On Lyotard, Postmodernism and Meta-narratives

Over at The Guardian, Giles Fraser – some sort of (now former, which happened as I was editing this article) god-botherer from St Paul’s who also happens to be an expert on Nietzsche* - is writing a series of articles on liberalism. In particular, he is looking at liberalism as it is presented through the work of Isaiah Berlin. To say the series of articles has not been brilliant thus far is a massive understatement. Fraser’s articles read like the work of someone who has just figured out that there is this thing called liberalism and is making his first, tentative steps towards understanding it. Also, he doesn’t seem to understand Berlin or negative liberty. But we won’t dwell on that today; there are enough sensible comments on each article (no, really) to critique the flaws of his approach to both Berlin and liberalism. Instead, I want to take a moment and look at his muted attack on Lyotard. He invokes Lyotard’s oft quoted comment about meta-narratives – or truth, if you will.

It is safe to say that Lyotard was not a big fan of meta-narratives or truth claims. But, as always, it is worth looking at exactly what he said and why. Because the reality is far more interesting than the clichéd view that Lyotard rejected the idea of the truth.

First up, Lyotard defined postmodernism – the school of thought that he is most often associated with – as a “incredulity towards meta-narratives.” The operative word for me in that phrase is incredulity. Not rejection. He is not rejecting meta-narratives**, but expressing a suspicion of them. There may well be a valid truth claim out there somewhere, but Lyotard warns us to be suspicious of those claims and, in particular, those who make them. And the reasons for that suspicion are very interesting and, in my humble opinion, pretty convincing.

Here it is worth placing Lyotard’s writing in context. He was writing after the Second World War, when Nazi Germany – using a spurious but surprisingly persuasive claim to having found the truth – decimated Europe and murdered 6 million people who did not fit in with that truth. Furthermore, Lyotard spent many years in occupied Algeria – witnessing first-hand the devastating impact of nationalism. And Lyotard himself was a former Marxist who turned against that creed when he saw what dogmatic Marxism could do, both in Algeria and elsewhere.

Therefore, Lyotard’s suspicion of truth claims and those who make them is based on where they lead to. And throughout his work, there is the problem of the other – of what to do with that person or those persons who are not part of the dominant belief system of any society. In one work he potently refers to them as “the jews”*** – reminding us all of what can happen to that other in a society dominated by the truth claim. So let’s make it explicit; Lyotard’s suspicion of meta-narratives comes from the fact those meta-narratives have, in his day and in our own, the spectre of the gulag and the death camp hanging over them.

Don’t get me wrong, postmodernism is far from flawless as a school of thought. At its worst – such as Baudrillard’s ludicrous claim that the Gulf War did not take place**** – it is indulgent nonsense. And Lyotard himself is often a difficult author to read, sometimes being obtuse to the point of rendering his work unreadable*****. But this should not detract from the fact that his suspicion of meta-narrative is on sound intellectual ground, and that the reasons for that suspicion are, time and time again, made clear.

So it is all very well for the likes of Fraser to tut (however implicitly) at Lyotard, but it has to be remembered that Fraser is peddling his own meta-narrative. And that’s fine; he has his belief system, and it clearly offers him some sort of comfort and some sort of compass to allow him to navigate his way through life. But he should also understand why many of us remain suspicious of that meta-narrative. After all, the history of Christianity is chequered to say the least, and amply demonstrates what a dominant belief system can do to those who do not share that dominant belief.

*Quite how anyone could read the work of Nietzsche – as demented as it often is – and remain a Christian is largely beyond me.
**Indeed to do so would be completely contradictory of his overall project. You can’t be reject truth claims because, in doing so, you are making a big fat truth claim.
***The lower case is quite intentional; he is using the term to refer to all those who are excluded from any society, including the Jews in Nazi Germany.
****An example of crude verbal flashing and ivory tower intellectual thinking if ever there was one.
*****The first page of Libidinal Economy reads like body horror, for example.