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The Three Postmodernisms: A short explanation
The first postmodernism is the one that modern people talk about a lot. It’s a big scary monster of nihilism and relativism and self-destruction that seeks to undo all that is good in modern Western civilization. This definition of postmodernism (it denies truth, denies reality, denies morality) is useful, I think, to scare people so they’ll stay loyal to their modern institutions, which, they are told, are the last bulwark against the chaos at the gate. This postmodernism is absurd: it says, “There is no truth,” which means that if the statement is true, it is also false. This first postmodernism probably doesn’t exist outside the imaginations of frightened modern people and those who seek to intimidate them – plus among some college freshmen who get carried away after drinking too much.

The second postmodernism is the closest reality to the first fantasy. It’s actually a kind of adolescent postmodernism. It’s the kind of postmodernism that some people like to declare as being “over” since September 11, or since 1990, or since I’m not sure what....