All Narratives Are Equal (But Some Are More Equal Than Others)

All narratives are equal (but some are more equal than others).

Many will recognize the above line as an Orwellian-style parody of the old Stalinist-era value, namely that all citizens are equal, but some are more equal than others. And, some will recognize the allusion to post-modernism, literary theory and deconstruction, at least in the popular senses of these terms.

The popular notion of deconstruction, and the way in which it’s used in political discourse, long has been to say that no point of view can be privileged; nothing is the way it seems to be on the surface; and everything you think you know actually comes from something you don’t know (hence, you don’t know anything).

Not so long ago, it was believed that post-modernism in general and deconstruction in particular would “take out” Marxism along with all the other enshrined truths of history that can’t really be proven. Certainly Marxism (or any variant on the “hard Left”) would not be privileged. If Lenin once said religion is the opiate of the people, at least post-modernism could be construed as saying that Marxism, as any universalism, also was an opiate, metaphorically speaking.

Curiously, though, “the Left” has embraced post-modernism in general, and deconstruction in particular.

Deconstruction, at least in the way it’s used in political discourse, is philosophical relativism incarnate. It is philosophical relativism that says nothing is knowable, other than the claim that nothing is knowable, which apparently is very knowable. As relativism goes, no statements can be proven as true, other than the statement itself that no statements can be proven as true. Philosophical relativism always gives itself an exemption, but it is overtly self-contradictory.

Authentic deconstruction may or may not be a little more interesting than as described above, but in the political realm that’s all it is. It’s no surprise, then, that the most political department in the highly politicized American academy (that secular temple not of empiricism anymore, but of competing universalisms) is, in fact, the English department. The death of empiricism in the humanities, to the extent this happened, only enables the behavior.

The Marxists (and I use the term very liberally, pardon the pun, as Liberals certainly are not Marxist or Marxian) like to deconstruct others, but not themselves. Nothing anyone else knows is really known; but what the Marxists know, they know! It’s just an exemption, ala philosophical relativism, and unworthy on the face of it. The Social Democrats in Europe and Progressives in America seem to be adopting the same line. Political thinker Thomas Sowell long aro argued that Leftists were jealous of the Marxist claim that they - the Marxists - had proof for their claims, that history was on their side and that they were doing scientific socialism, but that the Social Democrats and Progressives more or less were relying on normative values to making their case.

Marxists (or, if you will, the “hard Left,” perhaps “the Left” that is outside of the “democratic Left”) are fond of deconstruction because, first, it gives them parity with anyone else and the other’s views (because no one view can be “privileged” over another); then it allows the Marxists to say the other’s views are not valid (because no views are valid in any case); then it allows the Marxists to privilege themselves by saying they own the real truth (e.g., the exemption clause, which rhetorically is employed as a kind of multiple choice quiz, because as everyone else’s views are eliminated, the Marxist or Marxian point of view wins by default).

Christians, Muslims, Jews and anyone else with holy books do something that’s functionally equivalent – their particular holy books are “true,” and things that are outside of them or which contradict the holy books are not true. For the Marxists and increasingly the Social Democrats and Progressives, it’s “theory”; for the believers, it’s divine revelation.

Marxism (and anyone else on the “hard Left”) have something else in common with religion. By virtue of owning the truth, the Marxists can accuse people of deviationism, revisionism and so on. They can demand de facto loyalty oaths, a small but growing trend on American campuses that is typically done through asking about research interests to see if they support or threaten leading ideology, inspecting citations in a scholars list of publications, looking at a scholar's collaborators, grading down submissions to peer-reviewed journals so threats to leading ideology don't get published and so on. The major religions, as we know, demand fidelity and accuse people of heresy or apostasy and so on.

Only Liberalism seems true to a live and let live attitude. Maybe the free thinkers are the Liberals, and vice versa, in which Liberalism is the antidote to competing universalisms.

Abraham Aamidor is the author of “Real Feature Writing” (Erlbaum, 1999) and Editor, “Real Sports Reporting” (Indiana University Press, 2003), both college-level journalism texts. He has taught journalism at Indiana University-Bloomington, Butler University, Georgia Southern University and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He works in daily journalism in Indianapolis.