Daniel Solove over at Prawfsblawg has a very interesting post on the rise of post-modernist rhetoric on the right. I am very much of the persuasion that post-modernism is a method and thus apolitical, and welcome its adaptation by the right wing. Indeed, if there is anywhere they can use it, its in academia where the overwhelming presence of liberal voices makes them the "silenced other" in a very real sense.
Though I must ask, can they please find a better test balloon for this new toy than creationism?
I don't think this is a new phenomenon. Conservatives of a more literary than political shade (e.g., C.S. Lewis, Michael Oakeshott) have held that history is not so much a set of discrete objective facts that merit study, as it is a narrative that should be managed.
ReplyDeleteProgressive PoMo's believe much the same thing; The difference between them and conservative 'post-moderns' is that while the former believe that the narrative can be changed arbitrarily the latter would contain the narrative within the possibilites of immutable human nature.