Mythos
We’ve covered postmodernist history. But what happens when postmodernism is applied to the present in a bad-faith argument -- or even a genuine one? Ideas like “the past is unknowable” can be used to argue that the present is unknowable, too, or at least the parts of it that we cannot directly experience. A distrust in modernist single-narrative history might expand into a similar distrust for mainstream news media. And cheeky stories about the past -- like Libra , which blends a factual retelling of JFK’s assassination with conspiracy theory -- become sinister when used to inform people of the present. The postmodern idea that “all viewpoints must be respected” is especially insidious when used by bad actors today, who might employ it to argue that we should tolerate intolerance or flat-out lies. (For example, that coronavirus hoaxes are “valid points of view.”) Unfortunately, these arguments have led not to a utopian “marketplace of ideas,” but to a rather dystopian news ecosy...