Criticism of postmodernism

Postmodernism is the resentful projection of too many self-important smart people feeling slighted by the Zeitgeist.

Criticisms of postmodernism are intellectually diverse, including the belief that postmodernism can be meaningless, promotes obscurantism and uses relativism (in culture, morality, knowledge) to the extent that it cripples most judgement calls. Criticism of postmodernism is usually not a comprehensive attack on the various diverse movements labelled postmodern. Criticism often refers to specific branches of postmodernism which may vary greatly such as postmodern philosophy, postmodern architecture and postmodern literature. It may also be limited to certain tendencies in postmodern thought such as post-structuralism, cultural relativism and "theory". For example, a philosopher may criticize French postmodern thought yet still appreciate postmodern cinema. Conversely Ashbee criticises most creative postmodern works (works of art, books, films etc.) without broadly attacking the entire inventory of varied post-modern projects.

Philosopher Noam Chomsky has argued that postmodernism is meaningless because it adds nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge. He asks why postmodernist intellectuals won't respond like people in other fields when asked:

Christopher Hitchens in his book, Why Orwell matters, writes, in advocating for simple, clear and direct expression of ideas, "The Postmodernists' tyranny wears people down by boredom and semi-literate prose." Hitchens also criticized a postmodernist volume, "The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism": "The French, as it happens, once evolved an expression for this sort of prose: la langue de bois, the wooden tongue, in which nothing useful or enlightening can be said, but in which various excuses for the arbitrary and the dishonest can be offered. (This book) is a pointer to the abysmal state of mind that prevails in so many of our universities."

In a similar vein, Richard Dawkins writes in a favorable review of Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures:

Dawkins then uses a quotation from Félix Guattari as an example of this "lack of content".

It has been suggested that the term "postmodernism" is a mere buzzword that means nothing. For example, Dick Hebdige, in Hiding in the Light, writes:

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