Postmodernism is a Vile Cancerous Doctrine? - A Response to Mark Kingwell

On December 9th, 2017, Mark Kingwell, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and regular contributor to the Globe and Mail wrote a piece entitled, 'No, postmodernism at universities isn’t a vile, cancerous doctrine'. In it, he appears to argue that post-modernism and its scepticism of global progress and meta-narratives could be an antidote to Trump and other right-wingers in our midst, writing:

I mean someone who says things and then denies he said them; someone who has his hired flacks defend notions such as "alternative facts"; someone who uses claims about freedom to invoke hatred and suppression of views he doesn't like... That's actual silencing, not just the disapproval of bad ideas that's the baseline cost of talking to intelligent, critical people. Where I work, if you say something dumb, somebody will call you on it. How about that?

You see, the belligerence observed on college campuses across North America are examples of students standing up against some tyranny or other. The highfalutin technical jargon wielded by such students that has been cultivated in the classrooms are the tools needed to speak truth to power.

In fact, at the end of the piece, Kingwell asserts that post-modernism is about challenge and critical thinking - to stand up to those 'who utter falsehoods or behave intolerably'. 

I couldn't  help but think that a certain choir was being preached to. In addition, I also got a sense that the piece was not so much a defence of post-modernism, per se, but rather a jab at a particular someone... and that someone being Jordan Peterson. Of course Kingwell railed against Trump in the article, but Trump has never commented on post-modernism, Peterson, however, does so all of the time, and does so with the lingo utilised in this piece. I don't want to go down that route as I disagree with Peterson somewhat on this issue, as well.

Below is a response to Kingwell - knowing full-well that he didn't intend to come out with a treatise on post-modernism and its virtues.

For those who want things bite-sized, check out the TL;DR below. For the rest, The LONG FORM contains a fuller account of my position. Post-modern/ism is henceforth 'po-mo'.

TL;DR:

• Po-mo isn't a vile doctrine, per se: it's the result of Enlightenment naturalism undermining our hitherto held rational entitlement to various beliefs in various discourses. 
• The critical enterprises of the natural sciences disenchanted the world and disillusioned humans, and WWI & WWII compounded the disillusionment.
• Po-mo stresses the contingency of our beliefs and calls into question the content of those beliefs.
• Po-mo exploded in the universities in the 1960's and has pervaded universities again: there has been an explosion of 'critical' disciplines that utilise po-mo methodology for political purposes.
• Po-mo's political projects privilege marginalised groups and generate resentment within its critical framework.  

LONG FORM:

I agree with Kingwell that po-mo isn’t a vile, cancerous doctrine, but I do not think that it’s innocent either. Also, it appears to me that po-mo is regaining influence in our current climate, and given its track record, I find this upsurge to be dubious and worth exploring and contesting. 

To the first point, I think po-mo is a hangover from Enlightenment naturalism duking it out with Enlightenment rationalism resulting in disillusionment. The great unmaskers (Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault) excavated hitherto taken-for-granted discourses and showed how certain beliefs are linked to events that provide no evidence for what is believed thereby undermining what rational entitlement one thought one had for the belief. 

I don’t have an issue with such arguments from contingency, as it were, though one has to be careful with the genetic fallacy. I do, however, think the wrong lesson was learnt from the unmaskers, and as such the disposition of contemporary po-mo, as well as its expansion, is troublesome to me.There's this Nietzsche quote that I love, 'that which is shaky should be pushed over'. I think the sentiment of this aphorism is exhibited by po-mo. It's busy pushing things over without concerning itself with developing alternatives, and this can only be done from a position of relative security and safety (read: privilege).

Post-modernism has exploded into numerous disciplines: critical race theory, subaltern and postcolonial studies, women’s and gender studies, whiteness studies, queer theory, as well as certain aspects of anthropology, law, sociology, and philosophy. 

Such areas are permeated by a boilerplate scepticism towards universalising discourses in favour of multiplicity and difference, as well as modernising discourses and their defence of rationality, science, objectivity, etc. As such, there is an insistence on purging social theory of its Eurocentric bias, and the claim that Western theories are heavily infused with this bias. This, I think, throws out a lot of baby with the bath water.

The biggest problem with po-mo is that it seeks to undermine the very areas that ought to be retained: the reality of human nature; the centrality of certain universal aspirations which issue from this human nature, the need for abstract, universal concepts that are valid across cultures, the necessity of rational and reasoned discourse, etc.

To me, this isn’t ‘critical thinking’ – this is just a new orthodoxy, and is based in resentment. One can see this in the intense identification with the problems of marginalised groups and the resultant attacks on the ‘dominant culture’, and I think this is where people get the idea that po-mo is ‘vile’ or ‘cancerous’ as resentment is hardly a positive emotion or motivation. As an aside, I have this bone-deep suspicion that people who are indignant often are so for the pleasure of it and not because they want to solve a problem.

I take there to be a difference between po-mo theory and how po-mo theory is used. But I also think that one can evaluate something by the fruit that it bears.