Helen Pluckrose
Published on May 7, 2024
Pluckrose argues that postmodernism — a philosophical movement originating with French thinkers like Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida — has had a corrosive influence on Western culture by rejecting objective truth, stable reality and universal liberal values. According to the piece, these ideas migrated from academia into broader society and helped fuel identity politics, social-justice activism and skepticism about science and reason, which the author views as undermining liberal democracy and modernity. Pluckrose contends that this intellectual shift has contributed to cultural divisiveness and a turn away from Enlightenment principles that once underpinned Western thought.