Post-modernism does not go far enough. It has not overturned all meta-narratives and fully established its essence, that is, a multiplicity of micro-narratives, achieved through a radical “incredulity toward metanarratives”.1 Consequently, post-modernism has yet to realize the post-modern society, that is, a patchwork federation of localized, decentralized and horizontalized micro-institutions, founded on a litany of microscopic, ideational-comprehensive-frameworks, where no-one fully dominates and terrorizes over the others. If post-modernism can be defined as a socio-economic framework where “there are no criteria”,2 where “there is no longer any…[overarching] system of rules”,3 and where “there is no [universal] sensus communis”,4 then, post-modernism has only partially succeeded. The reason being that the Enlightenment meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism continues to weave all the seemingly, independent micro-narratives, or language-games, together, into a cohesive whole within a totalitarian bourgeois-capitalist dominion.
In effect, the Enlightenment meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism homogenizes and unifies the diversity and the multiplicity of micro-narratives into a totality. That is, a totality which post-modernism seeks to abolish and/or overturn. As a result, post-modernism has not realized its raison d’être; i.e., “a federation of municipalities, cooperatives and autonomous-collectives. That is, a plurality sharing, in egalitarian fashion, decision-making-authority, ownership, knowledge, and the sum of capital”,5 where “all… positions [or narratives] are equivalent”6 and no-one micro-narrative “imposes itself upon the others, [and] sets itself up as dominant…[while] reducing…multiplicity to silence”.7 So, the reason, this patchwork federation has not come about is that post-modernism has not pushed itself to the Nth degree. Namely, it has not activated its pragmatic methodology, pragmatic deconstruction; i.e., that “imaginative activism…used in various [manners for]…de-sedimentation”8, namely, the physical and mental deconstruction of the grand-institutional structures, which have grown out of and enshrined the various Enlightenment meta-narratives within their constitutions and daily operations.
Post-modernism has interpreted the world, but it has not sought to truly change it, that is, to act upon its conclusions with a certain pluralized authority. Therefore, the result has been both a refortification of the Enlightenment and its modern hierarchies, and a furthering of the convoluted minutia of arbitrary rules and regulations designed to maintain a bourgeois aristocracy and an outdated, bourgeois-capitalist status quo, which, in fact, today, impedes intellectual and material advancements. In effect, these sets of arbitrary bourgeois rules and regulations have no actual validity and are solely designed to enforce an outdated bourgeois-capitalist status quo, through a litany of irrational divisions, which serve no other purpose other than impeding intellectual and material advancement, because these advancements embody and promote collectivism, egalitarianism, and the overthrow of the capitalist-hierarchical status quo. Today, any “grand-narrative has lost its credibility”9, yet the grand-narrative of bourgeois-state-capitalism, as socio-economic savior, continues to persist and weave the litany of independent micro-narratives into a cohesive totality by force, by money and by machination.
Notwithstanding, after post-modernism there is no valid, or legitimate, arguments for not establishing financial equality, collectivism, and total social egalitarianism, due to the fact that “there is not a single—logic—that underlies all…domains”,10, meaning that all micro-narratives have legitimate claim to resources, moreover, including the fact that such an egalitarian redistribution of resources would in actuality maximize opportunities for intellectual and material advancement. Bourgeois-capitalism and bourgeois-ideology impede the intellectual and material advancement of the human species because bourgeois-capitalism and bourgeois-ideology “silence people…forbidding them to speak [if they are not bourgeois-capitalist]. As a result knowledge and knowledge production [is not]…free”.11 It is curtailed within a bourgeois-capitalist framework, which excludes many participants and points of views, due to their anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist tendencies.
After post-modernism, there is no such thing as the legitimate ownership of capital, money and/or private property, as in actuality, everyone has legitimate claim in relative equal measure, upon all property, all capital, and all money, and moreover, should all have access, in relative equal measure, to all property, all capital and all money etc., due to the fact that, “knowledge is obtained by a multiplicity of views rather from the determined application of a preferred ideology”.12 That is, because “there is no meta-language…[which can] ground political and ethical decisions”,13 then, all micro-narratives, or micro-languages, have legitimate claim, in relative equal measure, upon all socio-economic resources within society, due to the fact that there is no legitimate, rightful, universalized position for equitable judgments, that is, “there is no stable system to guide [and legitimize] judgments”.2. Hence, the counter-point is to encourage, promote, and build a plurality; i.e., “a complex and heterogeneous historical process [and framework]”14 which will maximize intellectual and material advancement by permitting equal access to all socio-economic resources in relative equal measure. Increasingly, it is evident that this vital heterogeneity, which can maximize intellectual and material advancement, demands the overthrow of bourgeois-capitalism and bourgeois-ideology, due to the fact that “a free society…cannot be based on any particular creed”,15 that is, it cannot be based on overarching domination of bourgeois-capitalism and bourgeois-ideology.
If all micro-narratives have equal claim to resources because there is no overarching, universal, timeless truth and meta-narrative by which to judge, and if many active micro-narratives means maximum intellectual and material advancement, then any individual claim to segments of private property, capital, knowledge and money, as somehow rightfully belonging to a singular individual and/or any small oligarchical group, is moot, illegitimate, irrational, and fundamentally counter-productive to intellectual and material advancement. If “there is no common measure”16 by which to allocate resources, legitimately, justly, and fairly, and according to the post-modern point of view, there is no such common measure, then every micro-narrative and individual has legitimate claim to all socio-economic resources in relative equal measure, due to the fact that there is no underlying verity by which to deny resources for some and not others, and due to the fact that any unequal allocation of socio-economic resources impedes intellectual and material advancement.
Ultimately, all the bourgeois-capitalist canons; i.e., private property, individualism, hierarchy, greed and profiteering etc., are fictions, phantasms imposed upon society, illegitimately, both to impede its collective development and truncate its population, to keep it enslaved, both materially and intellectually, in confusion, delusion, nonsense and poverty, against its will and against its better nature. That is, its better nature being, namely, egalitarianism, monetary equality, collectivism and the sharing of resources, in relative equal measure. Consequently, in line with Jean-Francois Lyotard, the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism is maintained, expanded and traversed with terror “the exercise of terror…[commanding all to] adapt your aspirations to our ends—or else”.17 Bourgeois-capitalism is totalitarian in nature, “it is unjust…[its] majority does not mean large number, it means great fear”,18 fear in all its forms, such as “imprisonment, unemployment, repression, hunger, anything you want”19 in the sense that the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism “does not respect…plurality”,20 but only its version of unicity.
As a result, any bourgeois-institution or dominance hierarchy which disseminates, endorses and/or promotes individualism, capitalism, hierarchy, selfishness, private property and ironclad unity, is fundamentally anti-advancement, and, in fact, willingly participates in impeding intellectual and material advancement; i.e., the betterment of the human species. Therefore, any such bourgeois-institution, or dominance hierarchy, should be utterly deconstructed, destroyed and/or abolished, on the valid and legitimate premise that these bourgeois-institutions and dominance hierarchies impeded intellectual and material advancement for the greatest number, by limiting access to socio-economic resources. That is, by the very fact, these bourgeois-institutions deny, stifle and impede intellectual and material advancement and all rightful legitimate claims by the multiplicity of micro-narratives for collectivism, egalitarianism, and equality in the allocation of socio-economic resources.
The point, ultimately, is to reconstruct these outdated, senile bourgeois-institutions along collectivist, decentralist, horizontalist, and anti-capitalist forms of socio-economic organization. Based on the fact that because there are no legitimate meta-narratives and/or universal truth-claims, any bourgeois-institution, or dominance hierarchy, which states otherwise and/or acts otherwise, is in actuality working against intellectual and material advancement and the democratic multiplicity of micro-narratives. These outdated, senile, bourgeois-institutions and dominance hierarchies are impeding socio-economic and intellectual development. These anti-advancement bourgeois-institutions and dominance hierarchies are impeding development due to the fact that they are working against — and in contradiction of — socio-economic plurality, that is, the basic factum that progress and “knowledge need a plurality of ideas”21 in order to achieve maximum penetration and development. And, the fact that to achieve maximum intellectual and material development requires the redistribution of socio-economic resources to everyone and every micro-narrative in relative equal measure.
Therefore, these senile, bourgeois-institutions and dominance hierarchies are categorically ripe for pragmatic deconstruction, that is, a type of material deconstruction, which is valid on the premise that there are no acceptable, valid reasons and arguments for the promotion of individual private-ownership, individual property, individual wealth, and financial inequality, on the basis that these bourgeois-capitalist principles impede the intellectual and material advancement of our species by severely limiting plurality and diversity; i.e., the necessary plurality and diversity needed for maximum intellectual and material advancement.
Consequently, this rampant bourgeois-homogeneity and push towards a totalizing bourgeois-unicity, we currently see across western bourgeois-capitalist societies and within bourgeois-institutions, bourgeois-media, bourgeois-law, bourgeois-politics, bourgeois-academia etc., is purging these domains of variation, difference, and alternative points of views, which, according to Feyerabend, “is to be expect in [bourgeois] totalitarian surroundings”.22 Such purges of variation, difference, and alternative points of views across the senile institutions of bourgeois-state-capitalism are primarily perpetrated via terror, both psychological and real, that is, by force, a force derived from an unstated ultimatum, “say or do this, or else you’ll never speak [in this domain] again”.23 This is a form of violence, “by laws, by peer pressure and by financial machinations”24 etc., which have gradually drained, stopped, and eliminated all plurality in points of views from any decision-making-authority and position of power. The result has been the impediment of intellectual and material advancement in the name of an outdated, senile, bourgeois-capitalist status quo, which is increasingly ossifying itself into hierarchical rigidity, drastic financial inequality and socio-economic stagnation.
Subsequently, any bourgeois-institution, which is constructed and designed to propagate and maintain an outdated, senile, bourgeois-capitalist status quo, at the expense of intellectual and material advancement, should be radically deconstructed, destroyed and/or abolished on the very basis that these bourgeois-institutions and dominance hierarchies prevent intellectual and material development by denying collectivism, egalitarianism and equal access for all. That is, bourgeois rules and regulations should be defied, smashed, and broken at every turn due to the fundamental fact that these institutional bourgeois rules and regulations impeded intellectual and material advancement in the name of private property, individualism, bourgeois hierarchy and bourgeois money. These bourgeois rules and regulations should be usurped, including the bourgeois-institutions and hierarchies based on them, because these bourgeois rules and regulations are simply in place to sustain a divisive, out of date, bourgeois-capitalist status quo at the expense of genuine socio-economic plurality, advancement, and betterment. The basis for such a vast pragmatic deconstruction of bourgeois-institutions is the fact that “there is no ontology…[and] no [underlying] rules”25; we have no basic universal guideline to live by, thus, to limit decision-making-authority strictly to a minority comprised in a small, tightly-knit, bourgeois-capitalist status quo and aristocracy, is detrimental to the survival of society and the advancement of the human species.
According to Paul Feyerabend, “language can be bent in many directions…[because] understanding does not depend on any particular set of rules”;26 as a result, “a single…world-view is going too far”.27 It impedes intellectual and material advancement since these bourgeois rules and regulations deny collectivism, egalitarianism, and accessibility; i.e., the very essence of intellectual and material advancement, which is grounded in diversity and plurality. These bourgeois rules and regulations should be pragmatically deconstructed, destroyed and/or abolished, beyond any ability to re-establish these bourgeois impediments which hinder advancement and egalitarianism. Because, as Feyerabend states, “interesting possibilities are removed [when institutions] firmly [insist] on the status quo”,28 while denying the existence of all viable progressive exceptions; i.e., diversity, plurality and multiplicity.
What does this mean? This means that all institutions or dominance hierarchies should be horizontally reconstructed so as to permit maximum participation in decision-making-authority by as many micro-narratives and/or individual subjectivities as possible as “knowledge needs a plurality of ideas”.16 Consequently, bourgeois-politics, bourgeois-law, bourgeois-education, bourgeois-media etc., should be radically opened-up to radical plurality, diversity and multiplicity. Namely, a litany of point of views and collectives, each with an equal amount of decision-making-authority, unencumbered by rigid rules and regulations, able to fashion and refashion rules, regulations and institutions at will pending on the situation. In effect, we can only “be just, case by case”,29 guided by the idea of maintaining plurality so that democracy, participation and accessibility is fully maximized and spread over as many micro-narratives and individuals as possible.
This means that the federal bourgeois-state-apparatus should be abolished, destroyed and pragmatically deconstructed due to the fact that it only acknowledges, promotes, and positions select members of the upper-echelons of bourgeois-capitalism within its hierarchy of decision-making-authority. Moreover, this means that bourgeois-law should be abolished, destroyed and pragmatically deconstructed due to the fact that bourgeois-law only cherishes bourgeois forms of existence; i.e., individualism, bourgeois-property, bourgeois-money, bourgeois-hierarchy and bourgeois capital etc., at the expense of the majority of micro-narratives that traverse across the workforce/population. Finally, this means that bourgeois-education should be abolished, destroyed and pragmatically deconstructed because the majority of bourgeois-education instructs and promotes bourgeois obedience, bourgeois consciousness, bourgeois hierarchy, bourgeois arbitrary rules and regulations. All of which impede intellectual and material advancement by denying a multiplicity of valid perspectives and points of views, by which to develop new knowledges, technologies and new solutions, all on account that these perspectives and points of views break with the bourgeois-capitalist status quo. As Feyerabend states, “humans cannot have complete knowledge. There are too many things, too many events, too many situations”,30 as a result, any intellectual and material advancement of knowledge and life must permit the participation of “many different maps of reality”31 within decision-making-authority in order to maximize the possibility of advancements. And, any bourgeois-institution, which run contrary to this demand for plurality, which by this definition is all institutions serving bourgeois-capitalism, are in violation of the primary imperative of the human species. That is, the innate biological imperative and drive, housed in the species, commanding an “overall mastery and comprehension of phenomena”,32 as soon as possible.
For this reason, bourgeois-education and, in general, bourgeois-institutions need to be opened-up to variation, with loose rules and regulations, designed to maximize democracy, participation and accessibility. For bourgeois-education, this means loose standards and criterions pertaining to the completion of degrees and educational competences. In effect, the plurality of multi-varied individuals and micro-narratives must be allowed to enter and exit, at will, the post-bourgeois-capitalist-university without set time-limits. These multi-varied individuals and micro-narratives must be permitted to change and collage courses and educational disciplines at will in order to attain their degrees.
Nothing must impede intellectual and material development in the sense that as Feyerabend states “there are many ways of ordering the world”33 and each must be given the opportunity to democratically participate in the intellectual and material advancement of our species. Limiting accessibility and allocation of socio-economic resources in relative equal measure for the greatest number ultimately limits opportunities, capabilities and possibilities for intellectual and material advancement. In short, clinging to the bourgeois-capitalist way of life is increasingly clarifying the basic fact that this mode of existence is inhibiting intellectual and material development because it denies contributions by the vast majority who are forced decision-making-authority in the name of bourgeois-hierarchy and a bourgeois-capitalist status quo. The crux of intellectual and material advancement requires collectivism, egalitarianism and maximum accessibility for all, which is exactly what is being suppressed by the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism. That is, “liberty is full only at the moment when the power of the representatives [of bourgeois-state-capitalism] is suspended and given back to the represented, [i.e., the people]”.34 Only then, is plurality, diversity and accessibility capable of being fully realized, which includes the prospect for maximum intellectual and material advancement.
All told, all standards and criterions must be made ultra-flexible, ultra-adaptable, and ultra-democratic so as to maximize open-participatory-democracy and decision-making-authority across a maximum number of people living, existing, and accessing the post-bourgeois-capitalist-university and, in general, post-bourgeois-capitalist-institutions. The point is to accommodate the variability of people and narratives entering and living through the post-bourgeois-capitalist-university and, in general, post-bourgeois-capitalist-institutions because knowledge “is not one tradition, it is many”35 and the maximization of accessibility by all sorts of different people and narratives leads to the maximization of mastery and comprehension over phenomena. The point is to accommodate maximum variability, plurality and participation at all levels of the post-bourgeois-capitalist-university and, in general, post-bourgeois-capitalist-institutions, due to the fact that, in actuality, there are no “universal measures of excellence”;36 as a result, the more points of views participating in decision-making-authority, the more chances of intellectual and material advancement. The point is to facilitate, enable, and accelerate intellectual and material advancement, by removing as many barriers as possible to intellectual and material development, meaning the dissolution of the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism.
In sum, bourgeois-capitalism, the last meta-narrative of the Enlightenment, and all its individual tenets, such as individualism, bourgeois-hierarchy etc., must be jettisoned and abandoned at all levels of human existence, at all levels of everyday life and at all levels of education, law, politics, and institutions etc., because bourgeois-capitalism impedes intellectual and material advancement, by denying the tenets for maximum intellectual and material advancement. That is, the tenets of collectivism, egalitarianism and accessibility for all, in relative equal measure; therefore, nothing bourgeois, or capitalist, must survive the consequences of pragmatic deconstruction. Absolutely nothing! As bourgeois-capitalism must be reduced to its rightful place and its true legitimate position, as just another perspective, way of life, and mode of production, consumption, and distribution, among many:
No invention is ever made in isolation, and no idea is, therefore, completely without (abstract or empirical) support….then the step back [from unicity into plurality] is a step forward,…away from the tyranny of tightly-knit, highly corroborated, [collusionary bourgeois-capitalist] systems.37
Such a move is a step-forward, a step towards maximization, diversity and equality for the greatest number. It is a step-forward into an open-participatory-democracy devoid of class-divisions, race-divisions, gender-divisions etc., in service of collectivism, egalitarianism and maximum accessibility for the greatest number.
Therefore, only when post-modernism attains its nth degree and becomes fully pragmatic; i.e., a pragmatic application of deconstruction, will the last stains of the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism be wiped clean from all senile, modern institutions. Only when post-modernism becomes fully radicalized, and pushes through the remaining meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism haunting civil society will the essence of post-modernity realize itself with maximum clarity. Then, will we be finally free of the tyranny of bourgeois-unicity and be “given [real] equal rights, equal access to education and…[real] positions of power”38 as post-modernism is incomplete and demands its essentiality, namely, plurality, equality and accessibility for the greatest number, ASAP!
- Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition, Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984) p. xxiv.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, Trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 16.
- Ibid, p. 9.
- Ibid, p. 14.
- Michel Luc Bellemare, The Structural-Anarchism Manifesto: (The Logic of Structural-Anarchism Versus The Logic of Capitalism), (Montréal: Blacksatin Publications Inc., 2016) 25.b).
- Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, Trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 74.
- Ibid, p. 102.
- Jacque Derrida, Of Grammatology, Trans. Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) p. 350.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition, Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984) p. 37.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 202.
- Ibid, p. 127.
- Ibid, p. 32.
- Ibid, p. 105.
- Ibid, p. 28.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 238.
- Ibid, p. 132.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, Trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 50.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition, Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984) p. 64.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, Trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 99.
- Ibid, p. 99.
- Ibid, p. 98.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 138.
- Ibid, p. 138.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition, Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984) p. 46.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 195.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, Trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 65.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 257.
- Ibid, p. 245.
- Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, Trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 53.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 205.
- Ibid, p. 256.
- Michel Luc Bellemare, Treatise on Logical Reason, (Montréal: Blacksatin Publications Inc., 2017) 5.g).
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 166.
- Jacque Derrida, Of Grammatology, Trans. Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) p. 323.
- Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. (London: Verso, 1975) p. 242.
- Ibid, p. 223.
- Ibid, p. 116.
- Ibid, p. 238.