Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American Thought

by Peter Augustine Lawler

Postmodernism Rightly Understood is a dramatic return to realism―a poetic attempt to attain a true understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the postmodern predicament. Prominent political theorist Peter Augustine Lawler reflects on the flaws of postmodern thought, the futility of pragmatism, and the spiritual emptiness of existentialism. Lawler examines postmodernism by interpreting the writings of five respected and best selling American authors―Francis Fukuyama, Richard Rorty, Allan Bloom, Walker Percy, and Christopher Lasch. Lawler explains why the alternatives available in our time are either a "soulless niceness," which Fukuyama, Rorty, and Bloom described as the result of modern success, or a postmodern moral responsibility that accompanies love in the ruins, as articulated by Percy and Lasch. This is a fresh and compelling look at the crisis of the human soul and intellect accompanied by the onset of postmodernity.

Genres: Philosophy

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 1999

About the author

Berry College

Reviews

[David Pybus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely have I come across a book that was so helpful in working out what I only sensed vaguely. He says that “Postmodern thought rightly understood is human reflection on the failure of the modern project to eradicate human mystery and misery and to bring history to an end. One form of postmodern thinking is found in the writing of anticommunist dissidents Vaclav Havel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The fall of communism, Havel said, should be understood as a lesson about the resistance of being and human being to manipulation. And Solzhenitsyn, of course, told Americans at Harvard that if human beings were born only to be happy, they would not be born to die. Postmodern thought begins with the news, perhaps both good and bad, about the intractable limits to any pragmatic project to make human existence predictable, tranquil, secure, and carefree.”

Postmodernism is thus a kind of realism:

It “rejects the illusion of self-creation in favor of the reality of conscientious responsibility.” We are rational in that we seek to “understand and to come to terms with” reality, not to transform it: “There is some correspondence between human thought and the way things really are. Postmodernism is the return to realism.”

Lawler admits that this is not how postmodernism is usually understood. Postmodernism rightly understood is not “antifoundationalism,” which Lawler characterizes as “the assertion of the groundlessness of human existence.” Antifoundationalism is instead “hypermodernism.”

[Todd Decker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books I read for enjoyment, some I read for intellectual exercise, and some I read for both. I put Lawler’s book in this third category. Topics like modernism, postmodernism, pragmatism, and existentialism might not be everyone’s cup of tea but Lawler analyzes these ideas to speak to a critical human concern. This human concern has two parts: we are, through human reasoning, able to understand reality and comes to terms with it (realism) but there are limits to human reasoning and we cannot eliminate the mystery of being and human being (postmodernism rightly understood).

Lawler contrasts this affirmation of both our ability to know the world and the ineradicable mystery of human existence with an ontological dualism between human nature (nature) and human freedom (history). Lawler finds in the work of Rousseau, Marx, Kojève, and Fukuyama a drive toward an end of history. This end of history means the end to a certain kind of freedom. This end of freedom is not a physical enslavement but a release from the burden of the anxiety, longing, and mystery that accompany freedom.

Lawler’s postmodernism challenges the idea that human life can be completely fulfilled through technological development, material prosperity, and liberal democracy. These things are important but they will never eliminate the mystery and longing of human existence. Humans will always be gripped by inevitability of death, the depth of intimate human relationships, and the sublime beauty in works art. There are elements of our existence that require resources beyond technology, health, and prosperity. Religion, philosophy, tradition, and family will always be necessary for the human experience.

[Mark Seeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes dense and obtuse; sometimes lucid and cogent, Lawler writes with vim and vigor. This reader appreciated his perspective and take on Walker Percy and his book, Lost In The Cosmos.

Lawler approaches other thinkers such as Chrstopher Lasch, Francis Fukuyama and Richard Rorty. Lawler is a Catholic Realist, Thomistic, as Percy was. His anthropology is not reductionistic as it makes room for mystery and rejects scientism.

[Ray Stafford · Rating 2 out of 5]

i agreed with what i understood, some of the stuff he talked about went right over my head and i had a hard time following a couple of his arguments.