PostModernismAndMarxism

Quora Answer : What is the difference between post-modernism and Marxism?

Feb 4, 2019

"Post-modernism" is more of a historical label. It covers a whole lot of different thinkers who were around after the second world war.

In that sense it's more like "Renaissance Art". It's not a "style" it's a "period" (that, of course, has a bit of stylistic resemblance - no one was doing abstract expressionism back then. But the period is the main thing.)

Now, sure, many of these post-modern thinkers did share some common ideas or entered into a dialogue with each other about their contemporary intellectual trends. And, similarly, there are some thinkers from this time who we'd exclude because they were continuing to carry out older philosophical or sociological projects.

Nevertheless, the post-modernists are a very broad and diverse group of thinkers. The only thing that you can really say they all have in common is their rejection of earlier "modernist" intellectual projects (including Marxism) which tried to find some kind of overarching unified theory that could explain everything in culture. See Phil Jones (He / Him)'s answer to Could someone explain the essence of postmodernism? for more.

Marxism, on the other hand, IS very much a specific lineage of ideas. Today it has many descendants which have diverged in some ways, but which also do have a pretty strong family resemblance in terms of some of the core ideas and values. Briefly, you can say that the origin of Marxism is an attempt to bring together British economics with German transcendental idealism. (Or perhaps, not so much "bring together" as "smash together" in a "Large Hadron Collider" sense.) See Phil Jones (He / Him)'s answer to Was Karl Marx a genius even if he was wrong on the big picture? for more on that.

Quora Answer : Jordan Peterson said that "postmodernism, in many ways - especially as it's played out politically - is the new skin that the old Marxism now inhabits.What do you think about this claim?

Feb 3, 2019

I think conflating post-modernism with Marxism is like when your 90 year old grandmother says she doesn't like country music ... because of all the gangsta rappers.

You do understand. It's not like there's never been a gangsta rapper hanging out with and collaborating with a country singer ...

And maybe she accidentally turned on MTV one day and heard both genres in quick succession.

But it's still a profoundly incorrect way of understanding the music scene.

And all her statement really means is that in her muddled mind there's a bundle of new fangled music that she doesn't like, with rather brash and loud young men and women making a racket.

She doesn't like it and she's fumbling around with labels that she's heard but doesn't really understand to express her disdain.

Quora Answer : What is postmodern neomarxism?

Aug 8, 2020

Postmodern neomarxism basically means "new fangled".

As in "all this new-fangled theory people talk about in academia that I don't understand".

They don't know what post-modernism is. They don't know what Marxism is. They can't tell the difference between someone who just references Marx vs. someone who is a card-carrying Communist. And they don't want to know or understand what any of these things are.

All they know is that they don't like these ideas that are new, counter-intuitive and challenging. So they lump them all together, attach the worst labels they can think of : "post-modern" and "Marxist". And then go on the internet to rant against them.

But really they just mean "new fangled".