Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

Just finished reading this book. It took me about a week of very leisurely reading. The book is about 200 pages. This is how philosophy should be written, brief and to the point. People like me do not have a lot of time on our hands to pour through thick philosophical tomes hoping to discover one grain of wisdom in a sea of verbiage. What makes this book special is that every page, every word counts. This is not some superficial popularization, but a serious book filled with important ideas and serious implication for the modern world. This is intellectual history written like a novel, and it reads like a novel. It's a dark novel, unfortunately, but there is reason for hope. The story it tells is of how postmodernism evolved from its dual roots of socialist utopianism and counter-enlightenment philosophy to become the dominant intellectual force in today's universities. Beyond being just an intellectual history, the book represents a call to action for all those who value their Enlightenment heritage to articulate and defend the premises upon which the Enlightenment was built, but which were never fully articulated. In this book, Enlightenment doesn't remain some historical abstraction, but a great movement that has brought us individualism, science, technology, capitalism and all the fruits of the progress in all these fields. It's something that's worth defending, and I hope this book is read widely enough to make an impact in that direction.

This book should be in every student's backpack. In the post-modern intellectual battleground in which each student find himself submerged - and sometimes drowning - this book offers essential intellectual self-defence for every student who still cares to think. No matter if you already know every answer to all the sundry irrationalities you face every day - herewith is a comprehensive summary of your intellectual enemy that for the first time clearly and comprehensively puts each of the post-modern heroes in their place. Why is that so important? Well, what do you feel when you watch a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis? You watch it greet the sun, spread its wings and almost give thanks to existence for its rebirth. Imagine then another human being gleefully stamping their boot on that reborn butterfly, smilingly stamping the life out of it. Such is the situation in many places of academe. This book gives a defence to the fragile butterfly of the intellect. One of the worst periods of my own life was spent at Auckland's Architecture School where I found myself being taught by intelligent human beings, many of whom seemed somehow intent on snuffing out young students' sense of certainty and their joy in learning about ideas and creating great art. I watched as many students became either irrational automatons emulating the noises made by these lecturers, or gave up in disgust - often questioning themselves and their own ability. They were crushed. That situation was not unique to my own alma mater - it pertains to nearly every grove of academia in the Western world. This book explains the mentality of scum who earn a pay-cheque by gleefully crushing impressionable young minds, and the strategies they employ to do it. The book is a "great but very scary read." Written like an adventure story, it guides the reader confidently and clearly through the intellectual history of the last three-hundred years in order to explain why the `new intellectual age' we find ourselves in is in most respects a toxic Age of Crap. My only gripe is that the adventure story does not end with a happy ending - although Ayn Rand and the Objectivist antidote to this intellectual poison are implicitly present on every page, where I expected their explicit appearance at the conclusion Stephen delivers only the truism that "what is still needed is a refutation of these [post-modern] historical premises, and an identification and defense of the alternatives to them." Here would have been an obvious opportunity to send the reader to cleaner Objectivist pastures elsewhere in which this work is being done. A recommended reading list would have been a welcome addition - perhaps he intends to set up such a thing online? In any case, as with the recommendations given by others, this is "not a book review but flat-out endorsement." In many respects Stephen's book is a much-needed update of Rand's essay "For the New Intellectual' but this time expanded and with footnotes - it

This is an enthusiastic endorsement of Stephen R. C. Hicks? Explaining Postmodernism. It is some great but very scary read. Professor Hicks has written a sweeping yet very readable explanation of why contemporary intellectuals embrace postmodernism. This is the position widely championed in academic circles?from philosophy, literature, law and the social sciences?that holds that there is no truth, no reality, no clear meaning, no understanding and, most of all, no value in relying on human reason for any purpose whatsoever. Most folks probably heard of this movement only rarely and indirectly. They hear about multiculturalism, the view that no culture is better than any other, all viewpoints no matter where they originate are worthy of respect. They learn about it by brushing up against political correctness, which is a paradoxical aspect of postmodernism since it assumes that saying and doing certain things is wrong and ought to be avoided. But, of course, postmodernism holds that nothing can be shown to be right or wrong. So how could anything be shown to be politically correct or incorrect? Well, just so?nothing can be so shown but those who hold political power can still insist and force the rest of us to obey. Not because they can reasonably claim that their edicts are correct, true or right but because they prefer them. Yes, that?s all there is to postmodernist views on how we should act, namely, the preferences of those who get away with running the show. Professor Hicks? wonderful account of how we ended in this fix?whereby nothing is deemed to be true or right or good but all we have is what influential people impose on the rest of us?is a tour de force of clear historical research. The most important figures in Western intellectual history show up, for better and for worse?most for worse?and among them the greatest villain is Immanuel Kant, the 18th Century German philosopher who brought about what has been called a Copernican Revolution. The substance of this revolution is that it is not reality that gives us the contents of our minds but our minds?or some great Mind (if you listen to Hegel)?that produces reality. Yes, you read it right?the postmodernists do not think there is a real world for us to know. Instead everything is really invented, by everyone?s?or some obscure being?s?subjective mind. So there is no right way to interpret a novel, poem or even a scientific theory. It all depends on who is doing the ?interpreting,? which is to say, who is injecting his or her creative ideas into the stream of ideas of a society. There is no reality out there, however, to show whether these ideas are good or bad, sound or unsound. And if one protests that this is nonsense, postmodernists will quickly retort that one is deluded to think that ideas must be logical, reasonable. No, that?s just a prejudice. That is what major thinkers believe these days, all around the Western world. Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton?you na

When speaking with a colleague about this book, he was surprised to find out that Postmodernism has such a storied history including the likes of Immanuel Kant and Bertrand Russell. And many readers also will be surprised to see the intellectual pedigree that Postmodernism boasts. Of course, Dr. Hicks isn't arguing that Kant or Russell were Postmodernists--but what he does in this quick and highly readable book is to show how Postmodernism evolved out of the ideas and historical trends of the last few hundred years in philosophy. Tracing the development of various ideas in epistemology and politics, Hicks finds the roots of Postmodernism in Kant, Rousseau, and other Counter-Enlightenment thinkers. The primary thesis of this book is that "the failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible, and the failure of socialism made postmodernism necessary." The history of modern epistemology has, by and large, failed at defending reason as one's means of knowing the world. The failure of socialism, both economically and morally, lead to, as Hicks calls it, a "crisis of faith" among many in the Left. In order to maintain their belief in the superiority of socialism over capitalism, many theorists used the failures of epistemology to eschew reason, reality, and truth. One now no longer has to deal with the evidence that shows the superiority of capitalism. Thus, we end up with the nihilistic, skeptical, and relativistic Postmodernism dominating much of academia and the political left.Dr. Hicks is able to condense abstract and complicated ideas for a non-philosopher to understand without losing the essence of the ideas. He competently and clearly presents the ideas and positions without ever degenerating into ad hominem or resorting to polemics. As such, I highly recommend this wonderfully written and highly readable work to anyone--philosopher or not--with an interest in the history of ideas or an interest in understanding postmodernism.