The term ‘postmodernism’ is thrown around a lot by right-wing shock-jocks like Jordan Peterson, often in tandem with Marxism: although these two sets of ideas are totally opposed. In this episode, leading comrade Hamid Alizadeh takes on some of the main luminaries of this obscure, impenetrable and ultimately reactionary school including Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard.
Lyotard describes postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives.” In other words: an opposition to ‘big ideas’ about history, truth, science and progress. But with these ‘big ideas’ discarded, what are we left with? As Hamid demonstrates, the answer for all the postmodernists is basically the same: we cannot know the world, let alone change it, all we can do is ‘think differently’, play around with words, and retreat to subjectivity.
They even celebrate writing in incomprehensible gibberish and ‘believing in nothing’ as a ‘radical’ act!
This cynical philosophy is a total dead-end which winds up in stasis and despair. In total contrast to Marxism, which recognises the world as made up of complex processes, and driven by an inner lawfulness towards higher and higher complexity. By knowing the world, we can organise ourselves to intervene and change it for the better.
Postmodernism is not merely a reactionary worldview, Hamid explains, it has a directly negative impact on society, serving to divide the working class through the related phenomenon of identity politics, and preserve the status quo by hampering unity of the working class.
It is our duty as Marxists to oppose these counter-revolutionary ideas, and demonstrate the vast superiority of our dialectical materialist philosophy!
📖 WORKS CITED 📖
The case for theory: why communists should study philosophy | SPECTRE OF COMMUNISM:
🔗https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBQBXX7jZYg
Marxism vs. Postmodernism, Daniel Morley and Hamid Alizadeh:
🔗https://marxist.com/marxism-versus-postmodernism.htm
Theological-Political Treatise, Baruch Spinoza:
🔗https://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/24118/excerpt/9780521824118_excerpt.htm
Hegel, G.F. W. (1975). Hegel's Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art [For the quote about an ignorant man not being free]
📖 WORKS CRITIQUED 📖
Gender Trouble (Tenth Edition), Judith Butler:
🔗https://selforganizedseminar.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean-François Lyotard:
🔗https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Lyotard_Jean-Francois_The_Postmodern_Condition_A_Report_on_Knowledge.pdf
The Subject and Power, Michel Foucault:
🔗https://www2.kobe-u.ac.jp/~alexroni/IPD2018%20readings/IPD1%202018%20No.8/Foucault%20Subject%20and%20Power.pdf
Differance, Jacques Derrida:
🔗https://mforbes.sites.gettysburg.edu/cims226/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Week-5a-Jacques-Derrida.pdf
Article about how the CIA used Foucault and postmodern ideas to their benefit:
🔗https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-reads-french-theory-on-the-intellectual-labor-of-dismantling-the-cultural-left/
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️
00:55 - What is postmodernism?
11:40 - Is language oppressive?
25:46 - 'Differance' vs Dialectics
31:58 - Are there objective patterns in the world?
40:42 - Is there a barrier between mind and matter?
01:00:54 - Practical impact of these ideas
