Hicks, Stephen Ronald Craig. _Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault_, 2004. # Progressive Summary # Key Points - First thesis: Postmodernism is the end result of Kantian epistemology. It is the first ruthlessly consistent statement of the consequences of rejecting reason, those consequences being necessary given the history of epistemology since Kant - Kant limited the operations of reason to phenomena. His motivation was to protect religion, and he cordoned off the noumena as the domain of religion. - Second Thesis: Postmodernism is a response to the crisis of faith of the academic far Left. - In the 1950s, logical positivism had given way to Quine and Kuhn. Nietzsche and Heidegger were embraced by the American academy. This produced the perfect conditions for the rejection of logic and evidence as the failures of socialism began to mount. - Hegel's contribution to post-modernism - Reality is an entirely subjective creation - Contradictions are buiilt into reason and reality - Since reality evolves contradictorily, truth is relative to time and place - The collective, not the individual, is the operative unit - Legacy of the irrationalists (Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Schopenhaur, Nietzsche) for the 20th century - An agreement with Kant that reason is impotent to know reality - An agreement with Hegel that reality is deeply conflictual and/or absurd - A conclusion that reason is therefore trumped by claims based on feeling, instinct, or leaps of faith - A conclusion that the non-rational and the irrational yield deep truths about reality - Heidegger's contribution to post-modernism - Conflict and contradiction are the deepest truths of reality - Reason is subjective and impotent to reach truths about reality - Reason's elements - words and concepts - are obstacles that must be un-crusted, subjected to _Destruktion_, or otherwise unmasked - Logical contradiction is neither a sign of failure nor of anything particularly significant at all - Feelings, especially morbid feelings of anxiety and dread, are a deeper guide than reason - The entire Western tradition of philosophy – whether Platonic, Aristotelian, Lockean, or Cartesian – based as it is on the law of non-contradiction and the subject/object distinction, is the enemy to be overcome - Emotional cores of postmodernism - Dread and guilt (Kierkegaard, Heidegger) - Alienation, victimization and rage (Marx) - Need for power (Nietzsche) - Dark and aggressive sexuality (Freud) - Rousseau (1712-1778) was the ultimate Counter-Enlightenment philosopher. He blamed everything on reason. - In a state of nature, no man had an overwhelming advantage over another. This was probably the most peaceful state we had. - Somehow, reason evolved in us, and it was like opening Pandora’s box. We developed agriculture and metallurgy, and this led to surplus. - "this author should have said that since the state of nature is the state in which the concern for our self-preservation is the least prejudicial to that of others, that state was consequently the most appropriate for peace and the best suited for the human race" - "it is iron and wheat that have civilized men and ruined the human race" - With surplus wealth came hierarchy and the need for property rights, and those on the top controlled everything. Inequality escalated. Humans became competitive and saw each other as enemies. - "all the subsequent progress has been in appearance so many steps toward the perfection of the individual, and in fact toward the decay of the species" - As humans ate too much decadent food, they became less healthy, and now needed doctors and gadgets. - With luxuries came aesthetic standards for beauty, and sex went from a straightforward act of copulation to something exclusive and preferential, awakening jealousy, envy and rivalry. - Reason not only created all the ills of civilization, but it also made humans less compassionate. - "Reason is what engenders egocentrism and reflection strengthens it." - Man is a passionate animal, not a rational one. Passions are the appropriate foundation of society, and religion is the ultimate expression of that passion. - Since we can’t go back to a state of nature, Rousseau felt that we had to have an all-powerful state, with religion at its center. He conceived of society as a body, and all its members had to be subservient to the whole, even on pain of death. - His followers in the French Revolution were the Jacobins. Marat cultivated an unwashed, disheveled look to better live in a state of nature. Robespierre took violence to a new level. By the time he was executed in 1794, France was exhausted, and Napoleon came to fill the power vacuum. - Rousseau’s collectivism was to inspire both the Left and the Right. But the Right collectivists lost World War 2, and the Left had to carry on the mantle of collectivism. - Kant was an admirer of Rousseau. He supposedly missed his normally regimental walks because he was deeply engrossed in reading Emile. - When Napoleon defeated the Germans, Fichte gave a rousing speech and laid the blame on education. He proposed that German education be completely reformed along Rousseaun ideals. - Hegel's favorite reading was also Rousseau. He was fervently against Lockean liberalism. # Resonances # Quotes