The Postmodern Case of Charlie Kirk

In his very recent book A Social History of Analytic Philosophy, the philosopher Christoph Schuringa interrogates the ideological conditions which led to the hegemony of analytic philosophy and the marginalisation of continental philosophy in the English-speaking world. The self-proclaimed ‘depoliticised’ status of analytic philosophy - with its endless scepticism, logical propositions, careful approach to the mind, language, and metaphysics - is in fact far from being as free of politics as it likes to claim. A history of post-war ideological purges (most notably during the McCarthy era) ensured that Marxism (one of the pillars of continental philosophy) would be dispelled from philosophy departments, thereby allowing the a-historical, non-radical, and politically ‘neutral’ structure of analytic philosophy to take centre stage. Schuringa insists, therefore, that we should ‘politicise’ analytic philosophy: we should recognise that it is built on a deeply reactionary ideological foundation, acting as the non-political philosophical support of a broader political landscape.

But what about the opposite case? What about where politics claims to be free of the speculative mediations of philosophy? In such cases, the same level of critical suspicion should be directed at popular political movements which claim to speak a completely pragmatic language, or which claim that we do not need philosophy or elaborate theoretical enquiries into contemporary ideology. This position is where Charlie Kirk, and the America First reactionaries, should be placed. The figureheads of the new right - whether it is Charlie Kirk, Michael Knowles, Candace Owens, Matt Walsh, or Tucker Carlson - brand themselves as avatars of common sense. However this appeal to common sense, to ‘be rational’, is little more than a smokescreen concealing an acute absence of seriousness and a deployment of the same ‘postmodern’ tactics as they claim to diagnose in the left.

Once again, we are facing a strange deadlock. ‘Serious’ philosophers or political theorists dismiss the America First pundits as unserious charlatans, refusing to engage with them. But thereby these same reactionaries proceed unchallenged. Returning to the strange case of analytic philosophy, we should not be afraid to admit that philosophy is always politically engaged. Conceptual frameworks and ontological systems not only reflect the political context in which they were written, but they also have inevitably practical consequences. In this sense, even practical, everyday life requires (and reflects) philosophy.

Consider, for example, the conjunction between theoretical physics (and its speculative origins) and the basic coordinates of communication today.