A Social Justice Critique of Postmodernism, from a Psychological Perspective | TPWR by TaraElla S9

Today, I want to talk about how postmodern critical theory weighs people, especially members of marginalized minorities, down, and makes us less successful in life.

Let's start here. Back in the 1950s, the psychologist Julian B. Rotter developed the idea that people could be placed on a spectrum of having an internal locus of control on one end, vs an external locus of control on the other end. People with an internal locus of control believed that they were in control of, and responsible for, the successes or failures in their lives, and Rotter observed that they had high achievement motivation. This, of course, is an essential ingredient for success in life, as well as a key factor in psychological health. This is why, if we want to be successful, we should aim to orientate ourselves to have an internal locus of control.

However, postmodern critical theories teach women and various minorities, including ethnic minorities and LGBT people alike, that their fate is being determined by an oppressive system that won't let them succeed. Therefore, postmodern criticalism is effectively encouraging them to develop an external locus of control, which is both bad for their mental health and also makes them less likely to be successful in life. I therefore sometimes argue that these theories are actually more effective at oppressing minorities, than anything else out there.

Similarly, another 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow, most famous for his 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs', observed that self-actualizing individuals, people who were able to reach the highest level on his pyramid model of development, shared several important characteristics. Among them was being grounded in reality and being committed to the truth, things that are actively discouraged by postmodernism. Self-actualizing people were also spontaneous, creative, and not rigidly bound by social conventions, the opposite of what postmodern criticalism would impose on us in the form of making everything problematic, telling us to 'check our privilege' all the time, and forcing a whole new and unnatural way of speaking and relating onto all of us because they believe that language shapes reality. In other words, postmodern criticalism actively prevents us from reaching our full development according to the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which means that it is literally regressive!