Butler cleverly suggests that postmodernism’s leftism ends up underwriting rightist politics: “a left-inspired distrust of authority . . . makes recognition of difference possible, and yet those who are perhaps most in favor of leaving differently defined groups in isolation, to compete and fight it out, are those on the right, who believe in individual freedom with the minimum amount of state restraint.”
Two comments: One, it might actually be worse, with postmodern politics reducing to a promotion (as Milbank has argued) of fascist celebration of an aesthetics of violence; two, this, it seems to me, exposes the Achilles heel of liberalism - the dilemma between demanding that groups suppress their particularities to the tolerant liberal ethos on the one hand, or diffusing into warring tribes on the other.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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