Postmodernism is generally defined as an attitude of skepticism, irony, and rejection of narratives and ideologies of modernism. But what does it actually mean to reject the narratives of modernism and what is modernism anyway? The easiest way to answer this is to look at what postmodernism is adversarial to. The ideas criticized by postmodernism include objective reality, morality, truth, science, and reason. Postmodernism has infected nearly every corner of our culture. Art, architecture, literature and even science and economics have been effected.
Perhaps the best examples of Postmodernist thinking comes in the form of the arts. Examples of postmodern art are defined by their lack of substance or meaning. The idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and a toilet can be just as breathtaking as a sunrise over a tropical paradise comes from postmodernism. This was exemplified perfectly in 2019 when a banana duct taped to a wall became a $120,000 exhibit.
Steve Patterson described postmodernism as anti-mind, and in many ways he is correct. Michael Knowles also perfected postmodernist art by producing a best selling book, a book that was blank. Postmodern art is purposefully meaningless allowing the viewer to give it meaning. This make the art it produces worthless to some and priceless to others.
Once postmodernism leaves the realm of he arts, however, that is when problems arise. The ideology that leaves everything up to interpretation creates serious rifts when it runs into the ideas it disagrees with. Namely reality and truth.
In our world there are laws. Laws of physics as well as laws to run our society, it is these laws that postmodernism takes issue with. This type of thinking lead to people unironically arguing that 2+2 could in fact equal 5.
Because everything in postmodernism is based on how you view it that means your perceived reality is the correct one regardless of what the data actually tells us. Postmodernism being a parasitic infestation of the mind is not my own idea. Professor Gad Saad of Concordia University wrote the book The Parasitic Mind on the subject.
Gad Saad explains that postmodernism and similar ideas are appealing because “it liberates me from the shackles of reality” although it is “complete nonsense”. He sheds light how the use of language has been infected to the point where words no longer have meaning. Everything you feel is true must be.
Saad gives an example of a Canadian woman who wore a hijab for 18 days on her college campus to prove that the Canadian culture was Islamophobic. She found that people were nicer to her and more respectful. She did not revise her original conclusion, however. Instead she decided that because people were so tolerant they must have hidden hatred towards Muslims and were overcompensating by being kind.
Another example is of an Israeli doctoral student trying to prove the Israeli Defense Force was rampant with the rape of Palestinian women. Her study did not find a single case of IDF members raping Palestinians. She then concluded that the IDF were racist because they would not rape these ‘other’ women.
In this ideology 2+2 can equal 5, men can be women, and reality will become what you say it is. As postmodernism has spread we have seen the negative results of people believing my truth is more important than the truth. If this is not corrected the end result is a world where everything is subjective and nothing can be accomplished.
Saad describes how to combat this ideology by being a honey badger. Being fierce and aggressive in our defense of truth. Engage people in our lives and don’t walk away from an opportunity. We do not need to be impolite and cause those around us to turn away, but it does mean you should feel offended when others ask you to abandon what you know is true, logical, and reasonable.
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