Truth through cross-horizon encounter
A critique of liberalism (and postmodernism)
In Cynical Theories, published in 2020 by Pitchstone Publishing, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsey maintain that liberalism is at the heart of Western civilization, and that liberalism is today at risk, threatened by far-right populist movements as well as far-left social justice crusaders, who “portray themselves as the sole and righteous champions of social and moral progress.” I concur with Pluckrose and Lindsey with respect to many of their criticisms of the postmodern Left, which I reviewed in my last commentary, “Social Justice activist scholarship: The historic failure of the US left,” September 6, 2022. At the same time, I find limitations in the liberal perspective of Pluckrose and Lindsey. In today’s commentary, I offer a critique of mainstream liberalism as an inadequate response to postmodernism. I propose a liberalism that is reformulated on the basis of the Third World revolutions, which are anti-colonial and anti-imperialist, but not anti-Western.
What I am…