Skepticists and postmodernists’ defiance to the absolute Truth are similar.
This attitude of the former, due to its questioning nature, always falls
apart, for they cannot claim the statement is true that “there is no such
thing as Truth.” The latter on the other hand, seeing Truth as
socially-constructed, are certain enough to disassemble it into a lot of
truths from various aspects.
Postmodernists’ rejection of a universal value, however, creates
difficulties to themselves in the course of deconstruction. It is challenging
to counter the long-last authoritative system of thoughts from their unstable
standing. They are almost sure of nothing except for the non-existence of
Truth. This causes the major problem for which they are criticized: they
points out and mocks too many clichés but don’t really know how to overcome
them. (Or this is the point when they start to doubt, “should they be
overcome?”) They deconstruct, but cannot re-establish anything, especially
cannot utilize what they have mocked as an approach. It becomes most obvious
when we consider the purpose of “Happy Ending”: what does the story tell
us? Does it aim to tell us anything at all? How can a postmodernist fiction
propose any specific moral? Thus they encounter what skepticists have faced
centuries before – the futility of their struggle to achieve.
The most important contribution might therefore not be the radical defiance,
but their process of carefully scrutinizing every ideology. They cast a doubt
to the ever-optimistic modernists after the Enlightenment, though cannot
answer. Similar to what relativists like Montaigne have done, by stressing
that no one, including themselves, is absolutely right, they prevent
judgments according to the readily-constructed standards.
(B95B01074)