously, we mentioned dada as an example
for a modernist movement.
Dada was born in 1916, brought to life by
a small theatre troupe called Cabaret Voltaire,
operating in Zurich.
A year later, in America, the Original Dixieland
Jazz Band released what are considered to
be the first jazz records.
We are listening to a record called 'Livery
Stable Blues', which has the same iconoclastic
spirit as dada.
The combination of musical sounds with barnyard
sounds was scandalous at the time, bringing
into art something that does not belong to
it, just like dada was doing.
But while the art of Cabaret Voltaire has
become completely meaningless to us now, those
early jazz recordings still have power.
The ecstasy is still there, etched into the
grooves of the records, bursting with energy
and anarchic mirth.
Those ecstatic sensations of music could not
be captured until recording technology was
invented, but from the moment it became good
enough to record music, a new consciousness
could be born, a consciousness that revolves
around these sensations, the consciousness
of pop.
And in this new consciousness, a new definition
of truth was formed.
The fans of every musical style would distinguish
between true manifestations of the style and
false manifestations of it, between real jazz
and fake jazz, real blues and fake blues,
real rock'n'roll and fake rock'n'roll, real
funk and fake funk, etc.
Every musical style had its own unique ecstatic
sensation, and the music had to convey it
to be considered real.
Every musical style was the basis for a lifestyle
and a group identity, and one had to have
an inner understanding of the truth of the
style to be considered a real member of the
group.
And every musical style could remain real
only for a limited period of time, the period
when it still conveyed the truth of the time.
At some point it would lose its vitality,
and newer and truer styles would become the
heart of pop culture.
Throughout the 20th century, pop was a succession
of musical styles, each constituting the truth
of its time.
And through this constant rejuvenation, western
culture could beat back the rise of anti-freedom
movements, those that believed that they spoke
for an eternal and universal truth and tried
to impose it on everyone.
Pop consecrated joy and fun, and that made
it more powerful than any of these movements.
In modern thought, truth is universal and
eternal, and the enlightened man is the one
who sees the truth, or at least an idea that
is more advanced and truthful.
The system holds the most advanced accumulated
knowledge created by these educated men, so
it can devise the best society according to
that knowledge, and impose it on all of us.
In pop, truth is something that emerges from
the spirit of the time, existing in the collective
consciousness.
In other words, it cannot be imposed from
above, but emerges from below.
So while Marxism talked about seizing the
means of production to give economic power
to the masses, in pop we talk about seizing
the means of producing culture, so that everyone
gets a say and we have a truly free marketplace
of ideas.
The history of pop is a history of making
the means of producing culture more available
to the masses.
YouTube, where we can create videos and share
them with the entire world for almost no financial
cost, is one of the latest products of this
process.
One interesting video you can find on YouTube
is a 1971 debate between Michel Foucault and
Noam Chomsky, which I will link to below.
You should watch it, if only to check out
whether now, after watching my video, you
are able to grasp what Foucault is saying.
The interesting thing about this debate is
that it is between the modern thinker Chomsky,
who believes that our mind is governed by
universal structures which are part of our
human nature, and the postmodernist Foucault
who believes that these structures are temporary
social constructs.
In one part they talk about the imminent worker's
revolution, and Chomsky believes it should
be done in the name of eternal values of justice,
whereas Foucault is cynical about it and claims
that such a revolution will change the paradigm,
which means that our perception of justice
will change, so we don't know whether the
revolution will make things better or worse.
Therefore, he says, he can't justify a revolution.
But this debate was already archaic, because
during the 1960s, the consciousness of pop
has already taken over a large part of the
western population, and their minds were no
longer ruled by the modern paradigm.
In the same year, 1971, the Who released the
single 'Won't Get Fooled Again', which tells
about a bloody revolution breaking out.
The singer knows that past revolutions have
failed to fulfil their promises, but believes
that this time it will be different, this
time we will get Utopia.
And when the battle is over and the new order
prevails, he goes out to see what has changed,
and finds that…
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
The Who tell us that there is no such thing
as Utopia, and many other rock songs of the
time expressed the same sentiment, the realization
that revolutions are pointless.
We already live in the best possible system,
the liberal democratic system, and any revolution
will only make things worse.
Instead, pop culture focuses on making the
best out of the now.
In the second half of the seventies, punk
brought dada into the mainstream, mixing together
the beautiful with the ugly, the profane with
the sacred, the organic with the industrial.
This was the coup de grace for the modern
world.
With street fashion taken over by the dada
taste, and with the airwaves full of iconoclastic
punk bands singing that there is no future
and we should focus on the now, the modern
paradigm was shattered.
From then on, we have been living inside the
pop paradigm.
In the late 1990s, there has been a shift
inside the pop world, brought on mainly by
the Internet.
20th century pop music was so powerful because
it was a way to express a truth that was suppressed
by mainstream culture, in a way that could
break through and reach the ears of others
who felt the same.
With the Internet, however, you could publicly
express your truth and find others who feel
the same without the mediation of music.
So music lost its power, and the focus today
is not so much on expressing truth.
Instead, what we are busy with today is the
creation of new worlds, where people can coalesce
around a shared interest or experience and
develop an entire universe on top of it.
With virtual reality and augmented reality
becoming a thing, we can imagine a future
in which the so-called real world will be
just a platform, and most of our time will
be spent in worlds we choose to inhabit, and
even find our employment in.
There aren't many problems left to solve in
our original world, but our created worlds
could offer us endless puzzles to work on.
This reality, however, is still mostly in
the future, waiting for the world of video
games to advance until it can create it.
And with music losing power, this leaves a
vacuum, and makes pop culture a bit weak at
the moment.
Someone had to step into the breach, and it
is the video creators who stepped forward.
We youtubers are now the vanguard of pop culture,
the place where the spirit of the time dwells.
I mean, Greg's so pop, he's dating Minnie
Mouse.
And that also means that we are a shield that
protects western culture from bad ideas.
As Lyotard says, the philosophers must find
their place in a postmodern world that seemingly
has no use for them anymore.
I find YouTube to be the best place for a
philosopher today, the place where I can analyze
contemporary art and explicate the spirit
of the time, the place where I can criticize
today's culture, and the place where I can,
through interaction with bigger channels,
get my thoughts through.
Layman, my biggest criticism of you is that
you expect too much from the skeptosphere.
It is not an intellectual movement, it is
a pop subculture.
But it is a subculture that has turned skepticism
into something cool, which allows academics
like us to have a say.
Alright.
I guess I've given you some food for thought
there.
I normally try not to make my videos very
long, because my style is to cram a lot of
information into every paragraph, so I try
not to overload your system with too many
paragraphs.
But in this video, I wanted to provide a full
picture that will give you at least a basic
understanding of the issue of postmodernism
in philosophy.
I hope I was clear enough to make things clearer
for you guys.
If I wasn't, pardon my French.
