A Postmodern Future

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Why should I waste my time worrying about postmodernism? I mean, postmodernism is just some crazy philosophy dreamed up some really odd Frenchmen like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Francois Lyotard. We’ve got real problems that need to be dealt with. Problems like cancel culture, the Black Lives Matter movement, Critical Race Theory (along with all the other critical theories) and identity politics that are tearing our great country apart.

But philosophy is important. It was Enlightenment philosophy that shook up the Western World and created the modern era that we now live in. A philosophy that elevated reason to the pinnacle of our society and created the liberal politics, free markets, scientific progress and technological innovation that overwhelmed the faith and mysticism that had dominated the medieval world. But the changes created by Enlightenment thought brought about a reaction (the Counter-Enlightenment) by those that cherished faith and mysticism including religious scholars. Over the centuries, that reaction morphed into numerous philosophical pathways that sought to unseat the power of reason. Pathways that led through Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Marx among many others.