After Postmodernism: The Death and Resurrection of Grand Narrative
Dear Colleague,
What comes after post-modernism? Please send your ideas and reflections to me at rakoenigsberg@earthlink.net.
At one point in time, societal grand narratives seemed to be fading from the scene. More recently, grand narratives have returned—with a vengeance. So it is inaccurate to speak of the “death of grand narratives.” One can only say that at a certain moment in history, some people were in the process of abandoning or losing interest in society’s grand narratives; whereas at another moment, some people began again to passionately attach to society’s grand narratives.
One may think of a “grand narrative” as an ideology or belief system that constitutes the heart and soul of a society or cultural group—containing and providing a fundamental matrix of meaning. People within a society or cultural group are united by virtue of the fact that they share this ideology or belief system.
Post-modernism posited and hailed the death of grand narratives. In his 1992 book, Francis Fukuyama hypothesized The End of History, declaring that struggles between societies were on the wane and might eventually disappear. In light of what has occurred since this book was written, many claim that Fukuyama’s theory is wrong. Indeed, we seem to have witnessed the return of history.
The return of history, however—of violent conflicts between societies—was the result of the actions of just a few men. Perhaps it is more fruitful to say that some human beings could not bear or countenance the idea that history seemed to be coming to an end. These men felt that a life bereft of grand narratives was not worth living. By “shocking the world,” they sought to resurrect their society’s grand narrative.
The challenge to post-modernism, according to Dr. Akbar Ahmed, did not come from the expected quarters. Rather, it came from Osama Bin Laden and George Bush, each of whom pushed forward his own version of a Grand Narrative onto the stage of history. No one could miss the symbolism of the September 11 attack on the financial center of the Western World or the strike on the Pentagon—heart of the military might of America. But, Ahmed suggests, something else had been struck: “Postmodernism lay buried in the rubble of that fateful day.”
Bin Laden acted in order to affirm his belief in the omnipotence of Allah. George Bush retaliated by proclaiming his belief in the absolute truth of the American narrative of “freedom and democracy.” Human beings like Osama Bin Laden and George Bush attempted to put an end to the end of history. We have witnessed the “return” of a world that seemed to be fading away.
A focus of my research is Nazi genocide (see Nations Have the Right to Kill). The Holocaust grew out of the discourse of anti-Semitism. But what does “anti-Semitism” mean? Hannah Arendt—acknowledging that the entire program of extermination and annihilation undertaken by the Nazis could be “deduced from the premise of anti-Semitism,” pointedly observes that evoking the ideology “explains everything and therefore nothing.”
One may say the same thing for any mode of theorizing employing the concept of discourse as an explanation. A tautology is a formulation that “masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived.” The concept of discourse, in short, explains everything and therefore nothing.
Leaving post-modernism behind, I propose that we focus on the question of why certain ideologies and cultural narratives exist—have become dominant within particular societies. After post-modernism, we need to explain the power of discourse. Why do certain ideas within a society become “grand?” Paul Saurette—a political scientist at the University of Ottawa—provides a succinct formulation of the central issues that we need to address:
“What does it mean, exactly, to say that a discourse has power? Why, in other words, are some representations maintained while others are dismissed? How does a particular discourse, out of all the possibilities, achieve dominance? Particularly if the discourse in question is hegemonic, how has it managed to successfully reproduce and maintain itself (against the ever threatening infinity of possibilities) over a long period of time?”
It is meaningless to state that grand narratives exist or do not exist. At a certain moment in history, grand narratives seemed to be dying or fading from the scene; yet at another moment in history, people passionately embraced their society’s grand narratives. History seemed to be ending, but then it returned.
Why do particular discourses achieve power within society? Why are certain ideologies embraced so passionately? I suggest we pose the question “why” within the following conceptual framework: What do various ideas, ideologies and belief systems do for people who embrace them. What psychic functions do they perform?
What desires, fantasies and anxieties fuel attachment to various symbolic forms? What gratifications and meanings do they provide for human beings? I begin to address these issues in my online publication “Why Do Ideologies Exist: The Psychological Function of Culture”.
Lacanians say that we are “subjects of the symbolic order.” Of course, societal discourses shape our minds, bodies and behavior. After post-modernism, we pose the following questions: Who created the symbolic order? Why do symbolic systems assume particular forms? How may we account for the structure of ideologies? Why have certain narratives or discourses achieved dominance within societies?
In order to pursue this project of explaining culture and discourse, we need to abandon a central premise of post-modernism: belief that society constitutes an autonomous or independent realm—separate from human beings. Who has created cultural narratives other than human beings? Who perpetuates discourses other than us? Why have we created a domain to which we then subject ourselves?
What comes after post-modernism? Please send your ideas and reflections to me at rakoenigsberg@earthlink.net.
Best regards,
Richard Koenigsberg