Question

Hello Rabbi,
 
Recently, a lesson was given in my yeshiva (Yeshivat Kiryat Shmona) on the subject of “postmodernism.” As part of the sources for the lesson, passages were quoted from the books “Truth and Not Certainty” (pp. 164–165) and “Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon” (pp. 211–213).
 
The implied conclusion from the definition of the “postmodern figure” as it came up in the lesson is that there is a paradox in the postmodern method. The postmodernist, the analytic person, on the one hand claims that no value should be imposed on him, since no truth has proven itself and one cannot determine that a certain value is true, while at the same time presenting the claim that “one may not impose” as a value in itself. This creates a contradiction, because he himself, according to his own approach, cannot claim that something specific is true, and therefore cannot claim that it is forbidden to impose.
 
In my view, this paradox is the product of a non-obligatory definition. It arises only when one assumes that the postmodernist sees the desire “not to impose anything because there is no real/certain value” as a value in its own right. But perhaps the “analytic person” is someone who says something else: that he does not know that anything is true, and therefore simply cannot impose anything, nor will he let other people impose anything on him. Not because he holds the value that “it is forbidden to impose,” but simply because, practically speaking, he does not want people forcing him to do something he does not want to do.
 
It seems unfair to me to define the figure of the “postmodernist” in a way that creates a paradox and then argue that therefore there is a contradiction in the postmodern approach. Moreover, precisely when we come to define the “analytic person,” I would expect that by the very fact that he is defined as “analytic,” we would portray him as someone who does not contradict himself and does not believe in the “value that one must not impose” when that stands in contradiction to his claim that there are no values.
 
All that can really be known is that there is a social-behavioral phenomenon of people who have lost hope in “truths,” because those truths do not seem to prove themselves. But constructing a definition of what lies behind the behavior of these people remains speculative, and therefore one cannot determine that there is some paradoxical philosophical approach.
 
One can argue that there are people who behave in a contradictory and paradoxical way, but that does not mean that the postmodern approach is paradoxical at its root. A seemingly honest, “analytic” person ought to be consistent and admit that the reason he does not allow others to coerce him is not grounded in any value, but simply that for practical reasons he does not allow that coercion.
 
I would be happy to hear the Rabbi’s response to these points.