Author: Dr. Timothy D. Padgett
Unlike a lot of his contemporaries who thought that moving past God would be an exercise in scientific and moral progress, nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was willing to push the implications as far as they could go. Then came French philosopher Michel Foucault, the most widely cited source in all of academia. A student and an interpreter of Nietzsche, Foucault went even further in his imaginations about a world without God, without moral absolutes, and without fixed human identity. And in the living out of what he believed, Foucault basically was unparalleled.
Foucault epitomized and encouraged the chaos of postmodernism. In his writings, many of which are thoroughly (and intentionally) unreadable, he pushed the idea that education should be used as a tool of societal control and not just a means of learning. As he put it, “Every educational system is a political means of maintaining or of modifying the appropriation of discourse, with the knowledge and the powers it carries with it.”
This was an inevitable application to education of the idea that reality is not fixed but constructed. The world, Foucault believed, is what we make of it. Truth doesn’t matter; only self-referential ideologies.
The consequences of Foucault’s ideas and influence can be clearly seen in a recent competition of news stories. On one hand, there’s the recent exhaustive report describing what happened on October 7, 2023. The full revelations about Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel includes details so horrific, I will not share them here. Not only were the slaughter and torture beyond what one would expect to be humanly possible, it was planned that way all along.
As a CNN article about the report noted, the goal for Hamas wasn’t resistance or liberation of Palestine. It was “to maximize pain and suffering.” According toone of the report’s authors, “The most important finding is the fact that the sexual violence on October 7 and against hostages in captivity has been a calculated strategy by Hamas.”
Just before the report released, the New York Times published an op-ed by Nicholas Kristoff. In it, he claimed the Israelis were practicing sexual torture on their enemies. In contrast to the meticulous research of the report about Hamas, even people in his own newsroom expressed doubts about his claims, his sources, and the timing of it all. Not to mention, the most dramatic of his accusations are anatomically impossible.
Those who find Kristoff believable will likely discount the details of Hamas’ atrocities contained in the report. While Kristoff’s sources were anonymous, the report’s sources were victims and the live-feed videos shared by Hamas on social media. However, trending narratives often supplant facts. In fact, they become “facts” for people already convinced of how the narrative should go. In a postmodern era, people are more willing to believe in the unbelievable because, as the academic disciples of Nietzsche and Foucault have been taught, there is no truth. There’s only power.
Of course, there’s more blame to go around, but we wouldn’t be here without Foucault. In a backwards kind of way, he was right. Once we strip God or any sense of transcendence from life, everything is up for grabs. Eternal concepts such as truth, justice, and morality are without meaning. They are only tools to be wielded in service of power.