“The world is not becoming meaningless; it is becoming so saturated with symbolism that meaning itself no longer means anything.“
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Author: Matt McManus
What is Post-Modernism? (Part One)
“My point, and the point of the post-modern philosophers, was to demonstrate that even a simple word like apple can beget numerous interpretations, let alone words like justice, equality and so on.”
All Good Things Must Come to an End: An Overview of “Why Liberalism Failed.”
“So is Deneen right? Has liberalism failed? I think in the long run nothing wrought by the hand of man lasts forever. This includes political ideologies. We have a tendency to naturalize the world as it is and assume that things can never change.”
Who Was Martin Heidegger? (And Should Progressives Care?)
“This is especially true in large urban areas. Forces beyond our control compel us to focus on the now “yolo?” and live fragmented lives of needs and satisfaction. In these contexts, we focus on being like animals rather than selves, and become increasingly homogenous and indistinguishable.”
What is Human Dignity? Kant Sheds Light
“We are not just material objects in a value-free universe. Kant makes the radical and highly innovative argument that autonomy of the individual is the enabling condition of moral philosophy.”
What is a “Post-Modern Conservative”?
“As Harry Frankfurt of On Bullshit indicated, a liar is someone who still has some tangential sense of what the truth is. They are aware of what is true and choose to dishonestly present the opposite. This is not true of Mr. Trump and his acolytes.”
Jordan Peterson and Conservative Critiques of Modernity
“If we value our heritage, conservative intellectuals like Peterson need to stop pandering to their followers, and instead start motivating them to be more reflective about the culpability of complex social forces.”
On Bias and Truth in the Public Sphere
“The unceasing accusations of bias are no longer used to promote dialogue and bridge interpretive frameworks. Instead, they are used to seal ourselves off inside bubbles that allow us to preserve the integrity of our world view, free from contamination by the views of others.” Read more
Carl Schmitt, Liberalism, and Post-Modern Conservatism
“The practice of politics is always a form of violence, whether literal or figurative, as different groups of friends and enemies attempt to overcome one another and seize control of the state.”
Part Two: The Argument Against Jordan Peterson
“My suspicion is that many of Peterson’s readers feel an affinity to the advice he offers and so don’t look to question his political commitments that deeply. This is problematic because it leads to deep inconsistencies in doctrine that, if applied as stated, would lead to a rather unusual politics.”
A Critique of Jordan Peterson
“Why does Peterson get this so wrong? He simply doesn’t care to present a more complex narrative that would problematize his cute and hyperbolic story about the left.”
A Brief Critique of Originalist Constitutional Histories
The problem for originalists is that there is little truth or historical validity to their argument, which amounts to just a feel-good story of the Constitution’s natural legitimacy.
On Marxism, Post-Modernism, and “Cultural Marxism”
The attempt to conflate Marxism and post-modernism under the label of “cultural Marxism” is, at the very least, highly problematic.