Anti-Intellectual Intellectualism

Postmodernism is legitimized Calvinball. In a rational world, that would be the end of it, in ours, it becomes a federally sanctioned and teacher's union approved kindergarten curriculum.

Postmodernist based philosophies (like Queer Theory and others) attempt to reduce terms like “man” and “woman” to job descriptions and treat the sexual indoctrination of children as young as five years-old as career counseling.

The two philosophies of postmodernism and deconstructionism have stripped the guardrails from any legitimate, rational inquiry about the human condition and have reduced the search for what it means to be human to an anti-intellectual, counterfactual snipe hunt.

Loosely defined (because postmodernism denies concrete definitions) postmodernism is:

“A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one’s own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.”

Now on to deconstructionism.

First advanced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, deconstructionism, a term tied very closely to postmodernism, is a challenge to the attempt to establish any ultimate or secure meaning in a text. Basing itself in language analysis, it seeks to “deconstruct” the ideological biases (including, but not limited to, gender, racial, economic, political, cultural) and traditional assumptions that infect all histories, as well as philosophical and religious “truths.”

Deconstructionism is based on the premise that much of human history, trying to understand and define reality has led to various forms of domination (there is the idea that language produces the oppressed/oppressor binary necessary for class conflict) of nature, of people of color, of the poor, of homosexuals, transexuals, etc. Like postmodernism, deconstructionism finds concrete experience more valid than abstract ideas and, therefore, refutes any attempts to produce a history, or an ultimate truth which must be accepted or obeyed by all.

Both “philosophies” are based on the following:

• There is no universal or objective truth.

• There are no rules or laws that bind.

• History has no value in attempting to define truth.

• Reality can only be understood in the terms of the beholder – since truth cannot be objectively understood, it can only be experienced by the beholder and is therefore relative to that person’s point of view at that specific point in time and under those exact circumstances.

Postmodernism and deconstructionism form the basis for a sort of philosophical Calvinball tournament.

I have never heard of a more idiotic attempt to explain reality than this bunch of pseudo-intellectual garbage. When I think of postmodernism, I always get the image of a 32-year-old Timothy Leary wanna-be career student, writing his doctoral thesis after inhaling a bowl or two to mellow out the harshness of the mind-expanding LSD he just dropped.

But the real test for any theory or philosophy is that it can withstand any inquiry based on its own precepts.

Probably won’t be a surprise to anyone with a brain that neither postmodernism nor deconstructionism can withstand the application of their own rules. Postmodernism is “post” because it denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody – a characteristic of the so-called “modern” mind.

Postmodernism exists in contradiction. It is the most anti-intellectual intellectualism known to date.

The paradox of postmodernism is this: in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philosopher Richard Tarnas stated, postmodernism “cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself.”

• Even the biggest fool knows that there are objective truths. Something either exists or it doesn’t. Fire burns, water is wet, a rock is still rock no matter if you call it a dog.

• The postmodernist claims that there are no rules and words have no meaning is destroyed as they make rules to define their own actions and processes and create their own terms with finite definitions.

• History is real. Things happened. There were consequences. People wrote it down.

• Reality is objective and real. Gravity is real. If you don’t eat, you will die. If you decide to stop breathing, you will die. If you stand in front of a tornado, you will likely die (or wake up surrounded by Munchkins).

In my opinion, postmodernists and deconstructionists are the creation of a successful and productive society. They exist as a luxury appendage to a society that produces more than it consumes, thereby providing the time and money for these “intellectuals” to tear down the very mechanism that allows them to exist. This type of reductive and destructive reasoning is totally worthless to society. It helps no one in understanding anything and serves only as a convenient excuse for the harsh reality of the world and the interactions of its inhabitants.

Both postmodernism and deconstructionism are the result of individuals seeking to explain their lack of success, lack of socioeconomic mobility and lack of meaningful achievement in the face of the objective success of productive members of society and individual self-determination. They are incapable of coming to terms with their own limitations; therefore, they must construct an alternative explanation for their lack of tangible value to society through a system of pseudo-logic – but none of this it has any basis in reality – it all is based in a fantasy construction.

And yet, the children of our society are being subjected to postmodernist curriculums.

If we, as a culture and society can’t stop this foolishness, it will end us.