The Most Powerful Weapon in the World

1. Wanting Power More than Truth.

One of the hallmarks of postmodernism is the way that it dismisses, denies, deconstructs, and otherwise seeks to subvert the idea of absolute, universal, objective truth. The postmodern thinker is convinced that what lies behind claims to truth is in fact power seeking; they think people want to define what is true in a way that benefits the person doing the defining.

A postmodernist might argue that the scientists say science is the best way to know because that makes science important and increases the importance of the scientists, and gives the scientists social power and influence. The Catholic Church says Catholicism is true because is society believes Catholicism is true that would increase the power, prestige, and influence of the Catholic Church.

This means that the postmodernist is generally not concerned with objective truth, but rather with power. The postmodernist is not concerned with what is true, the postmodernist is concerned with who gets to decide what is true, whose interests are served by saying something is true, and who benefits. They want to know who has power, and who gets to exercise that power…the truth of the matters up for discussion take a back seat if they are even considered at all.

In light of all this, it should come as no surprise that postmodernists operate in a way which is entirely cynical. The postmodern theorist thinks everything is always about power and for that reason the theories postmodernists come up with are not motivated by a desire to know the truth, but rather by a desire to grab power. I do not think this because I agree with postmodernism, I think this because postmodern theorists explicitly say this.

Let’s look at some examples.

When the postmodern theorist Joan Scott was writing about what she thought feminist theories needed, she stated that they needed to “relevant for political practice,” she never said they needed to be true:

"We need a theory that can analyze the workings of patriarchy in all its manifestations-ideological, institutional, organizational, subjective- accounting not only for continuities but also for change over time. we need a theory that will let us think in pluralities and diversities rather than of unities and universals. We need a theory that will break the conceptual hold, at least, of those long traditions of (western) philosophy that have systemically and repeatedly construed the world hierachically in terms of masculine universals and feminine specificities. We need theory that will enable us to articulate alternative ways of thinking about (and thus acting upon) gender without either simply reversing the old hierarchies or confirming them. And we need theory that will be useful and relevant for political practice."¹

Joan Scott wants theories that allow feminists to do political work, whether those theories are true is left entirely out of the discussion. The postmodern feminist Kelly Oliver takes it even further saying explicitly that truth is not one of her goals:

" I propose that in order to be revolutionary, feminist theory cannot claim to describe what exists, or, "natural facts." Rather, feminist theories should be political tools, strategies for overcoming oppression in specific concrete situations. The goal, then, of feminist theory, should be to develop strategic theories-not true theories, not false theories, but strategic theories. "²

For Kelly Oliver theories are valued for their strategic capabilities; for the use to which those theories can be put. Kelly Oliver wants theories that help her get what she wants, whether or not those theories are actually true is entirely beside the point. This is a claim that is echoed in the work of the feminist theorist Sandra Harding, who developed a version of an epistemology (a theory of what knowledge is and how we know things) called standpoint epistemology. According to Harding the goal of her standpoint epistemology is not to get to the truth about the world, but rather to create political knowledge for the groups that use it:

“The adequacy of standpoint projects is to be judged by the success of the practices they legitimate rather than the truth or verisimilitude of representations of nature and social relations. (Recollect that the success of practices has always been the ultimate test of the adequacy of certain claims.) Do they in fact produce more accurate, comprehensive, rationally justifiable, and politically useful knowledge for the exploited group to which they are accountable?”³

The reason the postmodernists come up with their theories is not because they want the truth, it is because they desire power. Their goal is not to come up with theories that tell us about how the world is, they want to develop theories through which they can accrue power for themselves. In fact, the postmodern theorist will regularly say they are not even trying to find anything like absolute truth. Rochelle Gutierrez makes just such a claim:

"My goal is not to get closer to some absolute truth about our world. Rather, learning with other persons opens the door for us to have different lenses for viewing and relating with our universe and others. And, in doing so, we have the opportunity to learn how different approaches (mathematics or mathematx) make impossible certain forms of knowing the world, recognizing that all of these forms are provisional, local, and legitimate. "⁴

What I hope is clear from this is that postmodern thinkers want power more than they want truth.

2. The Power of Truth

In 1948, while the the Soviet Union was at the Height of it’s power a Soviet Scientist named Andrei Sakharov came up with a design for a type of thermonuclear bomb. This design he called “the layer cake.” The first Soviet nuclear bomb was successfully tested on August 29, 1949, and Sakharov’s “layer cake” design would go on to be used in the RDS-37, the Soviet Unions first two stage hydrogen bomb.

Later in his life Sakharov would eventually turn against the Soviet Union and become an human rights activist. In 1975, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on human rights and for his work to end the so called nuclear arms race. The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, which was established in 1988 by the European Parliament, is named in his honour. It is awarded to those who "dedicate their lives to peaceful struggle for human rights."

Later in his life Sakharov, whose work gave the Soviet Union the ability to build nuclear weapons, made this astonishing and beautiful comment (emphasis mine):

“I’ve always thought that the most powerful weapon in the world was the bomb and that’s why I gave it to my people, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the most powerful weapon in the world is not the bomb but it’s the truth.”

In their fervor to gain power the postmodernists cast truth aside, and accordingly they failed to see the truth about, well, the truth. In valuing power over truth they lost sight of the power of the truth, and for that they will pay a heavy price. Reality is the thing that you run into when your beliefs are false, and sooner or later postmodernism will crash aground on the rocks of reality.

However, our society is not doomed to follow the postmodernists onto the rocks. the most powerful weapon in the world is the truth, and all the power in the world cannot insulate the postmodernists from the truth tellers blade.

And that is how we will win…by telling the truth.

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Wokal_distance.

1. Joan W. Scott: Deconstructing Equality-versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism. {Feminist Studies , Spring, 1988, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring, 1988)} pp. 32-5

2. Kelly Oliver, Keller's Gender/Science System: Is the Philosophy of Science to Science as Science Is to Nature?: {Hypatia , Winter, 1989, Vol. 3, No. 3, French Feminist Philosophy (Winter,1989)} pp. 146

3. Sandra Harding, Standpoint Theories: Productively Controversial Hypatia Vol. 24, No. 4 (Fall, 2009), P.195

4. Rochelle Gutierrez, Living Mathematix: A Vision for the Future. p.19