There used to be a conservative website, some of its content is still around, called \u201cThe Postmodern Conservative\u201d. I read a little content from this site as I am a little intrigued how one could maintain the conjecture of a \u2018postmodern conservative\u2019. On the surface, this is an oxymoron. Perhaps it is intended ironically. It is tantamount to thinking of Nietzsche\u2019s nihilism and Christianity together in positive terms. Postmodern thinking seeks to overturn constructionism and its resulting epistemological result, structuralism. Postmoderism cannot be thought as a coherent, autonomous and positive philosophy. It is a symbiotic philosophy. It preys on structure and narrative. It is a methodology that deconstructs structure based on the specific structure’s own content, its counter narratives that contradict and undermine its canonical determinations. No philosophical system of thought is immune from the oxidizing effect of its most ardent iron. Deconstruction is the tool of the nihilist. In light of this, how would a \u2018conservative\u2019 postmodernists be thought except as ironically? <\/p>\n
Their claim is further confused in their assertion that a \u2018conservative\u2019 postmodernist is more coherent that a \u2018liberal\u2019 postmodernist. This is like thinking that a Lucifer is more Christ-like than an Antichrist. What would one \u2018conserve\u2019 as a postmodernist? Why would the content of their conservation be immune from their own devices? How could a postmodern recommend \u2018conservative\u2019 content over \u2018liberal\u2019 content? Haven\u2019t we established a canon, a \u2018logocentrism\u2019, by maintaining conservatism? If the thought is one of a sort of Darwinian mind-beating as opposed to the more conventional chest-beating in the belief that survival of the fittest is established, these folks should re-read Derrida\u2019s essay on \u201cForce and Signification\u201d in \u201cWriting and Difference\u201d. Derrida writes, \u201cTo comprehend the structure of a becoming, the form of a force, is to lose meaning by gaining it.\u201d 1) If the structure of \u2018conservatism\u2019 is meaningful and is to be recommended over \u2018liberalism\u2019 then, for deconstruction, its meaning is lost at the same time that it is achieved. <\/p>\n
If, on the other hand, \u2018conservatism\u2019 here is meant to designate brute force, mystification of raw power, then power becomes that text that Derrida writes of when he states, \u201cTo say that force is the origin of the phenomenon is to say nothing\u201d 2) He goes on to state that Hegel clearly demonstrates that force is a tautology. Force can only assert itself. Force and language amount to the same thing, the same identity. Nothing new or different is added in thinking either word. To rejoin this notion to conservatism is reminiscent of Ayn Rand and her elitist dogma; a tautology of power makes right, history IS the narrative of the conqueror. Without regard to any moral or ethical disjoins, this assertion merely redundantly marks itself. Its only claim is to force or the structuralism that it establishes. To deconstruct its specific narrative is the task of postmodernism. To deconstruct deconstructionism is to revert to constructionism and thus re-establish (or never have de-established) its myopic insistence, its force. In other words, it is to say nothing using a lot of words. While this trend has certainly not been alien to philosophy it seems to rise to the level of infinite nonsense in the thought of a \u201cPostmodern Conservative\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u2003
\n1)\tWriting and Difference, Force and Signification, page 26 (paperback)
\n2)\tIbid, page 26 (bottom)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There used to be a conservative website, some of its content is still around, called \u201cThe Postmodern Conservative\u201d. I read a little content from this site as I am a little intrigued how one could maintain the conjecture of a \u2018postmodern conservative\u2019. On the surface, this is an oxymoron. Perhaps it is intended ironically. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,18],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-myths-exposed","category-western-philosophy","category-republicans","tag-postmodern-conservative"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3877,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/3877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}