Foucault. Derrida. Lyotard. Three French philosophers walk into a cafe — and forty years later, American universities can’t define what a woman is.
In this episode, Pigweed and Crowhill dig into a viral French mea culpa: an apology, on behalf of France, for exporting postmodernism to the world. They trace the direct line from French theory’s core claim — that truth is just a mask for power — through Judith Butler, Edward Said, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, and into today’s language of oppressor/oppressed, meritocracy-as-racism, and “words are violence.”
Topics covered:
* Why civilization rests on three pillars — truth, morality, and inherited tradition — and how French theory tried to dynamite all three
* The difference between what Foucault et al. probably meant and what their disciples did with it
* Why “everything is a power struggle” is really just Marxism with race swapped in for class
* The philosophical case against relativism (and why no one actually lives like a true relativist)
* Fragmentation, diversity, and the postmodern seduction of “there is no truth, only narrative”
* Why a civilization that’s only trained to deconstruct forgets how to build
Plus: a four-year-old bottle of Flying Dog Double Dog Triple IPA that’s mellowed into something closer to a barleywine — tasting notes, aging thoughts, and whether it’s worth the cellar space.
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