Postmodernism: A Strategy for the Imposition of the New Orthodoxy

There was much discussion about the “relativism” of universities in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., as found in Allen Bloom’s, The Closing of the American Mind), but it turns out this was a mirage. Relativism was not a conviction (can relativism even be a conviction?) but the most effective way to quickly sweep away the old orthodoxy in favor of a decidedly non-relativistic new orthodoxy. The “tolerance” and “open mindedness” talk, it turns out, was nothing but an effective tactic for weakening the old orthodoxy in preparation for sliding a new orthodoxy into the recently vacated space. Postmodern “relativism” has now turned into postmodern dogmatism.

Summarizing the problems of the two ostensible public philosophies

Philosophical progressivism cannot make a distinction between fashion and truth.

Philosophical conservatism cannot make a distinction between fashion and falsehood.

Bipartisan Fascism

Fascism is an inflammatory term, but if we look at it as a phenomenon, rather than a scare word, and divorce it from any spurious left-right associations, we find that both of our political tribes today have fascistic elements. Those in tribe blue, like the Nazis, believe in racial essentialism, anti-Semitism (white hatred, which includes Jews, is suddenly fashionable in tribe blue), statism, and anti-capitalism. Tribe red, meanwhile, has the fascistic cult-like devotion to a strong man, an insurrectionist anti-democratic will to power, a blood and soil nationalism, and, as of this century, the same statist impulses as tribe blue. The false left-right conception obscures the kinship of our two ideologies and the way that both of them draw on elements that Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo drew on the 1930s. If either side should adopt all of the fascistic elements of the other side, we could head down the same path Germany went down a century ago. I’m particularly worried about a cult figure emerging to draw the worship of tribe blue and serve as a rallying point/figurehead for them to focus their fascistic tendencies and energies. Currently, their movement is Maoism without Mao—if they get a Mao, the Cultural Revolution light that we have been experiencing over the past decade would become a Cultural Revolution heavy.

Civility as Status Quo Bias?

An argument against civility and free speech more generally (which even prominent advocates of civility concede) is that civility and free speech have “status quo bias” and therefore “privileges” certain “powerful” positions. I see no evidence this is the case. The most important, revolutionary changes in American history have come from free, open, civil discourse. MLK effected radical change in race laws and relations by engaging in constructive, open, civil speech (Letter from Birmingham Jail is a model). Gay marriage is now universal because of the civil, persuasive arguments made by Andrew Sullivan, Jonathan Rauch, and others. And even though abolitionism had its uncivil radicals (e.g., Garrison), overall, its most powerful exponents, such as Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, convinced the country to abolish slavery by reasoned persuasion. As with science, radical changes come about through a stable, unchanging framework. The framework of democratic openness and civility are necessary for whatever radical political changes we want to pursue, just as the framework of hypothesizing and testing is the framework for the radical innovations scientists discover. Democratic openness is, using information theorist Claude Shannon’s metaphor, the “low entropy carrier” for a “high entropy signal.” We must conserve that to appropriately change everything else. Throwing out the framework as itself “biased” and a “tool of the privileged” is what Hitler, Stalin, and Mao did. I don’t see any historical examples where constructive change followed the jettisoning of the democratic framework. Those who want to get rid of the carrier (civil discourse) in the name of “change” actually destroy the system that is a necessary precondition for the constructive change they seek.

The Uniting Error of Philosophical Progressivism and Conservatism

Philosophical progressivism says that 1) History has an inevitable direction 2) the elites can know what that direction is, and 3) this direction is good. Philosophical conservatism only differs on the third, claiming that this direction is bad. None of these three propositions is justified. The idea that history has a direction is a religious/Hegelian claim, and unjustified on the scientific / secular grounds that its adherents claim to believe in. The idea that elites know the future is clearly wrong, given their long track record of failure in prediction, and the idea that whatever happens next is good is also unjustified (in 1930, Nazism was next, in 2015, Trumpism was next). We can’t look to a purported “direction” of history to know what’s good or bad because we can’t know that history has a direction, we can’t know what that direction is, and whether or not history was going somewhere would have no bearing on whether that “where” was good or bad. Far better than anchoring oneself to a “direction” is to anchor oneself in principles. In politics, that’s what classical liberalism does (equal rights under law) and why we should all be concerned about these principles coming under attack from those invoking a direction to history

I, We, and Government

An unfortunate tendency among many scholars (particularly Robert Putnam, whose latest book I just finished) is to conflate government and community. In their view, more government control over our lives is “collective” and therefore “communal” while less government control is “individualistic” and therefore “anti-communal.” This is a category error that diminishes the value of sociological analysis. It’s also demonstrably false: we find that those states with the lowest levels of government control also have the highest levels of social capital and community bonds (e.g., Utah), we find that those demographics who are most suspicious of government also have the highest sense of belonging and “we” (e.g., actively religious Americans), and we also find that many of the decades that saw the greatest expansions of government power (e.g., the 1960s and 2000s) were also decades that saw the greatest declines in communalism. If more government means more community, why did we get the biggest declines in community in the years of largest government expansion? If we move beyond ideology and take a more granular look at society, we find that community (the sense of “we”) is independent of government power and trying to force “community” through greater government control would be both destructive and futile.

Why the Old Orthodoxy is Preferable to the New

The change society is currently undergoing with the woke orthodoxy taking over all the elite institutions of society (government, corporations, cultural institutions, media, sports, film) is only analogous to the Christian takeover of Europe in the Middle Ages. In either case, a set of dogmas established hegemony and then worked to purge all dissent through force. Neither was ideal, but the Old Orthodoxy, because it contained within its doctrines the concept of free will, had the potential to retreat into the background, eventually allowing for pluralism, liberalism, and science as a way to harmonize all orthodox doctrines (including individual freedom). The New Orthodoxy lacks any conception of free will and therefore is less likely to retreat into the background as the Old Orthodoxy did. Illiberal and a counter-enlightenment tendencies are the inevitable direction and we are already heading down that path. Can we reverse it? That would require a religious awakening to strengthen the Old Orthodoxy, since there is, contra what atheists say, no “neutral ground”—a situation of non-Orthodoxy in which freedom flourishes. The only hope for enlightenment, science, and pluralism is an orthodoxy that prizes free will and only a religious orthodoxy has the resources to allow that.

My Heuristic of Movie Analysis

The tool I commonly use to evaluate movies is seemingly paradoxical: the movie must be at once realistic and unrealistic. The best movies are realistic in character, but unrealistic in plot. If we get a true to life character, we identify with them and the evocation of emotion, which movies are better at than any other medium, begins. If we get a true to life plot, though, we quickly get bored. Put realistic characters (Rick and Elsa) in unrealistic / unusual situations (Nazi resistance in Northern Africa) and the magic begins.