The Postmodern Iceberg

Given how dangerous postmodernism is, what is to become of us all? How bad is it going to get?

For postmodernism seems essentially the same virus that once infected Nazi Germany.

Luckily, if I’m right, postmodernism is most likely to destroy postmodernism before it becomes strong enough to destroy society as a whole.

For under its current multiculti principles, its proponents are the ones first coming into close contact with incompatible world views.

The left now has Muslims marching alongside Marxist atheists, feminists, transgender activists, black activists, Hispanic immigration activists, and gays. Some of these world views are anathema to one another.

And they certainly are not united in embracing cultural relativism. There is no way Islam works into that equation. The groups being pulled together here are really united only in a shared hatred of one particular world view: “Western civilization,” or more honestly, Judeo-Christian ethics. That is not likely to be sustainable. These groups actually have less in common with one another, in their principles and beliefs, than each does with this “mainstream” culture. Tolerance is a very Christian value.

They are bound to become aware of the incompatibility. There is bound to be culture shock.

This multiculti approach is very different from Fascism. It pitched its appeal to one large group, based on its vaunted supposed homogeneity, and scapegoated a small minority, perhaps 6%. Postmodernism’s current strategy is a good cover for the fact that underlying it is the same philosophy, but given that philosophy, it is less logical, and looks less sustainable. It is pitching its appeal to a variety of smaller groups, each of them stressing homogeneity and purity within themselves, and each incompatible with the others. And it is scapegoating what is still a large minority, “cisgendered heterosexual white males,” perhaps 33% of the population. It is only too likely that their victim will be able to resist. French Canadians, at only 24% of the Canadian population, have been able to do a pretty good job of protecting their interests.

If things have been able to go as far as they have, it is because this large chunk of the electorate have been complacent, busy with their own affairs and not very aware of what is going on. Aided, of course, by a steady diet of postmodernist propaganda in the media and the academy.

But surely we can already see this is changing. Trump is in power in the US. Brexit passed. Macron faces rioting in the streets. Doug Ford just won in Ontario. This kraken is waking up. Not that long ago, you did not hear dissenting voices in the media. Then came Rush Limbaugh. Then came Fox News. Then came social media. Then the Jordan Peterson phenomenon, subverting the academic monolith. Now there are two sides being heard all over the place. There is a growing YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter genre of people declaring themselves “woke,” “red pilled” or “just walking away.” Postmodernism may already have peaked; and the peak of evident craziness it seems to have reached may itself be a sign of desperation. It is in the angry tantrum stage, over not getting its will.

And this is even aside from the extreme potential disunity within their own ranks. Islam is, among all the major world religions, the most absolutist, the most perfectly antithetical to relativism and postmodernism. The prime reason the 9/11 bombers flew airliners into the Twin Towers was to protest Western feminism and gay rights. The postmoderns, in trying to embrace and digest it, were perhaps already showing desperation. A few years ago, the left themselves were foremost in demanding military intervention in Afghanistan and the Middle East to end the hijab, end the supposed subjugation of women, end female genital mutilation. They seem to have swallowed a poison pill; and maybe there is divine justice in that.

And the closer the jihadists get to those holding such relativist ideologies in the flesh, to feminists and gays and atheists and transgenders, the angrier and more violent they are likely to get. Any minute now …

Even apart from Islam, other incompatibilities are becoming obvious. The doctrine of transgenderism is incompatible with feminism. If being male or female is a matter of choice, any question of either oppression or new privileges for women is off the table. Set up an affirmative action program, and men can just declare themselves women and get the same advantage. Bar this, and you are discriminating against them as transgenders. Even demanding they identify themselves as either male or female is now discriminatory, so any affirmative action scheme based on sex is discriminatory in its very premise. If biological men are allowed to compete as women in sports, to cite only one trivial but visible example, Title IX requirements that women’s sports be equally funded become moot, and only an extravagant waste of money. “Genetic” women are not going to win any medals. And women purportedly no longer have a right to the safety of separate bathrooms. Any man can just declare himself a woman, and walk in. It was just this concern that killed the old Equal Rights Amendment, back in the day.

And, of course, if transgenders have this right, what is the justification for denying it to cisgenders? Isn’t that discriminatory in just the same way? In other words, if any man can enter any washroom he likes by declaring himself a transgendered female, it must hold that any man declaring himself a cisgendered male must also have that right. Or else you are discriminating against cisgenders.

Transgenderism is also incompatible with all demands based on racial identity; with either Hispanic, or black, or Native American activism. For if sex is a matter of choice, why not race? Race is a far more dubious and ambiguous classification in biological terms. And what about gay rights: if sex is a matter of choice, why not sexual orientation? The whole basis of gay rights is that nobody can choose to be gay. Lesbians are starting to notice, and openly oppose transgender rights.

Transgenderism seems another poison pill.

And what about immigration activists calling for more and more open immigration? Every new immigrant is potentially a job taken away from a struggling black already here. Or theoretically lowers their wages. Sooner or later, blacks are going to notice.

Nor are recent Hispanic immigrants likely to be big fans of postmodernism and relativism, feminism, gay rights, or Marxism. A lot of them are going to be Catholics. Within their own group, in their own families, they are traditionalist and conservative. Only a shallow cadre of Marxist intellectuals within this group are on board with the postmodernist program: probably a smaller, shallower, less connected cadre than with Anglo whites, now rebelling against the self-appointed experts. As this group becomes better able to connect individually, thanks to social media, the authority of such leaders cannot last.

And the same is true for American Indians/First Nations. The average Indian is pretty conservative in his views. He likes hockey, the military, Christianity, and country and western music. He has almost nothing in common with the handful of people claiming to speak for him. And he may not forever remain idle.

It looks as though the reality began to seep through in the most recent Women’s March. Many state organizations and former leaders, including the founder of the first Women’s March, pulled out, declaring of the current organizers, “they have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform.” This seems largely the clash of the Muslim groups with some of the others. It’s only the tip of the iceberg; but little more sank the Titanic.

It does not seem probable that the postmodern delusion can hold together much longer.

A lot of what is holding it together is peer pressure. It is just as Andersen describes it in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Most people are moral cowards and will just go along with whatever they hear those around them say. The postmodernists have grabbed and long held control of all the megaphones.

That’s the sort of situation that can collapse very suddenly.

The single worst mistake those who oppose postmodernism could make, however, is to fail to make their own coalitions. It would be fatal to begin to demonize Hispanics, or Muslims, or gays, or Indians.

Not to mention, it would be directly against the principles of Judeo-Christian civilization itself, which is what they presumably seek to defend. It makes no sense to fight postmodernism and relativism by becoming a postmodern relativist.