The entry on Romanticism vs. Post Modernism generated some great comments (particularly a dialog with "Mr. B") as well as email commentary from a few of my friends.   Although the post didn't speak too much about the role of "power" in the Romantic vs. PostModern world views, the commentators zeroed in on this aspect more than anything else.

PostModernism & Power

A core tenet of PostModernism is that Truth and Power are inextricably intertwined.   The winners write the history, dictate the rules, and direct the inquiry.   At an extreme level, they don't just write some of the story, the Power writes it all.   Consequently, PM'ers take a very cyclical view of progress and contend that as power cycles between groups, so does History, the Rules, and Inquiry.  

Die hard PM'ers see notions of Power infiltrating everything from relatively soft pursuits like arts and literature all the way to science (with a MAJOR stop in Politics in between).   A favorite term tossed about by the PM Left is "semiotics" which loosely means that it's impossible for me to convey any thoughts via language without the thoughts being fundamentally corrupted by power and my relationship with it.

Romantic Perspective

The Romantic, by contrast, sees things like History, social structures, science, technology, and even many aspects of culture as directional.  Romantics like myself readily see the need to be open-minded towards other points of view.  However, these are treated as inputs to be integrated in a continually evolving model that has universal ambition.

For the Romantic, directionality brings about some level of predictability.  And predictability enables prescriptiveness.   And ideas that are prescriptive are Good.   Social structures, science, technology, economics, and so on continue to get better, and, perhaps most importantly, so does culture.  

This is the source of the optimism that pervades everything the Romantic sees -- and what drives the PM's so batty.    To the Romantic, Power is created / achieved due to close communion with a universal, objective environment.   To the PostModernist (quoting part of an email exchange with Manish Vij):

...power / wealth is a random distribution of resources, initial conditions of the universe, rather than cultural, emergent rules-based behavior 

If this isn't an accurate description of how many folks in Hollywood see the mercurial source of their "power" I don't know what is. 

It's hard to create more diametrically opposed viewpoints than this -- for the Romantic, Power (often) is the created product of Good;  for the PostModernist, it's the thing that taints.   To an extent, these are 2 extreme viewpoints and most folks are in the middle.  Power can come from good but it can also go bad if it induces myopia.  But, for Romantics this is intrinsic to the nature of power -- it simply doesn't gaurantee that one particular group will sustain power.   If they become myopic (IBM and the mainframe biz), then there are natural / Just processes in a universal "nature" which cause dislocation (Microsoft and the PC biz).   Thus, for the Romantic, there's even a directionality to the culture & tools for acquiring power, the possession of power will necessarily be more and more Just as time goes on. 

The PM Indictment of Power

For a PM, the first step in analyzing a system is identifying who's in power.   A deep PostModernist thoroughly agrees with notions like this:

The workplace, as it has been essentially developed by straight white men in this country, has to change if it is to be multicultural.

It was designed to fit how they live in the world. It is not a place that was originally ''designed'' for people, especially African-Americans or other people of color, who value family and who have a somewhat different perspective on time than the originators of the workplace have.

Now, we're dealing with a complex mix of factors here but generally, folks of a PostModernist bent see the structure of workplace being 70-80% determined by the artifacts of who's in power.   

Folks like me -- with more of a romanticist view tend to see it as the product of some underlying, directional influences.  In a romanticist's view, the behaviors that lead to "power" in the workplace are generally subject to universal rules dictated by economic productivity and management science.   In this view, the preponderance of Rich / Old / White men in this environment is more because they recognized these rules first and/or embraced them more thoroughly than other groups historically.   It's important to note that the Rules came First, the Rich/Old/White Men Second.   To the PM'er, it's the exact opposite.  This isn't to say that the workplace doesn't need to evolve but for a PM, far more of the Romanticist's baby goes out with the bathwater.  

A PM'er, when confronted with data like Male/Female wage gaps quickly assumes a Power-causality.   Those with a more Romantic view (I've enjoyed several of Glenn Sacks' columns on this topic) tend to think in terms of (these are my words..):

...given that firms are motivated first, and foremost by profits, and that the marginal price of labor is determined, in the long run, by marginal productivity, do discriminatory wages curtail profits and competitive ability (particularly ability to hire top notch talent) vis a vis other firms that may / may not be discriminating?

Without getting too deep into this very politically charged example, it is worth looking at the thought process.   One mode zeros in on Power as a cause and Power as a solution (e.g. via directed legislation -- Arnold Kling had a great article about this).   The other thinks of systemic incentives in the natural jungle of economic competition.  The Romantic's ultimate solution to this class of problem is a Justness that derives from closer communion with "Nature".

The Romanticist Worship of Power

The PostModernist's stomach positively churns at Romantic descriptions of the source of power like this one.   Here, one of my favorite columnists, Victor Davis Hanson, waxes philosophically about the cultural roots of American power -- in this case enshrined in an aircraft carrier:

Our aircraft carriers are this nation's phalanxes, at once frightening weapons and symbols of American freedom. Few countries can build such behemoths; fewer still operate them with any degree of efficiency. Germany in its darkest hours never launched a single one. Japan's were long ago sent to the bottom of the Pacific. Russia's attempts resulted in abysmal failure. England has a couple, France one — in the aggregate all lack the power of a single American carrier. And we have twelve of these colossuses — $5 billion, 80,000-90,000-ton monsters, each home to a crew of 5,000.

...like the phalanx, the American carrier is more than a weapon of destruction or even a tool of deterrence. It is a microcosm of America itself at its best.

...The carrier's efficiency and lethality, however, are not a consequence of mere technological superiority, but of the dividends of a peculiarly American set of values. If we gave the Truman to Egypt it would sink on its maiden voyage. The French Charles de Gaulle I imagine has better food than the Roosevelt, but far fewer planes and even fewer launches. Israel has astonishing pilots, but few if any could land on the Vinson. Even the Swiss or Dutch could not build a Ronald Reagan. China claims they can soon launch a simulacrum to our carriers; but though they can steal the technology of an Enterprise, they still cannot emulate the ethic and creed at the heart of its success — unless China too first creates a culture of freedom.

For VDH, it's the "peculiarly American set of values" and "ethic and creed" that create the Power.   Not vice versa.  This, by the way, is a spectacular article that I highly recommend -- VDH has a lot to say about other topics like race relations.  

A Romantic like VDH naturally has absolutely ZERO problem drawing broad cultural comparisons between Americans, Egyptians, the French, and Chinese -- something that the deep PM'er considers boorish and appalling.   VDH emphatically makes the connection between American Values and American Power.  He doesn't say "it's cool that we have 80-90,000 ton Monsters" he's saying, "it takes a very special culture to pull these together."

Another article, popular in the blogosphere looks at the flip side and asserts that it's Arab culture that causes them to lose wars:

Along these lines, Kenneth Pollock concludes his exhaustive study of Arab military effectiveness by noting that “certain patterns of behavior fostered by the dominant Arab culture were the most important factors contributing to the limited military effectiveness of Arab armies and air forces from 1945 to 1991.” These attributes included over-centralization, discouraging initiative, lack of flexibility, manipulation of information, and the discouragement of leadership at the junior officer level. The barrage of criticism leveled at Samuel Huntington’s notion of a “clash of civilizations” in no way lessens the vital point he made — that however much the grouping of peoples by religion and culture rather than political or economic divisions offends academics who propound a world defined by class, race, and gender, it is a reality, one not diminished by modern communications.

EVERY LITTLE THING about these 2 quotes makes the blood of a PM'er boil.   Crediting US values and making it seem "Just" that we have our level of power.  Faulting Arab "culture" and arguing they somehow deserve their relative lack of power.  The ability of a 3rd party observer to make these kinds of sweeping indictments.  Referencing the ability to use physical force as a barometer of cultural progress.  

It's like trying to convince a Slashdotter that Microsoft's management practices occassionally do create new, interesting, novel software that's good for consumers  ;-)

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