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Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

Stephen R.C. Hicks

3.93 · Rating details · 1,363 ratings · 198 reviews

Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the ...more

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Published April 1st 2004 by Scholargy Publishing

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Dec 12, 2011 Dan Rera rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics, philosophy

Good book. Some flaws but, in the end, an interesting read.

I didn't care for his encapsulation of Kant and the transcendentalist endeavor. He didn't seem to grasp the power of Hume's criticism/empiricism. Hicks would rather put the blame on Kant's shoulders (in part, it seems, simply because Kant is German and it fits better into his Anglo vs Continental dichotomy) than dignify that Hume was the real problem child of empiricism and that Locke's dogmatism was, to many, incapable of withstanding t Good book. Some flaws but, in the end, an interesting read.

I didn't care for his encapsulation of Kant and the transcendentalist endeavor. He didn't seem to grasp the power of Hume's criticism/empiricism. Hicks would rather put the blame on Kant's shoulders (in part, it seems, simply because Kant is German and it fits better into his Anglo vs Continental dichotomy) than dignify that Hume was the real problem child of empiricism and that Locke's dogmatism was, to many, incapable of withstanding the strength of Hume's skepticism. In this way, it might be fair enough to say that Kant destroyed philosophy in order to save it, but to argue that everything was hunky-dory before Kant wrote the Critique is simply false.

Also, there is an ever-present subtext of appeal to motive throughout the whole book. Kant sacrificed objectivity to save religion from empiricism. Kierkegaard sacrificed reason to also save religion from scrutiny. Heidegger folds in being with nothingness because of self-loathing. And, finally, postmodernists destroy language and, by extension reason, to prevent substantive demonstration of the validity of capitalism as triumphant over socialism (or, in other words, to prevent the effective rejection of utopian idealism). Hicks refuses to believe than anyone involved in the transition from Kant and Rousseau to Derrida and Rorty believed that they were genuinely involved in a passionate search for truth. Each was an opportunist, a sophist, trying to wring political, theological, and economic consequences from the bowels of epistemology, ontology, and linguistics. A stretch, to say the least.

At the same time, he does a great job showing the would-be enormous coincidence that nearly all postmodernist thinkers are leftist collectivists. Instead of merely marveling at this phenomenon, Hicks delves into the thought and shows, quite powerfully, the connection between the historical development of differing strains of anti-liberal, collectivist political movements and the corresponding ideologies utilized to support them. Linking the zeitgeist between politics and philosophy isn’t the real selling point here; it’s showing how, when various anti-liberal movements fail to achieve their utopian ideal, committed utopians will construct elaborate philosophical frameworks to side-step the conclusion that collectivist utopianism is inferior to liberal capitalism. By his account, major strands of contemporary philosophy are simply no-true-Scotsman-esque reworking to preserve a conception of man’s perfectibility through the state. The most recent manifestation, deconstruction and absurdism, is just an overwrought tantrum of the utter failures of socialist implementation over the last 150 years. The author suggests that their strategy is based, in the words of Nietzsche, on the following motivation: “When some men fail to accomplish what they desire to do, they exclaim angrily, 'May the whole world perish!' This repulsive emotion is the pinnacle of envy, whose implication is, 'If I cannot have something, no one is to have anything, no one is to be anything!'”

Ultimately, the author paints with broad brushes but makes a compelling enough point throughout that he can be excused for glossing over some detail at times. He is writing a polemic about an enormous subject that is designed to be accessible most readers, so I, at least, am willing to tolerate his seeming glibness. The purpose of the book is to make a compelling case that philosophy has been defined by political ideology, itself rooted in the dreams of willful men more interested in high-minded visions of human perfectibility than the murky lessons of actual history, and it achieves this purpose.
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Jul 20, 2014 Martina rated it did not like it

What an awful, awful book. Equating postmodernists with leftists and then claiming they 'more often than others' (who the fuck is others?), engage in authoritarian 'political correctness' and more often incorporate rage and anger in their argumentation.

Oh and for the love of christ on a crutch Dvorkin never said that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercou... ...more

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Sep 12, 2018 vi macdonald rated it did not like it

Almost spectacularly moronic.

Not only an impressively wrong headed, bad faith reading of postmodern thought, but Hicks decides whip out his idiotic interpretations of pre-enlightenment, enlightenment, and modernist thought while he was at it.

The fact anyone is seriously taking this impressively bad scholarship seriously is both a testament to the influence of Lobster Lad and how ready people are to latch onto literally any source that “justifies” their worldview, no matter how poorly informed ...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Douglas Wilson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, philosophy

Stephen Hicks is some sort of Objectivist or Randian, and so that should be said right up front. And this means I do not know how he managed to get that many rocks onto his magic epistemological carpet, and still less do I know how he got it to fly like that. But let us assume his craft was flight-worthy . . . Hicks spent the entire book beaning postmodernists with rocks. He has a good arm, and is a nice shot. I haven't enjoyed a book this much in quite some time.

Hicks provides an essential serv ...more

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Oct 20, 2016 Mahmoud Awad rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: Austrian Economists, people who shout "ad hominem" over dinner conversation

Shelves: reference

Another comical presentation of that fundamental libertarian inability to differentiate Nazism from Bolshevism. Shape your expectations accordingly.

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Jan 21, 2017 Sandra rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, history

Explained the genesis and developments of postmodernist theory to philosophy-averse me. I never stayed up till 3am for a philosophy book before.

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Jan 17, 2017 R rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics, philosophy

Carl Jung used to say, 'People don't have ideas, ideas have their people.' Postmodernism has pierced the minds of its victims, possessed them and controlled them.

Postmodernism is filled with superstition and it's explicitly anti-science, anti-reason, and anti-logic.

The people that come up with these theories are truly pathological.

Postmodernism is the Alex Jones of philosophy. ...more

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Mar 15, 2014 Martin Rundkvist rated it it was ok

Hicks's history of Kantian philosophy is competent, but his constant Ayn Rand libertarian attacks on the Left are tiresome. Turns out that when he says "socialism collapsed", he means "Michel Foucault felt disillusioned when he learned about Stalin's mass murders in the late 50s". ...more

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Jan 03, 2014 Ali Arabzadeh rated it did not like it

Its superficial and useless !

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Nov 04, 2015 Philip of Macedon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: influential, nonfiction, philosophy, american, politics, years-2000s

By titling this book Explaining Postmodernism, Hicks is being overly gentle toward the postmodernist dogma, since his handling of the material warrants the more apt title of Vanquishing Postmodernism. Word for word, page for page, this is the most substantial and coherent philosophy-critical text I've read. Where other works will waste time and space and become bogged down in semantics and jargon and insider lingo, this book cuts straight to the point with powerfully worded and clearly written p By titling this book Explaining Postmodernism, Hicks is being overly gentle toward the postmodernist dogma, since his handling of the material warrants the more apt title of Vanquishing Postmodernism. Word for word, page for page, this is the most substantial and coherent philosophy-critical text I've read. Where other works will waste time and space and become bogged down in semantics and jargon and insider lingo, this book cuts straight to the point with powerfully worded and clearly written prose that doesn't waste your time or attempt to impress you with the superficial. This is the most appropriate way to write such a book, because this is the biggest contrast to postmodernism possible, in that it accomplishes clarity of purpose, clarity of point, and contradicts much of what constitutes postmodern writing. He could have afforded more time with certain ideas, and fleshed out his sources and ideas better, but in the end the use of space in this book was about as good as could be hoped for.

Hicks is perhaps not very charitable or gentle in his handling of past thinkers who have in some way impacted what we today see as postmodernism, but he presents a well researched history of the intellectual thought that brought us the Enlightenment, and provides an equally compelling and well informed history of what would become the anti-intellectual response to modernism's Age of Enlightenment: postmodernism. He fleshes it out with the thinkers responsible for such dogmatic and irrational modes of thinking, and outlines their chain of influence and the perplexing logic they espouse in the face of reality. Some of these thinkers are even associated with Enlightenment era thought, and it's interesting to see how their ideas were used by others in the development of what eventually came to be known as postmodern philosophy.

Explaining and analyzing the philosophy is not a trivial problem, and this is magnified by the turbulent discussions that are currently in fashion. Whenever one attempts to criticize postmodernism in anything other than delicate and roundabout postmodernist terms, inevitably a fellow with a non-ironic CCCP t-shirt pops up to say, "That isn't postmodernism," or, "Postmodernism is an artistic and literary movement," or, "Kant was not a postmodernist, so how could his work possibly contribute to any of the postmodern landscape?" or, "Postmodernism and Marxism are completely unrelated and have nothing in common!" This is postmodernizing the discussion.

An anti-intellectual trend that I thought had merely existed for a few decades in fact has roots reaching back over a hundred years, sometimes coming from not so wild or radical sources. But the transformation of once thoughtful ideas into their reactionary and irrational components, particularly within different cultural contexts, designed specifically to deflect the logical criticisms of socialism's weaknesses by developing an inherently useless and contradictory process of anti-logic, can lead to some bizarre conclusions that are not only unable to explain anything within view of objective reality, but are celebrated for their inability to do so. For it is postmodernism's driving purpose to bring weight and some form of credence to ideas and values that are fundamentally flawed, and that are incapable of being defended through established modes of logic and reason. Doing so requires the abandonment of reason and the adoption of child like and amateurish thinking that I think can only be summarized as anti-thinking.

Anti-thinking is not the same as non-thinking, which is the act of doing nothing. If we look at thinking as driving, then non-thinking is simply sitting still, perhaps not even being inside the vehicle. But anti-thinking is then akin to intentionally driving through a half mile of hazard cones, side-rails, and straight off a bridge. The hazard cones, the side-rails, the bridge, the gravity that pulls one into the river, to the postmodern anti-thinker all of these are merely constructs, subjective interpretations of reality based on a struggling power hierarchy through history coloring their perceived veracity, and therefore this path through the cones and rails and off the bridge into the water is no less valid than the calm path over the bridge to the other side, because to some distant observer we could say that the other side and the river bed are indistinguishable from one another and therefore they are kind of indistinguishable in real subjective experience, right? And while one person may interpret getting to the other side as just one step closer to the end of their journey, the person drowning at the bottom of the river could perceive this slow, panicked suffocation as one step closer to the end of their own journey. See, man? It's all about experience and our inability to really know things objectively. This is postmodernism.

One will encounter very many enthusiastic defenders of postmodernism who are not lazy, but the way they formulate arguments, points or counterpoints, process information, or even approach a topic has this residue of obsessive skepticism toward objective fact, a cynicism toward knowledge, a religious-like faith in the shaky hypotheses of power structures as the explanation for all human history and interaction, and they will almost always show that this cynicism and skepticism and faith are borne not of a hyper-awareness of the subject, but of a vast ignorance and incapability of understanding the subject. As soon as one attempts to discuss the subject with this defender, the defender jumps onto a bicycle and begins anti-thinking all over the sidewalk, or rather, expressing postmodern conjecture in every direction, declaring objective knowledge of objective reality impossible, and therefore all ideas and thoughts equally valid and equally subordinate to social conditions.

This goes a long way toward explaining why the criticisms of this work are largely leveled by those steeped in the dogmatism being criticized, inflicted with many of the same shortcomings in their thought and information processing. You see this when evangelicals criticize works of atheist thinkers, and their greatest arguments are, "These men are not familiar with the Bible!" Perhaps not as familiar as you, no. But a strong familiarity with the Bible is not a prerequisite for pointing out the many weaknesses, flaws, and absurdities of religious thought.

Postmodernism, as an ideology, a philosophy, a mode of thought, is a conundrum that provides nothing of value to intellectual discourse, and prides itself in that. Nothing can be valuable in postmodernist ideation, which probably sounds profound to a high schooler. But seriously pondering that concept for a few moments ought to shine some light on why postmodernism not only doesn't, but can't, provide a worthwhile way of thinking about things. Only through irrational pseudo-intellectual and contradictory exercises is postmodernism capable of forwarding the ideas it holds sacred. That is to say, postmodernism is only validated by postmodernism, and even then, only by playing by a different set of rules than it subjects the rest of the intellectual world to. Any idea that cannot stand up to the same criticisms that its proponents level at other ideas, and instead requires a new criteria on which to be evaluated, is a joke. Maybe not even a joke, but a punchline without a joke. Hicks factually and carefully explains the origins and causes of postmodern thought and how it has become an unfortunate cornerstone in much modern thought.

Postmodernism's irrationality and deep seated confusion about knowledge is only the beginning, as anyone who's had the misfortune of engaging with postmodern practitioners will readily confess. The plethora of counterproductive subfields developed in the realm of PM, the intellectually irresponsible academics who perpetuate faulty takes on our senses and our ability to understand our world, the near infinite pages of vapid circular reasoning and bad philosophy practiced by its adherents, the countless abuses of, and attacks on, science and scientific rationality, among so many other things, are some of the sad fashions that are championed by the distraction known as postmodernism. And it would be fine if these attacks or criticisms were informed or based on a sound understanding of the very things being criticized -- but they uniformly are not.

Postmodernists are like the child playing a board game who doesn't understand the rules, no matter how often and how slowly they're explained, and is unable to make progress through the game. He objects that these rules are completely made-up, which sounds like an astute (for a child) if pointless observation until you realize he isn't talking only about the rules of the game, but that he also thinks the numbers on the die are made up because they can't possibly represent anything, and that the tumble of the die is a social construct, and that the colors on the board are unfair to him, and that the images on the cards are only representations of reality and therefore they don't represent anything meaningful so he can interpret a card of Suffering Poison Damage and Enfeeblement as a card of Infinite Immortality and Invincibility because he feels like it, and the win conditions don't make sense because they depend on factors other than his arbitrary whim and desire, and anything that happens to him in the game is unfair and wrong.

So he takes the board and the pieces and declares his new rules as the Real Rules, and he loudly asserts that because in the vague, poorly defined world of His Rules, His Rules are law, because only His Rules conform to his undefined requirements. And Rule number One is that all Rules Are Made Up, unless they are His Rules, in which case they are Real Rules. Rule number Two is that anything he comes up with on the spot is a valid new rule, and all old rules are invalid, because they were created outside the paradigm of this new rule set. And despite acknowledging that all Old Rules were made up, he is unable to acknowledge that his new rules are made up, and that they make even less sense, are incoherent and contradictory even in context of the tiny New Rules vision, and that even the game board and pieces are not valid parts of the game, because they were made without regard for the New Rules. This is about as apt an analogy can be made for describing postmodernism in a nut shell, despite its multitude of offshoots and origins and complex relationships with other poor modes of thought.

Hicks expertly lays out the main paradigms of postmodernism and exposes them as honestly and accurately as I imagine is possible, though not without a few mischaracterizations that I think were a bit far-fetched. The far reaches of PM thinking is illustrated, via cultural studies, feminism, collectivism, deconstructionism, sociology and power dynamics, and its partial origins in Marxism. Hicks doesn't waste time or space or words, he wants you to understand fundamentally the doctrines and the contradictions and the failures and the shortcomings of one of the most prominent, but certainly not long relevant, intellectual trends to come about. The informed individual is capable of making informed decisions. This is a simple idea postmodernism wouldn't agree with, but it's this idea that will eventually lead to postmodernism becoming the laughing stock mullet of philosophy. ...more

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Dec 02, 2017 Mark Alexis rated it it was amazing

Reading Stephen Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism left me wondering whether (some) people haven't become too smart for their own good, yet also reminded me of the adage that a smart person is not the same as a wise person.

In this book, Mr. Hicks traces postmodernism back to its intellectual roots. For those unfamiliar with the subject, postmodernism is the twentieth-century philosophical movement, still dominant and pervasive in academia today and with tentacles reaching deeply into our wider soci Reading Stephen Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism left me wondering whether (some) people haven't become too smart for their own good, yet also reminded me of the adage that a smart person is not the same as a wise person.

In this book, Mr. Hicks traces postmodernism back to its intellectual roots. For those unfamiliar with the subject, postmodernism is the twentieth-century philosophical movement, still dominant and pervasive in academia today and with tentacles reaching deeply into our wider societies, that contends that man is unable to make objective notions about truth, reason and human nature, and that any such claims must be the product of his socio-economic, historical, cultural, gender and ethnic circumstances. The foundation of this school of thought, Hicks argues, was laid two hundred years ago by Immanuel Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason was an effort to protect his Christian faith from attack by early Enlightenment philosophy. In an exquisite historical and intellectual overview of German philosophy, Hicks follows the bloodline from Kant to Hegel, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and ultimately to Martin Heidegger, who was in turn a key influence on the twentieth-century postmodernists.

The author proceeds to do the same with socialism, which started with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a contemporary of Kant, and worked its way through the ages in the writings of Hegel, Herder, Marx, Fichte, Spengler and Junger, all of whom provided fertilizer for the writings of Heidegger. In case you were wondering why this list includes "Men of the Right", that's because Hicks identifies the collectivist Left and Right, correctly in my opinion, as merely two sides of the same coin. The difference is that national socialism was left entirely discredited in 1945, while its equally ugly twin brother wasn't until at least 1956, when the Soviets crushed any illusion about their true intentions one might still have had at that point in time.

It would seem paradoxical for postmodernism to marry socialism: After all, the former denies any claim to impartial knowledge or absolute truth, so one would expect its adherents to be found all over the political spectrum. Nevertheless, the two strains ultimately came together in the twentieth century, when all the great postmodernist thinkers, Derrida and Foucault included, were hardcore socialists at the same time.

Hicks argues that the crisis of socialism lay at the root of this phenomenon. While Marx had argued that the rise of capitalism would inevitably lead to an ever greater schism between the rich and poor in society, in reality the opposite was true and the middle classes were prospering. In fact, by the mid-twentieth century the middle classes were living lives of which the kings and emperors of yesteryear could only have dreamed. At the same time, it became patently obvious to any impartial observer that life behind the Iron Curtain was an absolute nightmare. The house of cards came thundering down when the Soviets invaded Hungary in '56 to crush the popular uprising against the socialist rulers in that country.

Socialism had always been the product of reason and logic, starting from the idea that the Marxist revolution would inevitably follow in every capitalist society and ending with the illusion that smart technocrats could engineer their nations into workers' paradises. When all that got shattered, postmodernism proved the refuge for the disillusioned socialists. It became, in Hicks' words, "a symptom of the far Left’s crisis of faith," and "a result of using skeptical epistemology to justify the personal leap of faith necessary to continue believing in socialism."

Some of the reviewers of Explaining Postmodernism have been predictable in their criticism: The author is an Objectivist (gasp!) who wrote a book critical of the Left, while not, in fact, "explaining postmodernism". These detractors ought to be ignored, because Hicks explains it all very well and correctly identifies it to be a phenomenon of the Left. This observation is by no means revolutionary (if you'll pardon the expression).

Nevertheless, the book is not without its flaws. It becomes clear pretty quickly that Hicks has little use for religion. He starts from the premise that the early Enlightenment thinkers, with their emphasis on reason and logic and rejection of religious superstition, had it right, and provided the foundations of our modern democracy and ordered liberty. Hicks shows to have a blind spot here. Because Christianity is not on his radar, he never ponders the question whether it serves a function in a modern democratic, capitalist and free society, let alone whether the latter can even survive without the moral foundation provided by the former. Thinkers such as Tocqueville, a keen student of democracy, argued it couldn't. Given that the Enlightenment grew more radical and anti-religious with every new generation of thinkers, it's fair to ask whether it, and the modern societies it spawned in the West, weren't top-heavy from the beginning. (No, I don't necessarily have the answer to that.)

Secondly, the roots of postmodernism can arguably be traced back to the first days of the Enlightenment, not just to the later "counter-Enlightenment philosophy" of Kant. Thomas Hobbes, who is not even mentioned in the book until footnote 67, contended that, since human life in the beginning was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", man started forming societies governed by the rule of law out of sheer self-interest. It happened in reaction to his fear of violent death. In other words, to Hobbes the social contract was conventional, not natural. This marks the first departure from the natural law doctrines found in classical philosophy and Christianity.

But the greatness of an outstanding book like Explaining Postmodernism lies in its invitation for us to conduct a civil and rational argument about what postmodernism is and where it originated, devoid of the ad hominems, reductio ad Hitlerum, cries of "racism" and other base cannon fodder employed to win 'debates' in our postmodern world these days. Stephen Hicks has done us a great service here. I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in the topic. ...more

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Sep 14, 2019 Griffin Wilson rated it did not like it

Shelves: ph-postmodern, worst

A more accurate title might be "Explaining Postmodernism: Misreading Philosophers from Rousseau to Foucault." This work will fit nicely into my 'worst' shelf, never did 5 minutes go by without a comical misinterpretation, erroneous conflation, or blatant falsity surrounding any number of philosophers and their ideas, particularly Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and 'the postmodernists' (which is really a useless and unhelpful category) in general.

To any fan of this book I c ...more

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May 12, 2019 Bry Willis rated it did not like it

Shelves: educational, non-fiction, philosophy

Stay away from this book unless you are looking to confuse yourself to the concept of postmodernism. This is textbook example of poor scholarship.

I couldn't finish this book. The chapters I read so misrepresented the authors and their positions, I would have no idea what to accept as valid. In some cases, it was apparent that Hicks could not have read the work he was 'explaining'; rather, he was engaged in some sort of game of telephone, and his explanation and ensuing critique were of some non ...more

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May 28, 2017 Ben De Bono rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017, philosophy, new-authors-read-in-2017

This might be one of the most important books for understanding our world today. Postmodern thought has been making inroads into the mainstream of western culture for decades, but we're only now beginning to see how pernicious it actually is. Its claims and strategies aren't easy to understand - let alone combat - unless you understand its philosophical pedigree. Stephen Hicks does a phenomenal job in laying that out in a way that's extremely readable without sacrificing depth.

The book came out This might be one of the most important books for understanding our world today. Postmodern thought has been making inroads into the mainstream of western culture for decades, but we're only now beginning to see how pernicious it actually is. Its claims and strategies aren't easy to understand - let alone combat - unless you understand its philosophical pedigree. Stephen Hicks does a phenomenal job in laying that out in a way that's extremely readable without sacrificing depth.

The book came out in 2004 but it feels far more relevant today. I'd be curious to see what Hicks thinks of the rise of Trump in the US and the revival of nationalism across Europe. Part of his thesis is that postmodernism rose from the ashes of left wing socialism (and especially communism's) failures in the 20th century. The failure of left wing socialism was gradual and allowed for its basic tenets to adjust and survive and morph into postmodernism. Right wing socialism, on the other hand, failed so spectacularly in the form of European fascism that there was no time or moral opportunity for anything other than a few fringe groups to carry forward its ideas. At least in the US, that opened the way for the conservative movement to become a conglomeration of anti-postmodernists. The right was invested - to various degrees - in the tenets of liberal democracy and the preservation of western civilization.

In my view, that may very well be changing. Just as the left was taken over by postmodernist thought following the 1960's, the right seems poised to do the same. With Trump the American right has made a major gamble that goes far beyond his temperament or competence for the presidency. The gamble is that he won't usher in the revival of right wing (national) socialism. To be clear, I'm not making the tired claim that Trump is some sort of neo-Nazi anymore than those on the left are communist authoritarians. However, just as the postmodern left is the heir to the failed philosophies of left wing socialism, Trump and the new wave of nationalism may prove to be the heirs of right wing socialism, thus ushering in a right wing version of postmodernism.

As someone convinced more than ever of how pernicious postmodern thought is, that scares the hell out of me. Right wing postmodernism will ultimately prove as hostile to western values as the left wing variety has turned out to be. The left has spent the better part of a century becoming nakedly hostile to western values. If the right follows suit, those of us who actually care about western culture will find ourselves in a very bad place.

If I've strayed from actually reviewing the book, it's only because this is the effect the work has. It will have you thinking long after you've put it down. I can't recommend it highly enough. Read it and then convince others to do likewise. ...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Jake Desyllas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: alreadyread, owned, leftism, history, philosophy, rationality

Why did an anti-enlightenment, anti-reason movement called "postmodernism" develop in the mid 20th century? And why were all the leading theorists of postmodernism from the far left wing of politics? Hicks presents a brilliant answer to these questions in a very clear and easy to read style. He argues that postmodernism emerged as a rhetorical strategy of committed socialists once the failure of socialism could no longer be ignored. Rather than change their views, many devoted socialists chose t ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Fredösphere rated it it was amazing

A fascinating thesis, with two surprising claims. First that postmodernism's abandonment of reason is the endpoint of a line of philosophy that begins with Kant, who (in Hick's account) was the first to denigrate reason. Ironically, Kant was attempting to carve out a safe space (pun intended) for religious faith. But without reason to partner with faith, faith can become capricious and egoistic. Second, the crisis of socialism provided the need for postmodernism's leap into the dark of nihilism. ...more

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Aug 09, 2009 James Henderson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-of-ideas, philosophy, study-group

This book is an excellent introduction to both the philosophical foundations of Postmodernism and the history of its battle with the Enlightenment outlook. The author analyzes the views of specific philosophers who provided the ideas that led to contemporary postmodern thinkers; including brief summaries of the views of each. Comparative charts are provided along the way that are helpful in assessing different views and changes in philosophy over time. He elucidates the links between the ideas o ...more

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Jan 03, 2017 Omar Ali rated it really liked it

A very lucid and devastating criticque of contemporary postmodernism. The author (or so it seems, I am not familiar with his other works) is pro-individual, pro-liberty and pro-capitalist, but even if you disagree with all three, you will find this book useful. The survey of the roots of modern postmodernism in earlier anti-enlightenment philosophies is very informative and well worth reading.
And its only 4.99 on kindle, so you can put it on your phone and read bits and pieces at leisure (which ...more

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Apr 24, 2017 Mickey Hernandez rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

If I could I would give this book a 4.5. It was a fantastic elucidation of traditional Marxist, Neo-Marxist, and Post-modernist ideas. It also provided a good amount of background from thinkers such as Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Kant, Nietzsche, and other authors who influenced 19th and 20th century thought. The criticism of Post-modernist and Marxist thought is, in my opinion, mostly sound. For my money, it identifies a lot of what is wrong, or at the very least, inefficient and inadequate, with so ...more

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May 28, 2019 Chad rated it it was amazing

A challenging read, but worth the effort. With every chapter, more fell into place in my mind regarding how we got where where we are today with everything from vicious political rhetoric, universities as hothouses for leftist ideologies, the irrational popularity of patently ugly art, to the rise of nihilistic thinking that often leads to unspeakable acts of violence.

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Dec 13, 2017 Sylvester rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics, history, philosophy

It's basically a companion piece to Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Hicks explained the rise of postmodernism through history and philosophy. Each Chapter is dedicated to a specific era of philosophy and showcasing just how the evolution of irrationality came about. Starting from Rousseau, Hicks went on to explain the failings of Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, Rorty, Foucault, Dewey and Nietzche. The best part of the book was the chapter titled "Socialism in Crisis", which simply sho ...more

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Oct 13, 2015 Thore Husfeldt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a splendid little book! Lucid and informative. I particularly liked the historical overview of philosophical precursors to 20th-century postmodernism, which I found concise and illuminating. This author makes no attempt at hiding his monumental contempt towards the intellectual and moral failures of its subject. Recommended—if somebody can point to this book’s “good twin” (i.e., an equally concise description of postmodernism from somebody who actually likes it), I’d be happy to read it. ...more

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Apr 01, 2018 Daniel Schwabauer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An excellent overview of the historic roots of postmodernism

Much of this book is spent in summarizing the philosophers who set the foundation for Marxism and post-modernism. While the overview is helpful, the middle is also a bit of a slog, especially for someone not enthusiastic about the (admittedly important) differences between those philosophies. The "slog" is why I gave it four stars instead of five. Light reading it isn't.

That said, the author makes an excellent case for the origins and d ...more

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Oct 09, 2013 Roman Skaskiw rated it it was amazing

One of the most important books I've read. Its big idea is a comparison of the evolution of socialist thought to enlightenment thought.

When enlightenment logic and reason was perceived as a threat religion, a series of "counter-enlightenment philosophers" waged a war on logic, reason and truth.

This tradition continued in the 20th century when the catastrophe of socialism became too great to ignore, the post-modernism picked up the counter-enlightenment tradition and waged a war on the very tools ...more

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Jun 24, 2017 Jack Gardner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

Explaining the Seemingly Inexplicable

Greatly appreciate this very readable exposition, by a rational mind heroically treading where others become repulsed and confused. Makes understanding this opaque intellectual jungle enjoyable.

Informative - even essential - for understanding 20th century culture, its unraveling, and continuing influences. Reviews the long history and identifies the leading characters in the development of this "philosophy." Highly recommended.

The expanded edition's essay on ...more

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Oct 28, 2016 Heba rated it really liked it

if you don't know about postmodernism this book is a good start. despite the fact that the author is biased against postmodernism he still uses definitions from original literature of PM philosophers. now I feel fairly prepared to converse about general ideas of PM philosophy. ...more

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Jun 20, 2017 Nate Weger rated it really liked it

Resentful Cain and Righteous Abel

Review of Explaining postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen Hicks

My attention was directed to this book by Jordan Peterson but I had first heard about 'postmodernism' listening to Ravi Zacharius on YouTube.

Although Stephen is not shy letting the reader know what he thinks of postmodernism from his 'rational' philosophical perspective I think that he is even handed in articulating at least where it comes from and its basi ...more

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Oct 16, 2017 Blair rated it liked it

Shelves: zzz-own-e-book, philosophy, subjectivism

In Search of the False Dichotomy

What exactly is “postmodernism”? Essentially, it is the denial that an objective reality exists. For those who hold this view, words themselves are a meaningless game. So when they challenge the use of the term “postmodern”, remember they are playing their favourite game. I am not going to play. “Postmodern” is fine by me as a label for this way of thinking.

This book an account of how the systematic questioning of objective reality developed over the centuries, in ...more

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Aug 01, 2019 Bakunin rated it liked it

Shelves: identity, europe, non-fiction, philosophy, history-of-ideas, politics

This is an interesting book which tries to explain the success of postmodernism. Unfortunately I am not as erudite as I should be so I cannot claim to know whether or not the author is making false claims against Kant, Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida. (The one mistake I did notice was a minor one: he wrote that the famous German author and war veteran Ernst Jünger was wounded 3 times when it was in fact 17 times).

Hicks is arguing that following the enlightenment there came a reaction to it and This is an interesting book which tries to explain the success of postmodernism. Unfortunately I am not as erudite as I should be so I cannot claim to know whether or not the author is making false claims against Kant, Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida. (The one mistake I did notice was a minor one: he wrote that the famous German author and war veteran Ernst Jünger was wounded 3 times when it was in fact 17 times).

Hicks is arguing that following the enlightenment there came a reaction to it and this reaction was especially evident in Germany. Germany became a breeding ground for intellectuals who wanted to disown the value of the intellect and its ability to grasp truth. Kant clearly defined the limits of pure reason and in doing so paved way for the defense of religion as well as other political utopias. Neither the left nor the right during the 1800's were praising the individual and instead they both used criticisms of reason to pave way for their own defense of some form of collectivism.

Postmodernism came about in 50's as a result of the failure of socialism (according to Hicks). The four main proponents - Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida and Foucault - wanted to find a way to defend marxism when all over the world it seemed to be losing ground. They did this by shifting focus from class struggle to equality and by creating a disbelief in reality (and truth).

A few months ago I was arguing with an erudite philosophy student who argued that he was a Kantian which meant that we as humans have no way of knowing the real world (what Kant called "Das Ding an Sich"). Therefore our reality is created by our minds and our language is the only thing we can rely on. We create concepts like the spider spins its web (according to Nietzsche). This seems to align nicely with what Hicks was arguing was the central tenets of postmodernism.

The author is clearly in favor of classical liberalism and a free society (in the real sense of the word) which makes the book slightly biased. I will try to read some of these philosophers because I don't want to judge them without having read them. I would still recommend this book to anyone who wants a starting point for an understanding of what has happened to the West during the last 300 years. ...more

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Aug 30, 2017 Ryan Murdock rated it it was amazing

An essential book for understanding the extreme polarization we're currently seeing in the West, with its quagmire of political correctness, bitter identity politics, censorship and de-platforming of speakers at universities, and the incredibly persistent zombie of a failed socialism that just won't die.

Hicks offers convincing arguments for how we got to this point, and where the split occurred in both the philosophical literature and politics. Unfortunately, he stops short of offering solutions ...more

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About Stephen R.C. Hicks

Stephen R.C. Hicks

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Professor of Philosophy and the Executive Director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship at Rockford University, Illinois. He is the author of several books, a documentary, and essays in magazines and scholarly journals. He received his honours BA and MA degrees from the University of Guelph, Canada, and his PhD in philosophy from Indiana University, Bloomington. Professor Hicks teaches co ...more

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“In postmodern discourse, truth is rejected explicitly and consistency can be a rare phenomenon. Consider the following pairs of claims. On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is. On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad. Values are subjective—but sexism and racism are really evil. Technology is bad and destructive—and it is unfair that some people have more technology than others. Tolerance is good and dominance is bad—but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows. There is a common pattern here: Subjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next. Postmodernists are well aware of the contradictions—especially since their opponents relish pointing them out at every opportunity. And of course a post-modernist can respond dismissingly by citing Hegel—“Those are merely Aristotelian logical contradictions”—but it is one thing to say that and quite another to sustain Hegelian contradictions psychologically.” — 7 likes

“why is it that that prominent segment of the Left—the same Left that traditionally defended its positions on the modernist grounds of reason, science, fairness for all, and optimism—is now voicing themes of anti-reason, anti-science, all’s-fair-in-love-and-war, and cynicism? ” — 5 likes

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