Common Errors in Critiquing Postmodernism

It’s easy to build a straw man of postmodernism by claiming it is equal to absolute relativism, nihilism and destruction of meaning, and then knocking down these naive stances. In this essay, I will list misconceptions and common poor criticisms of postmodernism.

First, we need to understand what is meant by the term "postmodernism". There are actually three terms that are easily grouped into one: postmodernism, postmodernity, and post-structuralism. To understand these terms, we need to take a step back to modernism and modernity. Please note, that the definitions vary from people to people, and there are many schools of thought. I will describe my own interpretation.

Modernity is the historical period that began in the age of Enlightenment and extended into the first half of the 20th century through the industrial era. It is closely linked to modernism, which is the cultural movement that started in the late 19th century emphasizing secular thinking and a search for truth. Then postmodernity is the period that comes after modernity.

The most popular definition of postmodernism can be attributed to Jean-François Lyotard, who popularized the term itself. In The Postmodern Condition, he described it as ”incredulity towards metanarratives”. A metanarrative is akin to a grand theory, a single system that would explain everything. The project of modernism was one metanarrative, which ultimately failed to achieve its goals of explaining the world comprehensively.

Postmodernism is not a singular ideology, but rather a collection of critiques from a diverse group of people, some of whom even had strong disagreements with each other. I'm seeing people often refer to the post-structuralist theorists like Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty. However, key figures like Linda Hutcheon, Donna Haraway, Helene Cixous, and Judith Butler are often overlooked. Most of these authors have been skeptical toward the promise of modernism and various similar totalizing (define!) ideologies. After the fact it is possible to collect these ideas into a single bag, and call it postmodernism, but oftentimes the critiques (which?) are focusing only on one part of the complete picture.

Many prevalent counterarguments to postmodernism are often focused on supposed relativism and the destruction of truth. Some even accuse postmodernism of anti-scientific stances. What this sort of analysis fails to realize is that postmodernism does not reject these. It just demotes them from the universal status, and treat them as tools.

Another prominent misconception is that postmodernism is to blame for the post-truth era we are living in. Critics argue that if there is no universal truth, nothing can be known. The critique misses the point: postmodernism is challenging the authorities defining the "universal truth" rather than denying truth itself. It aims to decenter the traditional structures that have historically claimed the monopoly on truth.

Critics often mistakenly confuse postmodernism with nihilism, the rejection of all meaning. What they fail to realize is that postmodernism does not outright reject meaning. The key question again is that who gets to choose the meaning. Historically this has been a key failure mode of modernism, and got us where we are today.

The contemporary rationalist project (distinct from the philosophical movement, classical rationalism, from the 17th century) tends to be critical of post-structuralist thinking. Rationalists often claim that postmodernists misunderstand the map-territory distinction, and fall into the fallacy of grey. They see Bayesian epistemology as a means to achieve a "reflective equilibrium" as a counter-point to salvage the failures of modernism while at the same time avoiding the critiques post-modernism laid upon.

A key distinction between rationalism and postmodernism is the focus on high decoupling as opposed to high contextualizing. Rationalists try to isolate elements of the world to study them within some model, whereas postmodernists see knowledge as connected and singular thinking-systems as incoherent. The high-decoupler might see the high-contextualizer as sloppy thinker who brings unrelated issues to the table and uses difficult terms, whereas the high-contextualizer sees the high-decoupler as hopelessly naive with their simplified model of the world.

There are legitimate critiques of postmodernism, and even the confused and mistaken ones should not be overly blamed (as it's not only the critics who are confused, see for example Sokal Affair). Postmodernism is not a clearly-defined category, and the discussion is highly academic and filled with jargon. Among these critiques, there are valuable positions that should be embraced, while the flawed ones must be rejected. It's the only way we can move forward. If we fail to seriously engage with these critiques, we risk repeating the real past mistakes that got us where we are in the first place.