Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

by Stephen R.C. Hicks

The best portrait of this psychology comes from that very dead, very white European male: William Shakespeare, in his Othello. Iago just hated Othello, but he could not hope to defeat him in open confrontation. How then could he destroy him? Iago’s strategy was to attack him where it would hurt most—through Othello’s passion for Desdemona. Iago hinted indirectly that she had been sleeping around, he spread subtle lies and innuendo about her faithfulness, he succeeded in raising a doubt in Othello’s mind about the most beautiful thing in his life, and he let that doubt work like a slow poison. Like the postmodernists, Iago’s only weapons were words. The only difference is that the postmodernists are not so subtle about their intended targets.