The Origins of Postmodernism

A personal summary of Stephen Hick’s ideas in Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

Kant’s relationship to religion is complicated, but he can be traced as the beginning of a counter-enlightenment movement in the 1700s — due to both his skepticism and his faith. Kant, born in 1724 in Germany, suggested we cannot truly ‘know’ reality, or rather that we as subjects cannot ‘know’ our objects. Our understanding of the world will always be subjective, and consist of the representations of objects that we have in our minds. This is not entirely unreasonable — for example we may know pieces of information about an object without knowing the whole. We may think we know information about an object when in fact we are making assumptions based on our own biases. Surprisingly, we can just be wrong sometimes. For example, we have gone from a geocentric view of the solar system, to a heliocentric view of the solar system, to an understanding that our galaxy is large but it is all that exists, to a realisation that our galaxy is only one of many. We may in fact still be in the dark — perhaps one day we will show the previous assumptions to all be invalid. But, given a key role of philosophy is to understand and know reality, some might consider Kant’s view an unsatisfactory one. What is the point in chasing truth if it does not exist, or if it does but we are impotent to know it?

Hegel, born in 1770 also in Germany, suggested that the whole of reality is the creation of the subject. Meaning not only that there are no objects at all, but that we ourselves invent the objects and therefore can truly know them. Rather than proposing a “brain in a vat” type scenario, where a single brain thinks it is living a real life but in fact has imagined everything, Hegel referred to a collective consciousness. For Hegel — if reality does not exist in the literal fashion otherwise understood, if we are creating ‘reality’ in our collective minds, then we can objectively know it, for it is our own invention. This might be a relieving thought for those who have dedicated their lives to philosophy only to have it torn apart by Kant. It might also align well with a Judeo-Christian standpoint — for an enlightenment reason-based approach to the world does not make religious faith easy, a Kantian approach does not make philosophical analysis easy, but a Hegelian approach not only embraces the non-reasoned ideas present in religious thought, it relieves the philosopher of the impotence of their work. We do not need to touch the objective realm, it only has to exist in our collective consciousness.

Here we find not an individual thinker, but the collective consciousness of a society as the operative unit. While Kant considered a kind of ‘virtual reality’ to be all that we can know, Hegel expanded this by suggesting the virtual reality is a social entity. Our understanding of the world is shaped by others — what they believe, what they say, the language they say it in, the traditions we collectively have. If we are seeking reality and truth, we must embrace the collective. The collective is the reason we can find, it is the truth, it is the absolute and the divine. This stand point may shed light on Hegel’s statements: “a single person, I need hardly say, is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole” and “hence, if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it”. Hegel’s ideas suggest we can take a creative approach to truth, given our collective consciousness creates reality.

To understand what a creative approach to truth might be, we can consider the Irrationalist movement that began in the early 1800s. Irrationalism suggests that reason is second best behind feelings, instincts and leaps of faith. Given the contradictory nature of the world, an irrational approach can yield deep truths. Reason is for those of us who are too afraid to face the cold contradictory and painful nature of reality. Heidegger suggested truth could not be found in words intending to convey a reasoned meaning, for words of any language are tainted with unintended meanings, confusion and bias. Thomas Kuhn suggested that science itself could not attain truth, it only aligns our perception with already-possessed values.

So far we have two key things: 1) That reality is unknowable, or perhaps exists only in the perceptions of our own collective consciousness and 2) that feelings and instincts are more important than reason, that we can take a creative approach to truth given we created reality in the first place. This is the beginning of the counter-enlightenment movement that would become post-modernism, but the third key ingredient in the underpinnings of post-modernism is Rousseau. Rousseau was born in 1712 in Geneva, and considered civilisation itself to be corrupting and the cause of moral degradation. We as a species are not naturally rational, reasoned or civilised — we are passionate and instinctual. Therefore, religion is needed to provide social stability, regardless of whether any religious leaders actually believe. To maintain order, Rousseau approved of ending the life of dissenters, for they are pushing their individual view on something far more important — the collective. He claimed “If the leaders of the state say to the citizen “it is expedient for the state that you should die”, he should die.” Rousseau was in favour of people having a simple yet obedient life, not the life of, say, the wealthy self-indulgent French royal family. Unsurprisingly, Rousseau was a great inspiration for the bloody French Revolution of the 1790s. He could inspire followers to think “power to the working people”, but also “power to the state”.

The French Revolution is considered by some to have ended when Napoleon took power. Napoleon would then go on to gain power across Europe and spread enlightenment ideas with him, much to the indignity of Germany, where the counter-enlightenment thinking had originated and which was still deeply feudal. German intellectuals would go on to blame the enlightenment for Germany’s painful loses during WWI, which only fuelled a desire to embrace the counter-enlightenment ideas of prioritising the collective, and worshipping the state. It is noteworthy that the emancipation of European jews in the 1800s can be credited to the enlightenment, though, Germany turned a corner and considered this a failure, blaming the jews for Germany’s problems. Before WWII, there was some division over the correct collective to prioritise — a national collective or a global collective. The national collective side of course resulting in the National Socialist, or Nazi, party. WWII may have resulted in the collapse of national collectivism, for now, though it would be untrue and unfair to suggest it has stained all of collectivism.

So we have the seeds of doubt over our own knowledge sowed by Kant and Hegel, a push back against undeserved power by Rousseau, a prioritisation of emotions, instincts and a creative approach to truth by irrationalists, and perhaps most importantly an embracing of a collective rather than an individual. These can be seen as the foundation of what would come: a move towards group-identity, lived-experience as truth, and attempts to rip power from those who did nothing to deserve it.