Post-Modernism

Post-Modernism is about critiquing the assumptions society (or specific aspects of it) has taken as truths, and deconstructing them.

This has meant questioning "common sense" and things everyone "knows" to be true, and rejecting the idea of infallible universal "truths", universal "morals", etc. It recognizes society's role in constructing these truths and morals (as well as reinforce and reproduce them), and the ability for a distinct society to the have correspondingly distinct truths and morals.

Naturally, this leads to seeking out diverse perspectives, so as to not enforce one truth or moral code universally. Post-Modernism became a focal point of the culture wars, as it's a rejection of the status quo, and was seen as an attack by those who currently benefit from said status quo. Some who opposed Post-Modernism even went as far as to suggest Post-Modernism rejects the concept of a reality at all. This is largely untrue, as Post-Modernism really just seeks to challenge how power structures define meaning and knowledge. But for those who benefit from the current gender and race hierarchies, hearing that those concepts are merely made up and not some intrinsic universal truths is a threat to their position.

Post-Modernism also has some interesting things to say about Existence, providing a lens through which constructed entities can "exist" and impact our societies.

Foucault discusses how power is the ability to construct what is the "truth". Power imposes truth upon us.

Related ideas are relativism, social constructionism, and post structuralism. I think Anarchism depends on at least a bit of these Post-Modernist ideas, as a rejection of centralized authority goes hand in hand with universal (in this case also meaning centralized) truths and morals.

It should be pointed out that some anarchists predate and may disagree with post-structuralist anarchism. Several influential thinkers, for example, saw human nature as intrinsically co-operative, which Post-Modernism would critique as essentialist. And needless to say, human nature being intrinsically one way or another is neither a reasonable stance to take (as it's so thoroughly dependent on our environment) nor is it a condition for anarchism to work (since decentralizing power makes anarchism resilient to bad actors)

Further Reading

• The second half of this video where Alexander starts discussing Foucault, power, and how truth itself is socially constructed.
• An interesting reddit thread on how this relates to Anarchism.