November 2020: Can America Be Saved from Postmodernism?

…does almost ceaselessly repeat
‘there is some shit I will not eat’…

~ e e cummings, “i sing of Olaf glad and big”

During the violent anti-police demonstrations, the New York Times, syndicated internationally, model and inspiration for journalists everywhere, has devoted thousands of column inches to stories and opinions that are “virtue signaling” and resolutely politically correct. Same thing during the COVID-19 “lockdown.”

Among hundreds of stories, editorials, and columns: American and European protestors demonstrate nightly for more than two weeks against “police brutality,” “aggressive policing of demonstrators,” and “racial injustice” in America; refusal of police and their unions to “reform;” Democrats preparing legislation for “reform” and “defunding” of police; newspaper editors and professors being destroyed for “racially insensitive remarks.”

And it goes on, day after day: an editorial on the “poetic beauty of protest,” the business section headlined, “Big Business Has Failed Black Americans,” the “Week in Review” with a dramatic cover, “Why Can’t Police Be Accountable to Blacks?” A column, “Police are Rioting, We’ve Got to Talk.”  Half-a-dozen front-page rants about novel ways to put down President Trump.

In the course of a few days, the editorial page editor at the Times was forced out by colleagues who protested his permitting a column by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, advocating military help to quell the civil unrest. The executive editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer resigned because the paper published the headline, “Buildings Matter, Too,” along with a column on rioting. (Reporters were outraged that it equated property damage to human life.) At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, journalists are attacking editors who would not assign a black reporter to cover local protests. (The reporter had tweeted comparing looting to country music fans after a concert.) Economists including Paul Krugman called for dismissal of University of Chicago Prof. Harald Uhlig as editor of Journal of Political Economy, for comparing Black Lives Matter to “flat-earthers” for endorsing calls to “defund” the police.

Who do they think that they are fooling? They intend to rouse readers to urgent realities of American history and American life—to an “existential threat” to the country’s claim to stand for equality before the law; to an existential threat to America’s stability; to a threat to peace under law.

In fact, however, every section of the Times, the entire publication, now proclaims a single ideology.

In fact, however, every section of the Times, the entire publication, now proclaims a single ideology. That ideology is the philosophical “postmodernism” erected on the ruined European foundations of Marxism and melded with radical skepticism, ethical relativism, and anti-individualism. It is the philosophy that for almost a century has immigrated from European universities to American colleges and now dominates the education of students and shapes the views of their professors in the humanities and social sciences, and, increasingly, in the natural sciences.

Arguing against postmodernist doctrines is futile. In summarizing postmodernism, the Encyclopedia Britannica writes: “For postmodernists, reason and logic too are merely conceptual constructs and are therefore valid only within the established intellectual traditions in which they are used.”

To the pervasive influence of postmodernism, we owe:

1. The dogma that society must be viewed, always, as a struggle between oppressors and the oppressed, with the oppressors white men and the oppressed other races, women, ethnic groups, and those on lower socio-economic levels.
2. The dogma that a society’s dominant, ruling philosophical-political ideologies (except for postmodernism?), ideals, and principles merely rationalize oppression in that society. Every work of philosophy and fiction must be “deconstructed” to expose its true agenda of rationalization.
3. The dogma that all journalism, whether its alleged focus is on “news” or opinion, is advocacy. In effect, “advocacy journalism” is redundant, but to call what you do “advocacy journalism” is to be candid.
4. The dogma that it is misguided to demand that arguments relate to reality, be objective, apply a consistent (not relative) standard, and be color-blind. All those are values and standards derived from the European Enlightenment and Age of Reason. All, insist postmodernists, have been shown to be illusions.
5. The dogma that the artistic, literary, and other cultural traditions of America and Europe (“Western Civilization”) are mere affirmations of the existing power structure and preferences of generations of white men and that the “canon” is defended not for any inherent quality but as a bulwark of white male privilege.
6. To fight oppression, it is necessary to valorize artists and thinkers of other races, women, and different “genders”—judging them entirely by their own standards. To judge them according to the canon of Western Civilization is oppression.

(Why “dogmas”? A dogma is an idea, a position, a theory that we are urged (if possible, required) to believe without reference to logic and evidence. By the very nature of postmodernism’s epistemology, its ideology must be dogma.”

All this is played out daily in the pages of leftist postmodernist newspapers and prestigious periodicals like The New Yorker; on most television shows dealing with contemporary affairs; and in American classrooms, climaxing in the college years.

Advocates of postmodernism bear the banner of justice for the oppressed. As a result, they claim the moral high ground against oppression: racism, sexism, xenophobia, “white privilege,” the richest “one percent,” race-motivated police brutality, inequality, discrimination, elitism, exclusion, and “meritocracy.”
 

These sections are chiefly black-focused with stories about blacks because they are the “truly oppressed.” No special attention to Asians or Hispanics.

Every one of these concepts is found dozens of times a day in news stories, editorials, feature stories, documentaries, and opinion columns. No part of the publication has been left out: business, real estate, the arts, fashion, travel, the book review. These sections are chiefly black-focused with stories about blacks because they are the “truly oppressed.” No special attention to Asians or Hispanics.

The demonstrations inspired by the death of George Floyd were inevitable. Postmodernist indoctrination has been ubiquitous for decades in education. Predominantly of college age or slightly older, the marchers were primed with years of nonstop indoctrination by the main transmission belt of postmodernism, the professoriate.

If the demonstrations deteriorated, often, into looting, arson, defacement of monuments, and attacks on police, it is because the protestors view themselves as out-and-out victims—victims of decades and centuries of racism to keep them oppressed. All their personal frustrations, shortcomings, and failures can be referred to oppression. Nor was it any surprise that after a couple of weeks of sustained demonstrations/riots, the media had become a louder and louder chorus of praise for them, criticism of the police, denunciation of American society as racist, and exculpation of the looting, arson, assaults, and murder of police.

Politicians at every level snapped to attention and began acceding to the demands of the demonstrators to curtail police activity, “defund” police work, drop charges against arrested demonstrators, and indict more police for brutality ….

A proposal that keeps popping up—reparations paid to American blacks for slavery, discrimination, and oppression—was revived by Democrats in Congress.

It is a safe bet that the agitation in one form or another will continue right through to the November 2020 election. The demonstrations themselves have become a political campaign, with most stories on aspects of the problem weighted against reelection of Donald Trump.

To quote the Britannica summary, again: “In the 1980s and ’90s, academic advocates on behalf of various ethnic, cultural, racial, and religious groups embraced postmodern critiques of contemporary Western society … postmodernism became the unofficial philosophy of the new movement of “identity politics.”

During the [2016] campaign, the mainstream media destroyed its last remnant of credibility with Americans who entered the campaign favoring Trump, even slightly.

“Identity politics” was the frontline in the 2016 election—a moving barrage fired at Trump for alleged racism, sexism, xenophobia, mocking of “cripples,” anti-gay sentiment, and favoring the rich.  That media strategy failed.

Donald Trump and his supporters replied with fierce counterattacks on the media for “fake news,” bias, and being part of the Democratic campaign. Also, the same media smears were leveled against supporters of Trump—who knew first hand that they were false and malicious. On election night, these Americans voted their own values, not those endlessly touted as politically correct by the media.

During the campaign, the mainstream media destroyed its last remnant of credibility with Americans who entered the campaign favoring Trump, even slightly. For the first time perhaps in U.S. history, voters had access to sources of news and opinion on the internet uncontrolled by “gatekeeper” editors of long-entrenched liberal (and left-liberal) news media. Thousands of websites created with no financial investment rushed to challenge the version of events, opinions, and claim to authority of “the media.” And hundreds of millions of people every day could express their opinions and debate them with others on websites, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Trump himself became a permanent tweeter with tens of millions of followers and so could reply instantly to new media lines of attack before they could gain momentum.

Publishers, editors, and reporters howled “dirty pool!” The contents of Facebook posts, tweets, and one-person websites had not been “fact-checked,” not “edited,” not “vetted.” It was the equivalent of drugs coming on the market without the approval process of the FDA—potentially poisonous! Could this be permitted? On the other hand, could it be opposed without jettisoning protection of the First Amendment? Yes! The big guns swiveled toward Facebook, and, particularly, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook was not journalism! Not reporting, not editorial opinion! It was just a profit-making business!

Well, of course, so is the New York Times, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and so is virtually every other major newspaper, magazine and television program except those on NPR. But didn’t Mark Zuckerburg have a responsibility to suppress “fake news”?  No, not under the First Amendment. In fact, the Times does not have a legal responsibility to suppress “fake news,” except libel.

The left-liberal media staggered under the impact of losing its near-monopoly (“natural,” not legal) to reach millions of readers or viewers. Decisive in this “takedown” was emergence of Breitbart News founded by Andrew Breitbart in September 2009, with a $25K loan from his father. “Walk toward the fire,” Breitbart said. “Don’t worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you … But if you keep going, you’re sending a message to people who are rooting for you …”

By 2016, Breitbart was an internet powerhouse. The mainstream media, from then on, did not get away entirely with anything. Major stories were reported by Breitbart in detail. And very few obscene, tasteless, hate-driven, asinine comments by sundry celebrities—anyone who had a media platform and used it to spew their venom—escaped Breitbart’s notice. Headlines next day: so-and-so folksinger says Trump “as bad at Hitler.”  So-and-so actress says Trump is “a complete asshole.” Breitbart had tumbled to the fact that the incivility, irresponsibility, and sheer emotionalism of the anti-Trump mentality cumulatively was a big story. And every foul-mouthed expression of hostility by implications included those who supported Trump. Your favorite HBO serial actor just said you were supporting “fascism.”

Has all this been a ringing “wake up call” to the postmodernists of the media, who still conceive of themselves as the Broadcasters of the Universe?

The answer is simply “no.”
 

The media with a few exceptions (Breitbart News, Fox News) are preparing for the election battle by purging their staffs of those not wholly politically reliable.

It appears that in 2020 the same strategy is being tried. Why? Because it is not only a strategy, not only an ideology; it is the only concept of the “righteous” and the only philosophical framework of the postmodernists. Traditional American values and principles are “out”—as are those who hold them, such as traditional liberal editors. The media with a few exceptions (Breitbart News, Fox News) are preparing for the election battle by purging their staffs of those not wholly politically reliable. A phrase, a comment, a tweet … is enough to shift concentrated national pressure onto an individual until he “pops”—resigns or is fired from some long-term position.

The coming election will test postmodernism, specifically identity politics, to ascertain if the “victims of oppression” and their postmodernist advocates and sponsors now outnumber those with traditional American values (a.k.a., the “deplorables”). Or if the deplorables, concentrated among older Americans, are no longer numerous enough to elect a president like Donald Trump, whom they elected against all odds given by the postmodernist bookies.

See also: Media Wars: The Battle to Shape Our Minds for a detailed exposition of the issues raised in this essay.

Related Posts:

1. Freedom in a Global Context: What Japanese Individuality and American Groupism Tell Us
2. How the Destruction of Property Rights Made Indigenous People Vassals of the State
3. Is Chinese Culture Opposed to Individualism?

   

About the Author: Walter Donway

Walter Donway contributes to Savvy Street on political economy, science, and trends in fiction, film, and culture. Walter Donway’s most recent book is Donald Trump and His Enemies: How the Media Put Trump in Office (Romantic Revolution Books: New York, September 2017). His Amazon profile can be found here