Society
Peterson Argues Postmodernists Got Core Claim Right but Answer Catastrophically Wrong
Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Lecture 01: Present or Absent We Wrestle with God
"The postmodernists figured this out in the 1970s. Why? Well, how about because they were literary critics? We live by stories. Then there's nothing more powerful than a literary critic, especially one that takes the stories your culture is predicated upon apart, which is exactly where we are now."
Peterson acknowledged postmodernists were correct that humans perceive reality through narrative structures rather than objective facts, but argued they catastrophically misidentified power as the only foundational story. He attributed current cultural breakdown to literary critics dismantling Western civilization's foundational narratives while replacing them with cynical power dynamics.
From this episode
Jordan B. Peterson Podcast