By Hank Beckman -
In any policy debate, questioning our intelligence is a favorite tactic of leftists. It’s right up there with charges of bigotry, greed, and dishonesty/hypocrisy to fire up their base. (They’ve developed a new accusation in recent years, that their adversary of the moment is the dreaded white male, but that’s for another column)
So maybe our brilliant friends across the aisle could help us out and explain a concept that, at first glance, seems rather hard to understand.
Anyone who’s attended college in the modern era has been exposed to Postmodernism, especially if their curriculum is heavily focused on liberal arts or the humanities.
The general idea—and this is far from an exhaustive explanation—seems to be that there is no definable truth, only many competing versions of the truth, depending on each person’s life experience, especially their gender or racial/ethnic identity.
The web site of Encyclopedia Brittanica defines Postmodernism as a “broad skepticism, subjectivism or relativism; a general suspicion of reason and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.”
It's definition further claims “There is no objective reality…there is no scientific or historical truth (objective truth).”
Often credited with being an early proponent of the theory, the German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was quoted as replying to to those insisting there were only facts, “I should say: no, it is precisely facts which do not exist, only interpretations.”
The first problem with this theory is that a statement claiming there is no truth is one that essentially contradicts itself. No truth? Really? Are you sure that’s a true statement?
But beyond that obvious glitch, the concept also has serious implications for some of the Left’s most cherished policy fixations, such as climate change.
If there is no set in stone, no-doubt-about-it scientific truth, why should we put any stock in the claim that without drastic action the earth’s temperature will rise to the level where polar ice caps will melt, coastal cities will all be under water, the polar bears will all drown, and mass starvation will result?
What makes the scientist Michael Mann and his famous “hockey stick” graph showing modernity producing unprecedented levels of rising temperatures any more credible than the hundreds of scientists who think it is either impossible to predict climate change accurately, believe that climate change is a result of natural cycles, or disagree about the level of damage climate change would bring?
And what about that whole Darwin thing, the idea that liberals—and most conservatives—defend to the death, about us descending from apes that gradually became human through natural selection? Or is it that life started in the oceans, as some other scholars speculate?
Many (most?) scientists adhere to the Big Bang Theory, which holds that the universe started as a small patch of matter about 13.7 billion years ago, known as a “singularity.”
What a singularity actually is seems to be rather hard to pin down, no matter how many scientific websites one visits. One describes them as points of “infinite density and gravity”; small areas of extremely hot matter that produced the Big Bang. (Another admitted of the question of where singularities come from, “well, we don’t know.” Points for honesty and that’s the last you’ll ever hear from me on the subject)
But I digress. My point is that if Postmodernism is valid, if there really is no actual or scientific truth—as every other English/Humanities/Social Science professor would insist—why should anyone believe these various scientists instead of the Book of Genesis? Or the different evolution theories of Islam? Or Intelligent Design? After all, a devout Catholic might not be all that comfortable with the idea that their early ancestors were monkeys.
Of course, the problem is that once you start asking leftists to reconcile statements or positions that seem to contradict one another, it could evolve into a career, both for you and your leftist friend.
For instance, if it’s wrong to penalize “Dreamers,” for the crimes their parents committed by sneaking them in the country, isn’t it also wrong to penalize European American and Asian American kids with affirmative action policies for crimes that their ancestors committed? (And in most cases, didn’t actually commit)
How, if it’s wrong to criticize the Parkland, Florida school shooting survivors because they’re only kids, is it acceptable to criticize the Covington Catholic kids in Kentucky because one of them smirked at a creep that started banging a drum in his face?
If no one is above the law, as many Democrats would insist about President Trump and his alleged crimes, does the same principle hold for people who break the law by sneaking in the country—sometimes repeatedly—and those government officials who defy federal immigration law?
How can government exert any meaningful control over firearms when it has had so little success with drugs and illegal immigration?
If opposing same-sex marriage and illegal immigration is a sign of bigotry and hatred, what explains past opposition to both by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Were they bigots then and on the wrong side of history? Is there a class you can audit or some therapy you can undergo to get cured?
And if business owners are nothing more than rapacious capitalists that care for nothing but profit at the expense of human dignity, and women are paid only 79-cents on the dollar compared to men, why don’t they always prefer hiring women.
To be fair, this could go on for a while. To answer just the questions listed above would probably require some serious cogitation that would sap the energy of the most brilliant of our leftist friends.
So let’s start with trying to work around that climate change scenario. I’m planning on replacing my vehicle soon and I don’t need the guilt associated with driving a big, honking SUV.
