Cynical Theories Ch 2: Postmodernism's Applied Turn

One of postmodernism's defining characteristics is deconstruction- dismantling everything. This was eventually a self-destructive tendency and it burned itself out around the 1980s. However, several offshoots of postmodernism took the principles and ideas of postmodernism and gave them  a practical aim, a goal, made them actionable. This enabled the Theory of postmodernism to live on, and also enabled it to break out of the bounds of academia and into the real world and the culture war we experience today. 

Several varieties of Theory became prevalent, and they will each receive their own focal chapter: postcolonialism, black feminism, intersectional feminism, critical race Theory, and queer Theory. These various branches took the principles and themes of postmodernism that were discussed in the previous chapter to varying degrees, so they won't all look the same, have the same goals, or be applied in the same way, but they will all exhibit characteristics of postmodernism. They all describe the world critically, in order to change it. Thus Theory underwent a moral mutation as it differentiated itself from original postmodernism, focusing not on what is but on what ought  to be, "an attitude we usually associate with churches, rather than universities." This is one critical difference. 

Another critical difference between modern Theory and original postmodernism is the acceptance of a limited scope of objective reality. Now instead of all knowledge being subjective and relative to the culture that builds the language that describes it, some things are allowed to be objectively and indisputably real, namely dominance and oppression. The aforementioned moral turn would mean nothing without a real moral evil to be fought against. 

At this point the authors give introductory passages to each of the branches of Theory mentioned above. While I do not wish to summarize those summaries here,  given that each will have it's own chapter, I will share a couple of interesting although unconnected bits. 

Sometimes Theories have trouble deciding just how far the the deconstruction aspect of postmodernism will be allowed to progress. Feminism is a good example of this. What started out as merely allowing women the same rights as men has progressed among some to the point where the category women itself is being deconstructed. Instead, we are called menstruators, birthing-people, and (I swear I'm not making this up, I actually saw this headline) folx with a vulva. 

Intersectionality was brought up, and while I've heard that word in the context of accepting people different than you, I was unaware of its academic definition. Intersectionality is the idea that you can experience oppression for more than one category that you fit, and that the total oppression you face can be more than the sum of its parts. So a company could hire plenty of women and plenty of black men, but no black women, people who face oppression of both sexism and racism. In discussing intersectionality, Kimberle Crenshaw is brought up. While I'm sure she'll get plenty of space in her respective chapter, I found part of her intro here very interesting. "She distinguishes between a 'black person' and a 'person who happens to be black' and sides with the former, arguing that this distinction is integral to identity politics and marks its difference from the universal liberal approaches that characterized the civil rights movements. These are common themes within the applied turn in postmodernism." 

The introduction of disability and fat studies made and interesting point. Not only is it impossible to know what it is like to be discriminated against for a disability or for your size unless you experience it, according to Theory, the very fact that those characteristics or disabilities are viewed as problems to be fixed is evidence of systemic hatred against them. This caught my attention because it very much reminded me of learning about deaf culture as I was learning ASL. To deaf people, being deaf is just something that makes them unique, they don't want to fix it. They often view cochlear implants as terribly insulting and offensive. I had one teacher tell us that she wanted to be buried with a pencil in each hand, so that when she was resurrected to her perfect body and her hearing restored, she could immediately stab her ear drums. She wanted to continue being deaf, it was not something that required healing. 

"The 'individual' in applied postmodernism is something like a sum total of the identity groups to which the person in question simultaneously belongs." That is a random quote without a good place in this blog post, but this chapter is so frustrating to summarize. It's like the second introduction. I already summarized the introduction and each branch of theory will again be summarized in its respective chapter. 

The final section of this chapter talks about how the adoption of a goal for Theory allowed academics to encourage activism from their students, rather that just share and search for knowledge. Prior to Theory taking control, academics were incentivized to hide all bias and be as objective as possible. Any colleagues evaluating their work would criticize obvious bias and counter it with evidence, because the objective was discovering truth, what is. "This is not how Social Justice scholarship works or is applied to education. Teaching is now supposed to be a political act, and only one type of politics is acceptable--identity politics, as defined by Social Justice and Theory." 

"What has happened is that applied postmodernism has come into its own, been reified--taken as real, as The Truth according to Social Justice--and widely spread by activists, and (ironically) turned into a dominant metanarrative of its own." 

Well, that chapter was frustrating; more than an introduction but less than a substantive chapter. Next up, the chapter on postcolonialism.