Jean Lyotard Defines Post-Modernism

By Leo Gura - August 21, 2026

Lyotard defined post-modernism as the end of the search for grand meta-narrative explanations of Reality. I discussed this in The Ultimate Guide To Post-Modernism – Part 1, but it’s good to study some of the source material deeper. So here you go:

It is funny how post-modernists want to claim that there cannot be one over-arching description of Reality, and that such a thing would be totalitarian and oppressive. Yet Reality itself is obviously One unified thing, and this Unity is not tyrannical and exclusionary but all-inclusive of diversity. Reality itself is the material embodiment of the solution to the diversity problem. Reality is diversity actualized.

The genius of Reality’s ultimate structure is that it successfully integrates infinite diversity without being some toxic, oppressive dictatorship. How is that achieved? Well, it’s complicated, but to oversimplify it: selflessness. Oppressive dictatorship is solved by eliminating the self. No self, no tyranny. What a beautiful solution. The solution is ontological. If the self is finite, then it becomes oppressive towards anything outside of itself. But if the self is infinite, then it is identical to everything, it has no outside of itself, so it treats all things as itself.

Why is God not a tyrant? Because God is identical to all things, so it has no impulse to favor one thing over another. There is a profound lesson here for leaders and politicians in how to govern benevolently. The function of healthy governance is to integrate wide diversity. But this isn’t just wokeness, this is ontological. The function of healthy governance is to incorporate more REALITY, more TRUTH. Sick and toxic governance is too selfish to do that. You can see how Trump and MAGA are literally too selfish to co-exist with broader truth. A dense finite self like Trump becomes a tyrant by demonizing anything that it considers other to itself and its narrow, biased survival agenda.

I find it fascinating that there is a connection at all between the ultimate structure of Reality (ontology) and human governance. That’s a remarkable outcome. It’s as if studying atomic physics revealed the solution for how to structure government. You wouldn’t expect that. But such is the beauty and power of holism. Unholistic approaches miss the discovery of such deep and counter-intuitive connections. Which is why I hammer on holism so much.

In order to govern and lead properly, you must be God-like. Governance and leadership is not a superficial thing like narcissistic people think it is. It’s really about cultivating a proper relationship to Reality/Truth. You can’t govern or lead properly from a position of falsehood and denial of Reality. MAGA is, quite simply, denial of Reality. That’s why it’s so toxic and corrupt. When people collectively choose to deny Reality, what results is tyranny. But they don’t care enough about truth to see this connection.

Cultivating a proper relationship to Truth is the basis for all healthy human life. That’s why I hammer on epistemology so much. Without epistemology humans veer into pathological ways of thinking and being. You can see this across all of history and the globe. How rare it is to have leadership who actually place truth first. It is so rare that people have forgotten it’s even possible.

When the public doesn’t value truth, how can they elect leaders who do? In a democracy, untruthful leaders are just an organic reflection of untruthful citizenry. The point is, our political problems are so much deeper than people realize. Political problems are really spiritual problems. Sick spirituality leads to sick politics. This isn’t theoretical, you see it playing out in the news every day.

I hope you see how all this stuff profoundly interconnects.

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