Postmodernism: Cultural Marxism or Cultural Thatcherism?
Channel: A New Conversation
Date: 2020-02-22

This is an essay that, informing the discussion of the same name, looks at Doug Lain's video for Zero Books entitled 'Is Postmodernism Conservative?'. It begins by questioning the reactionary framing of postmodernism, arguing that its less a cultural conspiracy and more an observation of cultural phenomenon, and if its driven by any one agency, this might be more to do with neoliberal conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher. It goes on to tackle the issue we find on the left of constituting a revolutionary universal subject. The argument is that the universal subject requires a human subject but in postmodernism we recognise our subjectivity as being post-human. With that we realise universalism is impossible. However, with the cultural explosion during social democracy and its lapse into decrepitude under neoliberalism, we perhaps over-extended the notion, and through a rationalisation of new technologies, we might render a globally common lived experience of subordination to capital and realise once more the possibility of universalism.

Please excuse the visual. It was early days, and we're still learning.