Publisher's Synopsis
Postmodern philosophy generally rejects things like rationality and unbiased truth. In recent decades, postmodernism has had a very unhealthy impact on the culture and politics of the West, causing division, mutual mistrust, and an erosion of basic pillars of civilization like the scientific method and free speech. However, if we look closely, we will see that postmodernism, especially its more problematic parts, are rooted in a broader tradition called critical theory, and it is the addition of postmodern ideas to critical theory based movements that has created the current mess. The postmodernist view that illness, gender, sexual orientation, and so on are social constructs is a logical extension of the critical theory view that our existing cultural institutions exist only to maintain the capitalist system. Political postmodernism can thus arguably be seen as just taking critical theory thinking to its logical conclusion. It turns out that, when everything is to be seen as due only to historical circumstances and/or in the service of the establishment, when everything is to be seen through the prism of oppression, when nothing is to be considered simply true or sacred anymore, eventually even the fruit of the Enlightenment and the pursuit of truth itself would be seen in similar light, and what you get is postmodernism.Furthermore, while postmodernism's lack of respect for objective facts is a moral problem, it mainly becomes a political problem through the promotion of subjectivity driven identity politics, which is rooted in the 'radical subjectivity' that Marcuse and other critical theorists have promoted.This book examines the deleterious effects of political attitudes informed by the combination of postmodern theory and critical theory, from multiple stakeholders' point of view. It attempts to offer a solution out of this mess, and back to sanity for the future of humanity.
