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The original impetus and format for this was a talk I gave at an Emergent Ventures Unconference. I’ve since made a few small changes. This material is very much mid-flow, and I'm asking others to join in the flow. I reserve the right to continue to make small changes. Do not expect watertight facts or fully explored or explained conclusions. The purpose of this document is to raise more questions and make provocations versus seeking to have the last word on anything.
Farewell enlightenment, hello _____ ?
What is replacing enlightenment thinking? As one measure of what is the dominant philosophy, you could look at who has the most academic citations: Michel Foucault. Postmodernism reigns.
Postmodernity shirks definition, but a "skepticism towards metanarratives" is a good start. In a modern world, there is objective truth and beauty, but in a postmodern world truth is simply bioknowledge: ideas embedded in language which were manufactured by those in power to oppress those not in power.
Truth? There is no truth, only oppression. The only truth is feelings, and the only feelings you can trust are those of the oppressed. Those that are intersectional, holding many oppressed class cards, can see more truth. The main task in society now becomes to root out every last thread of oppression and power structure. Tear down language, politics, gender, national pride, sexual orientation, and race. As well as the systems that perpetuate it like policing. Tear down individuals who perpetuate these ideas too.
Postmodernism itself was largely culturally inert, in that it was so deconstructivist it bordered on absurdism. It realized that you can not tear down without building something else back up, and that thing would indeed, also be, by their own definition, oppressive. It is hard to build a movement that does not have something for people to do. But postmodernism gave birth to critical theory, which did have a drum beat and a direction.
Contrary to modernity which largely divided individuals by their economic productivity, hard working and lazy, critical theory divides society into oppressors and oppressed. Individuals are just crafted by their environments, blank slates that are fed stories. Individuals can be sacrificed at the altar of societal progress (cancel culture). This means that the groups that society has decided you are in define you completely. (identity politics) Any difference in equality of outcome is not about differences in individuals but oppressive culture. The means of power then is controlling language, and controlling the discourse. You can see all of these beliefs strongly at work in our society today. Critical theory, and critical race theory, ascribes to the "one last violent act" theory of social change. The goal of liberalism is the education of the wrong. The goal of critical theory is the extinction of the wrong.
"The postmodern world," Peter Thiel wrote in his essay, The Straussian Moment, "could differ from the modern world in a way that is much worse or much better — the limitless violence of runaway mimesis or the peace of the kingdom of God."
What are the truths and lies that critical theory tells?
The upside: pays lip service to oppression, a reaction to the disparities and sufferings not addressed by modernity. It also addresses the failings of modernity by reintroducing non-rationality, religious, and violent behavior (but still without the tools to control it)
The downside: it underrates economic and technological progress. It does not value individual humans as evidenced by cancel culture. And tells lies of its own: like the myth of diversity.
In some sense critical theory and all its microaggressions teach what eastern and western religion have taught for millenias, that "life is suffering." It just has not yet reached and may never reach the conclusion that "suffering is the way."
In contrast to modernity (see part 2): Critical theory and postmodernism reacted by:
Raising the status of the group
Raising the status of emotion
Raising the status of the body
Raising the status of action
Raising the status of process
Or you could summarize this roughly as: all that matters is the mental and physical health of the group collective. Our feeling matter. And we need to act, act now, do something, do anything. As you may have noticed, critical theory does not generally propose solutions, it emphasizes the process over the conclusion of change.
What will become of critical theory? Will it eat itself? What would lead to its downfall? It is unlikely to be a presentation of facts; 2+2=4 does not persuade. I don't know. Perhaps it will be the psychologists who step up and condemn it as victimizing and catastrophizing, but I doubt that too.
Much of what we took for granted has been upended: most relevant to us, I think the entire definition of progress has shifted. Economic and technological progress are no longer viewed as good things but simply means to extend oppression. Under critical theory, all progress is moral and political. Or another way to say it, if technological and economic progress are dead, all that is left is moral progress and redistribution.
If modernity was the utopic end of history, then critical theory is the dystopic end of history. Critical theory would have you believe the present is so burdened by the past, there is no way out.
Why progress studies, why now
This I believe is why "progress studies" exists now. Progress studies can be seen as a reaction to these forces. Contrary to our society, we, in progress studies, hold that economic progress, fueled to a large degree by technology, is extremely important and should be massively prioritized.
But let's not be naive, progress studies is in direct competition to critical theory and critical theory will punch back: Shannon Dea, a professor of philosophy at Waterloo who teaches gender and social justice said this about progress studies:
"We should be wary about Collison and Cowen’s advice to study the “successful” and train the “brilliant” in order to speed up “progress.” Neither recent nor more distant history suggests that these terms have neutral definitions. To the contrary, they have often been excuses for colonial expropriation and social exclusion, and sometimes alibis for democratic and environmental catastrophe.""
She goes on to say:
"The evolution of university disciplines should emerge not from self-styled “progress engineers” but from research and teaching that balances optimism and curiosity with critical thinking [in the critical theory sense] and responsible engagement of perspectives from across the disciplines."
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I don't believe that hand wringing about the death of modernity will fix it. I don't believe that pure nostalgia in the form of progress porn, aka "the empire state building was built in a year!" will change much either. At a minimum, we can't just complain or pine for the golden years.
If modernity is dead, and critical theory sucks, what is a set of values and beliefs that can credibly give this movement momentum? In Marc Andreessen's recent words, "It's time to build."