The poet James Weldon Johnson has created a speaker whose baby son gets a wild-eyed stare that can look “through the ceiling of the room, and beyond,” leading the father to suspect that he might have a budding poet to contend with.
Introduction with Text of “A Poet to His Baby Son”
James Weldon Johnson’s speaker in “A Poet to His Baby Son” offers a tongue-in-cheek complaint that his baby son might be contemplating becoming, like his father, a poet.
A Poet to His Baby Son
Tiny bit of humanity, Blessed with your mother’s face, And cursed with your father’s mind.
I say cursed with your father’s mind, Because you can lie so long and so quietly on your back, Playing with the dimpled big toe of your left foot, And looking away, Through the ceiling of the room, and beyond. Can it be that already you are thinking of being a poet?
Why don’t you kick and howl, And make the neighbors talk about “That damned baby next door,” And make up your mind forthwith To grow up and be a banker Or a politician or some other sort of go-getter Or—?—whatever you decide upon, Rid yourself of these incipient thoughts About being a poet.
For poets no longer are makers of songs, Chanters of the gold and purple harvest, Sayers of the glories of earth and sky, Of the sweet pain of love And the keen joy of living; No longer dreamers of the essential dreams, And interpreters of the eternal truth, Through the eternal beauty. Poets these days are unfortunate fellows. Baffled in trying to say old things in a new way Or new things in an old language, They talk abracadabra In an unknown tongue, Each one fashioning for himself A wordy world of shadow problems, And as a self-imagined Atlas, Struggling under it with puny legs and arms, Groaning out incoherent complaints at his load.
My son, this is no time nor place for a poet; Grow up and join the big, busy crowd That scrambles for what it thinks it wants Out of this old world which is—as it is— And, probably, always will be.
Take the advice of a father who knows: You cannot begin too young Not to be a poet.
Commentary on “A Poet to His Baby Son”
The speaker’s baby son gets a wild-eyed stare that seems so penetrating that it can look through things. The speaker playfully then muses that the kid might be demonstrating qualities that could lead him to becoming a poet, like his father. The speaker appears to be somewhat dismayed by that thought, for he is concerned about the current trend in poetry’s emphasis on non-poetic subjects.
First Stanza: A Distressing Possibility
Tiny bit of humanity, Blessed with your mother’s face, And cursed with your father’s mind.
In the opening three-line stanza, the speaker is having a little talk with his infant son. He calls the baby boy a “[t]iny bit of humanity” and describes him as looking like his mother but thinking like his father. The speaker is happy with the first quality but distressed over the second.
Second Stanza: Poetry as a Curse
I say cursed with your father’s mind, Because you can lie so long and so quietly on your back, Playing with the dimpled big toe of your left foot, And looking away, Through the ceiling of the room, and beyond. Can it be that already you are thinking of being a poet?
The speaker is so distressed over the fact that the baby has his “father’s mind” that he calls the child “cursed” with that quality, repeating that lined in both the opening stanza and the second.
The speaker then begins his exposition of the reason for thinking the baby may be cursed. Before dropping the bombshell though, he relates that the baby can do baby things like lying quietly for extended periods on his little back, while playing with toes. These are a little-baby activities that the speaker finds charming.
But the speaker also senses a musing quality in the baby’s stare; the little one seems to be staring with such contemplation that he can see through the “ceiling” and “beyond.” This searching stare suggest to the poet that his baby is contemplating becoming a poet when he grows up.
Third Stanza: Anything but Poetry!
Why don’t you kick and howl, And make the neighbors talk about “That damned baby next door,” And make up your mind forthwith To grow up and be a banker Or a politician or some other sort of go-getter Or—?—whatever you decide upon, Rid yourself of these incipient thoughts About being a poet.
The speaker then rhetorically queries his son, suggesting that he “kick and howl” and annoy the neighbors to get them to exclaim and swear because of the unwelcome noise. Such behavior he suggests would ensure that his son might decide to be a enthusiastic individual and become some professional such as a “banker” or even a “politician.”
The speaker insists that no matter what the kid does, he should never ever consider the notion of becoming a poet. Because the father is a poet, he would know all of the disadvantages that profession can confer.
Fourth Stanza: The Modernist Bent
For poets no longer are makers of songs, Chanters of the gold and purple harvest, Sayers of the glories of earth and sky, Of the sweet pain of love And the keen joy of living; No longer dreamers of the essential dreams, And interpreters of the eternal truth, Through the eternal beauty. Poets these days are unfortunate fellows. Baffled in trying to say old things in a new way Or new things in an old language, They talk abracadabra In an unknown tongue, Each one fashioning for himself A wordy world of shadow problems, And as a self-imagined Atlas, Struggling under it with puny legs and arms, Groaning out incoherent complaints at his load.
In the longest stanza, the speaker details his reason for dissuading his son from becoming a poet. The poet/speaker is decrying the modernist bent of poets.
These modernists do not compose songs of beauty, such as those of “the gold and purple harvest.” They avoid remarking and making any references to “the glories of earth and sky.” These poets seem to avoid taking note of their environment.
But worse still is that these modernist poets are no longer interested in exploring and dramatizing love with all of its joys and sorrows. They no longer compose songs devoted to revealing the joy just living can offer. They seem to have ceased dreaming about essential realities. These new poets avoid interpreting”eternal truth / Through the eternal beauty.”
Instead of all these endearing qualities that have infused and sustained poetry and poetry lovers for centuries, these new poets have become “unfortunate fellows.” They have become confused and display only befuddlement stammering out ” old things in a new way.”
The poet describes the claptrap of modernist poetry: They speak a kind of magician logic in a made-up language. They are no longer individuals with self-determination.
These modernists are fabricating a word-salad world of “shadow problems.” They represent themselves as “a self-imagined Atlas” “with puny legs and arms.” They bitch and moan about their victimhood.
Fifth Stanza: Not a Good Place for Poets
My son, this is no time nor place for a poet; Grow up and join the big, busy crowd That scrambles for what it thinks it wants Out of this old world which is—as it is— And, probably, always will be.
It is then for the reasons spelled out in stanza four that the poet proclaims that in the current environment and with unhealthy, nasty trend, it is simply not a good time nor place to become a poet.v
He suggests to the infant that he grow up and join the genuine activity of trying to be successful in acquiring what the needs and want, trying to have actual achievements, instead of bemoaning the lie of predetermined failure. The speaker asserts that this world will always be this same old world. And this poet/speaker’s experience tells him that it is not currently a place for a poet.
Sixth Stanza: The Voice of Experience
Take the advice of a father who knows: You cannot begin too young Not to be a poet.
Finally, the poet/father/speaker admonishes the baby son to follow his warning because it is coming from “a father who knows.” He then cleverly turns his phrasing: “You cannot begin too young / Not to be a poet.”
The Trend of Victimology in Poetry
This poem is playful, yet serious. The speaker is only musing on the possibility that his son is contemplating becoming a poet, but he uses the poem as a forum to express his dismay at the way poetry was becoming a cesspool of victimology and self-aggrandizement at the expense of truth and beauty. This poet was living during the period of time that saw identity politics beginning to take hold of the arts.
Some bones stand like corn stalks After late harvest. They bristle in the field. They remain unclean though they look Bleached and scrubbed.
Skeletons may hang in closets But not these bones—the ones That are losing themselves As they scream and pound sand.
Some bones cry for a thinner cloak But unlike some hearts They have never broken themselves Over the pain of this mud ball.
Some bones slash themselves in early spring And cleave to youth too late in summer. A young brain cannot pool its dreams To yield the pith of adult philosophy.
Some bones have no star to guide errant ways. They may stitch themselves by valves But sense no light in the chambers That wobble and bleed ugly passions.
Some bones keep wobbling, sputtering, Spitting in the face of any thought That might hold them to account Lingering in the mud of passing time.
A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “Some Bones”
In my poem “Some Bones,” I have created a speaker who is musing on fragmentation, arrested development, and the failure of inner cohesion, using the recurring image of bones—stripped, exposed, and stubbornly animate—as a controlling metaphor for the human condition when it is cut off from spiritual integration.
Unlike the quiet endurance of stone, bone suggests a harsher, more restless existence: something once living that refuses, even in its partial ruin, to settle into peace. Such failure epitomizes the blocked condition of generations of unhappy, prideful, and dangerous individuals who have remained strangers to themselves.
The language remains constructively physical—bones, closets, sand, mud, valves—yet it continually gesticulates toward psychological and spiritual disarray. My speaker does not offer consolation; instead, she allows the imagery to confront the reader with a kind of unresolved agitation. Where wisdom might emerge, it does so jarringly, often obstructed by immaturity, illusion, or sheer refusal.
Underlying the poem is my own sense that without a guiding metaphysical orientation—whether one names it divine light, higher consciousness, or moral clarity—the human being risks becoming disjointed, reactive, and perpetually unfinished. Such an orientation of mind has been instilled in my mindset by my blessèd Guru Paramahansa Yogananda.
First Stanza: Residue after Harvest
In the opening stanza, my speaker presents bones as remnants, likened to corn stalks left standing after harvest. This simile is intentional: what remains is not fruitful but residual, something overlooked, perhaps even abandoned. The bones “bristle,” suggesting defensiveness, a kind of posturing that masks emptiness.
Though they appear “bleached and scrubbed,” they remain “unclean.” This contradiction establishes a central tension: outward purification does not equate to inner transformation.
The bones carry a stain that cannot be washed away by exposure or time alone. I wanted the speaker to imply that mere survival or endurance does not guarantee wisdom; one can persist and yet remain fundamentally unresolved.
Second Stanza: Refusal of Containment
Here, my speaker contrasts the familiar idiom of “skeletons in closets” with these bones, which refuse concealment. They are not hidden but actively “losing themselves / As they scream and pound sand.” The image is specifically chaotic and futile—pounding sand accomplishes nothing, yet it expresses frustration and desperation.
These bones are not passive relics but disintegrating agents, unable to maintain coherence. The phrase “losing themselves” suggests a failure of identity, a dissolution rather than a stable essence. The speaker is emphasizing a kind of existential noise: movement without direction, expression without meaning—a condition that will remind my readers of the influence of postmodernism on poetry.
Third Stanza: Avoidance of True Suffering
In this stanza, the bones “cry for a thinner cloak,” desiring relief or escape, yet my speaker contrasts them with hearts that have “broken themselves / Over the pain of this mud ball.” The implication is that these bones have avoided the kind of deep suffering that refines and transforms.
There is, in my view, a necessary breaking that accompanies genuine emotional or spiritual growth. These bones, however, remain intact in a superficial sense precisely because they have not undergone that process.
Their complaint is shallow; they seek comfort without having earned insight. The “mud ball” underscores the earth’s dirty imperfection, a condition that must be confronted rather than evaded.
Fourth Stanza: Temporal Dislocation and Immaturity
The fourth stanza examines the misalignment of time and development. The bones “slash themselves in early spring” and “cleave to youth too late in summer,” suggesting a disordered relationship to life’s natural phases. There is both premature self-harm and delayed attachment to youth.
The concluding line suggests frenetically what the imagery implies: maturity requires synthesis. Dreams alone, without discipline or time, cannot produce wisdom. I wanted the speaker to assert that intellectual and spiritual depth cannot be rushed or improvised; it must be cultivated through experience and reflection.
Fifth Stanza: Absence of Guiding Light
Here, my speaker turns sternly to the absence of direction. The image that “Some bones have no star to guide errant ways” invokes the ancient image of navigation by the heavens. Without such a reference point, these bones attempt a kind of self-repair—“stitch themselves by valves”—but the effort is mechanical and insufficient.
The “chambers” evoke both the heart and the mind, yet they “sense no light.” This lack is crucial: the structure exists, but illumination does not. The result is a system that “wobbles and bleed[s] ugly passions,” governed not by clarity but by disorder. The speaker is averring that without an orienting principle, human faculties become unstable, even grotesque.
Sixth Stanza: Defiance and Stagnation
In the final stanza, the bones persist in their agitation—“wobbling, sputtering”—but now their resistance is directed against accountability itself. They reject introspection or discipline.
The closing image, “Lingering in the mud of passing time,” echoes to the earlier “mud ball,” but now it emphasizes stagnation. Time moves, yet the bones do not progress; they remain mired, neither decaying fully nor transforming.
This eventuality is, perhaps, the most severe judgment in the poem: not suffering, not even failure, but refusal—the unwillingness to engage the very processes that might lead to growth.
An Afterthought
In “Some Bones,” I have attempted to portray a condition of partial existence—one in which the human being retains structure and motion but lacks integration, direction, and illumination. The bones are not dead, but neither are they fully alive in any meaningful sense.
Where my earlier musing on stone suggested endurance and the possibility of quiet wisdom, here I explore a more troubled state: persistence without purpose, animation without coherence.
The poem ultimately argues, though indirectly, that without a willingness to suffer, to mature, and to orient oneself toward a higher principle, one risks becoming like these bones—restless, exposed, and perpetually incomplete.
Poetry and Politics under the Influence of Postmodernism
Although many dissemblers in both fields of poetry and politics have tainted those fields through pretense and duplicity, a good measure of skepticism, the one valuable tenet of postmodernism, remains a useful asset in genuine literature and authentic statesmanship.
The Basics of Postmodernism
In general, the tenets of postmodernism [1] work against most traditions in Western civilization, including but not limited to tight structure in works of art, received moral tenets, family values and structure, legal imperatives, and attitudes toward subjects such as patriotism, beauty, love, truth, and religion.
This oppositional stance includes viewing the world through a lens of skepticism, and while too often the works produced by those heavily invested in subterfuge seem to be using a rather fogged lens, nevertheless, skepticism has its place in human activity.
The issue regarding whether “truth” exists has suffered greatly within the confines of the postmodernist mind-set, resulting in the notion that “Postmodernist truth [2] is hence that there is no truth.”
A result of this pernicious idea that there is no truth—that all truth is relative—is demonstrated in the following narrative, regarding Oprah Winfrey’s receiving a life-time achievement award at the 75th Golden Globe Awards:
[Winfrey is speaking]: “I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this: What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have…For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men, but their time is up. Their time is up!” [emphasis added]
Winfrey did not say that women were speaking the truth, because in the postmodern world, there is no absolute truth, only narrative. Only “your truth” or “my truth.” As Ben Shapiro recently tweeted, “There is no such thing as ‘your truth.’ There is the truth and your opinion.” [3]
The very claim that “there is no truth” negates itself, as poet and essayist David Solway has explained:
Ironically, the governing canon such postmodern revisionists espouse, namely, the relativity of all truth claims, applies to everything, apparently, but their own absolute insights and pronouncements about the relativity of truth claims. All facts are fictive except their own. [4]
Apparently, even those postmodernists who concocted and spread that notion have remained humble enough not to add the caveat, “except for this statement,” likely already seeing the absurdity of the claim or perhaps remaining blind to its implication.
Postmodern Poetry
Nevertheless, the idea of relativism has taken hold and has wrought havoc in many fields of endeavor, including poetry, which has become a vague shadow of itself, as Anis Shivani’s scatter-shot review [5] of Paul Hoover’s Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology demonstrates.
Often the works of art produced through the fog of nihilism result in disjoined imagery which never coalesces around meaning. Many postmodernist poets have succumbed to the notion that they can spew anything forth in broken lines and have it accepted as “poetry.” Often even without a system of thought which the basic skepticism of postmodernism should supply, these postmods have perpetrated a fraud upon the reading public.
If a poet does not attempt to write something that makes sense even to herself, she should not expect her works to be admired by others. Unfortunately, too many so-called poets have allowed themselves to be lured by that method. Yet others have simply accepted revisionist versions of history and fallen for the idea of victimhood, categorized by the politics of identity.
A Notable Exception
Although Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” stands at the beginning of the postmodernist era in America, the piece has stood the test of time as holding value for literary studies. Ginsberg’s poem, whose style is loosely based on that of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, provides a view of American life that informs that portion of society that would never consider taking the trips of a Ginsberg or a Kerouac.
Regardless of whether one agrees with or appreciates a work of art or not, that art’s message can be useful. Even if a work displays nonsense or spews nihilism, immorality, or naïveté, art consumers are entitled to experience such a piece and should be allowed to determine their own thoughts and feelings about the work.
While poetry’s main function is not for reporting facts and information, poems do include facts as they focus mainly on expressing human experience of emotion and feeling. Despite Ginsberg’s focus on debauchery and degradation, his poem’s reportage of certain facts can remain useful in comprehending the milieu in which Ginsberg and his ilk operated.
The Curse of Censorship
If poets are cowed by the possibility that misreadings of their poems may arise and thus they allow that possibility to influence what they write, they are permitting themselves to be censured and censored. No form of censorship should be condoned—even those poets, whose works are not admirable such as Bly, Glück, and Rich, must be permitted a hearing. Honest, heartfelt claptrap is better than timorous, duplicitous flattery.
However, readers should always vehemently speak out against senseless blather, filled with nihilistic whining and blaming others for perceived victimhood. Further response to such unsatisfying texts is preferable to attempting to cancel what one does not admire or censor that with which one does not agree. Regarding censorship, John Stuart Mill in his essay, “On Liberty,” has averred,
the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dis- sent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. [6]
Capitalizing on this same line of thinking, Justice Louis Brandeis composed the Counterspeech Doctrine [7] in which he declared, “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence” [7].
Under the vacuous influence of postmodern thought, poetry has become devalued and under-appreciated, and the same emptiness and misdirection can be detected in the arena of politics. The once respected status of statesmanship, which originally intended to represent only temporary service [8] to the nation through elected government posts, has too often degenerated into a career of influence-peddling.
This degradation of statesmanship has its greatest example in the Biden family, as nationally acclaimed Professor Jonathan Turley [9] and the research of esteemed journalist Miranda Devine [10] so thoroughly demonstrate. Victor Davis Hanson offers a useful overview and introduction to the issue of political postmodernism:
All presidents have, at one time or another, fudged on the truth. Most politicians pad their résumés and airbrush away their sins. But what is new about political lying is the present notion that lies are not necessarily lies anymore — a reflection of the relativism that infects our entire culture.
Postmodernism (the cultural fad “after modernism”) went well beyond questioning norms and rules. It attacked the very idea of having any rules at all. Postmodernist relativists claimed that things like “truth” were mere fictions to preserve elite privilege. Unfortunately, bad ideas like that have a habit of poisoning an entire society — and now they have. [11]
The postmodern mind-set, touting relativism often surrenders to abject hypocrisy. Within the political arena [12], certain issues must be revisited from time to time as the society changes—for example, the institution of slavery, women’s suffrage, and same-sex experience. Care should be taken not to judge unfairly the good just because it is not perfect.
Perfection in an imperfect world remains a fantasy—something most school children learn, or used to learn, by the end of grade school. In their expectation and pursuit of the “perfect,” many postmods have indulged in the melancholy of nihilism [13], seeking to abolish certain societal strictures. Their wishlists for proper behavior are too often based only on personal preference.
Such illogical thought leads only to more melancholy and ultimately to the chaos of anarchy through which no organized society can exist. Politicians who engage in the extreme tenets of relativism do so in order to pander to influence groups for the purpose of securing votes, not of serving their constituents’ actual needs.
The poet and essayist David Solway has observed and written extensively about the threats of relativism and how those threats undermine the values attained and held within the Judeo-Christian ethic, vital to the continued strength of Western civilization. Individual rights including free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of peaceable assembly, guaranteed by the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence hold little to no sway under the auspices of relativism.
Furthermore, turned on their heads as they are thought of as “sub-cultural attitudes or culture-specific assumptions” are such issues as gender equality, traditional matrimony, habeas corpus, and even the basic rule of law. Relativism assumes that the forces that govern a civilized society do not necessarily apply to all people. Thus, David Solway concludes,
It is this relativistic sentiment that informed President Obama’s Cairo speech. Alluding to the muddy concept of the “will of the people,” Obama deposed that “Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people.” Barack Obama is America’s first postmodern president.
Postmodern Presidencies: Obama’s Lie of the Year / Biden’s First Lie of His Presidency
President Barack Obama’s tentative relationship with truth also has marked him as “America’s first postmodern president.” His most widely spread prevarication was one of his earliest: “if you like your health plan, you can keep it”—deemed by the left-leaning PolitiFact “Lie of the Year” [14].
Additionally, Matt Margolis, political commentator for PJMedia, has documented the “29 scandals” [15] of the preposterously touted “scandal-free” Obama administration. Regarding the postmodernism of the current Oval Office occupier, Joe Biden, Julio M. Shilling, political scientist and director of the CubanAmerican Voice, writes that the Biden presidency is being administered more like a “regime” than a “government.”
That the press behaves as an arm of the Democratic Party feeds into this evaluation, as does the fact the private businesses and government have become aligned as in fascist regimes. Thus, Shilling explains,
A regime includes a government but additionally brings with it a set of institutions, laws, rituals, belief systems and a power structure. To merely identify the Biden Administration as simply a government would be flawed. This is a postmodern presidency. [16]
Further discussion regarding the postmodern presidency of the current administration is offered by the Cornell Review’s Joe Silverstein [17]. Silverstein addresses the first lie told by Joe Biden, as the former VP began his campaign for the presidency—his original reason for running for president.
In Biden’s announcement that he would be seeking the nomination for president, the former vice president repeated the vile already debunked claim circulating about his predecessor: “good people on both sides” became the fake rallying cry for Biden and his ilk. Opposition media had spread the lie that President Trump had praised the neo-nazis and white supremacists who clashed with the protesters at the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Charlottesville—now labeled the “Charlottesville Hoax” [18].
When President Donald Trump said there were “good people on both sides,” he was referring to the protestors’ two sides: those who wanted the statue down and those who did not. He was not referring to the extremists white nationalists and neo-nazis who tried to take advantage of the protest to seek publicity. And in that same speech, Trump made that distinction perfectly clear.
Silverstein also points out the prevarication by Biden that his administration “didn’t have the vaccine,” until after he took office. Yet, Biden had already been vaccinated while Trump was still president.
Silverstein explains that academic postmodernism has declaimed on the “no objective reality” notion and that flaw has influenced culture. He avers that the claim that facts can come from bias has led some professors to assert that “math is racist.” Because of such anomalies, Silverstein chides Republican politicos for not engaging and giving an airing to Biden’s claim that “we choose truth over facts” as Biden campaigned in Iowa. Silverstein avers,
By dismissing Biden’s comment as a mere gaffe, they missed an important opportunity to highlight Biden’s allegiance to the ideological far Left. His remarks represented more than a mere verbal slip-up: they demonstrated Biden’s commitment to an ideology hellbent on destroying America.
An Unsavory Collision: Politics and Poetry
Even Joe Biden’s choice of poet to perform at his inaugural ceremony put on display one of the most current fads in postmodern poetry, as the very young spoken-word (Hip-Hop) artist, Amanda Gorman, celebrated her president with a text that can be described only as a word salad, filled with bland, even meaningless platitudes.
True to the sycophantic postmodernist flair for uncritical criticism, Maya King and Nolan D. McCaskill offer their disingenuous appraisal of Gorman and her pedestrian piece in their article on Politico, “The political roots of Amanda Gorman’s genius” [19].
A Caveat
The basic original tenet of informed skepticism can result in useful works. However, because too much of postmodern thought has resulted in fake and fraudulent works, readers must be continually vigilant while experiencing contemporary poetry. Separating the genuine from the disingenuous is necessary to avoid falling prey to literary charlatans. The same vigilance is necessary in vetting politicians who are committed to relativistic truth telling that too often equals blatant lying.
One has to wonder how certain lies can continue with such strength as the “Charlottesville Hoax” proffered by Biden, as he threw his hat in ring to run for president, because what President Trump actually said can so easily be found on the internet. Did Biden not know that Trump said, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”
Whether Biden knew or not, his deplorable prevarication equals dereliction of duty: if he knew, he blatantly lied; if he did not know, he should have, and that lapse in knowledge places part of the blame on his advisors.
Currently, America now awaits the likely dangerous results arising from the debacle [20] of the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan. As political pundit, Tom Borelli, has averred, “President Biden’s promise that the Taliban will not take over Afghanistan will go down as a huge lie.” With the remaining years of the Biden occupancy of the Oval Office, it is quite likely that many more examples of postmodern political dreck will fill media pages and spotlights.
Relief from Postmodern Denial of Truth
In order to alleviate the disservice done to the culture by a movement based on denying reality and truth, readers, thinkers, citizens from all walks of life, races, and ethnic groups should take it upon themselves to become and remain as informed as possible.
Citizens must engage with ideas by reading and listening to texts from widely different sources, and must do so carefully and closely so they can make the appropriate connections that lead to accurate meaning.
Readers need to look up words, learn the meanings of symbols, and determine whether a text, speech, lecture, or any discourse is primarily literal, figurative, or satiric. Most of all individuals must retain some skepticism, which remains the best and virtually the only positive tenet of the otherwise vile, culture-destroying movement known as postmodernism.
Sources
[1] Editors. “Postmodernism.” Britannica. Accessed August 30, 2021.
[2] Editors. “Postmodernist Truth.” Changing Minds. Accessed August 30, 2021.
[6] John Stuart Mill. “On Liberty.” EE-T Project Portal. Accessed August 31, 2021. PDF file.
[7] David L. Hudson, Jr. “Counterspeech Doctrine.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Middle Tennessee State University. Updated December 2017. Originally published 2009.
Essays: On Political, Social, Literary, & Other Issues
This room in my literary home houses links to essays addressing issues in literary studies, politics, social/cultural movements, science, or medicine and health care, some of which may be controversial or widely misunderstood either currently or historically.
Linda's Literary Home 
