Well postmodernism was an attempt to deal with the irrational nature of existence, particularly the sense that there were now too many moral principles, counter-weaving and contradicting one another. Postmodernism was, in a sense, glib, but in the face of a real seriousness and sense of being overwhelmed as to how to make sense of power structures, and their conflicting demands, in a manner that embraced a transcendental morality.
So now what do we have? A moral earnestness which attempts to make the old Christian moral paradigm work again, but this time anchoring it in “biology” rather than in transcendental reason. This is the ideological newcomer to the stage, which attempts to reconstruct some of the features of the past, although more modestly, but nonetheless using the rhetoric of appealing to biology in order to instruct women back into the home, and to encourage men to be on top.
I think we need to give this new fledgling some time to consolidate its gains. It may be that a large number of people will embrace it, some unwittingly, but others because it furthers their own agenda, to gain strength through ideological simplification.
Ultimately, though, I foresee that this will be a consolidation of mediocrity, which Nietzsche’s philosophy addresses at length in the last two books of Will to Power. This is in the context of the idea that the majority of people are capable only of reproducing the human race, without leaving an intellectual or creative mark. Even the leader of the movement, J P himself, admits that the majority of people are simply not going to be highly intellectual or creative. Perhaps what one can learn from this is that they need a morality that can consolidate their own strengths, which is to maintain a certain level of “averageness”, whilst assuring that what is average and normative is also reproduced. (In my own view the heavy emphasis on biological reproduction, as seen in J P’s videos, also comes into this.)
So, postmodernism is out, and perhaps this is a good thing too, as it was always rather elitist. It was also stymied in effectiveness by its own insistence on a Kantian transcendentalism. It made sense to very few people, and muddled the minds of many, whilst making a fetish in wallowing in its own self-gratifying sense of moral indecisiveness.
What will have to happen next is that the consolidated mass of humanity, that embraces quite self-consciously the morality of averageness — or what Nietzsche calls “mediocrity” — will gain an extreme level of self-assurety to the point that they close the circle around themselves to prevent any further change. By locking themselves into solid moral values, they will also lock out other modes of thought that would be too challenging.
Thus it will be that finally, as Nietzsche had expected, two human races will develop — one that safeguards the importance of convention and simplicity in morality, and the other that “plays dangerously” with ideas and thoughts, whilst living far outside of the awareness of the mass majority.
Add a comment