Erick-Woods Erickson
Post-modernism is a weird place to be. There is no real truth anymore, only narrative. Each person can have their own truth and who are we to judge? Exceptions are now the rule so the sky cannot be blue because some colorblind person does not see it that way so none of us are allowed to declare it blue. It is oppressive and maddening.
Into post-modernism has crept a new matrix for power called intersectionalism. It is derived from Marxism, which views the whole world in terms of power dynamics. Intersectionalism maps out those power dynamics based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender (embracing the trans pathology), sexuality, ability, religion, education, and more. The class that has the most power is that disfavored class. The class with the most moral authority is the favored class.
For progressives of the left, a white, male, heterosexual, cis-gendered (that is, not trans), Christian, with no disability is the height of oppression. A black, female, transgendered, lesbian, Muslim who is missing a leg is the height of moral authority. The post-modern Marxist seeks to subvert the oppressor class by silencing and dismantling their “dominant discourse,” which is the truth claims of the supposed oppressor. As theologian Tim Keller once wrote, “Language does not merely describe reality—it constructs or creates it. Power structures mask themselves behind the language of rationality and truth.” Because Marxists believe words actually create our reality, speech must be controlled.
People on the right fool themselves into thinking progressives only exist on the left. There is a growing progressive movement on the right that just subverts the left’s power template. As a result, these frequently race obsessed people on the right presume that the left’s most oppressed class is actually the oppressor and the white, Christian, male is the most oppressed. Given how progressively left much of the media is, they point to attacks on dads in commercial media, disparities of coverage of black and white crimes in the news, etc.
The progressives on the left and right both reject absolute truth claims and focus on “narratives.” In fact, as we have moved more and more into postmodernity, people spend more time talking about narratives than the truth because, in postmodernity, there is no truth, just the stories we tell ourselves. This comes from the progressive left and right embracing another hallmark of Marxist philosophy—deconstructionism, a concept derived from French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Deconstructionism is all the rage these days, with people “deconstructing” their faith, history, etc. Essentially, they take their own biases, break apart the components of historical fact or faith, and repackage them in their own image and worldview. One should note that Derrida himself never adequately defined deconstructionism, and it has been embraced by a wide variety of post-modern worldviews, from feminist theory to queer theory to white nationalists. Each of them retells a story or even basic facts through a lens made of their own biases.
On the progressive left, those stories frequently involve Jews and their power or white conservatives. The Nazis, who were socialist kissing cousins of the communists, became members of the right after World War II. The communists largely got a pass or sympathy as the ideological vanguard of Marxist post-modernity.
On the progressive right, ironically, their stories too frequently involve the Jews and their power. Both the progressive right and left are deeply antisemitic. But the progressive right is also Nazi obsessed. Instead of villains, they are actually the misanthropic anti-heroes of World War II. Thus, Russian propagandist Tucker Carlson can host an amateur historian Carlson declares as the “most honest” historian who, in turn, can rewrite the narrative of World War II to make Winston Churchill the villain and Hitler the victim.
The end goal of the progressive left and progressive right is the same — deconstructing and dismantling the moral truth claim that the United States is a force for good in the world. They must do so because progressives actually reject the idea of individual rights and identity, a key foundation of American identity. Some of the progressive right want a Christian nationalism imposed on everyone that is deeply nationalist but not very Christian. All must conform to their image. The progressive left wants a Marxist America where the outcome is equal instead of opportunity. Both despise individuals who must work for a collective defined by the ideological enterprise of each side. The progressive left and right are just two sides of a single pathetic coin.
Conservatives should reject the progressive right. As William F. Buckley threw out the John Birch Society, it is incumbent on the right to speak clearly against Nazi apologists, racialists, antisemites and the progressive right who would fixate on narratives at the expense of truth. If Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life,” there must be no room on the right for Pontius Pilates asking what truth is.
