The Postmodern Fallacy

The principles of “self-creation” now beloved of so many postmodernists, presuppose that no meaning exists in the world beyond what we as individuals create for ourselves. This conception of reality has grown in popularity among the rebellious minds of the twentieth century, minds eager to deny all higher forms of authority that might constrain them. If everything is relative to individual interpretation, there is no legitimate authority.

Ultimately self-creation is a principle that makes little sense; if someone finds meaning only in themselves and what they make of the world, by logical extension they cannot derive meaning from the world itself (because theories of self-creation describe the world as having no meaning beyond what we ourselves put into it).
If this is the case, numerous things become impossible. Community becomes impossible because if everyone creates meaning for themselves there can be none of the shared sense of meaning that forms the basis of the communal spirit. Indeed, shared expressions of any kind become untenable. Relationships become meaningless as people only take meaning from their own self and not from interaction with others, who would presumably have their own highly individualistic sense of meaning that would be incompatible anyway.

The inevitable result of all of this is segregation; with human beings existing in individual “bubbles,” to use a cliché term. If there is no meaning beyond what you yourself create than all social interaction, and all need for social interaction breaks down for these “self-creating” beings and thus they would dwell in isolation or in conflict with one another. This amounts to shearing away the entire social aspect of human nature and asking us to live without any sense of community whatsoever, something we could not survive. Extreme loneliness results only in self-destruction, without any possibility of self-fulfillment; without one half of your soul you are broken and crippled and furthermore there is no one to support you in the confines of conflict and isolation. Unlike solitary animals such as cats, human beings were not meant to live alone and living in modern society does not override our need to live in a supportive group environment. This truth is something that the philosophers of “self-creation” overlook.

In the darkness that logically follows in the wake of their philosophies, there is the danger that these “self-creationists,” and I would not be far gone if I were to call them the “new heretics,” are furthering and re-affirming the divides which characterize life in modern society. Intentionally or not, they spread alienation and thus their ideas are a catalyst for degradation.

We cannot allow ourselves to forget that the formation of the self is a shared process between our natural essence as human beings, and our experiences as we encounter and deal with the challenges of life in the world and as we interact with others of our kind. Self-realization is a process of interaction and through this process we realize our purpose and ultimately come to fulfill our potential, thus uncovering the meaning of our lives.