The post focuses on a brief background of Postmodernism and the difference between the aforementioned philosophy and Marxism. Neo-Marxism is replaced by Marxism as the former incorporates several ideas from the latter, thereby making it a sort of an extensive version with differences, which will be elaborated in some other posts.
A specific observation within some Conservative, Far-Right circles is the frequent usage of the term Postmodern Neo-Marxism which is just another manifestation in social media, with some ludicrous notions unrelated to the concept like:
- Marxists infiltrating academia.
- A group of Marxists trying to influence Western Civilization in a way to annihilate it.
- The same group of Postmodern Neo-Marxists used Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Diversity Quotas as tools to help in the subversion of the civilization and similar misconceptions.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. What most of the idealogues often overlook, is that the terms along with the exordium are way much dissimilar. So it's better to rather understand the provenance and the discrepancies between the two philosophies than use some mere juxtaposition of two concepts.
Postmodernism’s earliest roots can be traced back to the Enlightenment era when Immanuel Kant was a staunch sceptic of what is generally known as pure reason. Nietzsche later castigated the Christian values promoting reason during his prime and objective morality which was influenced by religion. Postmodernism is simply the continuation of the
the very aggressive castigation of cultural pillars of the West; the castigation that borders on Nihilism and complete denial of objective truths and morality. The philosophical movement gained momentum in the 1970s with the arrival of French intellectuals like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and others. As the name itself goes, Postmodernism rejects modernity to a vast extent. It accentuates the problems of the modern world regarding the socially constructed narratives which seem vague or even unimportant. It generally consists of constant contradictions, and scepticism towards the functioning of modern society through critiquing each reality-based narrative out there.
[Derrida and Foucault are still recognized for their pioneering in the Postmodernist movement]
There are some interesting features of this philosophical movement to be noted here.
- There’s no absolute truth, objective morality- Postmodernists generally imply that truth and morality are relatively mere social constructs so the facts and falsehoods/right and wrong are generally interchangeable.
- Not having answers or ideas to acquire those answers is tolerable and isn’t always necessary.
- Logic, Rationality, Science and Technology, are good and useful but they’re not sufficient enough to provide solutions to societal problems in the long run. Postmodernists even go a step ahead and believe that the misguided pursuit of Science and Technology can be inimical for the human race in posterity.
- All sorts of perspectives are either relativistic or pluralistic. Postmodernists argue that one cannot view things in a fence-sitting way all the time and deny any sort of objective perspective while merely labelling it as just another human construct. They rather believe in the multiplicity of various perspectives for a clearer understanding.
- The Postmodernist critique of any authority- social or moral, is rooted in the notion that people have the proclivity to control others through various means and hence the support for authority is nugatory at best.
- Rejection of all sorts of Grand Narratives. But before I proceed further, what exactly are these Grand Narratives anyway?
Let me state something which might sound politically familiar.
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
Reading the aforementioned quote, political aficionados especially those associated with the Left will instantly think of Marxism. But if we look at the overall connotation of the quote, it appears obvious that Marxism as a Modernist philosophy emphasizes strongly on Class. The very emphasis makes Class a Grand Narrative of Marxism, which simply means a central theme of the entire philosophy.
Postmodernists believe that narratives based on a one-dimensional, universal notion often fail to understand the local perspectives of the issue. Interestingly enough, Jean-François Lyotard, another prominent French intellectual known for his works analyzing Postmodernism, had highlighted the scepticism of Postmodernism towards such narratives in his work The Postmodern Condition; A Report on Knowledge:
Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodernism as incredulity toward metanarratives. … The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language … Where, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?
Instead of accepting such Grand Narratives, Postmodernists try to replace them with narratives describing the local contexts and social diversity, which are more commonly known as metanarratives.
[A perfect description of Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern society in a nutshell.]
Postmodernism’s influence on literature has been renowned for reflecting the social viewpoints post World War 2 through themes related to current events while conveying some important socio-economic messages. Postmodern literature generally involves the constant use of irony and even dark humour. Generally, it rejects any meaning in their works while highlighting either multiple meanings or no meaning at all.
Now, how is Postmodernism different from Marxism on the philosophical ground?
To put it simply-Marxism is philosophically based on a universal narrative, whereas Postmodernism rejects all such narratives and focuses on the decentralized form of it. Contradictory to Postmodernism which accepts the pluralities in ideologies and perspectives, Marxists are against the Postmodernist acceptance of pluralities. What Marxists want instead, is a single ideology which makes sense of that single most important aspect of politics and society. Thus pluralism not only encourages variations, it also ends up with a plurality of competing ideologies. And that of course, is extremely unhelpful to Marxists because they see the Marxism vs Capitalism ideological battle as being a primary battle, and the presence of competing ideologies ruins this very battle.
Secondly, what is the critique of Marxism from a Postmodernist perspective?
As mentioned earlier, Marxism is a Grand Narrative in itself which attempts to explain the reality of social exploitation through Class Struggle. Postmodernism, known for its scepticism towards anything that explains reality, rejects Marxism due to its scientific nature towards explaining something which Postmodernists simply slam as something unnecessary.
Marxists have their share of remonstrations against Postmodernism due to several reasons:
- Marxists generally view Postmodernism as a Bourgeoisie philosophy, which fails to address the problems of society as a whole through mere repudiation of actually existing narratives on which the social problems are based.
- The Postmodernist realization of truth itself being a construct makes it intellectually implausible for academics to participate in a political argument that would have “privileged” any one model of learning over another. If everything is a construct, then how come political struggles are even a thing?
- Even though Postmodernists attempt to use metanarratives for understanding things from a non-universal perspective, Marxists believe that Postmodernism failed to address the very metanarratives concerning Late Capitalism and the inevitable Globalization.
- Derrida as a Postmodernist was known for the line “there is nothing outside the text”, through which he argued that knowledge in general is not related to any objective reality but to itself alone. Marxist critics of Derrida view his statement as self-defeating and further argue that it undermines the notion that objective reality itself be comprehended as well. In other words, ultimately there is no reality “outside the text”. There might be a word for dog, or cat, but according to Derrida, these concepts are merely the abstract and subjective creations of the human mind and do not have any relation to any real cat or dog, and hence they lose all meaning.
- Foucault’s main objection to Marxism was that it was Scientific. He had mentioned,
“If we have any objection against Marxism, it lies in the fact that it could effectively be a science.”[20]
He further states in the same text,
“Nor does it basically matter all that much that this institutionalisation of scientific discourse is embodied in a university, or, more generally, in an educational apparatus, in a theoretical-commercial institution such as psycho-analysis or within the framework of reference that is provided by a political system such as Marxism; for it is really against the effects of the power of a discourse that is considered to be scientific that the genealogy must wage its struggle.”[21]
Foucault being a Moral Relativist, even argued that each among the oppressing and the oppressed classes has its standards of morality, so what’s naturally correct for one group might not be necessarily the same for the other group. Marxists view Foucault’s notion as unscientific and even counter-revolutionary due to the rejection of Class Politics and existing scientific discourses. To sum up, the Postmodernist rejection of the scientific arguments regarding how social structures develop is contradictory to the Marxist understanding of society. It's obvious why Marxism and Postmodernism don’t go well with each other and the fact that both Marxists and Postmodernists have always been critiquing each other in the academia proves it.
Among the Marxian opprobria of Postmodernism, Fredric Jameson has brilliantly critiqued the movement in his work Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, which provides a good analysis of Postmodernism from a Marxian perspective. Jürgen Habermas, a prominent analytical Marxist associated with the Frankfurt School for his works related to Critical theory, has critiqued Postmodernism and has its entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
In all fairness, both Postmodernism and Marxism/neo-Marxism are undeniably antithetical to each other. Unless anyone watches an unhealthy load of balderdash by culture warriors regarding the mentioned concept, there isn’t any reason to be unable to differentiate between the two philosophies.
