Mic Drop Magic

If you want a tool to make otherwise intelligent people say some really foolish things, and allow for some of the best mic-drop exposures in debates, then look no further. It would be hard to find a tool more prolific currently than the postmodernism movement.

It is entertaining seeing people become a deer in the headlights when they realize the foundation their claims stand upon is sinking sand – and their opponent knows, and just exposed it. However, postmodernism also leads to much darker situations.

What follows is an analysis of three central difficulties within postmodernism: self-refutation, you cannot live it, and the dissolution of trust necessary for knowledge and societal progress. On a more hopeful note, the exposure of this inherently flawed theory also points directly to what can fill the missing piece of the missing peace in our culture and in our personal lives.[1]

Postmodernism entered the cultural stage with the confidence of a philosopher certain he had finally unmasked the universe. It came whispering a seductive message: “Truth is not something you discover; truth is something you create.”

At first, this felt liberating. After all, who doesn’t want to be the author of their own meaning? But like most ideas that flatter and seduce us too quickly, postmodernism’s appeal hides a dangerous shallowness that only becomes uglier the longer you live with it.

To understand why, we must examine not only what postmodernism claims, but what it inevitably requires us to believe.

He Was A Cute Baby, But …

Watching a documentary of someone perpetrating terrible suffering upon others, who was finally exposed and prosecuted, typically has the same beginning. Images from the early years are shown and even the foulest person appears so cute, innocent, and with hopeful potential.

As the show progresses, the person ages, steps into new areas of life, and begins exposing more and more of what made them infamous. As an audience, watching from the outside, we vicariously go through emotions as people around this person have glimpses of the ugliness inside, but ignore, rationalize, fear to act, or otherwise miss opportunities to expose the reality and end the string of tragedies sooner.

Postmodernism was a cute and innocent sounding theory in its early years, but the string of tragedies in this documentary is not over, and we are not watching from the outside; we are on the inside, experiencing it.

Postmodernism was born from the failures of its parents, the Enlightenment, power dynamics, academic over-reaching, and political maneuvering. It was a cute baby, but …

Reading this blog will be watching the documentary on postmodernism. You will see:

  • How postmodernism was born
  • Why people are attracted to it
  • How its death was always in itself
  • How accomplices keep it alive for their own gain
  • The tragedies this intellectual predator causes & how to neuter it

The Birth of Postmodernism

Postmodernism emerged partly as a reaction to the certainties of the Enlightenment. If the modern age (modernism) insisted that objective truth existed and could be discovered through reason and science, postmodernism countered that such certainty was wishful thinking.

“Grand narratives” (overarching explanations about humanity and progress), such as state-sponsored socialism, Western capitalism, worldview beliefs, and science promised universal explanations of  life and social progress, but delivered world wars, social upheaval, and the rise of consumer culture.

From the disconnectedness, disordered, and disillusioned feelings of the time, Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Francois Lyotard laid the intellectual groundwork for the foundation of postmodernism by critiquing traditional philosophy. They argued:

  • “Truth” is often a mask for power struggles
  • Objective reality cannot be fully known as it is always limited by language and discourse

Postmodernism grew into profound skepticism toward established norms, universal truths, overarching systems of meaning, the dominance of Western viewpoints and historical narratives, and the idea of universal human experience. Developing disdain for logic, dialogue, and individual autonomy, which were believed to be tools of oppression of patriarchal institutions in the West. The focus of oppression moving from Karl Marx’s bourgeois against the proletariat, to the more general oppressors against the oppressed groups.

Why Postmodernism Attracts People

Honestly, I can see the early appeal.

The belief that through reason we can reach all truth and will socially progress linearly to utopia is unfounded wishful thinking. Western, socialist, capitalist, religious and other ideals or groups do sometimes try to gain and exercise power through narratives, normalizations, and truth claims over other groups. And yes, truth is most often expressed through language, and some do have an agenda of power through discourse and institutions (like prisons, organizations, schools). Also, we all will see ourself as part of different groupings of people (nation, race, religion, class, gender, age, hometown sports team), and there will always be historic or current differentiations, perceived or real, that you can assign labels of victim or oppressor to.

1.  Accuracy is attractive

Postmodernism has the allure of pointing out some obvious truths we all can see.

2.  Pointing out negative attributes in others also attracts people

We all get frustrated and angry with the ideas, groups, and systems we have lived with, which carry inaccuracies or harm. This is healthy to point out and examine.

3.  Victimhood and group identity

People have a need to be a part of something, and we all have groups we identify with. If this group can see itself as victimized, it instills more cohesiveness and motivation to act. People, especially at an age of trying to find oneself, seeking purpose and the spotlight have a stage.

4.  The big seduction: freedom without obligation

There are other reasons people are attracted to postmodernism, and feeling free to create reality according to “your truths” has always had an extremely strong pull.

However, postmodernism is the Bill Cosby of philosophy: started off cute and a media darling, but hides a very dark side. Consider how each of the attractions lures people into harmful environments.

-1.  However, its accuracy is very limited.

-2.  Pointing out unattractive traits in others is easy, and only good up to a point, then postmodernism needed to examine itself.

-3.  Victimhood and group identity also come with very harmful effects on its users.

-4.  And the biggest seduction is the biggest fraud, and the cancer rotting postmodernism from the inside.

This theory may have an innocent beginning (although that is debatable), but it developed the unattractive and unhealthy features of carrying its ideas far beyond what is warranted.

It is not postmodernism’s fault, after all, it is just a theory. This theory has been traumatized by the people misusing it for personal gain. Over time the theory developed into something unhealthy and foul. We could see it coming because the soul of postmodernism has always been laid bare.

The Death of Postmodernism Was Always Within Itself

If throwing darts at a dartboard, and all our shots skew to one side, then you have a bias or systematic error in your approach. That is a bad thing, and an obvious warning you are doing something wrong and headed for a reckoning with reality. This is exactly what we see with postmodernism.

For example, questioning the motives and accuracy of truth claims, narratives or institutions is a bullseye. Claiming there is no objective truth, and everything in life involves a battle between oppressed and oppressor groups is skewing the claims right off reality’s dartboard.

1. The postmodern truth claim refutes itself

Postmodernism contains the seeds of its own undoing, because its central claim undermines itself the moment you take it seriously.

Postmodernism famously asserts that there is no objective or universal truth, only socially constructed “truths” conditioned by language and culture.[2] Yet to claim that “there is no objective truth” is to make an objective truth claim.[3] Philosophers across the spectrum, including Jürgen Habermas, have pointed out postmodernism undermines the very rational communication it relies upon.[4] It wants us to believe its claim – that there is no universally valid truth – is itself a universally valid truth. Confusing, it should be because it is absurd.

The claim that “all viewpoints are equally valid” is similarly unsustainable. If this were true, the viewpoint that postmodernism is false must be equally valid, thereby negating postmodernism’s own validity.

2. The instability translates into instability in life.

Such contradictions indicate that postmodernism, while rhetorically powerful, is logically unstable. And this instability in the theory translates into real life instability.

In this view:

  • Science is not a window into reality—it’s a socially privileged story.
  • Morality is not rooted in universal principles—it’s a cultural construct.
  • Identity is not developed or chosen—it’s oppressor or victim.
  • Meaning is not discovered—it’s invented.

The appeal is obvious. No one can impose meaning on you. No one can judge your choices. No one can demand you conform to something larger than yourself.

But do any of us live as though those points of postmodernism are true?

Postmodernism offers freedom—freedom without obligation, without boundaries, without the weight of objective truth pressing against your desires. This is what has seduced so many. People will live according to this principle of postmodernism. Michael Foucault himself signed a 1977 petition in France to decriminalize consensual sex with minors. This fact is not added to claim the theory is wrong because a founder may have been “not like us,” but if you want to reject boundaries of morality and objective truth, then postmodernism can open the gates.

But, let’s be real, freedom detached from truth is indistinguishable from illusion. And illusions always get exposed when colliding with reality.

Freedom without boundaries is dangerous. And given enough time, danger turns into tragedy.

Therefore, while people may live as though postmodernism’s attack on objective truth is true—in selective circumstances—postmodernism is not possible logically. No one has lived their life as though its beliefs were true. Yet, misguided professors and group organizers rely on this absurdity when it suits them. However, try to fire the professor without cause and all of the sudden true right and wrong and objective truth does exist.

But the deeper problem is not logical; it is existential.

When everything is “your truth,” nothing is the truth. When meaning becomes self-created, it simultaneously becomes self-destroying. A truth you invent can never transcend you. A meaning you fabricate can never reliably carry you.

A self that you construct can never satisfy the hungers of a soul that longs for reality, not illusion, true growth and advancement, not temporary spotlight or godhood, and something transcendent, not common-place.

Postmodernism gives you a canvas and brush, but removes the world you were meant to paint. It gives you a yard to play in as imaginative children, but no boundaries of truth to keep you safe from running into the highway of reality.

3. The World Refuses to Play Along

The truest test of any worldview is simple: Can you live it? Postmodernism cannot be lived consistently.

While one might claim theoretically that meaning, truth, and morality are social constructions, everyday life demands that we rely on things to be objectively true.[5]

Postmodernism cannot be lived consistently for even a single day.

Imagine telling a scientist that gravity is just a narrative.
Imagine telling a judge that guilt and innocence are cultural constructs.
Imagine telling a cheating spouse that fidelity is merely a social convention.
Imagine telling a grieving parent that death is just a subjective interpretation.

When life presses in, even the most devoted postmodernist suddenly speaks the ancient, forbidden word: truth.

The surgeon does not rely on “interpretive anatomy.”
The engineer does not design bridges using “personal mathematics.”
The pilot does not land planes using “culturally situated physics.”
The abused child does not cry out for “subjective justice.”

The real world—stubborn, objective, unmoved by our preferences—keeps returning, knocking loudly on the door of our illusory world.

Postmodernism works in classrooms, some interpretations in limited fields of study, coffee shops, and curated conversations—not in hospitals, courtrooms, rational conversations or the gritty crucibles of real life. We do not live in a postmodern culture, there is no such thing, because it is unlivable in the real world.

When a worldview has to be suspended whenever life becomes serious, it is not a worldview. It is intellectual theater. Stop pretending. Reality always pierces the veil of postmodern rhetoric.

At our cancer center, no one is postmodernist when hearing the description of their cancer diagnosis and what the best steps for cure are. Some may try to deny the objective truth of the CT scan and biopsy, but that is just common psychology of defense mechanisms, and if following defense mechanisms or postmodernism and ignoring the diagnosis because it is supposedly compromised by power in institutions and language and lack of objective truth, then foolish stances will claim another victim.

Accomplices Keep It Alive for Personal Power

The most obvious culprits being misguided professors, publishers, organizers, and politicians do not stop pretending because it is too lucrative to keep the illusion going.

Using postmodernist ideas of power dynamics and language’s impact on truth when analyzing art and literature and group narratives, is warranted, it definitely applies at times. But expanding this healthy cell beyond logical application creates a cancer that has metastasized into a cultural emergency.

Proponents of postmodernism argue that arguments and evidences against their beliefs fail because postmodernists deny traditional logic, rationality, and truth, and further, do not trust dialogue as it is compromised. Wow, insulated against every possible route of disproof. Or, is this simply the typical defensive hallmarks of a weak theory trying to survive without evidential support. This is where postmodernism takes on characteristics observed more often in cults than academic pursuits.

Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist, understands postmodernism better than most, and criticizes it better than most. He notes this theory provides measurable value to the professors and writers promoting it, who develop their own fancy lingo and tribal stance to give what he calls the illusion of knowledge, but adds little in unique and fruitful knowledge.

Chomsky has accused postmodern intellectuals of failing to provide clear principles or evidence for their theories. Indeed, instead of a robust theory advancing when challenged, postmodern promoters have been criticized for using dense, convoluted language and lacking stable definitions, which critics view as intellectual dishonesty designed to protect from serious scrutiny. Richard Dawkins and the authors of Intellectual Impostures have critiqued postmodern supporters using such linguistic tactics as an attempt to sound profound while actually being meaningless.

However, those entranced by fancy words and vague arguments can be fooled and added to the postmodern adherents. We can’t all be experts and understand when a “scholar” is using verbal hand-waving to hide falsification of their beliefs, but we can be open to hear both sides of the argument, and more importantly, we all have the common sense to pick out false beliefs no one can live by, which was discussed in the previous section.

Ironically, Chomsky notes postmodernism is itself an instrument of power used to gain material and sexual reward for a select few. He particularly seemed to enjoy Sokal’s hoax[6] because it provided evidence of the lack of the intellectual support required for reputable theories. Physicist Alan Sokal submitted a nonsensical article filled with postmodern jargon to a postmodern journal, and the paper’s acceptance demonstrated intellectual and research standards are absent in the postmodern movement, which allows intellectual fraud and absurd thinking to be accepted. Another example had me laughing out loud: the “Grievance Studies Affair.”[7]  Here is a video summary: Chomsky’s criticism of Postmodernism – YouTube.

The Tragedies This Intellectual Predator Causes & How to Neuter It

1. When Everything Is Power, Nothing Is Trust

Postmodernism claims that all truth claims are bids for power. Of course, this would mean postmodernisms claims are also simply a bid for power. But a world where everything is power becomes a world where nothing is trustworthy—except the intellectual and organizational elites who benefit by claiming you cannot trust anyone but them.

If every moral principle is merely a mask for control, then no one is ever acting in good faith.
If every scientific conclusion is merely political, then no knowledge is possible.
If every historical claim is narrative manipulation, then no past can be understood.
If every theological claim is oppression, then no transcendent meaning exists.

This does not free people—it destabilizes them and makes them pliable to be used. People become pliable pawns. Thankfully, this is not the world we live in. Morality, science, history and theology have already disproven what postmodernism claims of them.

A society cannot function productively when its default assumption is that sincerity is manipulation, disagreement is oppression, and truth is violence.

What remains is:

  • Fragmentation, suspicion, tribalism, and anxiety.
  • An increase in whining, fear, fragility, finger-pointing, bitterness, anger.
  • All of the above swirling people around into more and more conflict in life.

This is evident in the rise of conspiracy thinking, epistemic tribalism, and political polarization—all downstream consequences of a worldview that replaces truth with power. Watch the news or scan social media, we are living the results.

Some small fraction of people take advantage of this instability and conflict for personal gain, but the vast majority of society suffers. Postmodernism was meant to dismantle oppressive structures. Instead, it dismantled trust, and trust is the structure that holds every human relationship in place.

2. The Human Heart Was Not Built for Relativism

Despite its intellectual cleverness, postmodernism misreads the deepest contours of the human heart.

We do not crave a universe where everything is flexible—we crave a universe where something is firm—a foundation from which we can launch into reliable purpose and hope.

Children do not thrive with unlimited choices—they thrive with meaningful boundaries.
Lovers do not say, “Your meaning is your own”—they say, “You matter to me.”
Victims of injustice do not want “your truth”—they want justice.
Human beings do not want a self-created identity—they want an identity recognized by something real.

We hunger for truth not simply because truth is correct, but because truth is stabilizing. It roots us. It orients us. It gives weight to our lives and shape to our choices. Even more, we long for a truth that is not merely impersonal fact but personal meaning—a truth that involves us, calls to us, anchors us, and explains us.

Postmodernism cannot provide that.
Relativism can never give you what certainty gives.
Constructed identity can never give what discovered identity gives.
“Your truth” can never give what Truth gives.

And if this writing does not instruct you—reality will.

3. Endless Violence

Bad ideas create victims. Writers like David Foster Wallace have critiqued postmodern culture for an over-reliance on irony, cynicism, and detachment, arguing it makes art a detached commodity rather than a source of shared, meaningful experience. It focusses on division, not unity.

Now metastasize this into social and political situations. What do we end up with? It should be obvious, but here are the ingredients:

  • Start with the divisive foundation of your identity being either oppressed or the oppressor.
  • Sprinkle in morsels of mistrust of power systems corrupting truth, institutions, language, rationality, education, history, and so on.
  • Mix it all up with inability to use standard societal means or dialogue to address your group’s concerns against the oppressors.

Eat this toxic meal long enough and what do you think will happen to the health of our culture? Violence against those in different groups is inevitable.

When truth is dethroned, the only thing left to arbitrate disagreement is coercion.[8] Ironically, this dynamic creates the very outcome postmodernism hoped to dismantle: the triumph of raw power over rational discourse.

And repeat.

Even if this theory had its way and the oppressed overturned the oppressor. Then what? Of course, people are people, and the new oppressor group will use language, institutions, etc., to maintain power and the new oppressed will have to rise up. Ad infinitum.

4. The Irony: Postmodernism Points Beyond Itself to The Truth

Thankfully, I do not think it will get to that point. I am hoping the lemming characteristic has not taken over enough of the population to send the entire culture over the cliff. Because postmodernism is so clearly flawed as a belief, after being capsized by reality, its wreckage cannot help but be washed up by reality’s waves upon the beach of truth and hope.

Here lies the surprising twist: Postmodernism collapses, yes—but in doing so, it reveals a profound truth about the human condition.

Our desire for meaning, justice, dignity, identity, and love cannot be satisfied by a world without objective truth. And yet—the existence of these desires points toward a truth that is not invented by us but discovered by us.

A truth strong enough to support meaning.
A truth consistent enough to ground morality.
A truth personal enough to give identity.
A truth transcendent enough to explain creation.
A truth grounded in reality enough to reliably guide our lives.

Postmodernism fails because the universe is not built on interpretive sand. It is built on something far more solid—something that does not bend to our preferences. It is built on something necessarily transcending human opinion and nature, but personal, and the only One in a position to ground morality, be “the way and the truth and the life,” and verify this with a comprehensive case of evidential validation no other belief system remotely approaches (see the Five Smooth Stones).

The collapse of relativism is not a dead end.
It is a signpost pointing us toward a truth larger than ourselves and established over all opinions.

A truth that calls us, corrects us, anchors us, and—if we allow it—changes us. A truth exclusive in its authority, but inclusive in its availability to all.

Conclusion: The One Thing That Cannot Be Relative

Postmodernism promised liberation, but delivered disorientation.
It promised empowerment, but produced fragility.
It promised meaning, but left us to invent meanings too thin to survive suffering.

The most important truths in life cannot be relative, because they are not small.
They concern:

  • what we are,
  • why we matter,
  • how we should live,
  • what justice requires,
  • what love demands,
  • and what lies beyond this life.

These questions are far too large to be held up by personal preference or cultural storytelling. They require something stronger—something objective, enduring, and trustworthy through validation.

Postmodernism begins with the declaration that truth is dead. But truth has a way of rising again.

 

[1] Phrase taken from one of Abdu Murray’s books, possible Saving Truth, which provides an excellent critique of postmodernism.

[2] Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. University of Chicago Press, 1978.

[3] Searle, John. “The World Turned Upside Down.” The New York Review of Books, 1990.

[4] Habermas, Jürgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. MIT Press, 1987.

[5] Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There a Meaning in This Text? Zondervan, 1998.

[6] Steven Weinberg. “Sokal’s Hoax.” The New York Review of Books, Volume XLIII, No. 13, pp 11-15, August 8, 1996.

[7] Yascha Mounk. “What An Audacious Hoax Reveals About Academia.” The Atlantic, October 5, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/; video: Joe Rogan Experience #1191 – Peter Boghossian & James Lindsay, October 30, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg

[8] Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. Simon & Schuster, 1987.