This is a superb essay, Joe, and I am grateful for it. The MAGA mantra of “alternative facts” has bothered me greatly and inspired me to write the following article:
Joe, your essay powerfully captures the transformation of civic culture and our shifting relationship with truth. The analogy to the Church’s medieval authority over “truth” is spot-on: a time when a single institution defined what was rational or moral. Dewey rightly warned that such models are authoritarian, not democratic.
Today, we face similar challenges—not from the Church, but from populist anti-intellectualism and selective denial of science. While postmodern critiques destabilized academic authority, they barely touched the moral instincts and common-sense logic that continue to undergird public life. What holds juries—and democracies—together isn’t abstract theory, but shared decency and an intuitive sense of fairness.
Dewey’s vision of education as preparation for democratic life remains ignored. In the MAGA worldview, education itself becomes suspect—“book learning” dismissed as elitism. Yet if we appeal to people’s core moral instincts, we can still make headway. Most Americans will grasp the cruelty of separating families or denying medical care to dying children. They'll recognize the failure to return to outdated economic models or reject life-saving vaccines. For them, it will be in the pudding – the pudding being served by the White House and Republican Congress. It is a hellish time.
We may not win hearts through constitutional theory or social contract history, but we can reach them through moral common sense. Democracy is learned best by doing, and Deweyan pedagogy, primarily through classrooms that practice democracy, remains our most powerful tool. As Kohlberg once advocated, reviving that approach is essential, and federal support could help bring it to life. Of course, that must wait for the disastrous pudding served to the public, which an overwhelming majority of our electorate will reject.
And thank you for your insightful response. I agree that intuitions appealing to basic decency are far more influential than the rarified abstractions proferred by remote academics. But I would maintain that even intuitions are informed by salient and popular ideas, and I fear at the moment that that radical subjectivity, pounded into the heads of multitudes of PhD students for decades has made some difference in re the mentalities of average people on the ground. How much, I do not know. But I think it would make for an interesting investigation.
But, I agree what we need more public emphasis on common decency, which, I believe, all can accept. But where is the leadership banging the drums?
I agree with pretty much everything you've written here, including your critique of post-modernism. The parallel with Trumpism is noteworthy, but I still find it hard to believe that there is a causal connection: MAGA and the post modernists exist in such very different worlds.
Thanks, Tony, for reading this through. Clearly, the weakest point of my essay is the gap between Trump's mendacity and postmodernism, which started and developed in the academy. I was clear that Trump doesn't indulge is the postmoderns. My claim is that decades of teaching postmodern critiques of modernity, including science, has influenced the culture-at-large, which has made relativism and subjectivism more accessible. This, in turn, has opened the door to extremist, non-empirical, and conspiratorial claims by actors on the ground.
This claim, which requires verification led me to a notable essay by the late postmodern, Bruno Latour, who came to lament his critique of science and the harm it has done In his view. It has given rise to conspiracy theories, and politicians who deny climate destruction, invoking the notion that science is wobbly on the issue.
In his essay, "Why Critique Has Run out of Steam," Latour wrote:
"And yet entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American
kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such
thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are always
prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint,
and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of
social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives."
This is his point. I think filling in the gap is an important question in understanding the breadth and acceptance of the MAGA phenomenon. I think we may find that academia is not an innocent actor. But, as noted, it is still much a supposition that needs verification.
This is a superb essay, Joe, and I am grateful for it. The MAGA mantra of “alternative facts” has bothered me greatly and inspired me to write the following article:
https://open.substack.com/pub/marcfriedmanesq/p/the-death-of-truth-how-magas-alternative?r=tq8hk&utm_medium=ios
Joe, your essay powerfully captures the transformation of civic culture and our shifting relationship with truth. The analogy to the Church’s medieval authority over “truth” is spot-on: a time when a single institution defined what was rational or moral. Dewey rightly warned that such models are authoritarian, not democratic.
Today, we face similar challenges—not from the Church, but from populist anti-intellectualism and selective denial of science. While postmodern critiques destabilized academic authority, they barely touched the moral instincts and common-sense logic that continue to undergird public life. What holds juries—and democracies—together isn’t abstract theory, but shared decency and an intuitive sense of fairness.
Dewey’s vision of education as preparation for democratic life remains ignored. In the MAGA worldview, education itself becomes suspect—“book learning” dismissed as elitism. Yet if we appeal to people’s core moral instincts, we can still make headway. Most Americans will grasp the cruelty of separating families or denying medical care to dying children. They'll recognize the failure to return to outdated economic models or reject life-saving vaccines. For them, it will be in the pudding – the pudding being served by the White House and Republican Congress. It is a hellish time.
We may not win hearts through constitutional theory or social contract history, but we can reach them through moral common sense. Democracy is learned best by doing, and Deweyan pedagogy, primarily through classrooms that practice democracy, remains our most powerful tool. As Kohlberg once advocated, reviving that approach is essential, and federal support could help bring it to life. Of course, that must wait for the disastrous pudding served to the public, which an overwhelming majority of our electorate will reject.
Thanks for your post!
And thank you for your insightful response. I agree that intuitions appealing to basic decency are far more influential than the rarified abstractions proferred by remote academics. But I would maintain that even intuitions are informed by salient and popular ideas, and I fear at the moment that that radical subjectivity, pounded into the heads of multitudes of PhD students for decades has made some difference in re the mentalities of average people on the ground. How much, I do not know. But I think it would make for an interesting investigation.
But, I agree what we need more public emphasis on common decency, which, I believe, all can accept. But where is the leadership banging the drums?
A reasoned call to action.
Many thanks, Jean. Wishing you well!
I agree with pretty much everything you've written here, including your critique of post-modernism. The parallel with Trumpism is noteworthy, but I still find it hard to believe that there is a causal connection: MAGA and the post modernists exist in such very different worlds.
Thanks, Tony, for reading this through. Clearly, the weakest point of my essay is the gap between Trump's mendacity and postmodernism, which started and developed in the academy. I was clear that Trump doesn't indulge is the postmoderns. My claim is that decades of teaching postmodern critiques of modernity, including science, has influenced the culture-at-large, which has made relativism and subjectivism more accessible. This, in turn, has opened the door to extremist, non-empirical, and conspiratorial claims by actors on the ground.
This claim, which requires verification led me to a notable essay by the late postmodern, Bruno Latour, who came to lament his critique of science and the harm it has done In his view. It has given rise to conspiracy theories, and politicians who deny climate destruction, invoking the notion that science is wobbly on the issue.
In his essay, "Why Critique Has Run out of Steam," Latour wrote:
"And yet entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American
kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such
thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are always
prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint,
and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of
social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives."
This is his point. I think filling in the gap is an important question in understanding the breadth and acceptance of the MAGA phenomenon. I think we may find that academia is not an innocent actor. But, as noted, it is still much a supposition that needs verification.
Many thanks, again, Tony, for your interest.