In my reading, Queer Theory has a touch of Marxism—as had all of the fashionable academic theories of the time—but is mostly derived from postmodernism.
In my reading, Queer Theory has a touch of Marxism—as had all of the fashionable academic theories of the time—but is mostly derived from postmodernism.
And yet postmodernism is itself rooted in Marxism, Derrida claimed his project was always indebted to Marxism and Foucault of course salivated with the hope of watching the oppressed enact bloody revenge on their supposed oppressors.
Postmodernism is just another way the endless assault on the Enlightenment and liberal democracy shape-shifted to shed historical baggage, especially once workers and unions were supplanted by the vanguard of professors and moved inside to the cozy confines of the University.
In fact it's easy to show: postmodernism styles itself as opposed to any and all sweeping meganarratives, and yet 1) that in itself is a sweeping meganarrative, and 2) its entire project comes drenched in heavy moralism and its own sweeping meganarrative about all of human history being one uninterrupted power struggle and/or hate crime.
Marxism itself proved to be too dull an axe to chop down the tree called the Enlightenment; thus postmodernism was created to be a nihilistic acid to hopefully burn through all our social/human roots to make the tree collapse more easily.
Woke Marxism, of which critical queer theory is a part, is the latest mutation of Marxism. It is still Marxism in all essential ways and has the same goals as Marxism. I suggest reading the books written by Paul Kengor, PhD, academic council for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
One correction. Postmodernism is merely hypermodern in that it takes the presuppositions of the Enlightenment to their logical and inevitable conclusions. Nihilism was already implicit in Hume’s skepticism, anarchy was always going to be the destination of Rousseau’s romanticized notion of human nature and Voltaire’s autonomy of reason. There’s a reason why the French Revolution produced a bloodbath of terror leading to the rise of a totalitarian dictator, while the American Revolution brought forth the Constitution and the most free society in history. The American colonies were saturated in the assumptions of a basic Christian worldview via the Puritans and the massive influence of the Great Awakening revivals. France’s revolution was based on the Enlightemnent that historian Peter Gay correctly notes was the revival of pre-Christian Greek paganism. The result speaks for itself. Secular values are never going to be adequate to produce the cultural renewal required to save and preserve our constitutional republic. We’d best not forget it.
I cannot find anything to do with your comment except to completely agree with it. Humans crave the sacred, and if they cannot find (and gather around) a settled, sane and healthy sacred, they will find some twisted (and usually malevolent) funhouse version.
It's too bad that the sacred turns out to be the largest and most important of Chesterton's fences, and now that it's been torn down we have to live in the wreckage. (And live with absurd substitutions, most of them involving self-worship).
I can't decide it it's because of Paradise Lost (Satan the Rebel did seem pretty cool) or because we stopped teaching/reading Paradise Lost...(I'm sort of mostly kidding)
The postmodernists and the Marxists hated each other, for good reason. The former denies that reality exists, the latter insists that reality is permanently oppressive. The former says reality can be altered by our words; the latter says it must be altered by revolution.
What we're living through today is a weird hybrid: Marxist group identity grafted onto a postmodern rootstalk. Pray the graft doesn't take.
I fear that this "revolution" will end as all previous revolutions have ended: engulfed in extreme and justified, cruel, and massive violence no matter what the original adherents originally intended: (See France, Russia, China...etc.)
In my reading, Queer Theory has a touch of Marxism—as had all of the fashionable academic theories of the time—but is mostly derived from postmodernism.
And yet postmodernism is itself rooted in Marxism, Derrida claimed his project was always indebted to Marxism and Foucault of course salivated with the hope of watching the oppressed enact bloody revenge on their supposed oppressors.
Postmodernism is just another way the endless assault on the Enlightenment and liberal democracy shape-shifted to shed historical baggage, especially once workers and unions were supplanted by the vanguard of professors and moved inside to the cozy confines of the University.
In fact it's easy to show: postmodernism styles itself as opposed to any and all sweeping meganarratives, and yet 1) that in itself is a sweeping meganarrative, and 2) its entire project comes drenched in heavy moralism and its own sweeping meganarrative about all of human history being one uninterrupted power struggle and/or hate crime.
Marxism itself proved to be too dull an axe to chop down the tree called the Enlightenment; thus postmodernism was created to be a nihilistic acid to hopefully burn through all our social/human roots to make the tree collapse more easily.
Yes, agreed. But it's Marxism that's shorn of its Marxism.
Maybe it's the same beast just with a heart transplant? Maybe it has the essence of Marxism just updated/mutated w new dogma for a new time and place?
Sorry to quibble!
Love your work!
Woke Marxism, of which critical queer theory is a part, is the latest mutation of Marxism. It is still Marxism in all essential ways and has the same goals as Marxism. I suggest reading the books written by Paul Kengor, PhD, academic council for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
One correction. Postmodernism is merely hypermodern in that it takes the presuppositions of the Enlightenment to their logical and inevitable conclusions. Nihilism was already implicit in Hume’s skepticism, anarchy was always going to be the destination of Rousseau’s romanticized notion of human nature and Voltaire’s autonomy of reason. There’s a reason why the French Revolution produced a bloodbath of terror leading to the rise of a totalitarian dictator, while the American Revolution brought forth the Constitution and the most free society in history. The American colonies were saturated in the assumptions of a basic Christian worldview via the Puritans and the massive influence of the Great Awakening revivals. France’s revolution was based on the Enlightemnent that historian Peter Gay correctly notes was the revival of pre-Christian Greek paganism. The result speaks for itself. Secular values are never going to be adequate to produce the cultural renewal required to save and preserve our constitutional republic. We’d best not forget it.
I cannot find anything to do with your comment except to completely agree with it. Humans crave the sacred, and if they cannot find (and gather around) a settled, sane and healthy sacred, they will find some twisted (and usually malevolent) funhouse version.
It's too bad that the sacred turns out to be the largest and most important of Chesterton's fences, and now that it's been torn down we have to live in the wreckage. (And live with absurd substitutions, most of them involving self-worship).
I can't decide it it's because of Paradise Lost (Satan the Rebel did seem pretty cool) or because we stopped teaching/reading Paradise Lost...(I'm sort of mostly kidding)
Cheers and thanks...
The postmodernists and the Marxists hated each other, for good reason. The former denies that reality exists, the latter insists that reality is permanently oppressive. The former says reality can be altered by our words; the latter says it must be altered by revolution.
What we're living through today is a weird hybrid: Marxist group identity grafted onto a postmodern rootstalk. Pray the graft doesn't take.
I fear that this "revolution" will end as all previous revolutions have ended: engulfed in extreme and justified, cruel, and massive violence no matter what the original adherents originally intended: (See France, Russia, China...etc.)