Fashionable Nonsense and Intellectual Imposters

It has come to my attention the works of one Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, who has generously provided a sample of his text online (http://www.explainingpostmodernism.com/PostMod.pdf), attempts to attack postmodernism as a threat to liberal democracy.

This... is true. Somewhat. I have no arguments against the socialism that is rampant in the academic left and I am very clear about the fact that I enjoy (note: enjoy, not endorse) reading about academic socialism. And yes, there are many threats to liberal democracy that socialism can bring, such as political correctness and forced egalitarianism. HOWEVER, the issue I have with Hicks' text is the ad hominem attack he makes on postmodern epistemology, when it is clearly not (directly) related to the politics behind postmodernism (well... at least on a linear value level... but this is to be explained as well).

Hicks claims that the reason why relativism and anti-realism arose in the academic left was the failure of the socialist experiment and since academics relied so much on socialism, they were faced with two options--re-evaluate their political ideology or reject reality. Apparently, they chose the latter, crying out "reality is like sooo subjective anyway, so it's like totally not fair to talk about the USSR because it's like selective reality, you know?" Well, the problem with this notion is that Hicks traces the roots of postmodernism to many continental philosophers who do not share socialist or even egalitarian values. What he [Hicks] implies by doing this is that Nietzsche is a hippie and that Heidegger is a pinko commie (because the Nazis were sooo USSR, you know?) Furthermore, he attacks Kant as one of the fathers of PoMo Lit Crit Shit, which is just... wow, poor Kant.

Now, I agree with Hicks that there is a disparity between postmodern epistemology and the political ideology expressed by many in the postmodern movement. But, for crying out loud, what about me?! I mean, I'm a nihilistic solipsistic postmodernist, yet I still love capitalism and am considered a heartless libertarian!! I'd say, if anything, postmodernism fits more on a consequentialist libertarian paradigm (you know, the Friedmans, not the Enlightenment-values crowd) and a free-market allows for the creation and destruction of any power structure. Of course, the whole thing is that capitalism as it currently is is not a true descriptor of ideal capitalism (look at the structure created by big corporations and farm subsidies, for example). However, there is nothing more nihilistic than the free-market. But I digress.

What's kinda more abusive in his argument is the fact that he puts "objectivism" as the description of modernist metaphysics. It sounds kinda sketchy if you ask me; I'd consider empiricism more accurate than "objectivism" and it is well-known that Hicks consults Rand quite a bit...

The main problem is that most critiques of postmodernism end up as critiques of socialism and the critiques of dense language. I agree that clarity is not an important issue, but the ideas that postmodernism introduces--semi-solipsistic anti-realism (I say "semi" because there is at least some dependence on a social constructive view, which would imply more than one person) and extreme skepticism are not necessarily negligible arguments. If the attackers would actually address postmodern arguments instead of whining about socialism and linguistic obscurity, then I'd probably be more interested in what they have to say.