Postmodernism is not identity politics

29 thoughts on “Postmodernism is not identity politics”

1. postmodernism rejects identity politics and essentialism but blames capitalism for giving an exchange value and commoditizing everything. I believe some level of identity is necessary(esp national/ethnic identity) . If u have that then some things will be more valuable to u and will be beyond monetary value

2. The alt-right is just good old judeo-christian theocratic thinking with a "but I'm not really religious" or "I'm actually really tolerant and have BIPOC friends"

3. I have a question since I'm pretty new to postmodernism. We can observe dominant binary hierarchy which is the rich and the poor. How can one identify him/herself with different gropu if he/she is poor? if you're poor you're poor and that's it. I'd like to notify that I'm awere that this question does not realtes to this video but also to the Sonic Adventure 2 and I'm awere that I can unnecessarily mix here. There is one more thing. What do we do with such a hierarchy. As far as I rememmer form video about Peterson those are indespenseble functions so here is my second question. Do we abandon this function? Do we change it? Do we rebuild it's structure?

4. Oh no
   You said 'shadow'
   A Jungian concept.

5. What an elaborate way to say "I didn't do nothing!"

6. Nice. But pomo is also a distraction from collectivism. Sure, social categories are hard to pin down, and the extreme is to atomize individuals, which is not wrong if we have "soul" concepts, but it neglects the most important things in any civilization, which are cooperation, peace and unity. The Baha'i Faith say it best with "unity in diversity." It is a simple concept, but nonetheless vital and profound (and does not requires any obfuscatory theory to grok).

7. Thank you!!! 🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏👏👏

   You are offering a great public service by creating these videos that shed light on how different works by different philosophers are misrepresented by many on social media.

   If Socrates and all the other misrepresented philosophers were alive right now, they would be all clapping for you as you're protecting the foundations of the field of philosophy with these videos.

   I appreciate your mastery of these philosophies in their original form, as they were represented by every individual philosopher, and I appreciate your diligence in pointing out where hundreds of others are misrepresenting these philosophies, and then quoting the original source as proof!

   That is a huge service as most of the rest of us do not have the time nor the philosophical mastery to fact check 100s of different talking heads on YouTube.

   Unfortunately, as you pointed out, these misrepresentations take on a life of their own and create massive confusion.

   These misrepresentations (whether they were started intentionally by some crook, or unintentionally as a result of one's inability to fully comprehend the original material, or as a result of laziness and repeating a 3rd party's misrepresentation of a philosophy without checking the original material) convolute and destroyed the field of philosophy.

   I also thoroughly enjoyed your masterful critique of Jordan Peterson completely misrepresenting the unique and different philosophies of a number of different Postmodernist philosophers.

   Jordan Peterson is a cunning linguist and a dishonest master debator (puns intended).

   The way he groups/generalizes tens of different/unique philosophers and then completely twists and misrepresents them is completely dishonest and unprofessional. I no longer have any respect for Jordan Peterson as a philosopher and I don't listen to him talk about any philosophies any more.

   Not only Jordan Peterson, if I hear anybody talk about any philosophy as a generalization without quoting original material and naming the philosopher who wrote those specific words, and having a detailed counter argument for that siegicic sentence, I will stop watching immediately!

   You taught me that real philosophy is specific and it is very detailed.

   If it is not specific and detailed it is b.s. heresay, not philosophy. Thank you for that important lesson!

   You are ten million times a better philosopher that Jordan Peterson has ever been! I mean that! Much respect sir!

   Please keep up the great work that you are doing! 😊🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏

8. Hi — what is the "ethics of the old heterosexual virility?" I just have no idea what that means

9. Post modernism was wedded to identity politics through Crenshaw's theory of intersectionality. It was also linked to an idea of epistemological privilege and based on a theory of positionality. Here JP is very accurate. On the wider political scene identity politics is paired to epistemological privilege: hence the need to always consult the privileged voice of the marginalized. It is highly visible and dominant in the Culture War. And yes it has led to a kind of essentialism and holds contradictory views on racialization. In the the last century, the western philosophical tradition, under the influence of ethnology, was coupled with problems of translation (Quine) and the Whorf hypothesis to undermine notions of Identity and Truth. Foucault's epistemology could be one of the fruits of this discussion against Logical Positivism. The politicization of this view was inevitable. It's link to post-colonial discussions was also inevitable given its origin in ethnology. The elevation of an idiot to a position of authority based on his/her marginality is the question Peterson addresses. When knowledge is explained as the output of Regimes of Truth they cannot be viewed as anything but arbitrary and a matter of political overreach. Butler's emphasis of herself as a liberator of victims of Regimes of Truth politicizes her role as hero of the oppressed. This temptation, to be the hero, essentializes the victim as foothold regardless of what she says. Chomsky on Postmodernism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrHwDOlTt8

10. One of the issues that you get in academia, and this is coming from an English literature major, is that the field of study is often times solely conducted through an emphasis on critical theory, and cultural studies. So it is post-colonial, post-structuralist, queer theory, feminism, Marxism, freudianism, etc. With that, people sort of group together all of these thoughts, which when taken to the lowest common denominator, is that of identity. The identify of queer theory, mixed with the class identity of Marxism, mixed with the tribal identity with post-colonialism, mixed with the concept of the other in post-structuralism, etc. So postmodernism as a field, then becomes what Peterson describes as the term itself is not indicative of what Derrida and Lacan did as individuals, but instead how this new form of thought has been molded into a multifaceted ideology.

    In school, I hated all of these thinkers because of that, as why should I give Derrida the light of day, and read…when it’s intertwined with every other thought that is pretty much solely there to deny my own identity and place in the world. I think this is what occurs for a lot of people, is the term of postmodern becomes indicative of a push to denigrate their being through sort of intellectual sophistry and deception, as that is how it seems to be utilized on college campuses.

    One way of looking at it anyway

11. Where you miss the point is the world picture drawn up by "identity politics" is one where truth is only true insomuch it belongs to people who hold power. You actually try to use this point with the soup bit. But leftists take Foucault and say "the truth of western societies is inately evil becuase its only a display of power". The take away isnt Foucault, but the very metaphysique it uses in understanding truth is.

12. It seems to me that you and Peterson are describing two different definitions of postmodernism. Yours is as described in your video which is very well done, whereas Jordan Peterson addresses the resulting definition that arises out of the oversimplification of Postmodernism, adoption into identity politics, and then replaces the original postmodernism. In short, you describe the idea, he describes the people who live out the idea.

13. I enjoyed this video better than the Judith Butler ones I've watched but overall I cannot see me watching another philosophy video. Jelly babies are more relevant to me than the spouting's of people who need to examine existence and your relationship with everything in it seems self absorbed. On the funny side, the comments are often wonderful and remind me of the bar scene in Good Will Hunting. good luck and have a good one.

14. Wow…that Butler example on lesbianism and your interpretation of it – that was retarded.

15. Well that's the problem. It comes down to Labels and definitions that either evolve or redefined. I think this is the problem with political philosophy. Some one creates an ideology and becomes popular but then gets redefined. So Jordan could be interpreting postmodernism according to what he learned about it . As you said, what is soup? What makes soup? And depending where you are coming from , soup will have a different meaning. Just like Jordan with his take on postmodernism it's gonna be different to people who have a different take. So Jordan is not really wrong on postmodernism but reflective to his understanding with possibly older or newer meanings

16. This video is post modern neo marxist propaganda.

17. good video but borscht is not served cold i do not know where you came across this information i am polish and have only ever had it served hot

18. Wow that was so clarifying.

19. Great video, I learned about postmodernism thru education and it changed my life in a great way. All the best from Norway 😊👍

20. Cool blank screen video

21. funny you mention trans people in a video against essentialism; most of them consider themselves to have some womanly or manly essence that means they can change their sex (with some distinctions from trans person to trans person as some acknowledge sex, some see being trans as a choice, and others see it as a result of dysphoria). tired of seeing feminine = woman from people calling themselves feminists.

22. Post Modernism is to Identity Politics what A Power Tool is to Torture.
    Not made for the cause, but sure as hell creatively applied.
    And while your tied up and tortured you dont really have an inclination to build a house with a power tool.

23. Pure postmodernism may not support identity politics, but identity politics implements selected aspects of postmodernism – the skepticism of the dominant narrative, the belief that dominant narratives are inherently oppressive, and that some people may be excluded from the dominant narrative based on inherent personal characteristics. From the point of view of Identity politics, it follows that one should call out those characteristics that are most frequently and egregiously marginalized. These identities become the foundation for rebellion against the oppressive societal metanarrative. This rebellion is identity politics.

24. I have never though that barszcz would be valid point in talking about identity politics.

25. When I first heard of postmodernism many moons ago, I did somewhat hold this belief.

26. Postmodernism = An exhaustive form of skepticism.

27. Thank you so much for this.

28. Conservatives are so dumb. This just gave me an epiphany I learned when I first learned about the history of sociology. There are three founding fathers to the study of sociology and one of them is Marx. His economic and philosophical theories on class conflict influenced what’s known as “conflict theory”. Conflict theory in sociology is the idea of oppressed and oppressors. This is what conservatives are talking about when talking about the oppressed and oppressors they’re just so misinformed and uneducated from parroting talking points they wrongly assert conflict theory to post modernism and neo Marxism when it has nothing to do with either and has everything to do with marx’s work influencing sociology. And no that doesn’t make sociology neo-Marxist as it mostly just uses conflict theory and marx’s dialectical materialism to examine oppressed groups and rejects his predictions of the future

29. The essence of soup is water, and is not mutually exclusive..

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