Peterson's and Chomsky's Critiques of Postmodernism.

We summarize and compare the critical views of Jordan Peterson and Noam Chomsky on Postmodernism. Peterson views Postmodernism as a resentful movement bent on obtaining power within society while Chomsky sees more mundane motives behind the philosophy. The main focus of their criticisms turns out to be strikingly different.

Both academics broadly generalize when talking about the philosophical current they do not distinguish between say Poststructuralism or Deconstructive Postmodernism. In addition, although both Peterson and Chomsky talk about the relationship between Postmodernists and Power they have in mind two very different kinds of Power. Peterson is talking about the Power to rule over the whole society while Chomsky is talking about academic Power structures. So we did not emphasize this, only formal, similarity.

Personal Thoughts on Postmodernism:

There are things I agree with and disagree with in both the criticisms of Chomsky and Peterson.

Everyone who works in academia knows that a fair amount of academics want to make a career for themselves out of public relations and get their names on as many papers as possible. There is also a drive to publish papers even if they verge on the nonsensical. This is in part a problem due to the set of incentives academics are placed under but it is also a personal choice of each academic. Such attitudes go on in all academic disciplines but as one moves from the hard sciences to the soft sciences the problem tends to get worse, not because the soft sciences are somehow inferior to the hard sciences but because the soft sciences are more prone to interpretations and make for an easier setting in which to use sophistry. Some of the main ideas that define Postmodernism (relativism, skepticism towards truth and logic) make Postmodernism the perfect guise to hide under if one wants to play these kinds of games in academia. So many academics that want to game the system may gravitate towards Postmodernism. Thus I agree with Chomsky when he sees the set of incentives as having to do with prestige and material reward but I would not extend the criticism to the whole philosophical enterprise. Although I believe Postmodernists start with some misguided premises some questions they investigate deserve to be investigated.
A criticism that I would instead extend to much of continental philosophy is to try to be clearer when you write, and less verbose to avoid misinterpretations. Relevant to this is that I don't believe Postmodernists invented identity politics being that they were heavily anti-essences, but it is possible that their focus on Power inspired identity politics.
Where, instead, I disagree more with Chomsky and align more with Peterson is on the societal implications of bad academic practices. The use of sophistry in academia seeps right down to the whole of society and it corrupts people's ability to reason, at all levels, leading people to hold absurd beliefs.

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[Mon]

Rewatching this video I agree with some commentators: it is probably an exaggeration to say that the critiques are strikingly different. I still see them as coming from two different points of view but it's probably a stretch to call them "strikingly different". In any case, Lots of love.

[obviouslythbeliever]

I find it difficult to pair Chomsky and Peterson as equals

[gilroe]

I think both are right. While Chomsky explains how something as pernicious as post-modernism came about, Peterson explains what it has turned into and how it maintains power.

[superturkle]

from this video it seems to me chomsky is saying 'these pomo clowns arent worth debating, ' while peterson is saying 'these clowns have taken over the universities and they need to be kicked out.'

i think peterson is the one we need to listen to at this time.

[ejtattersall]

"communists kill them all [the working class] and capitalists make them all rich"? This at very best is a WILD exaggeration.

[Kowjja]

Post-modernism seems more useful as a thought process / experiment to fundamentally question the nature of things but it doesn't really function as a philosophical view / ideology to hold. in that sense i don't think we should dismiss the concept entirely but "postmodernists" who truly believe in it are either liars or in self-denial.

[weaq]

I think it is important to see them as different. One relevant difference are their respective ages and standings on the intellectual stage. Chomsky's analysis has come from his seeing the emergence of post-modernism in real time. His issue with postmodernism is the inauthentic nature of it. and he saw that first hand as he was involved in social justice movements, apparently without the need to turn to these new-fangled theories. Perhaps more tribally, he's also got skin in the game because he has his own original ideas in direct contrast to them. So while one may not agree with Chomsky I think we should take his argument in good faith.

Peterson, on the other hand, is not a good faith actor at all in my view. He is simply politically opposed to the modern social justice movements and so he ascribes blame to their postmodernism, even if that means crowbarring all of their characteristics into the label postmodern. But these people are the inheritors of those ideas rather than the originators and I don't think it makes sense to call them postmodern. Some of them can simply be Marxists, which is a positivistic theory; others critical theorists, which is a grey area. I think it's too simplistic to call critical theory, which came out of Marxism, and which in many ways has evolved into the modern social justice movements that Peterson opposes, postmodern.

[____blank____]

They both agree that postmodernists are driven by power.

[nigelkelley]

Postmodernism is undermined by its own ideology. If there are no facts, and logic and rational thought are merely social constructs, then Postmodernist ideology cannot be factually true. Or, at best, it is just another social construct, no more or less than any other.

For this reason I view postmodernism as an extreme form of skepticism which can be useful in helping to see through misguided thinking or gross social misconceptions. It does not, however, offer any basis of foundation upon which to build a functioning society.

[MagicJunkYard]

Peterson is basically a post-modernist in denial, and Chomsky isn't. Ez done.

[adamhuntley]

I'm not sure the two approaches are quite so opposite in the way portrayed. Chomsky does not think the ideas have much substance. But neither does Petersen. The main difference seems to be that for Chomsky the 1st World post modernists are pretty irrelevant but for Petersen their ideas are a useful cover for bad intent. These two approaches can easily co-exist as far as I can tell

[sinkingship]

Saying Peterson is on the Right of the political spectrum truly shows how little you actually listen to his words and just parrot along with the dominant narrative.

[kewgardensstation]

Why does Peterson never discuss the tragic failures of capitalism and fascism, I wonder? He's always picking on socialists and communists.

[luniz]

The idea that post modernistic rejection of objective reality, logic, and reason don't cause harm come up against a hard wall when it enters medical science.

[icojb]

Great video and summation of their views.

[georgeleddy]

What I appreciate about Chomsky‘s take on postmodernism is how accurately he locates it in the halls of higher education, and then, by extension, into the management of progressive nonprofits and mid-level government. That is, that postmodernism has a project which is fundamentally economic, and in the interest of a “professional managerial class” that thrives in universities and nonprofits and mid-level government. (See Jacobin magazine and videos on what is wrong about identity politics and the “cultural left”.)

Peterson, on the other hand, is a bit “all over the map” in that close to 20 or even 25% of what he’s saying is true, and then he leaps to these over-arching reactionary theories about how happy and grateful we should be to live in “the best of all possible worlds” Pangloss was right? His name would not be Pangloss. This his is hook and convert gimmick whereby he derails young critical thinkers into becoming right wing idiots.

[paulgray]

My postmodern postman put my mail in the bin, I complained. His excuse was obtuse and there followed abuse, he said letterbox/bin are the same. I said oh I'm sorry for causing him worry then punched him right in the face. He seemed really pissed when I told him my fist was a sandwich and he'd just had a taste.

[Samsgarden]

Peterson is too lenient on the capitalists, Chomsky is too lenient on the Marxists. Nonetheless, Mercuse, Gramsci, Fanon, Latour etc., were all interested in expanding the Marxist purview outside economics

[shughy]

Chomsky keeps moving his goalposts, deliberately vague. Peterson is a bag of truth bombs and solid as a rock.

[matthewkopp]

Peterson is a paid propagandist who hasn’t read the material or considered it.

Chomsky is an independent intellectual who has and finds it fashionable pretense. And with the exception of Foucault he considers it not worth engaging in at all.

And in regards to Foucault, I agree with Chomsky in general but I think Foucault did have a very important point, which I could some up as: Modernism as a mechanism absorbed by power has a tendency of overly universalizing and creating narratives around it which serve institutional power and has tended to ignore broader alternative structural possibilities.

This I think Chomsky and Foucault could agree with and they very well may have had that conversation.