Socialism & Postmodernism For Dummies | Stephen Hicks | Modern Wisdom Podcast 171

Now, what the post-moderns are going to be arguing is that we understand there has been a revolution in all of these areas over the course of the last several centuries. We think all of that has come to an end, and we need to go beyond that, uh, and then more normatively, uh, most of them will say, "We think the modern world has been a mistake."

(wind blows) I'm joined by Stephen Hicks. Stephen, welcome to the show.

I appreciate the invitation. Thanks.

Very, very glad to have you on. So, postmodernism and socialism, right? They're words that are thrown around a lot.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And yet I can't define them myself. I don't... if you asked me to tell you what are... what do these words mean, I couldn't-

Right.

... give you a definitive answer, and I don't think many other people could either. So, can you?

Well, fair enough. Yes, uh, all of those are high-level abstractions, and, uh, we're, we're a smart species. We take huge amounts of information in about the complicated world, uh, and so it is a process to go through to, to, uh, to define any high level of abstraction. Now, those two are, are not unique. If you try to define liberalism or conservatism-

Right.

... or even Christianity or religion or Islam, ag- again, there are going to be lots of variations and, uh, uh, lots of things that are being included in those concepts. So, you should expect that it has to be some work, right, before, uh, a definition arises. Now, to take, uh, postmodernism first, the, the labeling is well-chosen. I didn't originate the term, but if you just break it down, post-modern, right? So that means we understand what post is. It comes after or it's a replacement, right, of, and then modernism. So, what do we take modernism to be? Then we start to break that one down. Well, different areas of inquiry, literature, history, philosophy, they often use labels like that differently. So I'm a philosopher by training, and I do history of philosophy. So, I am using it the way, uh, philosophers and historians will use modernism. And basically, that means the last 500 years or so of history, especially in the, uh, the m- uh, the Western world. And that makes sense because if you look at what was going on in the world 500 years ago, well, it's within a generation of Columbus crossing the ocean, and that's a game changer, right? (laughs) Uh, on all sorts of dimensions. It is the generation of the High Renaissance. So, we have Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, uh, uh, uh, Raphael, uh, Titian, and other, uh, revolutionary artists who are functioning. So, the art world is changing dramatically. It's going to be the century in which, uh, Vesalius is publishing his anatomical work. So, we have a first study of how the human body actually works. It's Copernicus coming up with the idea of the sun being at the center of the system instead of the Earth. So, modern physics and astronomy are being revolutionized. It's, uh, uh, the, the century of... actually in the 15-teens, Martin Luther and the beginnings of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. So, it, it makes sense that historians and philosophers were saying, "You know, there's a huge amount going on in all of these sectors. The world is being upended and so forth." So, we're into the modern world. Uh, we are global. We're doing religion differently. We're doing science differently. Uh, we are going to be starting to think about, uh, politics and economics differently, and, and art is changing. So, that's what we mean by the modern world. Now, what the post-moderns are going to be arguing- (smacks lips) and, is that we understand there has been a revolution in all of these areas over the course of the last several centuries. We think all of that has come to an end, and we need to go beyond that. Uh, and then more normatively, uh, most of them will say, "We think the modern world has been a mistake, or that all of those revolutions that have occurred have led to negative, disastrous, pathological results, and so we need to transform society in, in another direction." Now, um, to try to, uh, summarize even more quickly, what they will typically then say is the modern world is marked by, uh, capitalism in economics that replaced feudalism. It's been marked by, uh, an effort to have Democratic, Republican politics, again replacing feudalism. Uh, and they're going to argue that we think both of those are fundamentally flawed and/or mistaken. So, all of the leading post-modernists will be, uh, anti-Democratic, Republican, and that's why we see a lot of authoritarianism and the, the worst versions of political correctness. And rather than solving our differences socially and politically through voluntary methods, you see a, a dramatic increase among post-modern friendly people in adversarial, in-your-face, uh, outright authoritarian types of tactics. They're also, uh, to a man and woman, anti-capitalist, anti-free market. So, you will see all of those criticisms that the modern economic world is a disaster. It exploits the poor. It, uh, has, uh, dr- dramatic inequalities, all of which are, are, are sickly and so forth.... you know, the post-moderns will argue that the modern world has also been marked by high science and high technology, but they will, uh, mount an argument that, uh, science and technology, the results are negative. The dangers outweigh, or they will be making arguments that, uh, science is just a, a, a male way of thinking, or a White way of thinking, so you'll get racial and gender attacks on the scientific and technological project. But also you'll find that the modern world has been, uh, marked by a strong amount of individualism, you know, the individual rights to life, liberty, a pursuit of happiness, pursue your own dream, become an entrepreneur, high levels of tolerance for other people of different political persuasions, different religious persuasions as well. But that individualism that underlies much of modernity, the post-moderns, they disagree with that as well. That's why you find the rise of identity politics and, uh, and, and, and the post-moderns want to organise and see people as members of groups. You're primarily a member of your racial group, or your ethnic group, or your gender group, and it's your group identities that make you who you are. It's not individual choices, and so on. So, uh, modern world individualism, science, technology, freedom in markets, uh, liberal democratic politics, the post-moderns reject all of them and want to replace them with something else. So that's, uh, a few minutes on post-modernism. Uh, how's that?