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Graphic created for the Culture Lab Detroit by Unsold Studio.
History does not lend itself easily to periodization; eras have fuzzy edges. Still, I think it fair to characterize the past half century in the West as dominated by “post-modern” sensibilities.
Post-modernism comprises interlocking sentiments, including:
– A deep skepticism about objectivity;
– An abiding cynicism about empiricism, about facts and truth;
and
– A firm repudiation of notions of progress and “grand narratives”.
Post-modernism traces multiple origins in philosophy (think Foucault, Rorty) and in literary criticism (Lyotard, Derrida), and finds resonance in the natural sciences, such as in a contemporary complexity theory.
But these ideas are not limited to the academy. They are everywhere: in the literature we write and read (think Catch-22, Democracy), the art we create and appreciate (Koons, Hirst), and the popular culture we produce and consume (The Truman Show, Seinfeld).
But this is all old news: post-modernism is like greenhouse gasses—filling our atmosphere for 50 years. Like it or not, we are all critical theorists now.
In short, ideas matter.
History does not lend itself easily to periodization; eras have fuzzy edges. Still, I think it fair to characterize the past half century in the West as dominated by “post-modern” sensibilities.
Post-modernism comprises interlocking sentiments, including:
– A deep skepticism about objectivity;
– An abiding cynicism about empiricism, about facts and truth;
and
– A firm repudiation of notions of progress and “grand narratives”.
Post-modernism traces multiple origins in philosophy (think Foucault, Rorty) and in literary criticism (Lyotard, Derrida), and finds resonance in the natural sciences, such as in a contemporary complexity theory.
But these ideas are not limited to the academy. They are everywhere: in the literature we write and read (think Catch-22, Democracy), the art we create and appreciate (Koons, Hirst), and the popular culture we produce and consume (The Truman Show, Seinfeld).
But this is all old news: post-modernism is like greenhouse gasses—filling our atmosphere for 50 years. Like it or not, we are all critical theorists now.
In short, ideas matter.
Post-modern irony and cynicism methods have been in (and on) the air for 50 years, but it is only in the past decade that they have come to dominate our politics. Today, the public square seethes with post-modernism; claims of “alternative facts” and “fake news” abound. The skepticism that has long characterized our literature and arts, now commands our public discourse: we live in a Post-Truth political culture.
This is a direct consequence of the rise of social media. Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and more have multiplied and amplified our general cynicism to dominate public discourse.
In the Post-Truth political culture, anyone with an opinion and a Twitter handle can be a thought leader.
This is a direct consequence of the rise of social media. Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and more have multiplied and amplified our general cynicism to dominate public discourse.
In the Post-Truth political culture, anyone with an opinion and a Twitter handle can be a thought leader.
In the Post-Truth political culture, the quest for veracity is overshadowed by the quest for virality.
There is a tech-enabled through line from Foucault to Facebook to Fake News.
In short, technology matters.
Post-Truth political culture would be a curiosity if it only concerned the size of an Inauguration crowd.
But when faced with an empirical crisis, Post-Truth resistance to facts/truth/science can pose an existential threat.
In a way, Covid is a tragic natural experiment: one phenomenon simultaneously strikes 195 countries with different political cultures. Reactions and outcomes vary greatly.
One would expect Post-Trust cultures to struggle with Covid. We have encouraged three generations to “question authority,” we have written stories, produced films, created art that deconstructs everything, we have honed the craft of looking past “facts” to see “power.”
And now we suddenly tell people to “follow the science” which itself is a work-in-progress.
Post-Truth political culture would be a curiosity if it only concerned the size of an Inauguration crowd.
But when faced with an empirical crisis, Post-Truth resistance to facts/truth/science can pose an existential threat.
In a way, Covid is a tragic natural experiment: one phenomenon simultaneously strikes 195 countries with different political cultures. Reactions and outcomes vary greatly.
One would expect Post-Trust cultures to struggle with Covid. We have encouraged three generations to “question authority,” we have written stories, produced films, created art that deconstructs everything, we have honed the craft of looking past “facts” to see “power.”
And now we suddenly tell people to “follow the science” which itself is a work-in-progress.
Post-Truth political cultures flourish in post-materialist societies with Western intellectual traditions.
Consider Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan—all wealthy societies, but decidedly Eastern in intellectual orientation. Lacking a Post-
Truth politics, these countries reach immunization density quite quickly, in about 23 weeks.
Similarly, cultures closer to the Western intellectual canon, but notably less affluent (such as Chile and Spain) reached immunization density in almost the same time.
But in contrast Post-Truth political cultures—wealthy, Western cultures—face far greater skepticism and hesitancy. France and Germany took nearly twice as long to reach vaccine density—and the US still has not reached that level.
Pandemics and Post-Truth politics don’t mix.
In short, political culture matters.
Post-Truth political cultures flourish in post-materialist societies with Western intellectual traditions.
Consider Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan—all wealthy societies, but decidedly Eastern in intellectual orientation. Lacking a Post-
Truth politics, these countries reach immunization density quite quickly, in about 23 weeks.
Similarly, cultures closer to the Western intellectual canon, but notably less affluent (such as Chile and Spain) reached immunization density in almost the same time.
But in contrast Post-Truth political cultures—wealthy, Western cultures—face far greater skepticism and hesitancy. France and Germany took nearly twice as long to reach vaccine density—and the US still has not reached that level.
Pandemics and Post-Truth politics don’t mix.
In short, political culture matters.
Just as technology catalyzed post-modern ideas into Post-Truth politics, the same is happening in economics.
We have endured 50 years of increasing economic insecurity and increasing economic inequality, but only in the last decade have we seen the emergence of what I think of as “Post-Truth finance.”
By Post-Truth finance, I mean a set of phenomena that are animated by a rejection of technical expertise and powered by tech-enabled disintermediation of traditional institutions.
The risk of Post-Truth finance is a direct consequence of technological change—a shift in Central Bank technology and the emergence of powerful disintermediating technologies like Blockchain.
Consider meme stocks:
Just as Twitter and Facebook make everyone a pundit, so Robinhood and Reddit make everyone an analyst. The Post-Truth investor trusts a chatroom as much as a CFA.
Virality trumps Value.
Consider monetary policy:
A few years ago, I distributed to our investors 10 Trillion (Zimbabwean) Dollar notes. My point was that helicopter money matters. Today Modern Monetary Theorists challenge the establishment: if money is so valuable, why the helicopter policy first in the Great Financial Crisis and now for Covid? Exigent fiscal policies may not have devalued fiat currency, but almost certainly have debased it.
Consider currency:
My favorite currency are cartoons that Weimar communities printed to poke fun at the central government and to use as a store of value. While this seems quaint, it is precisely what Dogecoin is. Post-Truth investors are saying “We know fiat currency is a game. Two can play at that.”
Even the resurgence of the lowly SPAC is driven in part by the Post-Truth sentiment. Post-Truth investors ask: “why should venture capitalists and private equity funds choose the winners and losers. We too want a say in which unicorns are born.”
The Post-Truth world seems bleak: no truth to believe, no facts to trust, no authority to heed, no arc of progress to pursue.
Can we not distinguish between Astrology & Astronomy? Between Science and Scientology?
There seem at least three possible responses to this condition.
Nihilism and despair is one.
Escapism is another. At some level, is this what drives today’s fashionable quests for alternatives in outer space and cyberspace?
Pragmatism. Yes we resist science and facts, but ultimately we are practical. After 30 years, we have reduced smoking by 90% and the hole in the ozone layer by half.
Philosophers, artists, and authors seeking to move beyond the emptiness of post-modernity offer a more nuanced approach to “what comes next.” European philosophers speaks of “post-post-modernism” or “meta-modernism”—an approach that seeks to combine irony with sincerity, skepticism with purpose. You see a similar “new sincerity” in literature (here I think of the more accessible work of David Foster Wallace or Zadie Smith or John Green). In the arts, Banksy’s “Show me the Monet” and his Sotheby’s shredder both speak with irony and yet with a pointed critique of the role of commerce in contemporary art.
These works are firmly post-modernist, drawing on pastiche, cynicism, deconstruction. But each is also fundamentally optimistic, as if to demonstrate that the impossibility of objectivity and overarching truth is not fatal—that the sincerity of a project (whatever it is) can outweigh the dour cynicism of post-modernity.
Perhaps the same sentiment is emerging in the world of finance. Projects around “social capitalism,” the use of blockchain to change creator economics in the art world, and the broader ideas of investing with intention (whether denominated “SRI” or “ESG” or “impact”, and even in the concept of the “B” corporation). All of these undertakings seem to recognize the indelible economic power structures but still take a purposeful view of the act of investing.
A final, even more attenuated speculation.
Post-modern sensibilities are decidedly Western. And so, unsurprisingly, Chinese political culture is notably not post-modern and its leaders distinctively unironic. (With central control of the media, “fake news” is at once impossible and unavoidable.)
Chinese policy easily reads as Machiavellian and modern, animated by the centralization and preservation of power. But do recent Chinese social and economic policies belie a more complex dynamic?
Perhaps China’s leaders see the social poverty of Western post-modernism, and their policies are not (simply) about preserving authority but also anticipating these challenges.
Viewed this way, China’s ban on cryptocurrency is not simply about maintaining the monopoly of fiat currency but also rebutting those who might challenge economic “truth” and expertise.
Similarly, strictly limiting video gaming by children and for-profit tutoring is designed to improve balance in the lives of young people. And outlawing 996 (the expectation of a 9am-9pm, 6-day workweek) aims to mute perceived Western “excesses.”
And, if technology is a catalyst for Post-Truth politics and finance, China’s crackdown on Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Didi, and more is not simply about power politics but about avoiding the tech-enabled pitfalls of post-modernism.
Am I over-reading Chinese policy? Perhaps, but we should remember that there are as many Taoist elements to Chinese political thought as there are Realist elements.
China leapfrogged credit and debit cards, jumping from paper cash to digital currency. As I write this, China is trying to leapfrog Delta and omicron, jumping from Covid 1.0 to post-pandemic normality.
So I wander from Derrida to Dogecoin to Didi, and I wonder: is China creating the first meta-modern political culture?
Peter Yu
New York, 2022