Postmodernism: An Orientation

Introduction

Postmodernity is much discussed and much maligned in contemporary political discourse. In this piece I will provide my readers with a succinct orientation regarding this often nebulous concept. This is of importance generally given the ubiquity of the term in the discourse, but also particularly as understanding it is a key cornerstone of the project of Political Perennialism.

French School vs stage in history

First, a distinction has to be drawn. ‘The Postmodernists’ can refer to a specific school of philosophy that originated in France in the 1970s. This school is typified by Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998), Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007), Michel Foucault (1926–1984) and Jacques Derrida (1930–2004). This is not what I denote by postmodernism, at least not primarily. There is a distinct tendency amongst those concerned by postmodernism to see it as a product of the influence of these philosophers. By contrast, I see Postmodernist philosophy as a manifestation of, rather than the source of, postmodernity as such. Instead, what I denote by postmodernity is principally an historical stage, a phase in the downward trajectory of humanity. It is characterized by a shift in ontological locus towards contingent being (what is perhaps better termed ‘becoming’ rather than being). This will naturally manifest in articulated perspectives such as that of the ‘Postmodernists’ but the condition of postmodernity is more expansive than just this product of France. Furthermore, most philosophies, ideologies and perspectives that can be classed as ‘postmodernist’ in this more general sense are less self-conscious about their postmodern character than the French school. I distinguish between the two by using a capitalized ‘P’ to refer to the French school, and a lower case ‘p’ to denote the general condition.

What, then, is to be understood by ‘postmodernity’? Succinctly, postmodernity is that condition and historical stage wherein only the reality of the social ontological realm is recognized. The preceding sentence is likely too condensed to be readily intelligible. So, it will be ‘unpacked’ in what follows.

Traditional ontology

Postmodernism is a restricted or blinkered view of ontology. To gain an appreciation of why this is, we must first equip ourselves with a complete, that is to say Traditional, ontology. Traditional ontology sees reality as relative in a vertical sense. In other words, all reality is relative to or dependent upon that one Reality which is not relative to or dependent upon anything else. Otherwise stated, there is an ultimate Reality to which all other realities are relative. It is to denote its ultimacy that we write this former with an upper case ‘R’. Thus, from a Traditional perspective, truth can be said to be both absolute and relative. There is a highest, absolute Truth, and then there are relative degrees of truth. These latter truths exist hierarchically, possessing greater or lesser degrees of truth relative to their proximity to the Truth. From the perspective of unconditioned, ultimate Reality, it can be said there is only one Reality, and all that are not it are unreal. All are equal(ly unreal) before God. But from the perspective of conditioned reality, these relative realities are real, if only relatively so.

All Traditions present, albeit in different terms, a picture of this hierarchically arranged scale of ontology. In Christianity we find the great chain of being. In Buddhism we find the five, six or ten realms of rebirth (depending on what school of the Buddha Dharma we are looking at). The plurality of these schema illustrates that there are a multitude of ways in which these relative layers of reality can be taxonomized. The most useful of these for understanding postmodernity is the East Asian Tiān-dì-rén or Heaven-earth-humanity triad. This triad is highly multivalent, but seen as an ontological taxonomy, it functions thus: Heaven denotes metaphysical reality, earth material reality and humanity what can provisionally be called social reality.

Metaphysical reality is that which is anterior to the material realm. That this ontological realm is itself divided into a plurality of layers is clear from the ontological hierarchies of other Traditions, or even from within different articulations of the East Asian Tradition. See, for example, the ascending order of heavens in Daoism. Ultimate Reality itself both does and doesn’t belong to the metaphysical dimensions of reality. In its comprehensible dimension (for example, the personal God or the Dao that can be named) it is the highest (i.e. the most real) stratum of metaphysical reality. In the fullness of its being, however, the Absolute transcends this, and any other, categorization. It is for this reason that Schuon termed this “beyond being” and Guénon “non-being”. Any positive statement is necessarily limiting and so cannot be applied to it.

One suspects the reader feels material reality to be self-explanatory. It is that ontological domain that is the proper concern of the natural sciences. Modernity is nothing more than a closure of humanity’s horizons to that which lies beyond the material. To the extent that it equates material reality with the highest dimension of reality, we can identify modernity with materialism.

Submaterial reality

What was provisionally termed social reality are all those ontological layers that exist at the submaterial level. These are realms of reality that depend on the material level of reality for their support, just as material reality depends on metaphysical reality. We termed this the ‘social’ realm of reality as part of what belongs to the submaterial realm is all of what is contemporarily referred to as ‘social constructs’. Social constructs, contrary to what is often suggested in discourse, do carry a degree of reality — but this degree is conferred on them by the material reality upon which they depend for their existence. Take race for instance. Race is often, quite rightly, said to be a social construct. Races, as such, do not exist as material facts. For example, whether Slavs and Germanics are components of a single ‘White’ race (as is currently the dominant view) or two distinct races (as was the view of Hitler) is not a scientifically determinable material fact but an intersubjectively determined social fact. These social constructs are not independent of material reality, but rather material reality serves as the support of their existence. For one thing, the human actors that intersubjectively construct social facts have a material existence that makes this construction possible. Beyond this, the scope of a social construction is also limited by the material ground of their being. For example, whether or not Ethiopians, Tamils or Australian Aborigines are part of the ‘Black’ race is a question of social construction. But Ethiopians certainly cannot be constructed as part of the ‘Yellow’ race, nor Swedes as part of the ‘Black’ race. Certain material facts, the color of the skin of the individuals in question, serves as the basis and thus the limit of the social fact.

It was said earlier that this level of reality should be ‘provisionally’ termed the social, as it is not only socially constructed facts which belong to it. Fiction belongs to this submaterial level of reality. I anticipate resistance from the reader on this point — is fiction not completely devoid of reality by definition? I readily concede that it is less real than social constructs, but not that it is totally without reality. In beholding fiction (there is something distasteful about saying we ‘consume’ it), we confer on it a degree of reality. If not, why do we laugh at pratfalls in comedy? Why is it funny that the character had an accident, when we know that he did not really have an accident but that the author decided events would play out as they did? Why do tragedies make us sad? Why does horror frighten us? Why does action excite us? Why do we become attached to the fate of characters? One could posit that, in the moment of watching we forget that what we watch is not real, but this rings hollow. Moved to tears by what we see on the screen, we redirect our eyes to, let’s say, our phone or our plate — but the tears do not cease to flow. Having read a fictional account of some demoniacal cruelty, the memory may continue to disturb us the next day. Suspension of disbelief entails imbuing the fiction with a degree of reality. It is less real than material reality, but it is not completely devoid of reality — this is what gives it its power to move and inspire us.

Furthermore, the submaterial ontological realms also include dimensions of reality not acknowledged by the modern outlook, namely the infernal realms. Hell — or the hells in the Sinic and Dharmic Traditions — are located beneath our world (at a maximal distance from God) for this reason. Hell, as with social constructs or fiction, are our creations or — perhaps more precisely — dependent ontologically on the earthly realm in the sense that we send ourselves there through our rejection of God.

Each of these ontological realms has an epistemic faculty proper to it. Gnosis, also known as intellection or prajna, is the suprarational faculty by which we know metaphysical facts. Rationality is the instrument for understanding the material world. The submaterial realm is the proper realm for sentimentality — feeling in the subrational sense.

As modernity entails the untethering of material reality from its metaphysical support, so does postmodernity involve detaching social reality from its material basis. It is in no way hyperbolic to say that this entails a collective descent into madness. What is insanity if not detachment from reality? How are we to characterize postmodernity then, if not as an epoch of collective madness? Is this not an appropriate label for an era when the dominant mode of thought is subrational?

The postmodern era

We are, at present, only in the early stages of post-modernity. Modernity could be said to have begun beginning with the realist/nominalist controversy and finished beginning with the Renaissance. In much the same way — having reached its nadir in the Second World War — modernity began ending in 1945, and finished ending in 1990. In a sense, Fukuyama was right. Post-modernity is, then, still beginning to begin. We still see much rationality operating in how the world functions today. Indeed, it seems difficult to imagine how a world completely stripped of rationality would not immediately implode. How would humanity provide itself with sustenance? Who would prevent nuclear reactors from melting down?

The answer will be, perhaps, artificial intelligence. The handing off of all tasks requiring exercise of reason to a self-sustaining AI may pave the way for humanity to fall into an extended irrationalism. Perhaps the apocalyptic future of AI dominance over humanity is less Skynet and more AUTO. If this is so, it would affirm Nick Land’s vision of AI providing a material vessel for the Antichrist. This kind of nanny AI, should it come into being, could provide the material reality on the basis of which humanity’s full submersion into submateriality is made possible. This may well be the shape of the Dajjal’s coming[1].

This is the nature of postmodernity. A final word should be said as to the political manifestations of postmodernity. In contemporary discourse postmodernity is associated with the so-called ‘left’ (I have already written on the disutility of the left/right spectrum). This association of the postmodern with the so-called left requires some correction. Postmodernism is a stage in humanity’s descent, not the property of a particular political camp. As liberalism, communism and fascism were all proper to modernity, so too will postmodernity likely have a set of mutually hostile political ideologies of its own. The reason this is not immediately apparent is we are currently still experiencing the transition from modernity to postmodernity. This is a painful process that a part (the losing part) of humanity resists[2].

Conflict of this type makes postmodernity appear to be a political position rather than an historical stage, hence the mistaken identification of it with a tightly defined set of thinkers. We can already see the beginnings of opposed but equally postmodernist ideologies emerging. If deconstructionist gender and race critical theory can be thought of as postmodern anti-Tradition, then the civilizationalist identitarianism championed by Alain de Benoist and Aleksandr Dugin should be considered as postmodernist counter-Tradition. Indeed, we find early intimations of “postmodernism” in thinkers not typically labeled ‘leftist’ — Heidegger, Spengler and Nietzche. We also find a precognition of it in that current within fascism which prized feeling over reasoning.

Once the transition to postmodernity is complete, none except the most marginal will think to oppose submaterially grounded positions with materially grounded ones — as today only a small minority oppose materialistically informed positions with metaphysically based ones. We can also see other movements towards postmodernity that transcend any supposed binary political divide — for example the push towards the legalization (and implicitly the normalization) of recreational use of strong narcotics, and various attitudes towards artificial intelligence.

I will explore these latter two points more fully in future pieces, so for the time being I will only touch on them in a cursory manner. The recreational usage of drugs (as opposed to their usage in a sacerdotal context) signifies, consonant with the general trends of postmodernity, a flight from reality. Where the sacred usage of drugs (for example, the Native American use of peyote) allows for access to supramaterial realms of reality, its recreational usage more often than not entails a temporary forgetting of material reality. Indeed, they may open the doors to infernal realms and are sometimes used with this express purpose. The disconnection from material reality that artificial intelligence risks (for example, through the circulation of computer-generated images purporting to be photographs) is well known. What is less considered is the possibility of political domination by an artificial intelligence. Such a scenario may seem far-fetched, but has been contemplated by some with utter seriousness (and varying degrees of enthusiasm), for example Mary Harrington’s “egregoric Caesarism” and Nick Land’s singularity. We have already considered above how such a Satanic cyber Caesar may facilitate humanity’s abandonment of the ratiocinating faculty.

Conclusion

In conclusion, postmodernism should be considered not as a tightly bound set of ideas espoused by a particular set of idealogues but as a new stage in historical decline. This stage is characterized by its contempt for material reality. Postmodernism recognizes only the submaterial realm of ontology and nothing higher, as modernity privileged the material domain and denied metaphysical verities. As we proceed further into the Kali Yuga, we can expect the increased dominance of postmodernism and the gradual forgetting of the materialist outlook[3], as humanity comes to be dominated by that which, in the normal order of things, should be its creature.

Thanks for reading Political Perennialism! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

[1] The Dajjal being the Islamic analogue to the Antichrist.

[2] They are losing partly because it is their destiny to lose, but partly because the position they defend (the ancient regime of modernity) is already fundamentally compromised. As Guénon observed, the compromises that characterized the later stages of Tradition paved the way for modernity — so that the defenders of Tradition found themselves defending not the top of the hill, but a higher portion of a slippery slope, so to speak. When the gnostic faculty is dimmed, it is hard for it to resist a perspective that regards reasoning as the highest form of thought. When rationality overturns the gnostic insights which are its foundation and support, it is inevitable that it will give way to emotivism.

[3] Indeed, as it appears to already have been by those postmodern political currents that are regularly misidentified as ‘cultural Marxism’. These currents, though not truly Marxist, are postmodern analogues in terms of the position they occupy in the eschatological dialectic. It is telling in this regard how the defining materialism of Marxism (i.e. dialectical materialism) is completely absent from these movements.