David Boyle on post-postmodernism

David Boyle, the nearest thing the Liberal Democrats have to an intellectual guru, has a new book out: The Age to Come: Authenticity, Post-Modernism and How To Survive What Comes Next.

David writes on his blog:

The next age, the coming age, will try to challenge our contemporary conviction that nothing is true and everything is relative. 

It will not reach back hopelessly to previous ages of certainty, though people may accuse it of that: we have lost our innocence about social reality. It will not pretend it is somehow possible to work out unambiguously what is true in this world. It will not turn its back on the understanding and tolerance we have generated with the social construction of knowledge. But it will not be limited by that any more. 

We are moving into an age that will try to satisfy our need for what we have lost, looking around for something we can be sure of – something we can use to measure everything else against – and it is beginning to find it in ourselves and our humanity, and will use that to seek a way out of the paralysis of post-modernism.

I always enjoy David's books, but I suspect I have more time for postmodernism than he does (nor do I believe the concept needs a hyphen).

Certainly, I recommend that anyone with an interest in Liberal philosophy reads Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity before postmodernism goes too far out of fashion.