The Misnomer of ‘Postmodern Neo-Marxism’

This article was originally published on 12th November 2021.

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If you have been paying attention to today's political discourse for any extended period of time, you will be aware of the term Postmodern neo-Marxism. An appellation first popularised by Jordan B. Peterson, it is now, along with 'Wokeism', a pejorative for any form of political activism rooted in ‘far-left’ ideas.

While the term attempts to shed light on academia's commitment to destroying the very society that gave rise to academic freedom, it is inherently flawed. 'Postmodern neo-Marxism' is a contradictory misnomer that is fundamentally unworkable as a tool to describe the ideological concepts it seeks to unpack. The term's two component philosophies are inherently hostile to each other. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' writings in the late 19th century established the tenet of humanity's "historical movement [through time] by which successive generations transformed the results acquired by the generations that preceded them." However, this was based on a radical revision of the Hegelian dialectic, a modernist paradigm that Jean-François Lyotard, the father of the term postmodernism, referred to as “grand narratives.” Marxist theory relies on grand narratives to legitimise the proletariat's revolution over the bourgeoisie, whereas postmodernism fundamentally rejects grand narratives as oppressive constructs that uphold existing power structures and discourses.

Postmodernism, as an intellectual movement, emerged from a post-Second World War scepticism towards the grand narratives that legitimised imperialistic political regimes such as Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mussolini's Italy, and the British Empire, among others. While it is true that the philosophies of many prominent postmodern thinkers originated in the pro-Marxist political climate of post-War France, the limitations of Marxism, as well as Sartre's existentialism and Husserl's phenomenology, in providing adequate explanations for language, the human psyche, and social structures, led to a shift away from the modernist focus on the individual towards a narrower examination of social discourse and structures.

To be sure, there are compelling reasons for liberals to be afraid of both philosophies, particularly in the context of academia’s continuing flirtations with Marxist-materialist ideals. As a political system, communism is known to have caused more deaths than any other regime in human history. Meanwhile, postmodernism, as a wide-ranging and broad epistemology (theory of knowledge), has been decried for its deconstructionist and relativistic qualities, which can be interpreted as promoting a ruthless pursuit of one's own 'Will to Power'.

But a few things must be clarified here. When referring to the philosophy of Marx and Engels, there is a considerable difference between the objective forms that Marxism assumes under the name of ‘Communism’ and how Marxism is applied as a philosophy of history and a mode of social critique. There are also considerable differences between those operating within the traditional paradigm of Marxism and those operating within the ‘neo-Marxist’ sphere of thought most associated with the Frankfurt School. Adorno and Horkheimer, some of the most prominent scholars often referred to as neo-Marxists, offer some of the most powerful arguments against Marxist-Leninism and the epistemic origins of totalitarianism through a critique of the commodification of culture. This, in itself, is more akin to Hegel’s idealism than to Marx’s dialectical materialism.

This, however, is not to say that liberals in their coupling of ‘neo-Marxism’ with ‘postmodernism’ are on to nothing. Indeed, some of the intellectuals Peterson alludes to could qualify as ‘neo-Marxists’ on the grounds that, while there is a form of revision involved, there is ample reference to Marxism’s social and epistemic foundations. For example, Gramsci rejected Marx's 'immiseration thesis' but accepted the seizure of the economic substructure as the proletariat's historical mission. Marcuse, in Repressive Tolerance, argued for violent resistance to secure liberty from the suppression of tolerance itself.

Gramsci's political strategy of restoring the proletariat's revolutionary consciousness is of particular interest to opponents of 'postmodern neo-Marxism'. Often referred to as 'cultural Marxism', Gramsci argues that, in light of the failure to deliver a revolution in the economic substructure, the cultural superstructure (the realm of ideology, identity, and social norms) is where the battleground must be relocated for ultimate economic change to be enacted. This struggle against the dominant cultural 'hegemony' is what Gramsci regards as 'the long march' through the social institutions.

Nevertheless, it is contentious to associate such political strategies with orthodox Marxism or neo-Marxism. In light of the current political discourse and its contradictions, the roots of intersectional 'identity politics' are debated. Marxism rejects the dichotomy between intersectionalities and power structures. Marxists believe that only the proletariat, on the receiving end of the bourgeois class structure, can have revolutionary consciousness. Moreover, the division of labour based on biological sex is used by Marxists to justify why capitalism is incapable of delivering equality for all genders.

It is no coincidence that the Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist-Leninist made a strident attempt to defend Kathleen Stock, who was chastised by the LGBT lobby at the University of Sussex for drawing attention to the fact that sexual orientation makes no sense without reference to biological sex. The ‘high priest’ of the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno, pinned the very origins of totalitarianism on “identity thinking”; a victim of radical feminism himself in the late 1960s, he would likely have been terrified of the idea of positing identities as sacrosanct in the way that Antifa and the apparat of intersectionalism mandates.

The issue of postmodernism's relationship with identity politics is complex and lacks consensus among its academics. Judith Butler, a poststructuralist postmodern radical feminist, views identities as illusory “efficacious phantasms,” suggesting that identity is not essentialistic but rather a product of performative acts governed by social sanction. Butler believes that identity markers should be utilised because the LGBT community claims ownership of them.

It can be argued that the most well-known postmodernist, Paul-Michel Foucault, may have held a different view on identity politics. In his seminal work Discipline and Punish, Foucault analyses the social and theoretical mechanisms behind Western penal systems and argues that there is an inherent relationship between non-discursive practices and systems of discourse. To Foucault, knowledge cannot be separated from the power structures that accompany it. He employs a method of ‘genealogy’ inspired by Nietzsche's epistemology of power relations to demonstrate how the modern penal system established a 'Normal', a new system of non-discursive power that diffused into pre-established societal institutions and created a condition in which individuals are influenced by a ‘normalising gaze'.

Foucault extends his method of genealogy to his philosophy of sexuality in The History of Sexuality. He argues that the sexually repressive discourse of the Catholic realm and the modern era is not aimed at preventing ‘deviant’ behaviours, but rather at exercising non-discursive control over those who choose to participate in such behaviours. Foucault maintains that individuals are not only controlled by external influences but also by their internalisation of the norms established by dominant power structures, shaping their sense of self. He posits that power is not purely negative but also a positive and productive force in society, and the veiling of power through narratives of liberation can create new forms of relationships, love, and creation. Foucault suggests that sex is not a fatality but a possibility for a creative life within a society characterised by dispersed power centres interacting in complex ways.

Foucault's works were not developed as a theory of universals, but rather as epistemologies to explain the issues of madness, punishment, and sexuality within socially contingent localities. Thus, for Foucault, when approaching questions of sexuality, one’s identity cannot be found in sexuality, and instead, identity serves purely as a productive game, an ‘aesthetics’ of existence that can lead to the propagation of culture and interpersonal bonds:

“If identity becomes the problem of sexual existence, and if people think that they have to ‘uncover’ their ‘own identity’, and that their own identity has to become the law, the principle, the code of their existence; if the perennial question they ask is ‘Does this thing conform to my identity?’ then, I think, they will turn back to a kind of ethics very close to the old heterosexual virility. If we are asked to relate to the question of identity, it must be an identity to our unique selves. But the relationships we have to have with ourselves are not ones of identity, rather, they must be relationships of differentiation, of creation, of innovation. To be the same is really boring. We must not exclude identity if people find their pleasure through this identity, but we must not think of this identity as an ethical universal rule.”

Foucault, an overt ‘postmodernist’ by today’s standards, would have seen the inherent danger in essentialistic identity categories that alienate individuals from the full range of possible experiences. While some of his ideas—and indeed his personal life—may be questionable, his conclusion aligns with that of conservatives: imposing arbitrary identities through institutional or social force is of no benefit to anyone. Such force obstructs genuine moral action. Identities themselves are fundamentally abstract and lack any real enabling qualities unless they are used in pursuit of an ulterior motive. 

It is worth noting that Jean Baudrillard, who attempted to reconcile Marxism and postmodernism, is seldom mentioned in debates about the origin of identity politics compared to Foucault and other postmodern thinkers. Baudrillard arguably completes Marx's theory of 'commodity fetishism' by claiming that capitalism underwent a "postmodern break" upon entering its post-industrial phase. According to Baudrillard, at this juncture, use, exchange, and labour value all collapse into sign (symbolic) value, resulting in capitalism assuming a more symbolic form detached from production. Cultural capital exemplifies this phenomenon, and since virtue-signalling culture appears inseparable from identity politics, one could argue that Baudrillard's thinking fundamentally rejects identity politics and 'wokeness' at its core. If symbolic value supersedes all other forms of value, then by extension, virtue signalling dominates over genuine virtue. 

Peterson, Lindsay, Hicks, and others are correct in pointing out the collective effort from Americanised humanities departments at Western universities to present their own moral universe as irrational and/or oppressive. However, it is a mistake to collapse this effort into Marxism, postmodernism, or both in concert. These philosophies are fundamentally opposed to each other and cannot be reconciled.

The purpose of this article is to reaffirm that the prolonged focus on ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’, and by extension ‘Woke’, serves as an impediment in conservative discourse for the benefit of the Regime. By presupposing false opposites, the slogan unwittingly falls foul to a characteristic tactic of the Left: the espousal of false opposites. The more this contradictory concept is used, the more it strengthens the straw man it seeks to criticise.

In the spirit of postmodernism, it seems appropriate to end with a degree of irony. The postmodern condition could be seen as the feared end of history, where meaning and morality are decoupled from their historical and religious foundations, resulting in the nihilistic universe that Peterson et al. fear. However, one could argue that mankind's movement out of absolute scepticism and self-hatred allows for an understanding of the true value of what stands to be lost. This is not to say that conservatives should encourage the destruction of valued things for the sake of lamenting their loss later. Rather, postmodernism may provide a framework for justifying why certain social institutions and traditions deserve to continue existing, and why others do not.