Professor Jordan Peterson assesses Postmodernism as wrong technically, as well as ethically, intellectually, emotionally, and practically. But he does admit that postmodernists in the 1970s were dealing with a difficult and practical problem: they postulated that any phenomena or text can have nearly an infinite number of interpretations. Peterson agrees with that postulation, and in fact points out that early in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), perception issues created difficult problems for the developers.
Now, if there are a huge number of interpretations, what can one do? There’s no way to act in the world. Because they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) solve that problem, the Postmodernists reverted to Marxism. Even though they categorically denied the existence of absolute truth, they nonetheless made the assertion that it was true that all human activity is a struggle for power, defined by the classic Marxist oppressor/oppressed model. However, they adopted the Cultural Marxist concept, and switched from economic terms of classic Marxism – oppressed proletariat vs. the oppressor bourgeois – to a variety of identity groups.
But Peterson points out that there was no need for such an artificial solution. He states that the multiple interpretation problem is solved by considering functional interpretations, of which there are always a very limited number; that our biological framework severely limits the manner in which we interpret the world. He goes on to say:
“…we tend to only spontaneously manifest interpretations of the world that don’t result in undue suffering, and our demise…. there aren’t very many ways to live properly and carefully for a long period of time in a manner that doesn’t also simultaneously do harm to other people.”
He concludes,
“So, although there are a very large number of interpretations, there are unbelievably severe constraints on the number of functional interpretations there are in the world.”
However, the Postmodernists did not seek functional interpretations; rather, they reverted to Marxism in the form of identity politics, claiming that they have nothing but compassion for the downtrodden. But as Peterson observes:
“Anybody with more than a cursory knowledge of 20th century history who dares to claim simultaneously that they have compassion for the downtrodden and that they’re Marxists are revealing either their ignorance of history that’s so astounding that it’s actually a form of miracle, or a kind of malevolence that’s so reprehensible that it’s almost unspeakable. Because we already ran the “equity” experiment over the course of the 20th century, and we already know what the Marxist doctrines have done for oppressed people all around the world, and the answer to that mostly was imprison them, enslave them, work them to death, or execute them, … not commensurate with any measure of compassion.”
The refusal by the Postmodernists to accept functional limitations to interpretation is consistent with their refusal to accept objective truth; instead, each person has their own “truth”.
And there is also the problem of values. Postmodernists claim that hierarchical value systems are always oppressive against their victims, and that therefore they must be eliminated. But the problem with that is that without a value system you have nothing to live for. There’s no value in anything. It eliminates your responsibility if you don’t have a value system.
Secondly, Postmodernists do not believe in logic. They deride it as a tool of oppression. Leading French Postmodernist Jacques Derrida critiqued Western Civilization as “phallogocentric ”; that is, the Patriarchy uses logic as a weapon to obtain and maintain power. So, if there’s no logic, then no dialogue: no attempt to gather together people of good will to achieve a consensus. Just power. And for Postmodernists, that power is sought for the oppressed, to be wrested from their oppressors. Of course, the Postmodernists define the oppressors and the oppressed at the group and not the individual level, just as in the earlier forms of Marxism such as in the Soviet Union and Maoist China.
Hence in contemporary culture, because they don’t believe in dialogue, opposing viewpoints are not tolerated by the Left. That is seen on today’s university campuses; conservative (i.e., non-Marxist) speakers are routinely prohibited from presenting their thoughts via “heckler’s vetoes”, if not by the university administration. The Postmodernists construct the victim profiles for identity groups, demonize the “victimizers” as immoral, and use tactics such as “shaming”, with labels including “racist”, “homophobe”, “islamophobe”, “neo-Nazi”, White supremacist”, “xenophobe”, and “misogynist”. And they intend it to be zero sum: if you’re not Leftist, then you by definition are an oppressor, probably for ALL victim identity groups.
In addition to shaming however, increasingly, violence is used by the Left, with destruction of property, and so-called “anti-fascist” (AntiFa) groups attacking people who oppose the identity viewpoint. What is of course appalling is that violence is an approved postmodern method to “protect” the oppressed victims. Further, even more appalling is that the shaming and violence are directed at any individuals who belong to one of the victim groups, but who step out of line of the victim (and thus, power) narrative. See Black Conservatives as an example.
Because Postmodernists reject objective truth, then “whatever works” to obtain and maintain power is implemented. Narratives are constructed to maximize the support of the people they assign to various victim groups, and to cast the opposition and especially non-compliant “victims” in as bad a light as possible.
An example is the “hands-up, don’t shoot” mantra used by the neo-Marxist postmodern group Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the Ferguson Missouri unrest in 2014. In the world of “logic”, it was conclusively proven that this phrase was fictional; it had never been spoken. Nonetheless, the Postmodernists saw use of this manifestly fictitious phrase as a tactic to increase the feelings of victimization (Blacks) and empathy (Leftist non-Blacks) for the sole purpose of obtaining power. And if some violence helped the cause, no problem; as long as it increased the power. Of course the justification for false narratives is that the Leftists see themselves as the protector of the downtrodden. So dispense with logic and truth, give them the power.
The problem is that once that power is obtained, there’s no incentive among the Postmodernists to solve the problems of the “oppressed”, because to solve oppression is to lose that identification, and therefore power. Thus there is momentum within Postmodernism to retain perpetual victimization of the oppressed groups, with the oppressors as perpetually privileged oppressors. That may sound illogical, but Postmodernists reject logic.
Critique: Consider Jordan Peterson’s critique of postmodern identity classifications:
“I think it’s really tremendously reprehensible for people to be conducting themselves intellectually in a manner that insists that the most important element of any …person … is whatever racial, gender and sex identity happens to be flavor of the month.“
Further, Peterson correctly understands that there are effectively infinite subdivisions or fractionation possible within the identity “game”:
“I think … those category systems are extraordinarily loose and indefinitely multipliable, because … there’s almost an infinite number of ways to categorize any given individual, so how … are you able to tell which group they belong to? And that’s a major problem. If you’re one-eighth Black, what does that make you, exactly? Are you Black? Are you White? Are you oppressed? Are you an oppressor? Are you ½ as oppressed as someone who is 1/4th Black? Does it work out arithmetically that way?”
So, as long as the Postmodernists have their way – which is largely the case in most Western countries these days – then there’s no solution. Peterson nails the illogic (what else do you expect of Postmodernists?) of it all:
“… And then, how do you multiply up your oppressed identities? And then again who gets to decide exactly which identity you should manifest? And how do you rank order those identities? How do we equate between them? What measurement techniques do we use to determine who’s oppressed and who isn’t? How do we assess equality and on what dimensions are we going to assess equality? And who’s going to enforce it? And who’s going to make the decisions? It’s like, “oh well, we’ll figure that out as we go along.” Yeah, we certainly will, and the results won’t be pretty, I can tell you that, because the problem is actually unsolvable.”
And further, value hierarchies and power structures are not in reality based solely on oppression; there are also issues of competence, ability, skill, talent, beauty, etc. that are equally or in most cases more important. The claim of “oppression” is sometimes used as a mask to avoid responsibility.
Peterson concludes:
“… to divide us up all by race and ethnicity and sexual identity and sexual preference and sexual expression and gender identity and all these multiplying forces of group identity seems to be nothing but an invitation to chaos, and that’s exactly what I see looming. And it needs to come to a stop, and it needs to come to a stop as fast as possible, and one way of doing that is to stop the universities from continuing to indoctrinate young people who really at least at the beginning don’t know any better into playing these absolutely insane and I would say bordering on murderous intellectual games.”
Additional videos critiquing Postmodernism may be found here. And an excellent example of facts and logic encountering Postmodern ideological possession is found in the January 2018 interview of Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman of UK Channel 4.