Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy 3031354621, 9783031354625

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Prologue
References
Contents
1 Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion
Attributional Origins
The Institutionalization of Beliefs into Knowledge
A Postmodern Turn Toward Intersectionalism and Activism
Social Justice Cosmology
Boxed Summaries
The Complete Roadmap
Chapter 1: Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion
Chapter 2: The Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship
Chapter 3: The Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism
Chapter 4: The Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality
Chapter 5: Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Values
Chapter 6: Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship
Chapter 7: Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon
Chapter 8: Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns
Chapter 9: Postmodernism’s Critical Theory and Intersectionalism
Chapter 10: Queer Theory
Chapter 11: Postmodern Social Justice in Action
Chapter 12: Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory
Chapter 13: Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship
Chapter 14: Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation
Summary of Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion
References
2 The Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship
An Entrepreneurial Solution to Poverty
A Tidal Wave of Change
Incompatibility with Entrepreneurship
Woke Postmodernism in Focus
Postmodern Intersectionalism in Focus
Postmodernism’s Trending Focus on Inequality
Redistribution Under Postmodern Wokeism
Social Justice Debates that Matter
Summary of the Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship
References
3 The Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism
Modernism During the Age of Enlightenment
Postmodernism After the Age of Enlightenment
Postmodernism in the Academy
Reshaping the World
Kant as the Forerunner
German Philosophy as a Key Driver of Postmodernism
Metaphysical Solutions to Kant’s Separation of Reason from Reality
Saving Religion and Entrepreneurship
Solutions to Irrationalism
The Courage to Grasp Reality
Summary of the Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism
References
4 The Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality
Heidegger’s Postmodernism
The Nature of Being
Discarding Logic and Reason for Emotions
Heidegger’s Contributions to Postmodernism
The Next Generation of Postmodernists
Kuhn and Rorty Target Postmodern’s Logical Positivism
Postmodernism’s Evisceration of Modernism
The Essence of Postmodernism
Summary of the Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality
References
5 Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Values
The Late 1960s and Before
The Late 1980s
Grand Narratives and the Loss of Rationality
Exposing Subordination by Oppressors
By the 1990s
A Secular Religion
Splintering and Subdividing
Claims of Abuse and Discrimination
Between 1980 and 2010
The Arrival of New Theoretical Variants
Resistant Identity-Based Oppression
Confronting Radical Doubt
Postcolonial Studies
Women’s Studies
How Liberalism and Modernity Were Attacked
Summary of Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Value
References
6 Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship
Information as the Starting Point
The Systematic Search for Discoveries
Judgment
Rational Choice and Pattern Matching
Informational Entrepreneurship
Constrained Systematic Search as Informational Entrepreneurship
Positioning in Time and Space
Estimating the Wealth Creating Potential of Opportunities
Arbitraging Windows of Opportunity
Conventions
Forgiving Business Models
Cooperative Arrangements
Discussion and Conclusions
Summary of Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship
Appendix: Moderators of Industry Threats
References
7 Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon
Prevalence Rates and Racial Discrimination
Prerequisites for Disparities
Prerequisites and Probabilities
Intelligence, Prerequisites, and Disparities
Guides, Mentors, and Potential Benefactors
Dynamism, Agriculture, and Disparate Impact
Empirical Evidence
Genetic Determinism
People
Institutions
Geography
Demography
Discrimination
Types and Causes
Crime as a Form of Discrimination
Demographics
Attitudes May not Lead to Outcomes
Non-random Interaction
Causation
The Oppressive Intentions of Discrimination
Summary of Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon
References
8 Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns
The Spread of Postmodern Ideology
Feminisms and Gender Studies
Previous Feminisms and How They Have Changed
Gender Studies
Doing Gender
The Demise of Liberal Feminism
Masculinity Through a Feminist Lens
Gender and Entrepreneurship
Disability as a Postmodern Concern
Ableism
The Beginning of the End
Fat Studies as Postmodernism
Power as a Paranoid Tautology
Summary of Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns
References
9 Postmodernism’s Critical Race Theory and Intersectionalism
Ending Racism by Seeing It Everywhere
A Social Construct
Activist Protests
Justifying Colonialism and the Slave Trade
Early Crusaders
Historicity
Critical Race Theory
Intersectionality
Summary of Postmodernism’s Critical Theory and Intersectionalism
References
10 Queer Theory
Freedom from Being Normal
The History of Queer Theory
Queer as Both a Verb and a Noun
Summary of Queer Theory
References
11 Postmodern Social Justice in Action
Wokeism
Social Justice Precepts
Social Justice Evolving
Advocacy by the Believers
Social Justice Naming Exercises
Standpoint Theory
Critical Pedagogy Versus Critical Thinking
Summary of Postmodern Social Justice in Action
References
12 Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory
Deconstructing Western Traditions
Applied Postmodernism
From Deconstruction to Reconstruction
Viewpoints Compared
Decolonizing Everything
Postcolonialism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship
Summary of Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory
References
13 Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship
Theoretical Social Justice
Identity and Religion
Postmodernism and Intersectionalism
A Subjective, Imaginary World
Incompatibility
Incomplete Arguments
Reshaping the World
Truth, Objectivity, and Reason
Attacking Western Values
Women’s Studies
Intersectionality
Social Justice and Applied Entrepreneurship
The Anti-realist Struggle Against Entrepreneurship
A Realist Perspective on Information
Informational Entrepreneurship and Social Justice Theory
Summary of Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship
References
14 Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation
A Reification of Postmodernism
Entrepreneurship Is Different
Changing the Narrative—Classic Liberalism Without Identity Politics
Liberal Principles
Denominations of Truth
Solutions
Secularism
Principled Opposition to Social Justice
Principled Analysis of Social Injustice Manifesto
Racism
Sexism
Bigotry Against Sexual Minorities
Social Injustice
Summary of Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation
References
Epilogue
A Political Agenda
Situational Feelings and Truth
Lacking Non-linguistic Standards Leads to Tautological Arguments
References
Index

Citation preview

James O. Fiet

Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy

Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy

James O. Fiet

Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy

James O. Fiet University of Louisville Louisville, KY, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-35462-5 ISBN 978-3-031-35463-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

Many people are responsible for the completion of this project. Of course, errors or omissions are mine alone. Because it treats ideas, it would be surprising if all readers agreed, and this I welcome. I am not attempting to present any final answers. Hopefully, these pages will encourage critical thinking. Assumptions, boundary conditions, and evidence matter. Those who are due credit for their contributions already know who they are. Because I am responsible for this work, no criticism should be leveled against those who have helped me. They are truth seekers, which I also consider you as a reader to be. Understanding the complex ideas in the pages that follow will require hard work, which I respect. Thank you. Let the truth prevail.

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Prologue

Any intellectual movement is defined by its philosophical premises. These premises establish what is required to be real, to be human, to be valuable, and how knowledge is acquired. Together, they describe a movement’s metaphysics, its view of human nature, its values, and its epistemology. They change how we see, understand, and interpret the world, as well as our perception of the odds of achieving our personal aspirations, which are foundational to entrepreneurship. We live in a time when there is a worldwide tumult of conflicting ideas—many fraught with contention, disillusionment, and fear. Because these themes pervade the markets in which entrepreneurs are attempting to launch new ventures, one could ask how these ideas could influence an entrepreneur’s odds of achieving venture success. If entrepreneurs succeed with their new ventures, they will have overcome obstacles to their social and financial mobility. Along the way, a substantial number of entrepreneurs could have encountered oppressors, many with a Marxist, dystopian vision that hinges on the struggles of minority interests. Currently, these ideas are described by social justice Theory, which examines the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society, and particularly those originating from group differences. Social justice Theory, written with a capital T, is part of an ideology that cannot and must not be questioned. Otherwise, an entrepreneur could be subject to boycotts and cancellation. The current movements for social justice have emphasized breaking barriers to social mobility, the creation of

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safety nets, and economic justice. The latter tends to mean that everyone deserves to receive the same outcomes, or equity, which decidedly runs counter to entrepreneurship. Increasingly, we are seeing insistences that social justice has become a new religion (Lindsay & Nayna, 2023), which has implications for the fervency of its supporters as they obstruct entrepreneurship. The problem with entrepreneurship is that it reduces the dependency of those who question central planning (c.f., Hayek, 1945), as well as any ideology that would reduce personal helplessness. Essentially, social justice advocates are a generation of people who feel helpless and victimized or who speak up for those who are.

References Hayek, F. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530. Lindsay, J., & Nayna, M. (2023). Postmodern Religion and the Faith of Social Justice. Areo Magazine. Available at: https://areomagazine.com/2018/12/ 18/postmodern-religion-and-the-faith-of-social-justice/

Contents

1

Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion Attributional Origins The Institutionalization of Beliefs into Knowledge A Postmodern Turn Toward Intersectionalism and Activism Social Justice Cosmology Boxed Summaries The Complete Roadmap Chapter 1: Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion Chapter 2: The Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship Chapter 3: The Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism Chapter 4: The Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality Chapter 5: Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Values Chapter 6: Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship Chapter 7: Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon Chapter 8: Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns Chapter 9: Postmodernism’s Critical Theory and Intersectionalism Chapter 10: Queer Theory

1 2 3 4 5 6 6 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9 9

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CONTENTS

Chapter 11: Postmodern Social Justice in Action Chapter 12: Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory Chapter 13: Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship Chapter 14: Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation Summary of Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion References

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The Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship An Entrepreneurial Solution to Poverty A Tidal Wave of Change Incompatibility with Entrepreneurship Woke Postmodernism in Focus Postmodern Intersectionalism in Focus Postmodernism’s Trending Focus on Inequality Redistribution Under Postmodern Wokeism Social Justice Debates that Matter Summary of the Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship References

15 19 19 21 23 24 25 27 28 31 38

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The Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism Modernism During the Age of Enlightenment Postmodernism After the Age of Enlightenment Postmodernism in the Academy Reshaping the World Kant as the Forerunner German Philosophy as a Key Driver of Postmodernism Metaphysical Solutions to Kant’s Separation of Reason from Reality Saving Religion and Entrepreneurship Solutions to Irrationalism The Courage to Grasp Reality Summary of the Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism References

41 41 45 46 47 48 51

The Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality Heidegger’s Postmodernism The Nature of Being

65 65 67

4

9 9

10 10 13

51 52 53 54 56 62

CONTENTS

5

6

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Discarding Logic and Reason for Emotions Heidegger’s Contributions to Postmodernism The Next Generation of Postmodernists Kuhn and Rorty Target Postmodern’s Logical Positivism Postmodernism’s Evisceration of Modernism The Essence of Postmodernism Summary of the Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality References

67 68 69 71 73 74

Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Values The Late 1960s and Before The Late 1980s Grand Narratives and the Loss of Rationality Exposing Subordination by Oppressors By the 1990s A Secular Religion Splintering and Subdividing Claims of Abuse and Discrimination Between 1980 and 2010 The Arrival of New Theoretical Variants Resistant Identity-Based Oppression Confronting Radical Doubt Postcolonial Studies Women’s Studies How Liberalism and Modernity Were Attacked Summary of Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Value References

83 83 84 84 84 85 85 86 86 87 87 87 88 89 91 94

Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship Information as the Starting Point The Systematic Search for Discoveries Judgment Rational Choice and Pattern Matching Informational Entrepreneurship Constrained Systematic Search as Informational Entrepreneurship Positioning in Time and Space Estimating the Wealth Creating Potential of Opportunities

76 80

95 101 103 103 104 105 106 107 108 110 112

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Arbitraging Windows of Opportunity Conventions Forgiving Business Models Cooperative Arrangements Discussion and Conclusions Summary of Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship Appendix: Moderators of Industry Threats References

114 115 116 119 121 124 131 132

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Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon Prevalence Rates and Racial Discrimination Prerequisites for Disparities Prerequisites and Probabilities Intelligence, Prerequisites, and Disparities Guides, Mentors, and Potential Benefactors Dynamism, Agriculture, and Disparate Impact Empirical Evidence Genetic Determinism People Institutions Geography Demography Discrimination Types and Causes Crime as a Form of Discrimination Demographics Attitudes May not Lead to Outcomes Non-random Interaction Causation The Oppressive Intentions of Discrimination Summary of Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon References

137 137 138 139 140 140 141 142 142 142 143 144 145 145 146 148 148 149 150 152 154 155 160

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Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns The Spread of Postmodern Ideology Feminisms and Gender Studies Previous Feminisms and How They Have Changed Gender Studies Doing Gender

163 163 164 166 168 169

CONTENTS

The Demise of Liberal Feminism Masculinity Through a Feminist Lens Gender and Entrepreneurship Disability as a Postmodern Concern Ableism The Beginning of the End Fat Studies as Postmodernism Power as a Paranoid Tautology Summary of Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns References 9

Postmodernism’s Critical Race Theory and Intersectionalism Ending Racism by Seeing It Everywhere A Social Construct Activist Protests Justifying Colonialism and the Slave Trade Early Crusaders Historicity Critical Race Theory Intersectionality Summary of Postmodernism’s Critical Theory and Intersectionalism References

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170 171 172 173 175 177 178 179 181 187 191 191 192 192 193 193 194 195 198 202 207

10

Queer Theory Freedom from Being Normal The History of Queer Theory Queer as Both a Verb and a Noun Summary of Queer Theory References

209 209 210 211 214 217

11

Postmodern Social Justice in Action Wokeism Social Justice Precepts Social Justice Evolving Advocacy by the Believers Social Justice Naming Exercises Standpoint Theory

219 221 221 224 226 229 231

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Critical Pedagogy Versus Critical Thinking Summary of Postmodern Social Justice in Action References

234 235 243

Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory Deconstructing Western Traditions Applied Postmodernism From Deconstruction to Reconstruction Viewpoints Compared Decolonizing Everything Postcolonialism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship Summary of Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory References

245 245 247 248 250 251 254

Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship Theoretical Social Justice Identity and Religion Postmodernism and Intersectionalism A Subjective, Imaginary World Incompatibility Incomplete Arguments Reshaping the World Truth, Objectivity, and Reason Attacking Western Values Women’s Studies Intersectionality Social Justice and Applied Entrepreneurship The Anti-realist Struggle Against Entrepreneurship A Realist Perspective on Information Informational Entrepreneurship and Social Justice Theory Summary of Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship References Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation A Reification of Postmodernism Entrepreneurship Is Different

255 259 261 261 262 263 264 264 265 265 267 268 268 269 270 270 271 272 274 278 281 281 283

CONTENTS

Changing the Narrative—Classic Liberalism Without Identity Politics Liberal Principles Denominations of Truth Solutions Secularism Principled Opposition to Social Justice Principled Analysis of Social Injustice Manifesto Summary of Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation References

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284 285 285 286 286 288 289 292 300

Epilogue

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Index

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CHAPTER 1

Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion

From a religious perspective, social justice advocates are viewed as good, whereas others are evil and deserve to be opposed, even by destroying their property, which is deemed not to be violent. Instead, language is asserted to be violent. Language conveys a powerful signal of group membership—it serves both to assign and to stigmatize one’s identity. One’s identity can come from one’s identity group or community, as identified by phrases such as “white folks,” “black folks,” and “queer folks,” including those who deem themselves to be more woke to the identities of these groups. This focus on community leaves us with the impression that there is a religious aspect to social justice and its associated virtue signaling. Virtue signaling is performative behavior by which a person signals to his or her moral tribe(s) and others where he or she stands on various political issues, all of which is intended to properly identify someone as an institutionally acceptable member of their preferred tribe. It is easy to scoff at virtue signaling because it is fake. However, that would be a grave error. Left unconsidered by most of us is that it is one of the most important human behaviors because of our sensitivity to our psychosocial standing, which makes it risible when it goes overboard. Virtue signaling is well known now because of its connection to social justice Theory.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_1

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One difference between social justice Theory and religion is that the latter tends to be organized around doctrines (Fiet, 2022; Smith, 1958). Part of this is based on postmodern deconstructionism in which social justice Theory rejects metanarratives that bind its communities and is inherently opposed to explicit organizational structure (Lindsay, 2022; Lindsay & Nayna, 2023). Thus, social justice most nearly approximates a kind of disorganized religion. It is a postmodern religion centered in social justice Theory and colloquially known as Wokeism.

Attributional Origins Social justice characterizations are part of an attributional framework, which explains the world in terms of an ideology—the ideology of social justice. We think of social justice as a premodern mythology in which deities are in charge, but it is more postmodern—that is, it privileges feelings over science, claiming that truth will not be discovered by science, partly because science should be exposed for having a political objective to oppress the weak in disfavored groups. Thus, added to language, science also has a soulless history of oppression. Postmodernism originated with Immanuel Kant in 1781 and has had many subsequent iterations and advocates who have since created an identity-based interpretation that is beset by oppressors and the oppressed (Gonzalez, 2021). Most of the chapters in this book will explore the stories told by these advocates. Group identities are posited to intersect, according to social justice Theory, so that it expands the number of intersectional identities (Crenshaw, 1989). Expansion is a goal if it fits the proper narrative because with each intersection comes the possibility of recognizing a new grievance. Claiming a grievance can then become a basis for remuneration of as much as $14 trillion (Hill, 2023). That is the Theoretical narrative. It is one that is decidedly anti-science, emphasizes personal feelings, and denies that truth can be discovered by science. In fact, those who have had personal experiences are said to know more about their feelings toward the experience than those who have not had the same experience. That is true. However, to then argue that one’s feelings should supersede the scientific method is a different, more tenuous argument, especially when an experience cannot be falsified or exactly replicated. Let’s be clear. Feelings by themselves are unscientific.

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There is also a teleological aspect to meaning making, which is to say a system through which the purpose in life can be given a sense of concreteness. Such a framework should explain what the point of life is in the context of the operative mythology. In social justice Theory, the telos in play is remaking society into a utopia, according to the moral vision of social justice advocates.

The Institutionalization of Beliefs into Knowledge Organized religions are built in the service of their moral tribes (Shellenberger, 2021; Thunder, 2022). These institutions offer structure, legitimacy, and opportunities to build and maintain an extended community centered on the ideology of the tribes. Today, social justice tribes can be found worldwide (Fiet, 2022). The ideology becomes a bedrock foundation for the social construction of knowledge, which is more commonly envisioned as a small-group activity. However, on a large scale, as is the case with an institutionalized, quasi-religion such as social justice, the social construction of knowledge becomes a powerful lever to stifle dissent and construct acceptable doctrinal narratives. As moral tribes gain power, they are likely to attempt to punish dissenters from the common wisdom using a kind of authoritarian aggression, which is a form of totalitarianism. In the process, the tribal impulse is to assert that Theory is truth, not just theory, which is the ultimate reification of group think. Imagine if you will that you are an entrepreneur who knows how to improve the way that the world works. You could be diminished by virtue signaling and cancellation, and eventually be charged with being an apostate from the stories that give meaning to a group’s creation story. It is safer for society at large to pursue a more secularist approach, which is the prevention of the intertwining of religious institutions with the state because the state could impose its religious dogma on non-believers. Social justice is no exception to the trend of seeking to institutionalize its belief structure, which it commenced on the broadest scale by first infiltrating universities with its agenda. Because universities are places of higher education, they represent the apex of legitimacy for passing on beliefs as knowledge, which occurs in ironic juxtaposition to their assumed epistemological roles. The audacity of this attack, at the core of institutions of higher education, is both brazen and disconcerting. One result is that social justice has arranged things such that it can treat its

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beliefs as knowledge, despite the indisputable reliance of universities on the modern, scientific method. Historians have divided human history into three overlapping paradigms—premodern, modern, and postmodern as related to the medieval Enlightenment. The modern paradigm generally accepts Enlightenment suppositions as characterized by liberalism, rationality, science, skepticism, and individualism. Premodernism had blatantly religious motivations, but modernism was skeptical of faith’s capacity to justify knowledge claims. Modernism happened and with it, God slowly died. Postmodernism arrived with the mantra that God is dead as they adopted a bleak nihilism, which is hopeless to resist. Postmodernism sees itself as being on the right side of history as it focuses on grievance studies with a political agenda. The new postmodern doctrines are the following (Wood, 2018): (1) knowledge and truth are largely socially constructed, not objectively discovered. (2) What we believe to be “true” is in large part a function of social power, who wields it, who is oppressed by it, and how it influences the messages that we hear. (3) Power is generally oppressive, self-interested, and implicitly drives a zero-sum game. (4) Thus, most claims about supposedly objective truth are power plays or strategies for legitimizing particular social arrangements.

A Postmodern Turn Toward Intersectionalism and Activism Kimberle Crenshaw introduced the notion of intersectionalism (Crenshaw, 1994), which introduces two important new directions to postmodernism. First, it staked absolute claim to identity politics, which perhaps more than anything else spurred the creation of social justice Theory. And second, it had to walk back earlier claims of anti-realism for oppressed minority identities to exist. Otherwise, claims of oppression could have been dismissed. However, she continued with the postmodern assertions of language-based power and group-based identity (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). To power and identity, McIntosh (1989) added privilege, and particularly, white privilege as an instrument of oppression. Privilege is tantamount to original sin in the religion of social justice Theory. It is original because one would be born into his or her privilege, after

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which one could go about being responsible for committing microaggressions, neither of which require intentionality, which makes them both farcical. However, the Theory must be accepted and never questioned. Unquestioned acceptance is a requirement of its community of believers.

Social Justice Cosmology Social justice, as a postmodern derivative, does not have an explicit cosmology in the same way that premodern faiths do. Postmodernism has no interest in origins, and it is enough to acknowledge that the world exists and that various attempts to explain it are both futile and quaint. One is left with the impression that it reflects a certain dreariness and loneliness, and ironically an overwrought self-confidence, which unsurprisingly results in a social mythology. Rather than seeking to place humans in the world, it seeks to remove society from nature. Its basic premises come from a phenomenological attribution scheme for that portion of the world that is of interest—society and culture, and especially power within these groupings (Lindsay & Nayna, 2023). It assumes that social construction defines cultures in which exist pervasive conflicts of inequity, dominance, and oppression, with white, male, straight, Western, European, colonialist, able-bodied, and these then possessing disproportionate dominance over others. Clearly, such views reflect a Marxist orientation assuming that the dominance is socially unjust. In this postmodern cosmology, it is not a righteous God who created and ordered the world, but a powerful and privileged one who did it to perpetuate the power and privilege of elites for the purpose of self-aggrandizement (Wood, 2018). This is a quick introduction to Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy. We will see that this ideology, pursued with the fervency of a religion, poses a threat to the launching of new ventures by entrepreneurs. We will also see that it reduces the size of markets, disempowers entrepreneurs, as well as increases the uncertainty within which they must survive and eventually prosper. One of the challenges of understanding the emergence of social justice Theory is that it develops from abstract origins and relies on changing terminology. Thus, a term from an earlier era might have been used differently, which it frequently did without clearly redefining its new use. Then, the meanings could reverse again, which could result in parallel interpretations. In addition, although these origins can be traced back hundreds

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of years to Kant (1781), social justice Theory was its last evolution so there have been many opportunities since to introduce confusion. To understand its implications, it is very helpful to understand the path that social justice Theory took to become so embedded. In fact, understanding this path is the only way to appreciate how it could stand in such stark juxtaposition to the scientific method and 2500 years of Western civilization. To help the reader with its complex development, this book employs two pedagogical devices. First, each chapter is written so that it can be understood independently from the other chapters, which requires substantial repetition of concepts that have been previously introduced. This repetition is intentional. Second, each chapter ends with a boxed summary of the key theoretical shifts.

Boxed Summaries There are boxed summaries for entrepreneurs, novice scholars, and concerned citizens who are trying to understand the principal arguments in hotly contested policy debates. These summaries, located at the end of each chapter, contain the key points, the key contributors, and simplified discussions of the theoretical arguments. The arguments are challenging to understand, as they relate to each other. A reader could use a summary as a starting point before reading a chapter. Or he or she could read the summaries after reading the chapters to reinforce understanding how we arrived at our time of social justice. Or alternatively, a reader could read the chapters of interest while using the summaries to substitute for other, less personally compelling chapters. Regardless of the approach, a reader will need to contemplate how these ideas change the world of Entrepreneurship. One purpose of this book is to identify steps that can be taken to address valid concerns while identifying those that should be dismissed as unreasonable demands by activists, which will only obstruct entrepreneurship.

The Complete Roadmap The rest of this book will proceed as follows:

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Chapter 1: Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion Religions from a human perspective are cultural structures that satisfy needs that are part of what it means to be human. The primary needs met by religions address problems in meaning making, control, social-identity, community-formation, and regulation. As they interpret meaning in connection with a community, the adherents gather in moral tribes. Moral tribalism reinforces communal efforts to break barriers to social mobility. This is a fair description of social justice Theory. Chapter 2: The Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship Many observers are surprised by what they see as radical societal changes because they did not realize their origin in a postmodern turn, which aims to change traditional Western values into Wokeism. It also accounts for cultural and political patterns that dictate entrepreneurial options and their risks. Most importantly, it dictates the assumptions that scholars use to frame research questions and investigate truth. Chapter 3: The Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism This chapter traces the antecedents of postmodernism back to Immanuel Kant’s original exposition and follows it forward through various restatements until it reaches its full development in Derrida, Foucault, and Rorty. Its claims are anti-realist and based on social construction and abject conflict. Instead of liberal capitalism, it turns to socialism. These claims stand in opposition to entrepreneurship. Chapter 4: The Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality This chapter describes the collapse of reason and the abandonment of reality by German philosophers, the first of whom was Heidegger. Most academics are unaware of the origins of their currently advocated programming. It introduces its foremost advocates and latter-day thought leaders, who are just repeating the postmodern ideological tenets whose exposition was begun in the seventeenth century. These origins are noticeably unknown to entrepreneurship scholars and postmodern advocates, which causes them to enter the conversation after it has nearly been completed.

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Chapter 5: Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Values This chapter explores how the liberalism and modernity at the heart of Western civilization have been put at great risk by postmodernism. It shows how these bedrock principles underlie entrepreneurship. The precise nature of the threat is complicated because postmodernism attacks all that is Western and entrepreneurial. Chapter 6: Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship To understand postmodernism’s impact on entrepreneurship, it is vital to understand that information is the lowest common denominator for all those who aspire to be entrepreneurs. No one can be a consistently effective entrepreneur without it. Yet, the advent of postmodernism may change how entrepreneurs can access and view information. Postmodernism could change entrepreneurship to such an extent that it could no longer be a primary driver of wealth creation nor a solution to many of the world’s most pressing problems. Chapter 7: Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon This chapter explores how postmodernism has become a worldview intent on remediating grievances, the result of which is to make everything into a zero-sum political struggle with entrepreneurs caught in the middle. The struggle focuses on identity markers like race, sex, gender, sexuality, and many others. To an outsider, this struggle feels like it originated from another planet, but it has been with us all along for hundreds of years. Chapter 8: Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns This chapter examines other possible sources of postmodern grievance and intersectional remuneration. Their specification justifies more identities that could be potentially disadvantaged. In the postmodern tradition, proof of a valid grievance is sufficient if a person’s feelings have been offended. Whether or not intended, a perceived grievance becomes a transaction cost and could raise to the level of market failure, and in the process bankrupt many entrepreneurs.

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Chapter 9: Postmodernism’s Critical Theory and Intersectionalism This chapter explains the notion that an effective way to address social, cultural, or economic grievances is to divide us into identity groups and to show how these identities could intersect to make one’s grievances jointly and severally worthy of compensation. Absent in most such considerations is that group animus and divisions reduce the size of markets and their associated opportunities for entrepreneurs. Chapter 10: Queer Theory Queer Theory can foment class struggle as it argues for liberation from the normal. Ostensibly, it legitimizes deviations in gender and sexuality because it regards normal categories as being oppressive. Because these categories are rooted in human nature, changing norms has caused resistance from many stakeholders, as well as dedicated efforts to liberate those identified by such societal norms. As with other postmodern notions, the turmoil caused by, or some would say recognized by, queer Theory not only disrupts our civil culture but could potentially increase feelings of division and mistrust among market participants, which would inhibit entrepreneurship. Chapter 11: Postmodern Social Justice in Action This chapter explores the development of social justice activism. It also refers to the achievements by markets that follow traditional Western values. It exposes the Marxist roots of those who wish to remake markets, based on power wielded by elites compared with markets that utilize all the specific information available to achieve informational and allocational efficiency. Paradoxically, entrepreneurs prosper the most in the absence of both centralized planning and the deal-killing efficiency of perfect competition. Chapter 12: Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory This chapter explores how postcolonial Theory was used to attack Western and American Lockean values whose destruction was paramount to advance a deconstructed view of an undefined utopian society. Each

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of these targets has a role to play in protecting markets and preserving capitalism as the context for entrepreneurship. Chapter 13: Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship This chapter summarizes the impact of social justice scholarship and advocacy on our understanding of the practice of entrepreneurship as well as how we understand it theoretically. The first elements of this review will be theoretical followed by their impact on individuals striving to be entrepreneurs. Both aspects have already been explored, but they are brought together here for a holistic understanding. Chapter 14: Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation Social justice Theory relies on assumptions that modern science finds to be unorthodox. Thus, it is always going to be resisted despite it being believed as a woke religion by its advocates. Because Theory must be accepted and believed as The Truth, no one is allowed to question it without being accused of committing violence. This chapter reviews its postmodern assumptions and then adds to them, concluding by proposing a manifesto that adds entrepreneurship as a more effective way to reach its utopian ends.

Summary of Social Justice Theory as a Disorganized Religion 1.1 From a religious perspective, social justice advocates are viewed as good, whereas others are evil and deserve to be opposed, even by destroying their property, which is deemed not to be violent. 1.2 Language is asserted to be violent. It conveys a powerful signal of group membership—it serves both to assign and to stigmatize one’s identity. 1.3 One’s identity can come from one’s identity group or community, as identified by phrases such as “white folks” “black folks,” and “queer folks,” including those who deem themselves to be more woke to the identities of these groups.

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1.4 This focus on community leaves us with the impression that there is a religious aspect to social justice and its associated virtue signaling. Virtue signaling is performative behavior by which a person signals to his or her moral tribe(s) and others where he or she stands on various political issues. 1.5 One difference between social justice Theory and religion is that the latter tends to be organized around doctrines. Part of this is based on postmodern deconstructionism in which social justice Theory rejects metanarratives that bind its communities and is inherently opposed to explicit organizational structure. Thus, social justice most nearly approximates a kind of disorganized religion. It is a postmodern religion centered in social justice Theory and colloquially known as wokeness. 1.6 We think of social justice as a premodern mythology in which deities are in charge, but it is more postmodern—that is, it privileges feelings over science, claiming that truth will not be discovered by science, partly because science is supposed to have had a political objective to oppress the weak in disfavored groups. Thus, added to language, science also has a soulless history of oppression. 1.7 Group identities are posited to intersect, according to social justice Theory, so that it expands the number of intersectional identities (Crenshaw, 1989). Expansion is a goal if it fits the proper narrative because with each intersection comes the possibility of recognizing a new grievance. 1.8 There is also a teleological aspect to meaning making, which is to say a system through which the purpose in life can be given a sense of concreteness. Such a framework should explain what the point of life is in the context of the operative mythology. In social justice Theory, the telos in play is remaking society into a utopia, according to the moral vision of social justice advocates. 1.9 Organized religions are built in the service of their moral tribes. These institutions offer structure, legitimacy, and opportunities to build and maintain an extended community centered on the ideology of the tribes. Today, social justice tribes can be found worldwide (Fiet, 2022). 1.10 The ideology becomes a bedrock foundation for the social construction of knowledge, which is more commonly envisioned as a small-group activity. However, on a large scale, as is the case with an institutionalized, quasi-religion such as social justice, the

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social construction of knowledge becomes a powerful lever to stifle dissent and construct acceptable doctrinal narratives. Imagine you are an entrepreneur who knows how to improve the way that the world works. You could be diminished by virtue signaling and cancellation, and eventually be charged with being an apostate from the stories that give meaning to a group’s creation story. It is safer for society at large to pursue a more secularist approach, which is the prevention of the intertwining of religious institutions with the state because the state could impose its religious dogma on non-believers. Human history may be divided into three paradigms—premodern, modern, and postmodern as related to the medieval Enlightenment. The modern paradigm accepts Enlightenment suppositions as characterized by liberalism, rationality, science, skepticism, and individualism. Premodernism had religious motivations, but modernism was skeptical of faith claims. Postmodernism proclaimed that God is dead as they adopted a bleak nihilism. Postmodern doctrines are (Wood, 2018): (1) knowledge and truth are largely socially constructed.. (2) Our beliefs are a function of social power, who wields it, who is oppressed by it, and how it influences the messages that we hear. (3) Power is oppressive, selfinterested, and drives a zero-sum game. (4) Thus, most claims are power plays, or strategies for legitimizing particular social arrangements. Kimberle Crenshaw introduced intersectionalism (Crenshaw, 1994), with two contributions: First, it staked absolute claim to identity politics. And second, it had to walk back earlier claims of anti-realism for oppressed minority identities to exist. Postmodernism assumes that social construction defines cultures in which exist pervasive conflicts of inequity, dominance, and oppression, with white, male, straight, Western, European, colonialist, able-bodied, and these then possessing disproportionate dominance over others. One of the challenges of understanding the emergence of social justice Theory is that it develops from abstract origins and relies on changing terminology. Thus, a term from an earlier era might have been used differently, which it frequently did without clearly redefining its new use.

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References Crenshaw, K. (1994). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. In M. Fineman & R. Mykitiuk (Eds.), The Public Nature of Private Violence (pp. 93–118). Routledge. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1(1989), 139–167. Fiet, J. (2022). The Theoretical World of Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing. Gonzalez, M. (2021). BLM–The Making of a New Marxist Revolution. Encounter. Hill, B. (2023). Authors Demand US Government Issue $14 Trillion in Reparations Over Role in Slavery, Voter Suppression. Fox News (January 31). https://www.foxnews.com/media/authors-demand-us-govern ment-issue-14-trillion-reparations-role-slavery-voter-suppression Kant, I. (1929). 1781. MacMillan. Lindsay, J. (2022). Race Marxism. New Discourses. Lindsay, J., & Nayna, M. (2023). Postmodern Religion and the Faith of Social Justice. Areo Magazine. https://areomagazine.com/2018/12/18/pos tmodern-religion-and-the-faith-of-social-justice/ McIntosh, P. (1989). White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Peace and Freedom Magazine. (July/August) pp. 10–12. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Shellenberger, M. (2021). Why Wokeism Is a Religion. Public. https://public. substack.com/p/why-wokeism-is-a-religion Smith, H. (1958). The World’s Religions. HarperOne. Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Thunder, D. (2022). Is Wokeism a Religion for the Left. Mercatornet. https:// mercatornet.com/is-wokeism-a-religion-for-the-left/82047/ Wood, C. (2018). Why Postmodernism and Science Can’t Stand Each Other. Science on Religion—Patheos. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonrel igion/2018/11/postmodernism-science-cant-stand-each-other/

CHAPTER 2

The Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship

This is a book about a new intellectual, social, and economic environment for entrepreneurship, largely created in our current social justice-oriented, postmodern age, but with roots that go back centuries. It will trace postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712–1778] and Immanuel Kant [1724–1804] to its development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault [1926–1984], Jacques Derrida [1930–2004], and Richard Rorty [1931–2007], followed by its expression today in intersectionalism (Crenshaw, 1989) and Wokeism (Kendi, 2019), as well as in many related causes.1 These related causes are structural in that they are hypothesized to take place in an overarchingly, hostile cultural system or structure. This journey will explore why postmodernism with all its variants has developed into the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This review will begin with its medieval, faith-based origins in premodernism, followed by its scientific emphasis in modernism during the enlightenment and twentieth century, and its ultimate denial of grand narratives in postmodernism, which is its dominant expression today, including the denial of most aspects of the scientific method as well as

1 Brackets in the text indicate when a particular philosopher lived, whereas parentheses indicate the dates of relevant works that are cited. In many cases, an individual will have both a bracket and a parenthesis.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_2

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the self. Its purpose will be to demonstrate that the skeptical and relativistic arguments that have such power in the contemporary intellectual world are more than a passing fad. Rather, they are the culmination of arguments that have been developing for hundreds of years and are likely to stay with us. Of particular interest are its multifaceted impacts on entrepreneurship, which historically has been our economic hope. This book’s foremost contribution will be to highlight the sources of many current philosophical assumptions about the world in which we live. Why should we care about them? The most important reason is that they are the wellspring for the theoretical assumptions and boundary conditions that we use to apply the scientific method and even to understand our personal identity. Quite literally, they change how we see, understand, and interpret the world, as well as our perception of the odds of achieving our personal aspirations, which are foundational to entrepreneurship. We will see that these postmodern assumptions create the lenses to infer that the world in which we live is incompatible with the Western philosophical traditions that have provided the backdrop for world progress since the early Greek philosophers. Aldous Huxley (1932) referred to our time as a brave, new world. After reading this book, the reader should understand the sources of much of the conflict and confrontation that exacerbate suffering and shortages in a world that has lost its moorings to its traditional sources of meaning. Premodernism, modernism, and postmodernism present different and competing visions. A vision is a “pre-analytic cognitive act” (Schumpeter, 1954, p. 41). It is what we sense or feel before we have constructed any systematic reasoning that could be called a theory, or something that can be deduced into specific hypotheses, which can be tested against evidence (Sowell, 2007). A vision is our sense of how the world works. It is influential even though it is not fully formed so that it can be evaluated. Visions are the foundations upon which theories are built. I will show that the origins of our current intellectual environment can be traced back to these early visions. Clearly, these visions are more influential in the humanities and social sciences than in the physical sciences. Left out of previous analyses has been their impact on entrepreneurship and its potential solution to poverty. This is an improbable omission because postmodernism plays a major role in dictating the context within which everything else is framed in the contemporary world. In effect, postmodernism could diminish entrepreneurship as a possible solution to the world’s most pressing

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problems. In the process, it negates the role of science as a means of discovering truth, which it assumes is overshadowed by linguistic games of subordination and conquest. One trend has been away from the centrality of the individual and toward the collective, with an emphasis on critical approaches that deconstruct our world so that there is no world or self to understand. The advantage of deconstructionism is that one does not need to be correct if he or she is entertaining. Just imagine if you will if there were no world or self. Then, there could be no markets, no capitalism, and no future for individuals, only passing struggles between the oppressed and oppressors. Having deconstructed reason, truth and the idea of a correspondence of thought to reality, and then set them aside, “reason,” writes Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, p. 95) “is the ultimate language of madness.” In effect, there would be nothing to guide our thoughts and feelings, which means we can do or say whatever we feel like doing, which of course can change on a whim. Postmodernism is manifested today in the form of many social and political causes about how to create more equity, less discrimination, and a more perfect union, despite our differing identities and divisions. One who is aware of these identities, discrimination, and divisions is said to be woke. In this view, what divides us is more important than what we have in common because historically it claims these differences have been ignored (Crenshaw et al., 2001). Enter intersectionalism, one of the latest manifestations of postmodernism, which itself is the full flowering of Wokeism, a quasi-religion that has implications for the devotion of its adherents (Cho et al., 2013; Crenshaw, 1989). Wokeism itself broke into mainstream language with the arrival of the Black Lives Matter movement (Butterworth, 2021). It became more militant and proactive with its turn toward antiracism (Kendi, 2019). Modernism developed from premodernism, prior to transforming itself into postmodernism. Regarding metaphysics, premodernism emphasized a form of realism known as supernaturalism, whereas modernism emphasized a form of realism focused on the naturalism of nature. Epistemologically, premodernism originated from mysticism and issues related to religious faith, whereas modernism emphasized a form of objectivism constrained to experience and reason. Regarding human nature, premodernism with its religious roots considered original sin and being subject to God’s will, whereas modernism assumed Tabula Rasa, or the blank slate of humans being

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born with no prior knowledge nor beliefs in God, as well as autonomy for individuals. Regarding ethics, premodernism emphasized altruism to benefit the collective, whereas modernism was centered around the individual. In the sphere of politics and economics, premodernism approved of a feudal system, whereas the basis for modernism was liberal capitalism (Hicks, 2018). Regarding when and where they were applied, premodernism was medieval, whereas modernism was born during the enlightenment and in the twentieth-century humanities (Hicks, 2018). So far, there has been no known analysis of the impact of postmodernism or its derivations, intersectionalism and Wokeism, on entrepreneurship nor on the creation of new entrepreneurial wealth. These are unfortunate omissions because ignoring its total impact may indirectly harm the disadvantaged, rather than improving their lot. Plus, it may foreclose opportunity to those who are disposed to pursue it. Of course, others besides the disadvantaged are also impacted and they are easily forgotten. An implicit purpose of this book is to examine the linkage between postmodernism and social justice Theory and the creation of the new wealth necessary to address poverty. This examination will take many forms including, skepticism, socialism, critical theories, in nearly all their varieties, and many attempts to impose the administrative state on free markets. This analysis is more interested in addressing poverty than equity or inequality and the reason for this is a simple matter of social arithmetic. If one were to find Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg in a room with a hundred people, the average person in the room would be at least a millionaire, which would provide substantial aggregate wealth to redistribute through taxation. Well, someone could protest that despite their high average net worth, there is inequality in the distribution of financial resources, suggesting that they are less concerned about helping the poor and more concerned about everyone possessing the same equitable level of resources. Clearly, this concern raises the question of whether it is virtuous for everyone to possess the same resources or whether it is more important to care for the poor. With wealth, entrepreneurs can fulfill their own dreams or use it to help the poor, or both, so it makes sense to examine any social or economic factors such as jealousy or white fragility that could

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be impeding the realization of someone’s economic dreams, regardless of their status. My background is that I launched six new ventures, in the beginning without any resources, after which I spent more than 30 years as a scholar analyzing and prescribing how entrepreneurs could be more successful, in contrast to most of the scholarship that has described what entrepreneurs do, most of whom fail. I have always been more interested in prescriptive solutions than in describing failure, or for that matter, success if we do not understand the theory behind it. Not surprisingly, I am viewed as an extreme outlier among those who prefer descriptive approaches.

An Entrepreneurial Solution to Poverty Many scholars and advocates believe that entrepreneurship provides a plausible solution to poverty (Fiet, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c). This may occur because as it increases new wealth, it creates the resources for a positive-sum growth game whereby everyone is better off without the need to take resources away from one group to help those without them. On many levels, postmodernism can be discouraging even though it publicly advocates for a greater awareness of our advantages and the disadvantages of others. What could be problematic about that? It depends on its methods and goals. Does it have either intended or unintended consequences that further divide us so that those on the bottom are moved further away from the acquisition of those factors that will help them to live a full and complete life? At the same time, the world desperately needs entrepreneurial solutions. It was the prospect of helping to remove obstacles to entrepreneurial wealth creation that motivated the writing of this book. Prior to tracing the philosophical origins of postmodernism, the following sections provide an overview of its current forms and their impact on entrepreneurship. Of course, postmodernism permeates all aspects of human life, but our focus will be on entrepreneurship.

A Tidal Wave of Change There is a postmodern tidal wave that has been sweeping through many facets of Western culture, which appears to be taking the form of a new secular, godless religion (Fiet, 2022a). However, I will show that the wave is not new, only more evident. In its current form, as mentioned earlier,

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postmodernism is often known as social justice Theory, or Wokeism. For now, it may be only a movement, but it is moving quickly to approach the status of a religion. It has its own sacraments, demonstrations of virtue, and sainthood for those who are victimized. Its sacraments would be public professions and virtue signaling about one’s support for a racialized society, devoid of any consideration of one’s character (King, 1963), among other intersectionalist goals. Demonstrations of virtue would be public attestations of fealty to postmodern organizations that sponsor Wokeism, such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa, as well as support for a cancel culture. Activists argue that unfair policing has resulted in martyrdom for some who have become revered saints for the cause, in effect its sacrificial lambs. It has appeared as an alternative to Christianity (with the largest number of adherents). Where it has been practiced, it offers a different utopian vision of the future. Wokeism has not been the type of awakening proclaimed by the Buddha who was attempting to become one with a Daoist universe. It does not simply seek greater understanding. Instead, it seeks to instill greater sensitivity to its goals and opposition to those practices or individuals who may be in non-compliance. Concepts such as logic, science, math, and reason have been viewed as tools of an oppressive white patriarchy. Those who have questioned the widespread nature of its influence have been accused of being motivated by white fragility or an excessive commitment to one’s self-interests. Surprisingly, values such as hard work, individualism, punctuality, and delayed gratification have been interpreted as perpetuating white supremacy (Sobande, 2019). It has also been the case that these same values that have characterized entrepreneurs were viewed as white supremacist threats. Those who charge white supremacy are often guilty themselves of displaying a cavalier lack of concern for personal practices that lead to success, such as waiting until after one is married before conceiving a child. If adopting effective practices is a sign of supremacy, most people would be happy with that and wish the same for the poor.

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Incompatibility with Entrepreneurship Postmodernism in the form of Wokeism or social justice Theory does not appear to be compatible theoretically with entrepreneurship, despite its implied goal of increasing resources for the poor and the historically disadvantaged, mainly through redistribution, or enlightened public policy, and the like. For example, in the name of racial equity, the recently passed infrastructure bill and presidential executive order 13,985 provide $30 million in funding for crack pipes to smoke crystal methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and other illicit substances, but only for those who are historically disadvantaged, perhaps assuming that supporting drug addictions will turn addicts into entrepreneurs. Once this crack pipe mandate became known, it aroused political opposition to the point that its future became uncertain. However, Darity and Mullen have called for $14 trillion being paid to Black Americans to mitigate the racial wealth gap (Hill, 2023). The executive order defines “equity” as . . . the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.

Specifically, this is occurring to advance racial equity and provide support for underserved communities so that they all have an equal opportunity to maintain their addictions, as if such access were going to facilitate their becoming entrepreneurs or any other positive outcome apart from pain relief. One of the reasons for the confusion is that entrepreneurship exerts its greatest influence on individuals, whereas federal public policy is most often enacted to address national challenges. For example, a nation could consider going to war, which would certainly be great for weapons manufacturers. However, at the level of individuals, soldiers are going to be killed, which would create disparate impacts for those concerned. It is precisely because of these disparate impacts, as well as individual differences, that it becomes impossible to enact wide-ranging public policies

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that are equally effective for everyone, or to be sufficiently informed to even know what the policies should be (Hayek, 1945), including when these policies attempt to stimulate entrepreneurship. Nor does postmodernism recognize the effectiveness of the invisible hand for rewarding entrepreneurship and particularly those who create value (Smith, 1776), often protesting that systematic racism is unfair to the historically disadvantaged. In addition, nor does it consider that those who are disadvantaged today may themselves rise to the top economically if they adopt and pursue habits that have brought others success. According to a woke BLM activist who attempted to murder a democratic candidate for the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, the following is true (Wallace, 2022): During our short stay on this glorious planet, we all have been collectively dehumanized and reduced to political talking points—Black, white, liberal, conservative, Christian, criminal, boss, worker, activists, etc. Our sick, manipulated brethren will weaponize common sense and tell us to face the facts—as if facts are something outside of us as if life were something we encounter as foreigners. They will tell us that communism and collectivism has never and will never work and refuse to even explore these childish (or inferior) ideas.

It is ironic that the same suspect who accused everyone else of being close minded expressed the following in his Twitter bio: “We have one scientific and correct solution, Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism,” which is a euphemism for ordinary woke, Marxism, to be inflicted on unsuspecting Africans. One of the postmodernism’s cardinal tenants is that those who have been historically victimized will never be able to advance their own economic interests without forcibly taking resources from others. In contrast, entrepreneurship enables the potential development of new wealth through personal empowerment that positions those so inclined to have preferential access to resources and opportunities, whereas postmodernism ignores or in its worst forms, denies the possibility of increasing the size of the economic pie. Rather, it attempts to accomplish its goals through the forced reallocation of the resources of the wealthy as if it all belonged to the state and were a public good, often resulting in confiscatory taxation and smothering regulations.

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Yet this is the world in which entrepreneurship may be required to thrive to rescue us from our proclivity to spend more than we earn, as well as to alleviate poverty. Nor does postmodernism create new wealth; instead, it is a scheme for redistributing a shrinking amount of wealth because it takes away incentives to be productive from those who want to make a difference or improve their own standing in the world. In contrast, postmodernism in the form of Wokeism views self-interest seeking as comparable to sin, which should be punished through such tactics as boycotts and cancellation (Peterson, 2021). Now, Wokeism suddenly appears to be enduring its own cancellation and perhaps replaced by another form of postmodernism, intersectionalism, although activists argue that the cancellation of Wokeism would be an overreach by the white patriarchy. Also, although influential today, future historians will tell us whether it prevails over the long term. According to Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion, “woke” is a bad word for a real threat to American democracy (Kasparov, 2021). In a diminished state, it is likely that it could devolve into a summary statement for all the intersectionalist concerns that are asserted to oppress those who are less powerful. One of the purposes of this book is to detail these postmodern concerns, their origins, their status, and specifically how they impact entrepreneurship, and those who are not designated as either the victimized or part of the white patriarchy.

Woke Postmodernism in Focus Wokeism has been used to describe those who are socially aware of racial prejudice and discrimination. Although its origins among black Americans can be traced back to the 1931 saga of a group of nine black teenagers in Scottsboro, Arkansas, who were accused of raping two white women, it has only recently been adopted as common usage after the 2014 policeshooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Earlier still in 1923, it was part of a collection of aphorisms by Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey. Much later, the call to stay woke became a cautionary watchword of Black Lives Matter activists regarding police brutality and unjust police tactics. Such calls are part of the postmodern repressive narrative that attempts to view all social relationships as driven by power and racial animus. On the political right, its cousin “canceled” refers to political correctness gone awry (Romano, 2020).

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Over time, awareness of the political nature of wokeness after its Black Lives Matter adoption became performative or excessively dramatized to the point of being superficial and ridiculed. Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam (2017) snarkily condemned it— Do you use the word ‘intersectionality’ a lot, even if you aren’t exactly sure what it means? If yes, you are progressing well along your journey to wokefulness. [He argued that the] real purpose of ‘woke’ is to divide the world into hyper-socially aware, self-appointed gatekeepers of language and behavior, and the rest of humanity.

In addition to Wokeism’s recent emergence, with the support of social media, it has become a part of African American vernacular. However, strands of its appearance can be traced to more disparate intellectual origins, each of which has its own history and derivation, which include separate but related forms of critical Theory (including, postcolonial Theory; queer Theory; critical race Theory; feminism and gender studies; mad studies, as well as, disability and fat studies), post modernism, post structuralism, and even a new form of dialectical materialism, that old standby that was used by Marx and Engels (1848) to describe class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, as interpreted for us by the Frankfurt school. These various strands of struggle have since been expanded to describe intersectional oppressions in more circumstances with more being victimized and arguably entitled to reparations.

Postmodern Intersectionalism in Focus The concept of postmodern intersectionalism describes how systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and other forms of discrimination intersect to create unique dynamics and effects (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Matsuda, 1990). According to its logic, all forms of inequality are mutually reinforcing and thus must be analyzed and addressed simultaneously (Crenshaw, 1989). There are more than 30 different intersectionalist classes to divide society (Fiet, 2022a). These class struggles clearly impact any individual’s entrepreneurial aspirations. How these effects can militate for or against individuals is the subject of this book. These struggles are especially prevalent in large, urban cities where surrogates like Black Lives Matter and Antifa are some of the latest who

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have taken up the mantel to advocate for the oppressed, although at the same time they often seem to benefit themselves more than the alleged victims, which is not uncommon among the political class. For example, the BLM Foundation is currently being investigated by the California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office for not filing annual financial statements with the state’s Registry of Charitable Trusts. It has 60 days to disclose what it is doing with its $60 million in assets and to disclose its charitable purpose (NonProfit Times, 2-14-2022), other than financing the four new homes of its co-founder. Now, we learn that it has collected $90 million in unaccounted for donations and has used $6 million to buy a California mansion. One thing is clear—it has not been using the funds it raises to improve the plight of the poor. Until its finances are more fully disclosed, it has been delisted by Amazon as a charity that can raise funds on its platform, not that a private company should be the ultimate judge of an organization’s virtue or legal compliance. However, it is easy to become confused with these competing arguments and yet that is the world in which we live and the one in which entrepreneurs have the option to launch new ventures. One of the reasons for the confusion is that woke, social justice warriors often make arguments without an argument , relying simply upon the charge of oppression without providing evidence in particular cases (Sowell, 2011). Or they rally to the memory of the sainted, as if their treatment were commonplace and continuing. In effect, they base the authenticity of their charges on their cause itself while avoiding the provision of evidence. If there is evidence to provide, they would be better served to make the argument so that fair evaluators can determine its validity. Of course, if in providing evidence, they were to lose their political standing, we would expect to see them be less forthcoming, which over time would work to the detriment of their cause.

Postmodernism’s Trending Focus on Inequality Some would argue that one of the direct problems is wealth inequality, thereby identifying it as one of the challenges driving the new nomenclature and not the obverse. However, the appearance of many new billionaires as a part of this inequality could be interpreted as a sign of entrepreneurial success and not as a systematic failure of capitalism. Capitalism is a way to create new wealth, which it does better than any other approach because it disperses and multiplies the incentives to

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do so. It also responds to and thrives under a system of market-based information. In fact, it uses specific information to reward those who are willing to bear risk (Fiet, 2008). However, its purpose is not to distribute it in a certain way. Some of the most recent evidence that capitalism is more effective than any other system is that after China began to promote it, it was able to increase its productivity to the point that it became rather rapidly the world’s second largest economy. Now that China is wealthy, it can distribute its wealth according to its political principles and the will of its leaders, for which it has been the subject of criticism for doing so in a heavy-handed manner. The implication of this argument is that if wealth is to be redistributed, it is a political question, not an economic one. Capitalism is also the world’s most adaptable system for creating new wealth. If inequalities are to be addressed, we are first dependent on entrepreneurship to create the aggregate new wealth to pay for the solutions or to older wealth, which must be taken from some to be given to others. To expect equal distribution is to assume that the efforts and ability of entrepreneurs are always equal, which is an equilibrium argument that is contrary to human nature (c.f., Kihlstrom & Laffont, 1979), as well as differences in luck and environmental opportunities. According to Oxfam International (2022), billionaires have seen a record surge during the pandemic. The 10 richest people have increased their fortunes by more than $15,000 a second or $1.3 billion a day during the pandemic. “If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 percent of all the people on this planet,” according to Oxfam International’s executive Director Gabriela Bucher. “They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people.” In her view, it is time to start clawing back the advantages of the super-rich, for some of the following reasons: • The [rich] now own more than the world’s poorest 3.2 billion people combined. [It is notable that most of the super-rich are fortunate to be able to work and produce in capitalist systems or they became oligarchs who were able to throttle the market for their own benefit.] • A new billionaire has been created every 26 hours since the pandemic began. • Inequality between nations is also expected to rise for the first time in a generation and is also growing within countries. [However, this

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study does not account for differences in economic systems, which I claim are primary causes of the differences.] The pandemic has increased the disparity between the rich and the poor. [However, if it were not for capitalism, there would have been no vaccines nor treatments to alleviate the pandemic thereby exaggerating the economic differences across nations. Outside of capitalism there is not a free flow of information to validate a vaccine’s effectiveness.] Wealthy nations are rebounding faster, as one would expect, given the dispersion of incentives and information. Output in rich nations will likely return to pre-pandemic trends by 2023 but will be down 4% on average in developing countries, according to World Bank (2021). The pandemic has hit racialized groups hardest. During the second wave of the pandemic in England, the people of Bangladeshi origin were five times more likely to die of COVID-19 than the White British population. [What this comparison did not control is differences in the language capabilities of the groups, which affects information and incentives to take risks and to act to better themselves.] Similar statistics exist between the black and white people in Brazil.

Redistribution Under Postmodern Wokeism To address these inequalities, Oxfam prefers taking back the gains by the billionaires through new taxes. It then prescribes transferring these new revenues to the poor and investing progressively on universal health care and social protection, including on climate change and genderbased violence prevention. Furthermore, countries should emphasize new gender-equal laws to uproot violence and discrimination. The obvious limitation of the Oxfam prescription is that the self-made billionaires are the best qualified to continue generating new wealth because they have done it once and know how to do it again and are still connected with their stakeholders that supported them the first time. Plus, they have the greatest incentives to make it happen again for themselves. Without their wealth creation, there will not be as much to redistribute to the poor. Why should we trust wealth creation to someone else less connected and qualified?

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The pandemic has taught us that government action to regulate the behavior of citizens becomes a restriction that at least in Western countries can be viewed as one on civil liberty, which could be a disincentive for entrepreneurs to take the additional risk necessary to get ahead. The argument that the new nomenclature is driving our sensitivity to inequities is supported by the increased populism worldwide, coming from both the left and the right. Groups across the spectrum are rising to proclaim and demand their political and economic rights. These demands, or perhaps their motivating conditions, depending on your point of view, can destabilize entire countries, making many pundits wonder if we are on the verge of war, or at a minimum, on the verge of economic war. Others have suggested that the United States would be better off if the blue states were to separate themselves from the red states because the two groups of states cannot agree on public policies. Malik Faisal Akram, 44, attacked a Texas synagogue and took hostages and the first thing that he said after he was arrested is that he was due reparations when he is the criminal (Sabe, 2022). Where did he get such an idea? My supposition is that he has been raised in not only the ideology of radical Islam, but also in the privilege-demanding rhetoric of the new postmodernism, which provides the context for intersectionalist Wokeism. Postmodernism is a rejection of both truth and grand narratives about our better selves, which tends to lead to lives of depravity, and “quiet desperation,” to quote Thoreau (1854), relying on our worst instincts for ourselves and others.

Social Justice Debates that Matter You may be wondering why this book juxtaposes postmodern-inspired social justice against entrepreneurship. To address this question, one must understand that its philosophical themes are pervasive today and influence every aspect of entrepreneurship. Earlier, I suggested that Wokeism, as a manifestation of postmodernism, was a new secular religion (Fiet, 2022a). However, in many parts of the world, postmodernism itself is a more familiar incarnation of a secular religion as evidenced by Christian leaders being prosecuted for their faith’s beliefs about marriage (Nerozzi, 2022), among other issues, partly because they are in the minority. So far, such prosecutions are illegal in the United States, but the sentiments are widespread. Here are some other themes that impact every aspect of our

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lives, in addition to the prospects for entrepreneurship. I acknowledge Hicks (2018) for suggesting parts of the following narrative. We have assumed for hundreds of years that the Western world’s cannon of great books contains the distillation of the best that the West has to offer. Those who question this assertion point out that it is no less than a multifaceted debate. The greatness of the West is one side of the debate. However, there is another side that claims such views are philosophically and ideologically narrow, exclusive, biased, and intolerant. However, to suggest that these postmodern claims exist, without the critics, themselves, being biased and intolerant is to be completely taken over by one’s own biases. Was Christopher Columbus a thug or a modern hero? Postmodernism posits that he was insensitive to cultural differences, smugly superior to non-Europeans, and a vanguard for imperialism whose purpose was to ram European religious values down the throats of indigenous natives, thus concluding that he was a thug, whereas our traditional American view is that he was an explorer, worthy of praise for his foresight and courage in opening a new world for opportunity and development. What about those European religious values? Would they incorporate a Protestant work ethic and supposedly be superior to those of Hindus (Weber, 2009), for example? Or would the practical benefits of all religions be the same, which would demand the validation of postmodern multiculturalism? Postmodernism rejects our most patriotic narratives about America arguing that it is not enlightened when it comes to liberty, equality, and opportunities for everyone. In fact, there is evidence to argue that it is sexist, racist, and class bound. For example, those with the power use sexual dominance, pornography, and glass ceilings to keep women from rising to their full potential. A more patriotic view is that some of its early failings were necessary steps in the pursuit of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Are we ambivalent over affirmative action, desiring only to be fair to all parties or are these programs only a cynical offering to appear to be helping, until the point when there is a violent reaction by the status quo to continue the oppression? According to our better selves, all people deserve to have access to the opportunities they wish to pursue and achieve, based on their foresight and diligence. There is no subterfuge to conceal perverse intentions to deceive and delay giving equal opportunity to all, even if that does not mean equal outcomes.

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Whether social conflicts should be defused by supporting the principle that individuals should be judged by their actions and character or whether individual differences (identities) should be affirmed and celebrated (King, 1963), and whether those who resist should be sent to mandatory sensitivity training. The latter view effectively rewards people depending on their race or class. Whether life in the West is improving longevity and wealth with each generation or whether it has abandoned its urban underclass and replaced it with a consumerist culture of shopping malls and urban sprawl. Of course, if this consumerist culture failed to provide wealth and happiness for all, then it could be destroyed through looting, anarchy, lawlessness, or through whatever means, simply because the oppressed were entitled to do so (Cobb & Remnick, 2001). Their cause was their justification and anyone who protested was proclaimed to be the actual problem, which included the police and others who tried to enforce the laws against civil disorder and anarchy. The opposing view maintains that everyone is entitled to equal access and opportunity. Order and the rule of law ensure access and opportunity. Whether the West is leading the rest of world to a freer and more prosperous future or whether its intrusive foreign policy is positioning its businesses to export low-paying jobs, locking them into a system that will oppress them and destroy their local cultures. Whether science and technology are good for all or whether they betray their elitism, sexism, and destructiveness, so that they can rape nature by building bigger missiles to blow things up. This view is in stark contrast to the new wealth that they have facilitated, which has provided the resources to address poverty. Whether liberalism, free markets, and technology are achievements that can be enjoyed by all cultures, or whether non-Western cultures because they live more simply are superior. Moreover, this latter view holds that the West would be imprudent to impose its capitalism, science, and technology upon other cultures and an increasingly fragile ecosystem. What makes all these debates postmodern is not the sincerity of the skirmishes but that the terms of the debate have shifted. Modern debates from the Age of Enlightenment [1715–1789] were over truth, reality, reason, experience, liberty, equality, justice, peace, and beauty. The most strident postmodern voices tell us that truth is a myth (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Reason is a white, male, Eurocentric construct. Equality is asserted to mask oppression (Kendi, 2019). Peace and progress are

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met with cynical reminders of power (Crenshaw, 1989). Objectivity is impossible and can be reduced to a linguistic trick. There is no truth nor right way to interpret a text or nature (Kant, 1781). Values are socially constructed. All ways of life and cultures are legitimate, which is in stark contrast to the evidence some cultures are superior in the provision social order, living standards, and values that acknowledge the highest and best attributes of human progress (Sowell, 2011).

Summary of the Place of Postmodernism in Entrepreneurship 2.1 This is a book about a new intellectual, social, and economic environment for entrepreneurship, largely created in our current, social justice oriented, postmodern age, but with roots that go back centuries. It traces postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712–1778] and Immanuel Kant [1724– 1804] to its development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault [1926–1984], Jacques Derrida [1930–2004], and Richard Rorty [1931–2007], followed by its expression today in intersectionalism (Crenshaw, 1989) and Wokeism (Kendi, 2019). 2.2 This book begins with social justice Theory’s medieval, faith-based origins in premodernism, followed by its scientific emphasis in modernism during the Enlightenment and twentieth century, and its ultimate denial of grand narratives in postmodernism, which is its dominant social justice expression today. It also denies most aspects of the scientific method as well as the self. It demonstrates that the skeptical and relativistic arguments that have such power in the contemporary intellectual world are more than a passing fad. 2.3 This book highlights the sources of many current philosophical assumptions about the world in which we live. Why should we care about them? The most important reason is that they are the seed corn for the assumptions that we use to apply the scientific method and even to understand our personal identity. Quite literally, they frame how we see, understand, and interpret the world, as well as our perception of the odds of achieving our personal aspirations, which are foundational to entrepreneurship.

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2.4 Premodernism, modernism, and postmodernism present different and competing visions. A vision is a “pre-analytic cognitive act” (Schumpeter, 1954, p. 41). It is what we sense or feel before we have constructed any systematic reasoning that could be called a theory, or something that can be deduced into specific hypotheses, which can be tested against evidence (Sowell, 2007). A vision is our sense of how the world works. It is influential even though it is not fully formed so that it can be evaluated. Visions are the foundations upon which theories are built. This book shows how the origins of our current intellectual environment can be traced back to these early visions. 2.5 One postmodern trend has been away from the centrality of the individual and toward the collective, with an emphasis on critical approaches that deconstruct our world so that there is no world or self to understand. The advantage of deconstructionism is that one does not need to be correct if he or she is entertaining. 2.6 Just imagine if there were no world or self. Then, there could be no markets, no capitalism, and no future for individuals, only passing struggles between the oppressed and oppressors. Having deconstructed reason, truth, and the idea of a correspondence of thought to reality, and then set them aside, “reason,” writes Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, p. 95) “is the ultimate language of madness.” 2.7 Postmodernism is manifested today in the form of many social and political causes about how to create more equity, less discrimination, and a more perfect union, despite our differing identities and divisions. One who is aware of these identities, discrimination, and divisions said to be woke. 2.8 There is a causal linkage between postmodernism and social justice Theory and the creation of the new wealth necessary to address poverty. This linkage takes many forms including, skepticism, socialism, critical theories, in nearly all their varieties, and many attempts to impose the administrative state on free markets. 2.9 This analysis is more interested in addressing poverty than equity or inequality and the reason for this is a simple matter of social arithmetic. If one were to find Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg in a room with a hundred people, the average person in the room would be at least a millionaire, which would provide substantial aggregate wealth to redistribute through taxation. Well, someone could protest that despite their high average

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net worth, there is inequality in the distribution of financial resources, suggesting that they are less concerned about helping the poor and more concerned about everyone possessing the same equitable level of resources. On many levels, postmodernism can be discouraging even though it publicly advocates for a greater awareness of our advantages and the disadvantages of others. What could be problematic about that? It depends on its methods and goals. Does it have either intended or unintended consequences that further divide us so that those on the bottom are moved further away from the acquisition of those factors that will help them to live a full and complete life? At the same time, the world desperately needs entrepreneurial solutions. There is a postmodern tidal wave that has been sweeping through many facets of Western culture, which appears to be taking the form of a new secular, godless religion (Fiet, 2022a). The wave is not new, only more evident. In its current form, as mentioned earlier, postmodernism is often known as social justice Theory, or Wokeism. For now, it may be only a movement, but it is moving quickly to approach the status of a religion. It has its own sacraments, demonstrations of virtue, and sainthood for those who are victimized. Demonstrations of virtue would be public attestations of fealty to postmodern organizations that sponsor Wokeism, such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa, as well as support for a cancel culture. Activists argue that unfair policing has resulted in martyrdom for some who have become revered saints for the cause, in effect its sacrificial lambs. It has appeared as an alternative to Christianity (with the largest number of adherents). Where it has been practiced, it offers a different utopian vision of the future. Concepts such as logic, science, math, and reason have been viewed as tools of an oppressive white patriarchy. Those who have questioned the widespread nature of its influence have been accused of being motivated by white fragility or an excessive commitment to one’s self-interests. Surprisingly, values such as hard work, individualism, punctuality, and delayed gratification have been interpreted as perpetuating white supremacy (Sobande, 2019). It has also been the case that these same values that have characterized entrepreneurs were

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viewed as white supremacist threats. Those who charge white supremacy are often guilty themselves of displaying a cavalier lack of concern for personal practices that lead to success, such as waiting until after one is married before conceiving a child. If adopting effective practices is a sign of supremacy, most people would be happy with that and wish the same for the poor. Postmodernism in the form of Wokeism or social justice Theory does not appear to be compatible theoretically with entrepreneurship, despite its implied goal of increasing resources for the poor and the historically disadvantaged, mainly through redistribution, reparations, or enlightened public policy, and the like. Nor does postmodernism recognize the effectiveness of the invisible hand for rewarding entrepreneurship and those who create value (Smith, 1776), often protesting that systematic racism is unfair to the historically disadvantaged. In addition, nor does it consider that those who are disadvantaged today may themselves rise to the top economically if they adopt and pursue habits that have brought others success. One of the reasons for the confusion is that entrepreneurship exerts its greatest influence on individuals, whereas federal public policy is most often enacted to address national challenges. For example, a nation could consider going to war, which would certainly be great for weapons manufacturers. However, at the level of individuals, soldiers are going to be killed, which would create disparate impacts for those concerned. It is precisely because of these disparate impacts, as well as individual differences, that it becomes impossible to enact wide-ranging public policies that are equally effective for everyone, or to be sufficiently informed to even know what the policies should be (Hayek, 1945), including when these policies attempt to stimulate entrepreneurship. In contrast, entrepreneurship enables the potential development of new wealth through personal empowerment that positions those so inclined to have preferential access to resources and opportunities, whereas postmodernism ignores or in its worst forms, denies the possibility of increasing the size of the economic pie. Rather, it attempts to accomplish its goals through the forced reallocation of the resources of the wealthy as if it all belonged to the state and were a public good, often resulting in confiscatory taxation and smothering regulations.

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2.21 Do you use the word “intersectionality” a lot, even if you aren’t exactly sure what it means? If yes, you are progressing well along your journey to wokefulness. The real purpose of being “woke” is to divide the world into hyper-socially aware, self-appointed gatekeepers of language and behavior, and the rest of humanity. 2.22 Strands of social justice Theory’s appearance can be traced to more disparate intellectual origins, each of which has its own history and derivation, which include separate but related forms of critical Theory (including, postcolonial Theory, queer Theory; critical race Theory; feminism and gender studies; mad studies, as well as, disability and fat studies), postmodernism, poststructuralism, and even a new form of dialectical materialism, that old standby that was used by Marx and Engels (1848) to describe class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, as interpreted for us by the Frankfurt school. These various strands of struggle have since been expanded to describe intersectional oppressions in more circumstances with more being victimized and arguably entitled to reparations. 2.23 The concept of intersectionalism describes how systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and other forms of discrimination intersect to create unique dynamics and effects (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 1995; Matsuda, 1990). According to its logic, all forms of inequality are mutually reinforcing and thus must be analyzed and addressed simultaneously (Crenshaw, 1989). There are more than 30 intersectionalist classes to divide society (Fiet, 2022a). These socially-just, class struggles clearly impact any individual’s entrepreneurial aspirations. 2.24 Social justice warriors often make arguments without an argument , relying simply upon the charge of oppression without providing evidence (Sowell, 2011). Or they rally to the memory of martyred saints, as if their treatment were commonplace and continuing. If there is evidence to provide, they would be better served to make the argument so that it can be evaluated. Of course, if in providing evidence, they were to lose their political standing, we would expect to see them be less forthcoming, which over time would work to the detriment of their cause. 2.25 It is impossible to understand social justice Theory without understanding its priorities—its foremost priority is to advocate for change, not to understand truth by advancing scholarship.

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It benefits from allowing this misperception about its scholarly purpose to persist because it allows it to borrow legitimacy from science when it is not scientific. Capitalism is a way to create new wealth, which it does better than any other approach because it disperses and multiplies the incentives to do so. It also responds to and thrives under a system of market-based information. In fact, it uses specific information to reward those who are willing to bear risk (Fiet, 2008). However, its purpose is not to distribute it in a certain way. Capitalism is the world’s most adaptable system for creating new wealth. If inequalities are to be addressed, we are first dependent on entrepreneurship to create the aggregate new wealth to pay for the solutions, or to older wealth, which must be taken from some to be given to others. To also expect equal distribution is to assume that the efforts and ability of entrepreneurs are always equal, which is an equilibrium argument that is contrary to human nature (c.f., Kihlstrom & Laffont, 1979), as well as differences in luck and environmental opportunities. The pandemic has taught us that government action to regulate the behavior of citizens becomes a restriction on civil liberty, which could be a disincentive for entrepreneurs to take the additional risk necessary to get ahead. Was Christopher Columbus a thug or a modern hero? Postmodernism posits that he was insensitive to cultural differences, smugly superior to non-Europeans, and a vanguard for imperialism whose purpose was to ram European religious values down the throats of indigenous natives, thus concluding that he was a thug, whereas our traditional American view is that he was an explorer, worthy of praise for his foresight and courage in opening a new world for opportunity and development. What about those European religious values? Would they incorporate a Protestant work ethic and supposedly be superior to those of Hindus (Weber, 2009), for example? Or would the practical benefits of all religions be the same, which would demand the validation of postmodern multiculturalism? Postmodernism rejects our most patriotic narratives about America arguing that it is not enlightened when it comes to liberty, equality, and opportunities for everyone. In fact, there is evidence to argue that it is sexist, racist, and class bound. For example, those with the power use sexual dominance, pornography, and

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glass ceilings to keep women from rising to their full potential. A more patriotic view is that some of its early failings were necessary steps in the pursuit of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. 2.32 Are we ambivalent over affirmative action, desiring only to be fair to all parties or are these programs only a cynical offering to appear to be helping, until the point when there is a violent reaction by the status quo to continue the oppression? According to our better selves, all people deserve to have access to the opportunities they wish to pursue and achieve, based on their foresight and diligence. There is no subterfuge to conceal perverse intentions to deceive and delay giving equal opportunity to all, even if that does not mean equal outcomes. 2.33 Whether liberalism, free markets, and technology are achievements that can be enjoyed by all cultures, or whether non-Western cultures because they live more simply are superior. Moreover, this latter view holds that the West would be imprudent to impose its capitalism, science, and technology upon other cultures and an increasingly fragile ecosystem. 2.34 What makes all these debates postmodern is not their sincerity but that their terms have shifted. Modern debates from the Age of Enlightenment [1715–1789] were over truth, reality, reason, experience, liberty, equality, justice, peace, and beauty. The most strident postmodern voices tell us that truth is a myth (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Reason is a white, male, Eurocentric construct. Equality is asserted to mask oppression (Kendi, 2019). Peace and progress are met with cynical reminders of power (Crenshaw, 1989). Objectivity is impossible and can be reduced to a linguistic trick. There is no truth nor right way to interpret a text or nature (Kant, 1781). Values are socially constructed. All ways of life and cultures are legitimate, which is in stark contrast to the evidence some cultures are superior in the provision social order, living standards, and values that acknowledge the highest and best attributes of human progress (Sowell, 2011).

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References Beam, A. (2017). Not Woke and Never Will Be. Boston Globe. https://www.bos tonglobe.com/opinion/2017/05/21/not-woke-and-never-will/HuvMiKJSc A2QQRfq7RoBP/story.html Butterworth, B. (2021). What Does “Woke” Mean? Origins of the Term, and How the Meaning Has Changed. I News. https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/ woke-what-mean-meaning-origins-term-definition-culture-387962 Cho, S., Crenshaw, K., & McCall,. (2013). Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis. Signs, 38(4), 785–810. Cobb, J., & Remnick, D. (2021). The Matter of Black Lives. The New Yorker. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1(1989), 139–167. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241– 1299. Crenshaw, K. (2018). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. Feminist Legal Theory, 57–80. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (2001). Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New Press. Fiet, J. (2008). Prescriptive Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing. Fiet, J. (2022a). The Theoretical World of Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing. Fiet, J. (2022b). The Entrepreneurial Solution to Poverty and the Science of What Is Possible. Edward Elgar Publishing. Fiet, J. (2022c). Informational Entrepreneurship in a World of Limited Insight. Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, M. (1969). The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A.M. Sheridan. Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1973). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish. Translated by A. M. Sheridan. Pantheon. Hayek, F. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530. Hicks, S. (2018). Explaining Postmodernism. Ockham’s Razor Publishing. Hill, B. (2023). Authors Demand US Government Issue $14 Trillion in Reparations Over Role in Slavery, Voter Suppression. Fox News (January 31). https://www.foxnews.com/media/authors-demand-us-govern ment-issue-14-trillion-reparations-role-slavery-voter-suppression Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. HarperCollins Publishers.

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Kant, I. (1781). A Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. Macmillan, 1929. Kasparov, G. (2021, November 18). “Woke” Is a Bad Word for a Real Threat to American Democracy. Wall Street Journal, p. A19. Dow Jones. Kendi, I. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist. One World. Kihlstrom, R., & Laffont, J. (1979). A General Equilibrium Entrepreneurial Theory of Firm Formation Based on Risk Aversion. Journal of Political Economy, 87 (4), 719–848. King, M. (1963). I Have a Dream. American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches. https:/ /www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mklihaveadream.htm. Marx, K., & Engles, F. (1848/2020). The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Martino Fine Books. Matsuda, M. (1990). Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1189. Nerozzi, T. (2022). Finland has Shifted to ‘Secular Religion,’ ‘Postmodernism,’ says Finish Bishop on Trial for Intolerance. https://www.foxnews.com/world/ finland-secular-religion-postmodernism-bishop Nonprofit Times. (2-22-2022). BLM Global Foundation Leaders Face Fines. https://nonprofittimes.com Oxfam International. (2022). Ten Richest Men Double Their Fortunes in Pandemic While Incomes of 99 Percent of Humanity Fall. https://www. oxfam.org/en/press-releases/ten-richest-men-double-their-fortunes-pan demic-while-incomes-99-percent-humanity Peterson, J. (2021). My Road to Cancellation. Deseret News. https://www.des eret.com/2021/6/20/22516382/my-road-to-cancellation?utm_campaign= Morning&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=135144199&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_fxu Z3Hm1MfG0_95kwtsBWgAi4-Bar3neUlRdZKnUG166lVZFA9MRnbZL uOM9HTmn_pYfgqfJbWyYKIibWJMUF7SRpnQ&utm_content=135144 199&utm_source=hs_email Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr 20021 Romano, A. (2020). A History of Wokeness. Stay woke: How a Black Activist Watchword Got Co-opted in the Culture War. Vox. https://www.vox.com/ culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy Sabes, A. (2022, January 17). Jewish Leaders React to FBI Statement on Texas Synagogue Hostage-Taker: The FBI God It Wrong. Fox News. https://www.fox news.com/us/jewish-leaders-react-fbi-statement-texas-synagogue-hostages. Schumpeter, J. (1954). History of Economic Analysis (p. 41). Oxford University Press.

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Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/smith-an-inquiry-intothe-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations-cannan-ed-vol-1. p. 423. Sobande, F. (2019). Woke-Washing: Intersectional Femvertising and Branding Woke Bravery. European Journal of Marketing, 54(11), 2723–2745. Sowell, T. (2007). A Conflict of Visions. Basic Books. Sowell, T. (2011). Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books. Sowell, T. (2013). Intellectuals and Race. Basic Books. chapter 3. Sowell, T. (2019). Discrimination and Disparities. Basic Books. Thoreau, H. (1854). Walden, or Life in the Woods. Ticknor and Fields. Wallace, D. (2-15-2022). Louisville Activist Arrested for Attempted Murder of Mayoral Candidate. https://www.foxnews.com/us/louisville-activist-attemp ted-murder-mayoral-candidate-socialism-gun-control Weber, M. (2009). The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Introduction by R. Swedbert, Norton Criticl Editions. W. W. Norton. World Development Report. (2021). Data for Better Lives. https://www.worldb ank.org/en/publication/wdr20021.

CHAPTER 3

The Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism

Modernism During the Age of Enlightenment Modernism signaled the beginning of the partial abandonment of a view that was entirely faith based, which it had inherited from the medieval period in Europe. It represented a turn to scientifically enlightened engagement with the world and us. One advocate of this approach in the sciences was Francis Bacon [1561–1626], who was a statesman and philosopher of science (Wolford, 2022). Bacon took up Aristotelian ideas [384 BC–322 BC], arguing for an empirical, inductive approach, known as the scientific method, which is the foundation of modern scientific inquiry. Bacon’s approach used experimentation, gathering data and analysis to observe nature in an organized way. Approaching science in this way, he believed that it could become a tool for the betterment of humanity. In fact, Bacon was so enthralled with an empirical approach, using the scientific method, that he looked at the universe as a problem to be solved, examined, and meditated upon, rather than an eternally fixed stage upon which man walked (Eiseley, 2018). Clearly, Bacon was contemplating how humans could act scientifically rather than being acted upon by the environment. Sir Isaac Newton [1642–1727] closely followed Bacon in focusing on realism in the natural world, a realism that could be studied and understood. He was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, which had included Copernicus [1473–1543], © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_3

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Descartes [1596–1659], Kepler [1571–1630], Galileo [1564–1642], and of course Newton. In optics, he discovered the composition of white light, and how it incorporated colors. In mechanics, his three laws of motion resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the discoverer of calculus. His Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) was one of the most important single works in the history of modern science. Although modernism adopted the views of Bacon and Newton, philosophically it was also influenced by Rene Descartes [1596–1650], particularly by his views of epistemology, and by John Locke [1632–1704], for his influence on all aspects of philosophy. Descartes is most famous for his idea that “I think. Therefore, I am” (Cottingham et al., 2012). These philosophical giants are modern because of their emphasis on naturalism, their profound confidence in reason, and especially in the case of Locke, on their emphasis on individualism. In fact, Locke was the intellectual source of the ideas used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Although Locke was not one of the founders, his ideas formed the basis for their declaration of principles and separation from England. They argued that reason and perception are the human means of knowing nature—in contrast to a premodern view that relied on tradition, faith, and mysticism. Taken together, how should we understand these relatively more modern developments? The term “postmodern” positions it historically and philosophically against modernism. Any intellectual movement is defined by its philosophical premises. These premises establish what is required to be real, to be human, to be valuable, and how knowledge is acquired. Together, these premises describe a movement’s metaphysics, its view of human nature, its values and its epistemology.

Modern thinkers stress human autonomy and the human capacity for forming one’s own character in contrast to the premodern emphasis on dependence and original sin. It is important to remember that the roots of Modernism go back 2500 years to such non-western countries as India. However, the analysis in this book will be limited to its Western origins. Modern thinkers emphasize the individual, focusing on the person as the most important reality or unit of analysis in contrast to a premodern

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view that sees feudal subordination of the individual to higher social or religious realities and authorities. The modern philosophers disagreed with each other on many issues. For example, Descartes’ version of reason was rationalistic, whereas Bacon and Locke viewed reason as being empirically based. Their differences in rationality and empirics placed them at the head of competing philosophical schools of modernism. However, these schools agree that reason is objective and competent in contrast to premodern philosophers who emphasized faith, mysticism, and intellectual authoritarianism. In further contrast, today we see postmodernism being enforced through a cancel culture, virtue signaling, charges of white fragility, and critical race Theory, among others. If one emphasizes that reason is an individual faculty, then individualism becomes an important theme in ethics. Locke’s works—A Letter concerning toleration (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1690)—were important documents in the philosophical exposition of individualism. Individualism was the richest wellspring of economic results in free markets using capitalism, both of which are essential to entrepreneurship. Without markets, there would be no value for entrepreneurs to capture. Without capitalism, entrepreneurs could not negotiate exchanges to better their self-interest and appropriate the value from creating new wealth. Capitalist economics is based on the premise that individuals should be free to make their own decisions about production, consumption, and trade. During the eighteenth century, feudal and mercantilist institutions dwindled and were replaced by free markets. This replacement gave entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn about the value of a division of labor and specialization to maximize the return on individual competencies. It also taught them that protectionist practices harmed the creation of new wealth. In 1776, Adam Smith captured and extended these insights with the publication of his Wealth of Nations, which was a landmark text in the history of modern economics. Since its publication, the United States quickly became and has remained the most prosperous economy of any type, producing more than $21 trillion in gross domestic product in 2021, compared with $14.3 trillion for China and $1.48 trillion for Russia. No country in the history of the world has produced so much new wealth, mostly based on the insights explained by Adam Smith in 1776. Of course, there were others

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who helped, like Alexander Hamilton, who developed a national currency and banking system, but presumably these would have come along in due course. Moreover, the US economy is highly diversified compared with Russia’s, which is like a country with one gas station, due to its reliance on a single industry. It is impressive to consider that the United States’s diversification and comparative advantage were generated, not by its national or state governments, but by private firms and entrepreneurs, mostly operating in their own self-interest, despite the economic contraction caused by the pandemic. Moreover, no government could have managed this entrepreneurial diversity because it would have depended on possessing all a country’s specific information about market opportunities in their totality (Hayek, 1945). Specific knowledge of this type consists of the ability to recall information about people, places, special circumstances, timing, and technology (Fiet, 2008). In summary, the modern-era, enlightenment vision of how to achieve happiness and progress, as it relates to individuals, had several sequentially important constructs. First, it began with reason (Bacon, 1620; Descartes, 1641; Locke, 1690). Second, reason’s influence moved to individualism (Locke, 1689, 1690). Third, individualism expressed itself in capitalism (Smith, 1776), which lead to wealth creation. And fourth, wealth leads to more options in life, and, depending on our choices, at least partially to happiness and progress. It is interesting to note that these activity patterns did not take place in isolation. During the same period, the following events were also occurring: • • • • • •

1766, Beccaria wrote On Crimes and Punishment. 1780s, last witches burned legally in Europe. 1784, American Society for Abolition of Slavery. 1787, British Society for the Abolition of Slave Trade. 1788, French Société des Armis des Noir; and, 1792, Wollstonecraft wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women (Hicks, 2018).

The above modern premises, perhaps influenced by contemporaneous events, matured into a dominant set of views, which became naturalism, reason, science, tabula rasa, individualism, and liberalism. As a result, individuals became freer, wealthier, lived longer, and enjoyed more material comfort than at any point in history.

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Postmodernism After the Age of Enlightenment Postmodernism rejected the entire enlightenment project. It maintains that the modernist premises from the enlightenment were always untenable and that now after several centuries, they have reached their nadir. Today, while the surviving remnants of modernism continue to crow about reason, freedom, and progress (Rorty, 1991), its inevitable pathologies tell a different story. The postmodern critique of these pathologies is offered as the death knell of modernism. Consequently, the postmodern task according to Foucault [1926– 1984] (1969, 1973, 1977) and Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991) is to figure out what to do now that both the Age of Faith and the Age of Enlightenment seem beyond recovery. In making such a claim, they pretend that faith and reason are disconnected from everything else, which, of course, is a fantasy, and one with very negative consequences for entrepreneurship. Yet their views must be taken seriously because of their impact on sentiment and the business cycle, within which entrepreneurs must operate and make predictions. I maintain that one of our objectives ought to be to expose the negative framing of life in the twenty-first century, which would unleash more rational optimism and stimulate more entrepreneurship with greater hope for individual happiness and fulfillment. Postmodern critiques of enlightenment attack its philosophical themes in the most fundamental ways. They reject reason and individualism, which are the foundations of modernism. It also attacks the consequences of the enlightenment philosophy from capitalism to science and technology, which have devastating consequences for entrepreneurship. The essentials of postmodernism are the opposite of modernism’s. Regarding metaphysics, instead of realism bordering on naturalism, the former is anti-realism. Regarding epistemology, instead of objectivism that emphasizes experience and reason, the former depends on social subjectivism. Regarding human nature, instead of tabula rasa and autonomy, the former relies on social construction and abject conflict. Regarding ethics, instead of individualism, the former depends on socialism for governance. Regarding politics and economics, instead of liberal capitalism, the former depends on socialism. Regarding when and where, instead of the enlightenment, twentieth-century sciences, business, and technical fields, the former relies on late twentieth-century humanities derived from earlier roots, as well as related professions.

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Postmodernism in the Academy Postmodernism rejects the idea that literary texts have objective and true interpretations, which is not surprising because it also rejects truth itself, or any notions of order and light (Derrida, 1978; Fiet, 2022a; Foucault, 1969; Rorty, 1972). The academy relies on these texts to educate students. However, given postmodernism’s rejection of textual interpretation, especially in the humanities, it is not credible to think that texts could be used for such a purpose. Of course, attacking the academy in this way, because it pretends to traffic in truth, undermines its role as a credible facilitator of entrepreneurship or much else. However, as the academy surrenders to postmodernism, there seem to be fewer pockets of resistance. The primary mechanism that it uses to attack truth is deconstruction. Deconstruction, explained by Jacques Derrida [1930–2004], refers to understanding the relationship between text and meaning (1978). It implies that scholars should reject Plato’s ideas [428 BC–348 BC] about true forms and essences and consider the constantly changing, complex function of language, making such static and idealist ideas inadequate or undecidable. In other words, experiences cannot be evaluated solely using language, given its imprecision and built-in biases. If students are taught to reject language as an adequate gauge of experience, one can see how the academy can be used to undermine traditional, religious, and platonic values, which could destabilize both personal relationships and market action, without which there is no entrepreneurship, There are a few different versions of deconstruction. One version allows the reader to pour subjective associations into the text. Another view claims that differences in a person’s identity regarding an author’s race, sex, or class, shape his or her views and feelings. Hoffman (1990) argues that authors and characters who display incorrect attitudes (although she does not define what they are or should be) are most prone to being deconstructed, which may seem tolerable until someone is the target of the deconstruction. She gives examples in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, claiming that the author is ambivalent about Hester Prynne’s moral status—and this ambivalence indicates that he has sold out to authoritarian and conformist tendencies while knuckling under to the repressive masculine and religious establishment. Similarly, Schultz (1988) critiques Herman Melville’s Moby Dick by asserting that Captain Ahab

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really represents exploitative authoritarianism and imperialistic patriarchalism, as well as an insane drive to use technology to conquer pristine nature.

Reshaping the World When so many aspects of our lives have changed, including the textual basis for noticing and documenting the changes, we can become acclimated to this new normal, which further desensitizes us to the underlying dynamism. A centuries-long process of progressive changes has led many of us to be unwitting participants in this new postmodern age. The entire premise of this book is that these changes have largely militated against entrepreneurship. It is not surprising that this larger philosophical context has gone unnoticed, and to my knowledge there has been no research on the effects of these changes on the incidence of entrepreneurship. In the same way as the enlightenment reshaped the entire world, postmodernism hopes to do the same thing. Forming such an ambition and mobilizing arguments into a movement is the work of many individuals over several generations, despite our tendency to be overly influenced by a recency effect. Contemporary second-tier postmodernists, when looking for philosophical support, cite Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991), Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977), Lyotard [1924–1998] (1997, 1988, 1984), and Derrida [1930–2004] (1994, 1978). Those thus cited when looking for philosophical support, cite Martin Heidegger [1889–1976] (1991, 1993, 1965, 1959), Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889–1951] (1949, 1922), Friedrich Nietzsche [1844– 1900] (1976, 1975, 1968), and Karl Marx [1818–1883] (1867)—the world’s most vigorous critics and vociferous supporters of this new postmodern direction. These voices in turn cite Georg Hegel [1770–1831] (1807, 1830), Arthur Schopenhauer [1788–1860] (1966), Immanuel Kant [1724–1804] (1781), and to a lesser extent, David Hume [1711– 1776] (1779, 1778). The roots and impetus for postmodernism run deep. Understanding these origins is essential to understanding today’s postmodernism. The enlightenment developed the present features of our modern world that nearly everyone took for granted—(1) liberal politics and (2) markets, (3) technological innovation and (4) scientific progress. All four of these institutions depend on confidence in the power of reason.

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Historically, the English were the first to adopt and champion enlightenment principles based on reason, which helped them to surge economically as a nation. France and other nations emulated the English success and accelerated their economic development. Intellectuals in the German states of the era generally opposed enlightenment principles and championed a counterrevolution based on postmodernism. Others at the time wanted to reinvigorate German traditions of faith, duty, and ethnic identity that were undermined by the enlightenment project. Some postmodernists were inspired by Rousseau’s [1712–1778] (1762, 1755, 1749) collectivist social philosophy. Still, others followed Hume’s [1711–1776] (1779, 1778) attack on reason. Much of the rest of this book will be concerned with postmodernism’s attack on reason. It emerged as a social force among intellectuals because in the humanities the counter-enlightenment movement defeated the enlightenment movement due to the weaknesses in the arguments of the latter. In contrast, the full flowering of the counter-enlightenment movement, as manifested today, had two centuries to sharpen its attacks on reason.

Kant as the Forerunner Kant [1724–1804] (1781) was the first and most important thinker of the counter-enlightenment movement, which ushered in postmodernism. He was sometimes considered to be an advocate for reason and science, but in ways that limited their usefulness. He affirmed the value of rational thinking, even as it pertains to matters of religious faith. For example, his categorical imperative was like the Golden Rule in Christianity. However, it was more unbending and a purer example of Christ-like behavior than merely doing unto others as you would have them to do unto you (Fiet, 2022a), which is an example of resisting Herder’s [1744–1803] (1774, 1769) relativism. However, in his resistance, it is a mistake to classify Kant as a supporter of modernism. Kant argued that the fundamental question of reason was its relationship to reality. After all, if it did not lead to a greater understanding of reality, it was a disappointment indeed, which is what he concluded. He questioned whether our cognitive faculties could understand the significance of reality, or of using that understanding to guide our actions. This was the same question that divides rational Gnostics (the rationalists),

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who emphasized personal spiritual knowledge, and skeptics (the empiricists) of religious faith. It was also Kant’s (1781) question in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant was unambiguous about the answer to the question—in his view, reason was forever closed off to reality. Reason could contemplate the subjective nature of the understandings that it could ascertain about reality. It could also prescribe rules for how to deal with what it perceived reality to be. He was convinced that reason could not know anything outside of itself and it could certainly not make inferences about future consequences of an unknown, distant reality, if such existed. In fact, he concluded that it was pure dogmatism to think reality could ever be understood. Thus, Kant the great champion of reason asserted that it was detached from any understanding about reality. Despite the differences between the empiricists and the rationalists, both broadly agreed with the enlightenment understanding of reason— that it is an individual faculty that can know reality (1) objectively, (2) competently, (3) autonomously, and in (4) individual compliance with (5) universal principles. Reason, thus conceived, provided the cognitive foundation to develop confidence in science, human dignity, and the perfectibility of human institutions. Of these five features of reason, Kant challenged the enlightenment vision by concluding that objectivity must be abandoned because reason cannot have contact with reality. Instead of objectivity, Kant would replace it with an internal, sensory representation. Reality then becomes something to be inferred but never to be experienced directly. All that our reason can detect is an internal representation that is the recognizable object of our cognitive processing, but it is not an object that is reality itself. Moreover, as individuals, we possess different cognitive power and means, which overlayed on a sensory representation, are more layers removed from reality, if it exists at all. Using our reasoning, we can never understand reality, only a sensory artifact that we create. The rationalists and the empiricists agreed on one point, which was a touchstone for Kant (1781). If we think of concepts as indicating something universal, then we must think of them as having nothing to do with sense experience; and if we think of concepts as having something to do with experience, then we must abandon the idea of knowing any universal truths. Their agreement struck a devastating blow to enlightenment’s modernism.

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Kant’s skepticism depended on two assumptions. First, that identity is an obstacle to cognition. In other words, the more we view ourselves as representative of a class, the more our perceptions are subject to being influenced by that identity. For awareness of reality to occur, a subject would need to be able to view it without being influenced by an identity. Second, he assumed that abstractness, universality, and necessity have no legitimate basis in our experience. The difficulty as he saw it is that there is no way to account for abstractness empirically. Recent developments in structural equation modeling allow researchers to collect data on indicators of an abstract concept (Bollen, 1989; Loehlin & Beaujean, 2017). When combined structurally, they allow us to derive reliability scores for the indicators, as well as measurement errors. Combined, these reliability scores enable us to find the best statistical fit using a model’s parameters. In this way, “modern” data analysis does allow us to measure abstract concepts, based on indicators that would be identified theoretically. It is interesting to contemplate what Kant (1781) would say now about the separateness of abstract concepts and reality. He would probably argue that a mathematical trick is inappropriate for interpreting reality, to which I would suggest that he discuss such trickiness with a contemporary genius, Newton, who certainly had experience with using calculus to perform mathematical tricks. Of course, asking such a question is unfair presentism. We cannot interpret history backward because time only marches in one direction. Besides, Kant’s contributions require no justification. However, it is doubtful that he would have known that they would be used later as the intellectual foundation for Wokeism, social justice Theory, Intersectionalism, and identity politics, all with their negative consequences for entrepreneurship. Looking back, Kant (1781) represented the decisive break with modernism. Contrary to modern enlightenment thinking, Kant held that the mind is not a response mechanism but a constitutive mechanism. The mind is not reality, but sets the terms for knowledge. He maintained that reality conforms to reason and not the obverse, which is a fundamental shift away from objectivity and toward subjectivity. He did not take all the steps down to postmodernism, but he did take the decisive one. After Kant, philosophers could choose between reality and reason, but not both. Thus, his philosophy took stances that were both anti-realist and anti-reason.

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German Philosophy as a Key Driver of Postmodernism Kant [1724–1804] died early in the nineteen century, just as Germany, his birthplace, was beginning to replace France as the world’s leading source of philosophy. One could argue that he was a key reason for Germany’s increasing influence, which I have already argued became integral to understanding the origins of postmodernism. Understanding other German philosophers is also crucial to understanding the origins of postmodernism. Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977) and Derrida [1930–2004] (1994, 1978) will cite Heidegger [1889–1976] (1991, 1993, 1965, 1959), Nietzsche [1844–1900] (1976, 1975, 1968) and Hegel [1770–1831] (1836, 1807). American postmodernists such as Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991) emerged at the collapse of the logical positivist tradition but will also cite Heidegger [1889–1976] (1991, 1993, 1965, 1959) and pragmatism as formative influences. When we search for the origins of logical positivism, we also go back to German influence in Wittgenstein [1889–1951] (1949, 1922) and the members of the Vienna circle [1924–1936]. And when we search for the roots of pragmatism, we find an Americanized version of Kant (1781) and Hegel (1807, 1830). In summary, postmodernism is the story of supplanting seventeenth-century English enlightenment by the counter-enlightenment with its roots in late eighteenth-century German philosophy. Metaphysical Solutions to Kant’s Separation of Reason from Reality Hegel [1770–1831] (1836, 1807) was another counter-enlightenment philosopher. Whereas Kant’s [1724–1804] (1781) concerns were epistemological, Hegel’s were metaphysical. Ironically, for Kant, preserving faith led him to deny reason, whereas, for Hagel, preserving the spirit of Judeo-Christian metaphysics, led him to be much more anti-realist and anti-individualist than Kant ever was. Hegel avoided trying to solve the epistemological puzzles about perception, concept-formation, and induction that guided Kant’s agenda. Hegel’s solution was to assert that we know the identity of both subject and object, thereby closing the gap metaphysically. In his view, Kant’s foreclosure of reality was intolerable because the whole purpose of philosophy was to know the supersensuous and infinite, in all its shades and degrees.

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In Hagel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), he argued that a complete exposition of the relationship between reason and reality involved not only understanding the substance but also the subject. For him, the creative subject was the universe or the whole, meaning God or Spirit or the Absolute, which he thought humans to only be a portion thereof. He thought that the universe was the subject and within the subject are objects. Saving Religion and Entrepreneurship Judeo-Christian worldviews were traditionally limited by metaphysical assertions that depended on faith and thus were repugnant to reason alone. During the Enlightenment, reliance on reason had led to a decline in religious beliefs among intellectuals. Hume [1711–1776] (1779, 1778) argued that it is impossible to apprehend universal truths from reality. These we must find within ourselves. Hegel [1770–1831] (1830) agreed with both Kant and Hume that our minds supply both necessity and universality, while asserting that all reality is a product of mind. Because reality comes from us, we can know all of reality in all its glorious dimensions. Because reason creates all reality, Hegel could offer us the very optimistic, enlightenment-sounding conclusion that reason can know all of reality. However, Hegel also asserted that Judeo-Christian faith traditions are plagued by contradictions, which forced him to alter reason to accommodate the contradictions. Hegel’s (1830) contribution to the postmodern narrative was to assert four different truth claims. First, he claimed that reality is a subjective creation. Second, he claimed that contradictions are built into reason and reality. Third, he claimed that because reality evolves contradictorily, truth is relative to time and place. And fourth, he asserted that the collective, not the individual, is the operative unit of analysis. In a related fashion, Kant (1781) developed four pairs of parallel but contradictory arguments on four metaphysical issues (Hicks, 2018). First, one can prove that the universe must have had a beginning in time, but one can also prove that the universe must be eternal. Second, one can prove that the world must be made up of simplest parts but also that it cannot be. Third, one can prove that we have free will, but that strict determinism is true. And fourth, one can prove that God exists and that He does not exist. Kant (1781) concluded that reason can never know

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reality. Thus, reason must be limited to structuring and manipulating its subjective creations, which basically left mankind quite powerless and at the mercy of the outside world. Forget grand and heroic narratives about entrepreneurs elevating themselves through their own wit, genius, and hard work because they would be entirely of our own creation. Both Kant’s and Hegel’s arguments seem to diminish entrepreneurship, which depends on an entrepreneur’s belief in a grand narrative that he or she can be successful. However, the argument that any narrative’s source is of one’s own creation means that future dreams are unrealistic. Unfortunately, any creation would only be in our mind, which would be unable to apprehend reality. A current metaphor is that entrepreneurship would be like playing a video game—it would be entertaining, but it would cruelly not make a difference. Solutions to Irrationalism The followers of Kant and Hegel represent the pro-reason contingent among German philosophers. However, there were also those who offered irrational solutions to the unbridgeable gap between reason and reality. The irrationalists included Friedrich Schleiermacher [178–1834] (1963, 1958), Arthur Schopenhauer [1788–1869] (1966), Friedrich Nietzsche [1844–1900] (1976, 1975, 1968), and one Dane, Soren Kierkegaard [1813–1855] (1994). The irrationalists were divided over whether religion is true (real). Schleiermacher (1966) and Kierkegaard (1994) being theists, and Schopenhauer (1996) and Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976) being atheists, all came together on one point—that they were contemptuous of reason. They thought that it was artificial, and that it must be abandoned to find reality. Kant was the first (1781) who prohibited rational access to reality. However, his prohibition did not specifically apply to faith, feeling, and instinct. Schleiermacher (1958, 1963), in his On Religion, Speeches to its Cultural Despisers, was the Kant of modern Protestantism because his influence was so great, and like Kant (1781), he rejected reason’s access to reality. In fact, he was offended by the assault of reason, science, and naturalism on faith. Interestingly, he viewed feelings as a mode of cognition that can allow us to access reality. Schleiermacher used feelings to interpret reality, but those feelings were not directed outward

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but inward, which turned out to be an inspection of one’s deepest feelings, which were related to the way God could interact with his children. Schleiermacher argued that the essence of religion is the absolute feeling of dependence, which suggests that reason should be attacked. He argued that rational thought should be attacked because it gives one a false assurance of feeling independent and confident. Consequently, limiting reason is the gateway to religious piety. In the next generation, Kierkegaard [1813–1855] (1994) turned Kantianism into an activist project. As a supporter of religion, like Kant, he was concerned that religion had become the target of so much undeserved vitriol and criticism. He was cheered as much as he could be to support Kant’s notion that reason cannot reach the noumena, which means according to Kantian philosophy, a thing as it is, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes. The earlier enlightenment thinkers argued that individuals relate to reality as knowers. Then based on their acquired knowledge, they can act to better themselves and their world. According to Bacon, “Knowledge is power.” However, after Kant, the first of the postmodernists, it became common wisdom that knowledge of reality is impossible. So paradoxically the next step was to admit that while we still must act in the real world, we do not have and cannot acquire the necessary knowledge upon which to base our choices, which is a serious conundrum. Because our entire destinies are at stake in the choices we make, we cannot dispassionately choose between our options, all the while knowing that we are choosing in ignorance—the same kind of ignorance that often guides the contentiousness of contemporary debates about oppression, poverty, and racial equity. If you do not accept your obliviousness, then you are not a Kantian postmodernist. The Courage to Grasp Reality Postmodernists argue that most of us are too cowardly to try to grasp reality, which is the reason that we desperately cling to reason—reason allows us to tidy things up, to make ourselves feel safe and secure, to escape from the swirling horror that in our honest moments we admit reality to be. Only in our bravest moments do we have sufficient courage to pierce through the illusions of reason to the irrationality of reality.

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This desperation stands in juxtaposition to entrepreneurial optimism. Entrepreneurs tend not to ask themselves, what is the worst thing that can happen to me if I do this deal? Mostly, they are optimists who expect their ventures to be successful. Typically, they have confidence in their ventures and confidence in their own ability to make them successful. It is true that their optimism could lead them to overlook some risk factors, but it also tends to make them more action-oriented so that they move around in time and space, eventually benefitting from the corridor principle, which enables them to discover more opportunities (Ronstadt, 1988). One of the consequences of postmodern thinking is not only more confusion but also living in fear so that entrepreneurs are afraid to act. Given life’s many unknown risks (Knight, 1921), it would be irrational for them to act, given that they could never comprehend the reality of their circumstances, which of course should mean the end of entrepreneurship. Nietzsche [1844–1900] in his writings about The Antichrist (1976) began by agreeing with Kant’s arguing that reason does not derive its laws from nature but prescribes nature. Moreover, he argued that all the problems of philosophy are caused by their emphasis on reason. A simple extension was for him to claim that the rise of philosophers meant the fall of man, for once reason took over, [men] … no longer possessed their former guides, their regulating, unconscious and infallible drives: they were reduced to thinking, inferring, reckoning, co-ordinating cause and effect, these unfortunate creatures; they were reduced to their consciousness, their weakest and most fallible organ!

Nietzsche further asked: What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself, what is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

Clearly, Nietzsche’s extension of postmodernism was dangerous to civil order because it could be used to justify self-interested, hostile action. His death in 1900 was an appropriate time to consider the contributions of the German philosophers. They had developed two lines of thought— the speculative metaphysical and the irrationalist epistemological (Hicks, 2018). What was needed was a synthesis for the next century, which was accomplished by Martin Heidegger [1889–1976] (1965, 1959).

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Summary of the Philosophical Derivation of Postmodernism 3.1 Modernism signaled the beginning of the partial abandonment of a view that was entirely faith based, which it had inherited from the medieval period in Europe. It represented a turn to scientifically enlightened engagement with the world. One advocate of this approach in the sciences was Francis Bacon [1561–1626]. He took up Aristotelian ideas [384 BC–322 BC], arguing for an empirical, inductive approach, known as the scientific method. Bacon’s approach used experimentation, gathering data, and analysis to observe nature in an organized way. 3.2 Bacon was so enthralled with the scientific method, that he looked at the universe as a problem to be solved, examined, and meditated upon, rather than an eternally fixed stage upon which man walked (Eiseley, 2018). Clearly, Bacon was contemplating how humans could act scientifically rather than being acted upon by the environment. 3.3 Sir Isaac Newton [1642–1727] closely followed Bacon in focusing on realism in the natural world. He was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, which had included Copernicus [1473–1543], Descartes [1596– 1659], Kepler [1571–1630], Galileo [1564–1642], and of course Newton. In optics, he discovered the composition of white light, and how it incorporated colors. In mechanics, his three laws of motion resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the original discoverer of calculus. His Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) is the most important work in the history of modern science. 3.4 These philosophical giants included John Locke with his emphasis on individualism. In fact, Locke was the intellectual source of the ideas used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Although Locke was not one of the founders, his ideas formed the basis for their declaration of principles and separation from England. They argued that reason and perception are the human means of knowing nature—in contrast to a premodern view that relied on tradition, faith, and mysticism. 3.5 Any intellectual movement is defined by its philosophical premises. These premises establish what is required to be real, to be human, to be valuable, and how knowledge is acquired. Together, these

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premises describe a movement’s metaphysics, its view of human nature, its values, and its epistemology. Modern thinkers stress human autonomy and the human capacity for forming one’s own character in contrast to the premodern emphasis on dependence and original sin. Descartes’ version of reason was rationalistic, whereas Bacon and Locke viewed reason as being empirically based. Their differences in rationality and empirics placed them at the head of competing philosophical schools of modernism. However, these schools agree that reason is objective and competent in contrast to premodern philosophers who emphasized faith, mysticism, and intellectual authoritarianism. Individualism was essential for superior economic results using capitalism, both of which are essential to entrepreneurship. Without markets, there would be no value for entrepreneurs to capture. Without capitalism, entrepreneurs could not negotiate exchanges to better their self-interest and appropriate the value from creating new wealth. Capitalist economics is based on individuals being free to make their own decisions about production, consumption, and trade. During the eighteenth century, feudal and mercantilist institutions dwindled and were replaced by free markets. This replacement gave entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn about the value of a division of labor and specialization to maximize the return on individual competencies. It also taught them that protectionist practices harmed the creation of new wealth. In 1776, Adam Smith captured and extended these insights with the publication of his Wealth of Nations, which was a landmark text in the history of modern economics. The United States quickly became and has remained the most prosperous country, producing more than $21 trillion in gross domestic product in 2021, compared with $14.3 trillion for China and $1.48 trillion for Russia. No country in the history of the world has produced so much new wealth. The enlightenment vision of how to achieve happiness and progress had several important components. First, it began with reason (Bacon, 1620; Descartes, 1641; Locke, 1690). Second, reason’s influence moved to individualism (Locke, 1689, 1690). Third, individualism expressed itself in capitalism (Smith, 1776), which lead to wealth creation. And fourth, wealth leads to more

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options in life, and, depending on our choices, at least partially to happiness and progress. The postmodern task according to Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977) and Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991) is to figure out what to do now that both the Age of Faith and the Age of Enlightenment seem beyond recovery. They pretend that faith and reason are disconnected from everything, which is a fantasy, and one with very negative consequences for entrepreneurship. Postmodernism rejected the entire enlightenment project. It maintains that the modernist premises from the enlightenment were always untenable and that now after several centuries, they have reached their nadir. The essentials of postmodernism are the opposite of modernism’s. Instead of realism, the former is anti-realism. Instead of objectivism, the former depends on social subjectivism. Instead of tabula rasa and autonomy, the former relies on social construction and abject conflict. Instead of individualism, the former depends on socialism. Instead of liberal capitalism, the former also depends on socialism. Instead of the enlightenment, twentieth-century sciences, business, and technical fields, the former relies on late twentieth-century humanities. Postmodernism rejects the idea that literary texts have objective and true interpretations, which is not surprising because it also rejects truth itself (Derrida, 1978; Fiet, 2022a; Foucault, 1969; Rorty, 1972). The academy relies on these texts to educate students. However, given postmodernism’s rejection of textual interpretation, especially in the humanities, it is not credible to think that texts could be used for such a purpose. Deconstruction, explained by Derrida [1930–2004], refers to understanding the relationship between text and meaning (1978). It implies that scholars should reject Plato’s ideas [428 BC– 348 BC] about true forms and essences and consider changeable language. In other words, experiences cannot be evaluated solely using language, given its imprecision and built-in biases. Much of the rest of this book will be concerned with postmodernism’s attack on reason. In contrast, the full flowering of the counter-enlightenment movement, as manifested today, had two centuries to sharpen its attacks on reason.

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3.18 Kant [1724–1804] (1781), as the forerunner of the counterenlightenment movement, ushered in postmodernism. He was sometimes considered to be an advocate for reason and science, but in ways that limited their usefulness. He affirmed the value of rational thinking, even as it pertains to matters of religious faith. For example, his categorical imperative was like the Golden Rule in Christianity. 3.19 Kant argued that the fundamental question of reason was its relationship to reality. He questioned whether our cognitive faculties could understand the significance of reality or of using that understanding to guide our actions. 3.20 According to Kant, reason was closed off to reality. It could contemplate subjectivity. It could also prescribe rules for what it perceived reality to be. Reason could not know anything outside of itself. In fact, he concluded that it was pure dogmatism to think reality could be understood. Kant, the great champion of reason, asserted that it was detached from any understanding of reality. 3.21 All that our reason can detect is an internal representation of our cognition, but it is not an object that is reality itself. We possess different cognitive power, which overlayed on a sensory representation, are more layers removed from reality, if it exists at all. Using our reasoning, we can never understand reality, only a sensory artifact that we create. 3.22 The rationalists and the empiricists agreed on one point, which was a touchstone for Kant (1781). If we think of concepts as indicating something universal, then we must think of them as having nothing to do with sense experience; and if we think of concepts as having something to do with experience, then we must abandon the idea of knowing any universal truths. Their agreement struck a devastating blow to enlightenment’s modernism. 3.23 According to Kant, the more we view ourselves as representative of a class, the more our perceptions are subject to being influenced by that identity. 3.24 Contrary to modern enlightenment thinking, Kant held that the mind is not a response mechanism but a constitutive mechanism. The mind is not reality but sets the terms for knowledge. He maintained that reality conforms to reason and not the obverse, which is a fundamental shift away from objectivity and toward subjectivity.

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3.25 Postmodernism is the story of supplanting seventeenth-century English enlightenment by the counter-enlightenment with its roots in late eighteenth-century German philosophy—most notably from the Frankfurt School. 3.26 Hegel [1770–1831] (1836, 1807) was another counterenlightenment philosopher. Whereas Kant’s [1724–1804] (1781) concerns were epistemological, Hegel’s were metaphysical. Ironically, for Kant, preserving faith led him to deny reason, whereas, for Hagel, preserving the spirit of Judeo-Christian metaphysics, led him to be much more anti-realist and anti-individualist. 3.27 When we search for the origins of logical positivism, we also go back to German influence in Wittgenstein [1889–1951] (1949, 1922) and the members of the Vienna circle [1924–1936]. And when we search for the roots of pragmatism, we find an Americanized version of Kant (1781) and Hegel (1807, 1830). 3.28 Whereas Kant’s [1724–1804] (1781) concerns with the separation of reason from reality were epistemological, Hegel’s were metaphysical. 3.29 Judeo-Christian worldviews were traditionally limited by metaphysical assertions that depended on faith. During the Enlightenment, reliance on reason led to a decline in religious beliefs among intellectuals. 3.30 Hume [1711–1776] (1779, 1778) argued that it is impossible to apprehend universal truths from reality. These we must find within ourselves. Hegel [1770–1831] (1830) agreed with both Kant and Hume that our minds supply both necessity and universality, while asserting that all reality is a product of mind. 3.31 Hegel’s (1830) contribution was to assert four different truth claims. First, reality is an entirely subjective creation. Second, contradictions are built into reason and reality. Third, truth is relative to time and place. And fourth, the collective, not the individual, is the unit of analysis. 3.32 Kant (1781) developed four pairs of arguments on four metaphysical issues (Hicks, 2018). First, the universe must have had a beginning in time, but one can also prove that the universe must be eternal. Second, the world must be made up of simplest parts but also that it cannot be. Third, we have free will, but strict determinism is true. And fourth, God exists and that He does not exist. Kant (1781) concluded that reason can never know reality.

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3.33 The enlightenment thinkers argued that individuals relate to reality as knowers, after which they can act to better themselves and their world. According to Bacon, “Knowledge is power.” However, after Kant, knowledge of reality became impossible. While we must act in, we do not have and cannot acquire the knowledge to inform our choices, which is a serious conundrum. Because our destinies are at stake in the choices we make, we cannot effectively choose between our options, knowing that we are choosing in ignorance. 3.34 The argument that any narrative’s source is self-generated means that future dreams are unrealistic. Any creation would only be cognitive, which would be unable to apprehend reality. Entrepreneurship would be like playing a video game—it would be entertaining, but it would not make a difference. 3.35 The irrationalist postmodernists were divided over whether religion is true (real). Schleiermacher (1966) Kierkegaard (1994) being theists, and Schopenhauer (1996) and Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976) being atheists, all came together on one point—that they were contemptuous of reason. 3.36 The irrationalists thought that religion was artificial and must be abandoned to find reality. Kant was the first (1781) who prohibited rational access to reality. However, his prohibition did not specifically apply to faith, feeling, and instinct. 3.37 Postmodernists argue that most of us are too cowardly to try to grasp reality, which is the reason that we desperately cling to reason—reason allows us to tidy things up, to make ourselves feel safe and secure, to escape from the swirling horror that in our honest moments, we admit reality to be. Only in our bravest moments do we have sufficient courage to pierce through the illusions of reason to the irrationality of reality. 3.38 Entrepreneurs tend not to ask themselves, what is the worst thing that can happen to me if I do this deal? Mostly, they are optimists. It is true that their optimism could lead them to overlook risk factors, but it also tends to make them more action-oriented so that they move around in time and space (Ronstadt, 1988). 3.39 One of the consequences of postmodern thinking is not only more confusion but also living in fear so that entrepreneurs are afraid to act. Given life’s many unknown risks (Knight, 1921), it would be irrational for them to act, given that they could never comprehend

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the reality of their circumstances, which of course should mean the end of entrepreneurship.

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Hicks, S. (2018). Explaining Postmodernism. Ockham’s Razor Publishing. Hoffman, L. M. S. W. (1990, March). Constructing Realities: An Art of Lenses. Family Process, 29, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1990.000 01.x Hume, D. (1779/1990). Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Penguin. Hume, D. (1778/1988). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (A. Flew, Ed.). Open Court. Hume, D. (1739/1978). A Treatise on Human Nature. Oxford University Press. Kierkegaard, S. (1994). Fear and Trembling [1843] (W. Lowery, Trans.). A. A. Knopf. Knight, F. (1921). Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (Hart, Schaffner, and Marx prize essays. No. 31). Houghton Mifflin. Lyotard, J. (1997). Postmodern Fables (G. Van Den Abele, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Locke, J. (1689). A Letter Concerning Toleration. https://socialsciences.mcm aster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/locke/toleration.pdf Locke, J. (1690). Two Treatises of Government. https://www.yorku.ca/com ninel/courses/3025pdf/Locke.pdf Loehlin, J. C., & Beaujean, A. (2017). Latent Variable Models: An Introduction to Factor, Path, and Structural Equation Analysis (5th ed.). Routledge. Lyotard, J. (1988). The Different Phrases in Dispute (G. Van Den Abele, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press Lyotard, J. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Nietzsche, F. (1976). The Portable Nietzsche. Penguin. Nietzsche, F. (1975). Schopenhaueras Educator (Second Untimely Meditation) (W. Kaufman, Ed.). Nietzsche, F. (1968a). The Will to Power (W. Kaufmann, Ed. & W. Kaufman & R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). Vintage. Nietzsche. F (1968b). Basic Writings of Nietzsche (W. Kaufman, Ed. & Trans.). Modern Library. Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—And Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Ronstadt, R. (1988). The Corridor Principle. Journal of Business Venturing, 3, 31–40. Rorty, R. (1972). The World Well Lost. The Journal of Philosophy, 69(19), 649– 665. Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton University Press. Rorty, R. (1991). Objectivity, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Cambridge University Press.

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Rousseau, J. (1762). The Social Contract (D. Cress, Trans.). Hackett, 1987. Rousseau, J. (1755). Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (D. Cress, Trans.). Hacket, 1992. Rousseau, J. (1749). Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. In The First and Second Discourses (D. Roger & J. Masters, Trans.). St Martins Press, 1964. Schleiermacher, F. (1958). On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultural Despisers [1799] (J. Oman, Trans.). Harper. Schleiermacher, F. (1963). The Christian Faith [1821–22] (H. Mackintosh & J. Stewart, Eds.). Harper and Row. Schopenhauer, A. (1966). The World as Will and Representation (E. Payne, Trans.). Dover. Schultz, E. (1988, December). Moby Dick: The Little Lower Layers. North American Review, 273, 52–59. Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (p. 423). Available at: https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/smith-an-inq uiry-into-the-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations-cannan-ed-vol-1 Wittgenstein, L. (1949). Philosophical Investigations (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). MacMillan. Wittgenstein L. (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (C. K. Ogden, Trans.). Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wolford, K. (2022). Francis Bacon and the Scientific Revolution. https://www. khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/baroque-art1/beginn ers-guide-baroque1/a/francis-bacon-and-the-scientific-revolution

CHAPTER 4

The Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality

Heidegger’s Postmodernism Martin Heidegger [1889–1976] (1965, 1959) was ready at the beginning of the twentieth century to become the unquestioned leader of postmodernism. Both Derrida [1930–2004] (1994, 1978) and Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977) became his proteges while Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991) noted that he had been a significant influence on his own thinking, despite the vagueness and inscrutable nature of Heidegger’s writings. Coming at an important moment in postmodernism, Heidegger absorbed and extended German philosophy from the Frankfurt school. He agreed with Kant that reason was superficial. He also agreed that words and concepts obstructed being able to understand reality. At the same time, he agreed with Kierkegaard [1813–1855] (1994) and Schopenhauer [1788–1869] (1966) that exploring feelings , especially ones that were anguished, could improve our chance of approaching Being . In postmodern anthropology, humans are viewed as social constructs, or socially determined beings who lack a personal, individual essence. This interpretation was based on the view that we cannot have objective access to reality, because there is no neutral context from which to think. Nor do we possess individual personhood because we are the product of culture.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_4

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Like other German philosophers, Heidegger agreed that when we get to the core of Being , we will find conflict and contradiction (Hicks, 2018). In effect, it is possible that we will find a noumenal self with a specific nature that can be investigated, which from a postmodern perspective was still problematic. Recognizing this, Heidegger (1965, 1993) wanted to follow Nietzsche’s (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976) suggestions, without assuming the existence of either an object or a subject. He wanted to begin phenomenologically by simply describing the phenomena of experience and change. Heidegger’s (1947, 1959, 1965, 1993) distinctiveness was his suggested use of phenomenology to understand our socially constructed being. Phenomenology becomes philosophically important once we accept the Kantian conclusion that we cannot begin by assuming an external, independent reality. Kant (1781) was willing to give up the noumenal object, but he held onto his belief in a noumenal self with a specific nature that was subject to investigation. Heidegger viewed Kant as taking only half a step; he wanted to begin with Nietzsche’s suggestion that we do not assume the existence of either an object or a subject. Rather than adopt prescription, Heidegger (1947) wanted our observations to begin phenomenologically, that is, by simply describing the phenomena of experience and change. Based on the prevalence today of description in entrepreneurship research over prescription (Fiet, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c), it appears that his influence continues, not only in entrepreneurship but also in other areas as well. Mainly, it continues because many scholars do not believe in established order and light , only viewing the world as chaotic. If existence is based on chaos, prescription would be impossible because there would not be any relationships that were structurally reliable (Fiet, 2022a). All that would be left would be phenomenological description. Heidegger (1947, 1959, 1965, 1993) offered some new concepts and nomenclature to aid in investigation. He advised that we should not think of objects but fields. Thus, we mainly project our investigations into a field of experience and change. Likewise, we should not think about subjects— think instead of experience. We should start small and local with our Da-sein being projected into reality. Da-sein is what Heidegger substitutes for self, subject, or human being, all of which could potentially carry undesirable conceptual baggage from earlier philosophy. Da-sein refers to Being projected into Nothing. It is the being projected that is Da-sein.

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The Nature of Being Heidegger’s (1947, 1959, 1965, 1993) phenomenological investigations led him inexorably to one question—What is the being of the various beings? Although beings differ and change, despite their changeability and difference, they still manifest a oneness, which leads to another question, what is that Being behind or common to all beings? What makes the beings be? Further raising the stakes for him, he asked, why is there even Being at all? Why is there not rather Nothing? This is no ordinary question because he claims that reason always reaches contradictions, which logically requires that it should be discarded. Reason must be discarded because it results in logical absurdity. We must set aside reason and logic. If we say that there is no answer to the question of being, then that would make being absurd. On the other hand, if we say that there is a reason for being, then we would want to know the reason for being, which means that we would need to explain what distinguishes being from nothingness. However, outside of being is nothingness, which is also absurd. Either way, according to Heidegger (1947, 1959), we are deeply into absurdity. Again, either way, it is a choice between contradiction and feeling or logic and reason. Discarding Logic and Reason for Emotions Fortunately, there is a way out of this conundrum according to Hagel (1807, 1830), Schopenhauer (1966), Kierkegaard (1994), and Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976). However, the way out requires discarding logic and reason. Rather, we should expect to find conflict and contradiction at the heart of things. From their viewpoint, contradiction is an indication that we are close to discovering something important. Thus, Heidegger (1965, 1993) counseled that contradiction overcomes the argument of both Nothingness and Being while it also destroys the usefulness of logic, all of which fail to prevail against the more original thinking of postmodern analysis. Because logic and reason are not dispositive, we need another route to Being and Nothing. For Heidegger (1959), the effort that is required is emotional, which results in a letting oneself go into the revelatory emotions of boredom, fear, guilt, and dread (Hicks, 2018). In fact, the special effort that is required is emotional, as well as a letting go of our connections to the world so that we can enter a revelatory state. Changes

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to our use of language will not work because language evolves and takes on new meanings. He is especially persuaded by boredom because we become less engaged with day-to-day things, which means that they become matters of indifference. We could add here that drug abuse would also cause less engagement, which leads to what-is in totality (Heidegger, 1965). Less engagement also leads to a dissolution of beings into a state of undifferentiation where we would lose individual identity. Imagine yourself being dissolved into a state of nothing. In other words, your dissolution is a distressing state of nothingness. Who would favor this unless one’s goal was to divorce oneself from all responsibility for consequences. Heidegger understood that it implied a sense of dread, which would be a disingenuous foretaste of one’s own death, meaning that Heidegger himself probably did not believe what he was pedaling. Because to die, one would first need to live.

Heidegger’s Contributions to Postmodernism Although Heidegger (1947, 1959) philosophized nearer to the beginning of postmodernism, many of his conclusions were accepted by its earlier and current adherents, either wittingly or unwittingly. They may seem bizarre compared with traditional Western values. However, Heidegger’s views are illuminating because they provide a lynchpin that ties their origins in the Frankfurt school to their more recent variants. Briefly, here is a summary: First, conflict and contradiction are the most reliable truths of reality. Second, reason is subjective and incapable of reaching truths about reality. Third, reason’s elements—words and concepts—are obstacles that must be un-crusted, subjected to destruction, or otherwise unmasked. Fourth, logical contradiction is neither an indication of failure nor of anything particularly noteworthy. Fifth, feelings, especially morbid feelings of anxiety and dread, are a more instructive guide than reason.

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Sixth, the entire Western tradition of philosophy—whether Platonic, Aristotelian, Lockean, or Cartesian—based as it is on the principle of non-contradiction and the subject/object distinction, is the enemy to be overcome (Heidegger, 1993, 1965, 1959, 1947).

The Next Generation of Postmodernists Moving forward into the next generation, the postmodernists abandoned the remnants of the metaphysics in Heidegger’s (1947) philosophy. Moreover, they were anti-realists, arguing that it was meaningless to speak of truths or of language that could capture them. Instead, they reformulated the world as one consisting of conflict and contradiction that better captured the flow of empirical phenomena. They also abandoned Heidegger’s (1959) assertion that reality could be revealed after unmasking any conceptions of so-called truth. What we see after Heidegger is that postmodernism migrated from Germany to the American academy. Rorty (1972, 1979, 1991) is American of course, and although Foucault (1969, 1973, 1977), Derrida (1978, 1994), and Lyotard (1984, 1988) are French, they had many more adherents in America than in France. The distance to be traveled was greater intellectually than it was geographically. The Americans saw themselves as championing the enlightenment project of the earlier modern era, which was associated with science, with rigor, and with reason. The American variant promoted science as an alternative to its supposedly discredited religious origins with their roots in premodernism. It wanted to make philosophy scientific and to promote a more positivist narrative, which would have been impossible given Heidegger’s (1959, 1965) conflict and contradiction with reality. Positivism is an empirical approach that holds that all knowledge is either true by definition or true by positive, meaning a posteriori fact derived by reason and logic from sensory experience. Gradually, students of Heidegger’s German version returned to America, especially in 1930 with National Socialism. Logical positivism from Germany was often associated with mathematics. Although apprehending reality was difficult or impossible, the new American variant of postmodernism could at least make positivist progress with organizing and explaining the flow of phenomena. Logical positivism developed into an analytic philosophy, mainly through the efforts of scientists with a proclivity for both philosophy and

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science. Hume (1978, 1988, 1990) contributed nominalist and skeptical empiricism while those following a Kantian interpretation emphasized an analytic/synthetic dichotomy (Kant, 1781). Together they added weight to the view that while seeking metaphysical truths about the universe may be unproductive, science could, as mentioned earlier, at least make progress in organizing the flow of phenomena. Although initially intended to uphold logic, reason, and science, positivism’s internal developments led to their core commitments becoming hollowed out, resulting in their consequent collapse. Bertrand Russell (1912) anticipated what was to come when he identified a series of philosophical failures. Can we prove that there is an external world? No. Can we prove that there is cause and effect? No. Can we validate the objectivity of our inductive generalizations? No. Can we find an objective basis for morality? Definitely not.

He concluded that philosophy cannot answer its questions, which meant that any value that philosophy might have cannot lie in being able to offer truth or wisdom? (pp. 153—ff.) Others such as Wittgenstein (1922) griped that philosophy cannot answer its questions because its questions are simply meaningless. The meaninglessness of philosophy’s questions suggests that it needed to be recast with a different function, from being a content discipline to a method discipline, which perhaps by unintentional default is the opposite of the direction that influence took in the field of entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship is conspicuous in its avoidance of the big questions while focusing on misplaced methodological rigor.

Why would entrepreneurship focus on dry and boring methodological issues when it could study those issues that students want to learn, which is how can they personally become fabulously wealthy? The function of philosophy is analysis, elucidation, and clarification (Wittgenstein, 1922, 1949). Philosophy is not a subject. Entrepreneurship is a subject with content that is the most popular of any topics in the curricula across business schools nationwide. Philosophy’s proper role is to be an analytical assistant to science, which is a validation of this

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book’s intended contribution, which is to identify the philosophical bases for a research perspective’s underlying assumptions and boundary condition. Yet, entrepreneurship scholars are so immersed in description that decision support for entrepreneurs rarely occurs to them. Methodologically, a philosophy’s assumptions and boundary conditions could simultaneously serve as decision support tools for aspiring entrepreneurs if they do not violate their theoretical premises. Yet, entrepreneurship scholars who dare to mention theoretical assumptions and boundary conditions are still sometimes mocked at professional meetings, indicating that there is a wide gap between what would be ideal and what occurs in the profession. Ideally, all scholars would understand the philosophical underpinnings of their preferred paradigms. The assertion that philosophy cannot be a content discipline but must restrict itself to be a method discipline teases the same assertion for the field of entrepreneurship research. Clearly, postmodernism has already asserted its influence over entrepreneurship scholars who claim that all that can be learned through study is how things were and how events occurred at a particular point in time, which would be simple description. For some reason, prescription has been excluded by default from possible outcomes. Mainly, entrepreneurship theory has gone untested. Rather it has been found apparently describing events within its domain using regression and correlation studies. Testing would require twosample experiments with controls for alternative explanations. The field could easily borrow techniques from experimental economics, but such techniques have been ruled unnecessary and pointless by postmodern assumptions that deny the existence of truth. This is some of the damage that has already been wreaked on scholarship and that is before we consider its intersectional influence on entrepreneurship and our lives today.

Kuhn and Rorty Target Postmodern’s Logical Positivism By 1962, Kuhn’s seminal publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions served as a milestone in the repudiation of four decades of work on analytic philosophy. It summarized evidence in support of the proposition that—

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If science’s tools are perception, logic, and language, then science is only an evolving, socially constructed enterprise with no more claim to objectivity than the belief system of a religion. To be clear—the idea that science speaks of reality or truth is a delusion. There is no truth; there are only truths, and according to Kuhn (1962), truths change.

If Kuhn (1962) is to be believed, it would necessarily depend on one’s definition of truth. As this author sees it, he is wrong, assuming that truth is knowledge of things as they are, things as they were, and things as they will be. This reality-based approach would not need to change, and whatever changes could occur, would be included. What Kuhn (1962) is arguing is that our postmodern perceptions are imperfect and so is our understanding of truth. Our perceptions could change because we change, but truth could still represent a pillar of reality, and be true, regardless of human perception. Bacon and Newton, the original modernists, would have been very disappointed because this shifting conclusion is not what their life’s work represented. Such was the resulting sorry state of modernism, and its pro-objectivity, pro-science spirit. In fact, such was also the dissolving, evolving state of postmodernism. By the early 1970s, Richard Rorty had become the most widely recognized of the American postmodernists, which he reduced to anti-realism. He agreed with Kant’s initial argument that there is nothing that we can say about noumena or about what is real. Rorty made a very similar argument: To say that we should drop the idea of truth as out there waiting to be discovered is not to say that we have discovered that, out there, there is no truth. It is to say that our purposes would be served best by ceasing to see truth as a deep matter, as a topic of philosophical interest, or ‘truth’ as a term which repays ‘analysis.’ ‘The nature of truth’ is an unprofitable topic, resembling in this respect ‘the nature of man’ and ‘the nature of God’ …

Thus, since Kuhn (1962) and Rorty (1972, 1979, 1991), there has been a Kantian revival that has dominated postmodern philosophy. As

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a review, Kant (1781) opined that metaphysical questions were unanswerable, contradictory, or meaningless nonsense (Hicks, 2018). Thus, beginning with Kant, the revived postmodernists have left philosophical devastation in their wake. The next section will summarize the individual contributions of the postmodernists since Kuhn and how they have eclipsed the contributions of modern science. This Kantian, postmodern revival is so widespread that it barely lends itself to illustration.

Postmodernism’s Evisceration of Modernism What was left after postmodernism’s evisceration of modernism? For one thing, philosophers were urged to retreat to conceiving of their discipline as a purely critical or analytical enterprise, devoid of content, which lead to Kant’s (1781) broadside against philosophy as a discipline. After his critique, philosophers were urged to retreat to conceiving of their discipline as another abstract fiction, lacking any substantive content. In addition, after Kant (1781), philosophers learned that there was no value in using grammar and logic to establish or find truth, mainly because truths change. In other words, language and logic have nothing in common with reality. Together with modernism’s evisceration, analytical philosophers, such as Feyerbend (1975, 1987), decided that they liked science’s concepts and methods, and unwittingly accorded it a higher status than other activities. However, they did not stop to consider why science should be special or treated with more deference. Why not poetry? Why not witchcraft? Why not theology (Feyerbend, 1975)? In fact, the analytical philosophers could not argue that science’s concepts were truer than those of witchcraft nor poetry nor any other discipline. In the end, they conceded that science was only special in their own eyes. The analytical philosophers also conceded that questions of value were neither objective, nor subject to reason, which meant that they are highly subjective and relativistic. After having dismissed the contributions of knowledge, science, and value, the philosophical world was ready to move on to Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976) and Heidegger (1947, 1959, 1965, 1993).

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The Essence of Postmodernism What happens when philosophers reject reason? We find the consistent answer in postmodernism. The result is metaphysical anti-realism, epistemological subjectivity, privileging feelings over logic and reason when it comes to questions of value; and finally, conceding the relativistic nature of both knowledge and values, and the consequent devaluation of the scientific method (Hicks, 2018). Heidegger (1965, 1993) specifically attacked logic and reason to clear the way for emotions. Foucault (1973, 1977) reduced knowledge to an expression of social power. Derrida (1978, 1994) deconstructed language so that it was useless for analysis. Rorty (1979, 1991) tracked the failures of realism and objectivism, which he did in exclusively metaphysical and epistemological terms. These changes were like an earthquake that rattled not only epistemology but also metaphysics. In their aftermath, we were left with postmodernists turning to their feelings for answers or we could turn to groups and follow their traditions. Next logically, came questions about our core feelings, which connected us to questions about human nature. From Kierkegaard (1994) and Heidegger (1965, 1993), we learn that our emotional core consists of a deep sense of dread and guilt. Marx’s (1867) contribution was to emphasize that our feelings should be related to alienation, victimization, and rage. From Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976), we discover that we have a deep need for power. From Freud (1930), we learn that we have urgings originating from a dark and aggressive sexuality. Thus, we may generalize that rage, power, guilt, lust, and dread constitute the center of the postmodern emotional universe. The remaining question for the postmodernists was whether their feelings were determined biologically or socially, with the social version being favored by most analysts. Regardless, however, individuals cannot control their feelings; and, their identities are a product of their group memberships, whether economic, sexual, or racial. Because these feelings may differ from group to group, groups are likely to lack a common experiential framework. Because these groups lack an objective standard, by which to interpret or mediate their feelings, and with appeals to reason being impossible, the only available outcome was balkanization. What followed was nasty political correctness, which seems ironic given how postmodernism had given up on logic and reason, instead preferring feelings, which was the problem. Political correctness was justified

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to protect one’s feelings, which it rated as the most important byproduct of postmodern analysis. Concomitantly, having lost a sense of ourselves, we were entitled to react as crudely as we wished, especially because we had very little in common with those from other groups. Nor were rational and reasonable standards necessary; instead, we were empowered to compete as violently as seemed practical to us. According to its leaders, postmodern reactions to a brutal world were justified to fall into three main categories of protection and retribution, each of which is harmful to entrepreneurship. Foucault, (1973, 1977) following Nietzsche (1975, 1976), reduced knowledge to an expression of social power. Knowledge of market action, for example, was not about the equilibration of supply and demand. Rather, it is a game of domination played by the elites to impose their will on everyone else. According to him, our response should be to play a brutal power politics game. Though contrary to Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b), Foucault urges us to play it on behalf of the traditionally disempowered. Derrida (1994) extends and purifies Heidegger (1947, 1959) by deconstructing language so that he could retreat into a pacified world of aesthetic play, effectively removing us from the fray. After completely giving up on objectivity, Rorty (1972, 1979, 1991) hopes that we will work toward subjective agreement among the members of our own group or tribe. Rorty (1991) also admonishes us to play nicely with each other. Thus, in conclusion, postmodernism advises us that we have two options—either to plunge into the fray or to withdraw from it and go into isolation while we attempt to address its excesses. In other words, we have reached the end state of the counter-enlightenment boondoggle, which was formally initiated by Kant in 1781. These insidious ideas have taken us to the point where we have reached the collapse of reason and the abandonment of reality. We did not arrive at this state quickly or without the contributions of many scholars, all of whom drew inspiration from Kant (1781). The next chapter will review some of the intersectional context, which is supposed to connect the main elements of critical theories that developed from postmodern assumptions. This development took most of 200 years, which I have reviewed in the last couple of chapters.

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Summary of the Collapse of Reason and the Abandonment of Reality 4.1 Martin Heidegger [1889–1976] (1965, 1959) was ready at the beginning of the twentieth century to become the unquestioned leader of postmodernism. Both Derrida [1930–2004] (1994, 1978) and Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977) became his proteges while Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991) noted that he had been a significant influence. 4.2 Heidegger’s philosophy was from the Frankfurt school. Reason was superficial. Words and concepts obstructed reality. Exploring anguished feelings could help approach Being . Humans were social constructs who lacked beings with a personal, individual essence. We are the product of culture. 4.3 Heidegger agreed that when we get to the core of Being , we will find conflict and contradiction (Hicks, 2018). It is possible that we will find a noumenal self with a specific nature, which from a postmodern perspective was still problematic. 4.4 Kant (1781) was willing to give up the noumenal object, but not his belief in a noumenal self with a specific nature. Heidegger viewed Kant as taking only half a step; he wanted to begin with Nietzsche’s suggestion that we do not assume the existence of either an object or a subject. 4.5. Heidegger (1947) wanted observations to begin phenomenologically, by simply describing the phenomena of experience and change. Based on the dominance of description over prescription in current entrepreneurship (Fiet, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c), it appears that his influence continues. Mainly, it continues because many scholars only view the world as chaotic. If existence were based on chaos, prescription would be impossible because there would not be any relationships that were structurally reliable (Fiet, 2022a). All that would be left would be phenomenological description. 4.6 We should start small and local with our Da-sein being projected into reality. Da-sein is what Heidegger substitutes for self, subject, or human being, all of which could potentially carry undesirable conceptual baggage from earlier philosophy. Da-sein refers to Being projected into Nothing.

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4.7 Heidegger’s (1947, 1959, 1965, 1993) asked: What is the being of the various beings? Although beings differ and change, they still manifest a oneness, which leads to another question, what is that Being behind or common to all beings? What makes the beings be? Further raising the stakes for him, he asked, why is there even Being at all? Why is there not rather Nothing? 4.8 The question of being is a choice between contradiction and feeling or logic and reason. 4.9 Fortunately, there is a way out of this conundrum, but it requires discarding logic and reason. Instead, we should expect conflict and contradiction. Contradiction is an indication that we are close to discovering something important. Thus, Heidegger (1965, 1993) counseled that contradiction overcomes the argument of both Nothingness and Being while it also destroys the usefulness of logic. 4.10 The effort that is required to overcome Being is emotional, which results in a letting oneself go into the revelatory emotions of boredom, fear, guilt, and dread (Hicks, 2018). 4.11 Heidegger’s worldview captured the following: First, conflict and contradiction are the most reliable truths of reality. Second, reason is subjective and incapable of reaching truths about reality. Third, reason’s elements—words and concepts—are obstacles that must be un-crusted, subjected to destruction, or otherwise unmasked. Fourth, logical contradiction is neither an indication of failure nor of anything particularly noteworthy. Fifth, morbid feelings of anxiety and dread are more instructive than reason. Sixth, Western philosophy—whether Platonic, Aristotelian, Lockean, or Cartesian—based on non-contradiction and the subject/object distinction is the enemy to be overcome (Heidegger, 1993, 1965, 1959, 1947). 4.12 The American variant promoted science as an alternative to its supposedly discredited religious origins with their roots in premodernism. It wanted to make philosophy scientific and to promote a more positivist narrative, which would have been impossible given Heidegger’s (1959, 1965) conflict and contradiction with reality. 4.13 Bertrand Russell asked: “Can we prove that there is an external world? No. Can we prove that there is cause and effect? No. Can we validate the objectivity of our inductive generalizations? No. Can we find an objective basis for morality? Definitely not.”

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4.14

4.15

4.16

4.17

4.18

4.19

He concluded that philosophy cannot answer its questions, which meant that any value that philosophy might have cannot lie in being able to offer truth or wisdom? The function of philosophy is analysis, elucidation, and clarification (Wittgenstein, 1922). Philosophy is not a subject. Entrepreneurship is a subject with content that is the most popular of any topics in the curricula across business schools nationwide. Yet, entrepreneurship scholars are so immersed in description that decision support for entrepreneurs rarely occurs to them. Postmodernism has influenced entrepreneurship scholars who claim that research can only describe how events occurred at a particular point in time. Mainly, entrepreneurship theory has gone untested. Testing would require two-sample experiments with controls for alternative explanations. Kuhn (1962): If science’s tools are perception, logic, and language, then science is only an evolving, socially constructed enterprise with no more claim to objectivity than the belief system of a religion. To be clear—the idea that science speaks of reality or truth is a delusion. There is no truth; there are only truths, and truths change. If Kuhn (1962) is to be believed, the veracity of truth would depend on its definition. However, assuming that truth is knowledge of things as they are, things as they were, and things as they will be, he is wrong. He argues that our perceptions are imperfect and so is our understanding of truth. They could change because we change, but truth could still represent a pillar of reality, and be true. Rorty (1991): To say that we should drop the idea of truth as out there waiting to be discovered is not to say that we have discovered that, out there, there is no truth. It is to say that our purposes would be served best by ceasing to see truth as a deep matter, as a topic of philosophical interest, or ‘truth’ as a term which repays ‘analysis.’ ‘The nature of truth’ is an unprofitable topic, resembling in this respect ‘the nature of man’ and ‘the nature of God’ … If Rorty (1991) is correct that truth cannot be discovered, he has undermined the whole purpose of empirical science. His view is not science. It is postmodern philosophy.

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4.20 What happens when philosophers reject reason? We find the consistent answer in postmodernism. The result is metaphysical anti-realism, epistemological subjectivity, privileging feelings over logic and reason when it comes to questions of value; and finally, conceding the relativistic nature of both knowledge and values, and the consequent devaluation of the scientific method (Hicks, 2018). 4.21 Heidegger (1965, 1993) attacked logic and reason to clear the way for emotions. Foucault (1973, 1977) reduced knowledge to social power. Derrida (1978, 1994) deconstructed language so that it was useless for analysis. Rorty (1979, 1991) tracked the failures of realism and objectivism, which he did in exclusively metaphysical and epistemological terms. 4.22 These changes were like an earthquake that rattled not only epistemology but also metaphysics. From Kierkegaard (1994) and Heidegger (1965, 1993), we learn that our emotional core consists of a deep sense of dread and guilt. Marx’s (1867) contribution was to emphasize that our feelings should be related to alienation, victimization, and rage. From Nietzsche (1968a, 1968b, 1975, 1976), we discover that we have a deep need for power. From Freud (1930), we learn that we have urgings originating from a dark and aggressive sexuality. Thus, we may generalize that rage, power, guilt, lust, and dread constitute the center of the postmodern emotional universe. 4.23 Postmodernism posits that individuals cannot control their feelings; and, their identities are a product of their group memberships, whether economic, sexual, or racial. Because these feelings may differ from group to group, groups are likely to lack a common experiential framework. What followed was nasty political correctness, which seems ironic given how postmodernism had given up on logic and reason. 4.24 Postmodernism advises us that we have two options—either to plunge into the fray or to withdraw from it and go into isolation while we attempt to address its excesses. In other words, we have reached the end state of the counter-enlightenment boondoggle, which was formally initiated by Kant in 1781.

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CHAPTER 5

Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Values

The Late 1960s and Before Postmodernism suddenly became well known in the late 1960s even though its strands had been developing for more than 200 years. As it became more fashionable, its proselytes, including Derrida [1930–2004] (1978, 1994), Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977), Lyotard (1997), and Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991), among others, set their sights on producing reams of critical Theory in which existing Western modernity was indiscriminately attacked and dismantled (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Mixed into their writings were the most radical views of fascism (Mussolini, 1932) and dialectical materialism (Marx & Engles, 1848/2020). Theory included these views and others, all intended to deconstruct oppressive social systems, plus an implied advocacy for being woke to society’s alleged abuses. Its mode of operation was to destroy so that it could build back on a new foundation of postmodernism. The old religions in the broadest sense needed to be torn down because they represented competing articles of faith, both secular and religious.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_5

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The Late 1980s By the 1980s, Theory had morphed into a mode of discourse with its own linguistic meanings, which were defined by a skepticism toward what it characterized as the grand narratives of modernity. Grand Narratives and the Loss of Rationality These narratives had previously been used to provide historical context, which was how society legitimated the anticipated completion of a master idea. Such an idea could be the founding of the United States or perhaps the launching of a new venture to capture a growing market, leading to the creation of new wealth. Lost as Theory morphed were notions of epistemic certainty and the stability of meaning. However, added to Theory was a renewed emphasis on the role of ideology in maintaining systems of social-political power. Again, lost in these mutated, postmodern attacks were notions of using rationality to discern reality, as well as any benefits from using the scientific method or traditional linguistics. Ironically, the new postmodern narratives questioned the existence of objective reality and truth itself, nearly all of which were consistent with its own founding narrative promulgated by Kant (1781) and his latter, philosophical disciples. So, postmodernism was not completely opposed to grand narratives, only those that it did not originate and control. Exposing Subordination by Oppressors The goal was to expose subordination by oppressors intended to control the oppressed. In fact, Theory tended to lump individual identities into groups, characterized simplistically by their common traits, such as skin color, rather than the content of their character (King, 1963). In some cases, these attacks became political, but in others the proletariat advocates, with varying levels of grievance, inserted these views into academia to train a new generation of anarchists in social dogma, among other antimodern objectives. Not every anarchist became a Fascist or Marxist, but a large majority defended identity politics. Such an approach could advocate for only providing start-up financing for certain, racialized identity groups as would be advocated for by the new racists, which is really the

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same old racism, supposedly to compensate for past grievances (Kendi, 2019). Nor did the radicals always self-identify but their goals were implicit in their organizing efforts. The immediate goal, dating back to Kant (1781) and Heidegger (1947, 1959), was to render absurd accepted ways of approaching, understanding, and living in society. The destruction of older ways of interpreting meaning, which had created interest in learning, was bound to make living boring and dull, which is one way of tapping into radical, revelatory experiences as one became stupefied and utterly distracted by living. Theory could not content itself with nihilistic despair. It needed something to do, which it saw as applying itself to problems at the core of society, which centered around unjust access to power and its application against those with fewer resources and influence.

By the 1990s To prove that things are not always as they seem, by the 1990s, many observers thought that postmodernism had died. It was as strong as ever, although having mutated from its deconstructive phase to new forms, in what some would characterize as an applied phase. It is true that by splintering into different but related crusades, nearly all of which were based on differences in identity, that it could target multiple, intersecting grievances with the same organizing effort. A Secular Religion Theory has become so influential so rapidly that Postmodernism has become a secular religion in some countries, such as Finland, as attested to by Bishop Juhana Pohjola who is on trial due to intolerance for his Christian faith (Nerozzi, 2022). The specific charge against him as the head of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Church of Finland was speaking about his Church’s religious views regarding sex and marriage on a radio talk show. According to him, he resisted the: … cultural and sexual revolution, secularism, [the] rise of individualism and postmodern critique[s] on all structures and [the] concept of truth. If previously the majority in the established Lutheran Church were believing

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and belonging, it shifted to belonging without believing and is now rapidly moving to not belonging and not believing.

According to Bishop Pohjola, his Church is weaker because of society being overwhelmed by postmodern opposition. However, his church is clearly not the only one that senses pressures to let go of the traditional Western values of faith and reason. Splintering and Subdividing One of the advantages to splintering and subdividing like a fast-moving virus into identity-based group variants was that they were collectively easier for activists to comprehend and promote due to their narrower focus. On the other side of the ledger from those who were persecuted for their Western values, were those who were allegedly being harmed—its new beneficiaries. They had not done anything differently to deserve their new victim status, other than being a member of a newly favored group. Of course, another advantage of the splintering was that if someone could claim simultaneously, more than one victimized group membership, it became increasingly difficult to control for individual effects thereby obscuring whether someone had been victimized. Claims of Abuse and Discrimination As the frequency and temperature of the claims of abuse and discrimination were elevated it also became easier to excuse one’s individual failures as commonplace and beyond personal control. Nor will it go unnoticed that making excuses for individual failure runs counter to individuals taking responsibility for their personal success, such as would be required by aspiring entrepreneurs. Whether discriminatory policies were in place to dissuade an aspiring entrepreneur would be an empirical question and has little to do with the alleged charges of abuse. Where such discriminatory roadblocks exist, they should be dismantled. However, it is ironic that as charges of discrimination increase, they could overshadow investigating and developing policies to eradicate racism, for example. In other words, an argument without making an argument could weaken the case for noticing or taking corrective action.

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Between 1980 and 2010 Between 1980 and approximately 2010, Theory developed underlying concepts that became the basis for entirely new fields of scholarship (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). These new fields have since become exceedingly influential. Loosely associated, they have come to be known as social justice scholarship. Some of these fields were anti-racist, feminist, and LGBT-oriented, postcolonial, fat studies, and even climate activism. It is not a coincidence that as many groups were achieving legal equality and/or political victories that these groups were simultaneously associated with liberal and progressive political organizing efforts. In making this association, this does not indicate that the relationship is causal, but it can serve as a flag to help identify its variants. The Arrival of New Theoretical Variants In quick succession, new forms of Theory arose in the guise of postcolonialism, black feminism, intersectional feminism, critical race Theory and queer Theory, among others. The goal of each of these variants was to describe the world critically to change it. These forms argued that their groups faced structural disadvantages and injustices, which could not be changed. They became so radicalized that they began to criticize their predecessors for their own supposed privileges, indicating that anyone could be the target of discrimination and reverse criticism. Resistant Identity-Based Oppression This reluctance to dispense with prescribed change was an indication that identity-based oppression was going to be resistant to solutions. That said, the new scholars retained notions that knowledge was a construct of power, that language is inherently dangerous and unreliable, and that the knowledge claims of all cultures are equally valid, which they are not (Sowell, 2019). Depending on the criteria, Western cultures have clearly been more successful in providing for the needs of their citizens. Finally, collective experience was considered superior to individual experience and universality. Their focus was on cultural power, claiming that it was all-pervasive and insidious. These flaws were deserving of being uprooted, and in fact, that was their moral vision, all while citing the original postmodern theorists.

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Not only were these flaws problematic but they were embedded in structuralism, which argues that culture must be understood from the perspective of how it relates to a broader system of factors, which were mostly seen as oppressing certain groups, as in structural systems of oppression. Structuralism became an important mechanism for postmodernism as it reconceptualized the world. With the arrival of poststructuralism in North America, “Theory” was born, in the free-standing sense of the term that became so familiar in subsequent decades; not Theory of this or that—not for instance, Theory of narrative, as structuralist narratology aspired to be—but Theory in general, what in other eras might have been called speculation, or even indeed philosophy. (McHale, 2015)

McHale also noted: [Theory] itself, in the special sense that the term began to acquire from the mid-sixties on, is a postmodern phenomenon, and the success and proliferation of “Theory” is itself a symptom of postmodernism. (McHale, 2015)

What these observations about Theory reveal is that postmodernism had become the default view to replace other influential antecedents. This is quite remarkable when one considers the centuries-long influence of modern scientific modes of inquiry, which suddenly seemed replaceable, more in the humanities and social sciences than in the physical sciences, but in those cross-over areas such as entrepreneurship, suddenly selfreports and abused feelings became self-evident, prima facia evidence of oppression with automatic, socially approved reprisals which were justified to offset past, often unspecified, offenses.

Confronting Radical Doubt With the beginning of the Enlightenment in the early seventeenth century, several thinkers began to confront and grapple with existing radical doubt—a view that there is no rational basis for believing anything. The most famous enlightenment skeptic was Rene Descartes (1641), who countered that “I think, therefore I am,” which effectively rejected the previous deconstructive influence prior to the Enlightenment.

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Three and a half centuries later in the 1980s, faced with the even more intense deconstructive power of postmodernism, the radical activism of previous decades had similarly fallen out of favor, meaning that the antirealism and nihilistic despair of postmodernism was not working and failed to produce change. Its correction required finding a solution that was both radically actionable and real, which led them back to Descartes’ suggestion that the ability to think implied existence. In the 1980s, the suffering associated with oppression suggested a related mechanism, such that “I experience oppression, therefore I am.” Thus, suffering became an indicator of life during times of trial, which were theorized to be typical of the oppressed during the 1980s, but really for any generation. This new postmodern progression, or as some would characterize as its “applied turn” (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020), built upon oppression, which exposed enclaves of suffering as evidenced in oppressive and prejudicial language and its power to influence society’s class struggles. Language was hypothesized to be particularly influential in the following related fields—postcolonial, queer, and critical race Theory. Although it is difficult to separate what was the cause and what was the effect, applied postmodernism has come to dominate each of these variants. Going further, theorists took elements of postmodernism and sought to apply them in the new field of social justice scholarship. Postcolonial Studies Postcolonial studies were the first social justice variant to emerge from postmodernism. Edward Said was the earliest proponent of the view that it was important to study the aftermath of colonialism (2003). He drew upon Foucault (1969, 1973, 1977), which meant that his work, therefore, focused on how discourses construct reality. Said (2003) argued that Western narratives had been used to construct images of the East, which were prejudicial and inaccurate. He argued that history should be revised and rewritten, noting that … history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and rewritten… so that ‘our’ East, ‘our’’ Orient becomes ‘ours’ to possess and direct. (Said, 2003)

Said (2003) never stops to mention, nor possibly consider, the validity of the narrative. For him it is apparently not about finding the truth;

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rather it is about gaining control over the narrative itself, which is typical of postmodernism’s methodological approach. Yet, it is quite conceivable that truth is much more important than who wins the argument about the effects of colonialism. A related argument is that all cultures are equally valuable, whereas some are provably superior to others, based on the measurable benefits that they provide to their citizens (Sowell, 2007, 2011, 2019). After Said (2003), postcolonialism became more sinister in the writings of Homi K. Bhabba (1994) and Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak who relied more on Derrida (1978, 1994) than Foucault (1969, 1973, 1977). Not only did they distrust the capacity of language to convey meaning, but they also alleged that it was used to conceal unjust power dynamics. In their focus on language’s power, they used postcolonial Theory to assert political power to deconstruct Western narratives about the East to uncover and magnify the voices of colonized people. As one postcolonial scholar, Linda Hutcheon, expressed it, The post-colonial, like the feminist, is a dismantling, but also a constructive political enterprise insofar as it implies a theory of agency and social change that the postmodern deconstructive impulse lacks. While both “post-“s use irony, the post-colonial cannot stop at irony. (1991)

To the extent that postcolonial Theory changes the direction of the power dynamic between the colonized and the colonizers, it could also change the balance of power in trade negotiations and perhaps which party gains an advantage in launching entrepreneurial ventures. However, the semi-strong informational and allocational efficiency of public equity markets should mitigate temporary power advantages (Copeland & Weston, 1988), assuming free trade. It is probably the case that postcolonialism is more focused on nations and societies than it is on individuals. Thus, it is possible that it will have little direct impact on the decisions of individual entrepreneurs. It is also quite silly to consider that the tactics of nations to offer such incentives as tax credits for entrepreneurial risk taking are very far removed from whether an actual entrepreneurial opportunity exists, which would be known only by acting on the specific knowledge available only to decision makers located at appropriate places who also were perfectly timed to act on a competitive advantage. Of course, no bureaucrat could possibly be knowledgeable of all the specific facts needed to act correctly (Hayek,

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1945). Such bureaucratic actions could be an exercise of power but it would be nearly impossible for such actions to represent an efficient, low-cost solution. Women’s Studies Another theory developed at the intersection between women’s or gender studies and literary theory. It grew out of the overlap between feminist thought and literary theory. Literary theory implied that discourses were themselves used to oppress women. A more politicized argument was made by radical feminism, which argued that discrimination against women accounted for the lower prevalence of female entrepreneurs. In this view, feminism was really a Marxist class struggle in a different arena, which was a captivating assertion. The classes were male and female, which are in fact the oppressors and the oppressed. Thus, although women’s studies did not begin as postmodern, it emulated it with different forms of feminist Theory through a Marxist lens. It also views Western patriarchy as an extension of capitalism, through which women are uniquely exploited and marginalized. Foucault (1977) rejected a top-down understanding in favor of a power grid produced by discourses. His followers who studied queer Theory agreed with him about the all-pervasive nature of this feminist, Marxist struggle. For postmodern feminists, Marxism was an apparently easy conversion because science was diminished, reality depended on feelings and was assumed without proof, and the manipulation of language was an effective tool for oppressing women. Their prescription was to deconstruct and dismantle capitalism as a tool of the mostly white, patriarchy. Along the way, it was easy to oppose the grand narratives about America, its capitalist system, and while they were so consumed, the roles of family and religion (Poovey, 1988). Poovey opposed capitalism as a tool of the white, male oppressors. Although she began with Marxist concerns, she adopted postmodern tactics for her advocated activism to dismantle gender roles. She maintained that we must not question the oppression of women to confront it. In fact, a favorite tactic of the feminist activists was to make an argument without making an argument, relying on the oppression of women as an unquestionable article of faith. In her view, reality entailed viewing women and men as parts of a stable and objective reality as well as the power dynamic between them that favored men. One problem

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with this setup is that even if it were true at a particular point in time, which has not been reliably established, there is no accommodation for how these relationships could change over time, especially because of the unquestioned and self-righteous virtues of the activists. Judith Butler (2006) saw gender roles as not being stable, which was the opposite of Poovey’s (1988) argument. Butler emphasized the socially constructed nature of both gender and sex. For Butler, “woman” is not a class of people but a performance that constructs “gendered” reality. Gendered performativity became her catch-all, which are behaviors and speech that make gender real. She used this perspective to be completely postmodern, to deconstruct everything, and to reject the notion of stable essences and objective truths about sex, gender, and sexuality, all while becoming more politically active. Without understanding Butler’s postmodern legacy, imagine running into her at a social event. In all her conversation, she would assume gendered performativity, which could be the opposite of what you see with your own lying eyes. She could not accept the permanence of sexual roles and biology, which would mean nothing to her, arguing that someone could perform any desired role. That is, if society did not forbid it. She was an activist with a vision of her own, which became Queer Theory. She argues that we must see the reality of the social constructions underlying gender, sex, and sexuality. In her view, something is queer if it falls outside of categories, especially those used to define male and female, masculine and feminine, heterosexual, and homosexual. She explains that the role of queer Theory is to disrupt these roles through activism. Thus, queering can be used as a verb. Despite drawing on Foucault and Derrida, Butler did not see herself as being completely supportive of postmodernism, which is based on stable structures that are used to oppress, which she rejects, although, not entirely for the purpose of criticizing postmodernism. She made indefinability and ambiguity integral to her view, which could have come directly from Kant (1781). Recall that Kant was the one who claimed that it was impossible to use reason to detect reality. It is true, however, that she saw deconstruction as a means of destroying categories, so in this sense, she was a postmodernist. bell hooks, the lower-case pen name of Gloria Watkins, was a feminist who argued that black people, women, and the working class had been overlooked by postmodernism, which she felt limited its capacity

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to achieve social and political change (hooks, 1996). In her view, postmodernism was guilty of its association with white male intellectuals and academic elites. She was especially critical of dismissing the notion of stable identity, arguing that identity should be applied more by postmodernism. The postmodern critique of “identity,” though relevant for renewed black liberation struggle, is often posed in ways that are problematic. Given a pervasive politic of white supremacy which seeks to prevent the formation of radical black subjectivity, we cannot cavalierly dismiss a concern with identity politics. (hooks, 1996)

hooks (1996, p. 117) asks, Should we not be suspicious of postmodern critiques of the “subject” when they surface at a historical moment when many subjugated people feel themselves coming to voice for the first time?

hook’s ideas arose at the same time as critical race Theory, which was promulgated initially by Derrick Bell and one of his students, a legal scholar, Kimberle Crenshaw (Bell, 1984, 2008; Crenshaw, 1991, 2018). Crenshaw (1991) described a new construct, intersectionality, which was hugely influential, as the full flowering of radical feminism and postmodernism. She was determined to expose the discrimination that could occur at the intersection of oppressed identities, such as black and female, which had not been addressed by discrimination law. Conceivably, identities at the intersection could face discrimination. Crenshaw wrote that she “consider[ed] intersectionality to be a provisional concept linking contemporary politics with postmodern Theory” (1991). Because applied postmodernism was used by identity politics, many causes, including the following, began to use it: race, sex, gender, sexuality, class, religion, immigration status, physical or mental ability, and body size. Each of these causes relied heavily on social construction to explain why some identities were marginalized, while arguing that those constructions were objectively real. It was an interesting, flexible methodology that insinuated that many victimizers at the margin were guilty as charged. Of course, when someone is guilty as charged, rather than innocent until proven guilty, trust collapses, suspicion grows, communication

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networks collapse, and informational entrepreneurship, which relies on specific information, becomes effectively emasculated. Can anyone argue that intersectionality promotes capitalism or entrepreneurship, especially entrepreneurship by females? On the contrary, it leads to the balkanization of identity groups so that there is limited, distrusting communication across groups. However, the roadblocks to commerce are more than perceptual, there are real and growing costs to be accused of discrimination, especially when a charge is all the proof necessary to establish someone’s guilt. Many economists have argued that international trade that is free from tariffs or other barriers to commerce is the most efficient form of exchange because it allows goods and services to be conveyed across supply chains from their lowest cost producers to those who are willing to purchase them. However, when some countries have a history of cheating on treaties to establish free trade, by lying, stealing, and cheating, continuing to allow access to the cheating countries is to subject another country to more abuse and destruction. The same can be said of conducting commerce with identity groups that stand at the ready to make accusations of discrimination and worse. A rational response would be to cease interacting with potential, intersectional accusers, which harms the accusers more than they expect. Thus, the crusading social justice warriors who are intent on being compensated for alleged mistreatment are harming those who they claim to want to help.

How Liberalism and Modernity Were Attacked This chapter has explored how a large portion of the liberalism and modernity at the heart of Western civilization has been put at great risk by postmodernism. It has demonstrated how these bedrock principles underlie entrepreneurship. The precise nature of the threat is complicated because postmodernism attacks all that is Western and entrepreneurial. To summarize, postmodernism relies on radical skepticism about objective knowledge or truth. It doubts that it is obtainable while being committed to cultural constructionism. It assumes that society is formed by systems of power and hierarchies, which determine what can be known and how. It eventually leads to an imperative to dismantle the system in the cause of social justice. The dismantling mainly occurs through the politicization of identity groups.

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Postmodernism endured a deconstructive phase aimed at a replacing science and the rationality of reality as part of modernism, with social construction. Nonetheless, postmodernism survived its deconstructive phase and morphed into attacking oppression mainly through political action, which it managed to do in four ways. First, it attacked oppression by emphasizing, fluidity, ambiguity, indefinability, and hybridity. During this phase, its primary purpose was to disrupt binaries, which followed from Derrida (1978, 1994). Second, it scrutinized language using discourse analysis, paying special attention to words that can be portrayed as powerful and dangerous if they can threaten social justice. Third, it used cultural relativism to argue that cultures were mostly equal in their value, which was most obvious in postcolonial Theory. And fourth, overarching all the rest is that individual identity was subjected to the group while it concomitantly attacked the universality of grand narratives.

Summary of Postmodernism’s Attack on Liberal Western Value 5.1 By the late 1960s, postmodernism suddenly became common even though it had been developing for more than 200 years. Its proselytes included Derrida [1930–2004] (1978, 1994), Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, 1973, 1977), Lyotard (1997), and Rorty [1931–2007] (1972, 1979, 1991), among others. They produced reams of critical Theory in which existing Western modernity was indiscriminately attacked and dismantled (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). 5.2 Mixed into their writings were the most radical views of fascism (Mussolini, 1932) and dialectical materialism (Marx & Engles, 1848/2020). Theory included these views and others, all intended to deconstruct oppressive social systems, plus an implied advocacy for being woke to society’s alleged abuses. 5.3 Theory lumped similar identities into groups, based on traits, such as skin color, rather than the content of one’s character (King, 1963). Often, these attacks became political. Not every anarchist became a Fascist or Marxist, but a large majority defended identity politics.

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5.4 The immediate goal was to criticize as absurd accepted ways of understanding and living in society. Theory did not content itself with causing nihilistic despair. It needed something to do, which it saw as applying itself to problems at the core of society, which centered around unjust access to power and its application against those with fewer resources and influence. 5.5 By the 1990s, many observers thought that postmodernism had died. It was as strong as ever, although it had mutated from its deconstructive phase to new forms of applied social justice Theory, which included splintering into related identities. This splintering allowed it to target multiple, intersecting grievances with the same organizing effort. 5.6 One of the advantages to splintering and subdividing into identitybased groups was that they were easier for activists to promote. They had not done anything new, other than being a member of a newly favored group. Also, if someone could claim more than one group membership, it became more difficult to control for individual effects thereby obscuring if someone had been victimized. 5.7 Whether discriminatory policies dissuaded aspiring entrepreneurs would be an empirical question and has little to do with charges of abuse. However, it is ironic that as charges of discrimination increased, they overshadowed investigating and developing policies to eradicate racism, for example. In other words, an argument without making an argument could weaken the case for noticing or taking corrective action. 5.8 Between 1980 and 2010, Theory developed concepts that became the basis for new fields (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020), which have become exceedingly influential. They became known as social justice scholarship. Some of these fields were anti-racist, feminist, and LGBT-oriented, postcolonial, fat studies, and even climate activism under the guise of protecting the earth, among others. Underlying all of them was the original postmodern skepticism. 5.9 The goal of these variants was to describe the world critically to change it. They argued that the victimized groups faced structural disadvantages and injustices, which could not be changed. They became so radicalized that they began to criticize their predecessors for their own supposed privileges, indicating that anyone could be the target of discrimination and reverse criticism.

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5.10 The new scholarship maintained that knowledge is power, that language is dangerous and unreliable, and that all cultures are equally valid, which they are not (Sowell, 2019). Western cultures have been more successful in providing for the needs of people. Finally, collective experience is superior to individual experience and universality. Its focus was cultural power, which was also its moral vision, all while citing the original postmodern theorists. 5.11 Postmodern social justice Theory became the default view. This is quite remarkable when one considers the enduring influence of scientific inquiry, which suddenly seemed replaceable. Self-reports and abused feelings became evidence of oppression with automatic, socially approved reprisals which were justified to offset past, often unspecified, offenses. Questioners were canceled. It remains to be seen if cancellations will persist—it is possible that they have reached a tipping point when they will no longer be tolerated. 5.12 With the beginning of the Enlightenment in the early seventeenth century, thinkers began to confront existing radical doubt—a view that there is no rational basis for believing anything. The most famous enlightenment skeptic was Rene Descartes (1641), who countered that “I think, therefore I am,” which rejected the previous deconstructive influence prior to the Enlightenment. 5.13 Three and a half centuries later in the 1980s, faced with the even more intense deconstructive power of postmodernism, the radical activism of previous decades had similarly fallen out of favor. The anti-realism and nihilistic despair of postmodernism was not working and failed to produce change. Its correction required finding a solution that was both radically actionable and real, which led them back to Descartes’ suggestion that the ability to think implied existence. 5.14 This new postmodern progression was built upon oppression that exposed enclaves of suffering as evidenced in oppressive and prejudicial language and its power to radicalize society’s class struggles. Language influenced the following related fields—postcolonial, queer, and critical race Theory. Going further, theorists took elements of postmodernism and sought to apply them in the new field of social justice scholarship. 5.15 Postcolonial studies were the first social justice sub-variant to emerge from postmodernism. Edward Said was the earliest proponent of the view that it was important to study the aftermath

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5.16

5.17

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of colonialism (2003). He drew upon Foucault (1969, 1973, 1977), which meant that his work focused on how discourses construct reality. Said (2003) argued that Western narratives had been used to construct images of the East, which were prejudicial and inaccurate. Said (2003) never considers the validity of the narrative. For him it is apparently not about finding the truth; rather it is about gaining control over the narrative itself, which is typical of postmodernism’s methodological approach. Yet, truth is more important than who wins the argument about the effects of colonialism. After Said (2003), postcolonialism became more sinister in the writings of Homi K. Bhabba (1994) and Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak who relied more on Derrida (1978, 1994) than Foucault (1969, 1973, 1977). Not only did they distrust the capacity of language to convey meaning, but they also alleged that it was used to conceal unjust power dynamics. In their focus on language’s power, they used postcolonial Theory to assert political power to deconstruct Western narratives. When postcolonial Theory changes the direction of a power dynamic between the colonized and the colonizers, it could also change the balance of power in trade negotiations and perhaps who gains an advantage in launching entrepreneurial ventures. However, the semi-strong informational and allocational efficiency of public equity markets should mitigate temporary power advantages (Copeland & Weston, 1988), assuming free trade. Postcolonialism is more focused on nations than on individuals. However, it is naive to consider incentives such as tax credits for entrepreneurial risk taking, which could only be evaluated by acting on specific knowledge regarding people, places, special circumstances, timing, and technology (Fiet, 2002). Of course, no bureaucrat could know all the specific facts to act correctly (Hayek, 1945). Bureaucratic actions could be an exercise of power, but it would be nearly impossible for such actions to represent an efficient, low-cost solution. Women’s studies developed at the intersection between gender studies and literary theory. Literary theory implied that discourses were used to oppress women. A more politicized argument was made by radical feminism, which argued that discrimination against women accounted for the lower prevalence of female

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entrepreneurs. In this view, feminism was really a Marxist class struggle in a different arena. The classes are male and female, which are the oppressors and the oppressed. Although women’s studies did not begin as postmodern, it emulates it with different forms of feminist Theory through a Marxist lens. It also views Western patriarchy as an extension of capitalism through which women are exploited and marginalized. Marxism was easy to adopt because science was diminished, reality depended on feelings and was assumed without proof, and the manipulation of language was an effective tool for oppressing women. The Marxist prescription was to deconstruct and dismantle capitalism as a tool of the mostly white, patriarchy. Along the way, it opposed the grand narratives about America, its capitalist system, and the roles of family and religion (Poovey, 1988). Poovey (1988) charged that capitalism was a tool of white, male oppressors. She maintained that we must not question the oppression of women to confront it. What could be more tautological than her approach? A favorite tactic of the feminist activists was to make an argument without making an argument, relying on the oppression of women as an unquestionable article of faith. Judith Butler (2006) saw gender roles as not being stable, which was the opposite of Poovey’s (1988) argument. Butler emphasized the socially constructed nature of both gender and sex. For Butler, “woman” is not a class of people but a performance that constructs “gendered” reality. Gendered performativity became her catch-all, which are behaviors and speech that make gender real. Judith Butler (2006) was an activist with a vision that became Queer Theory. She argues that we must see the reality of the social constructions underlying gender, sex, and sexuality. In her view, something is queer if it falls outside of categories, especially those used to define male and female, masculine and feminine, heterosexual, and homosexual. bell hooks, the lower-case pen name of Gloria Watkins, was a feminist who argued that black people, women, and the working class had been overlooked by postmodernism, which she felt limited its capacity to achieve social and political change (hooks, 1996). In her view, postmodernism was guilty of its association with white

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male intellectuals and academic elites. She was especially critical of dismissing the notion of stable identity, arguing that identity should be applied more by postmodernism. Hook’s ideas arose at the same time as critical race Theory, which was posited by Derrick Bell and one of his students, a legal scholar, Kimberle Crenshaw (Bell, 1984, 2008; Crenshaw, 1991, 2018). Crenshaw (1991) described a new construct, intersectionality, which was hugely influential, as the full flowering of radical feminism and postmodernism. In fact, intersectionality was the beginning of social justice Theory. Because social justice Theory was used by identity politics, many causes used it-race, sex, gender, sexuality, class, religion, immigration status, physical or mental ability, and body size. Each of these used social construction, while arguing that the constructions were real. Thus, we are supposed to trust the woman. It insinuated that most victimizers were guilty. Of course, when someone is guilty as charged, rather than innocent until proven guilty, trust collapses, suspicion grows, communication collapses, and informational entrepreneurship, which relies on specific information, becomes ineffective. Can anyone argue that intersectionality promotes capitalism or entrepreneurship, especially female entrepreneurship? On the contrary, it leads to the balkanization of identity groups. However, the roadblocks to commerce are more than perceptual, there are real and growing costs to be accused of discrimination, especially when a charge is all that is necessary to establish someone’s guilt. Postmodernism is skeptical of objective knowledge or truth. It doubts that it is obtainable while being committed to cultural constructionism. It assumes that society is formed by systems of power and hierarchies, which determine what can be known and how. Its goal is to dismantle the system in the cause of social justice. The dismantling mainly occurs through the politicization of identity groups. Postmodernism endured a deconstructive phase aimed at replacing science and the rationality of reality with social construction. It survived its deconstructive phase and morphed into attacking oppression mainly through political action (social justice activism) which it managed to do in four ways. First it blurred boundaries by emphasizing, fluidity, ambiguity, indefinability, and hybridity. Second, it scrutinized language using discourse analysis. Third,

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it used cultural relativism to argue that cultures were equal in their value, which was most obvious in postcolonial Theory. And fourth, individual identity was subordinated to the group while it concomitantly attacked the universality of grand narratives.

References Bell, D. (1984). Race, Racism and American Law. Little, Brown, and Co. Bell, D. (2008). And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. Basic Books. Bhabba, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. Routledge. Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble. Routledge. Copeland, T., & Weston, J. (1988). Financial Theory and Corporate Policy (3rd ed.). Pearson. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1, 139–167. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241– 1299. Crenshaw, K. W. (2018). Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew. In Words that Wound (pp. 111–132). Routledge. Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Difference (A. Bass, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. (1994). Specters of Marx. Routledge. Descartes, R. (1641). Les Meditations metaphysiques de Descartes. https://wwwtechno--science-net.translate.goog/glossaire-definition/Rene-Descartes-page9.html?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc Fiet, J. O. (2002). The Systematic Search for Entrepreneurial Discoveries. ABCCLIO. Foucault, M. (1969). The Archaeology of Knowledge (A. M. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1973). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish (A. M. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon. Hayek, F. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530. Heidegger, M. (1947). Letter on Humanism. In Basic Writings, 1993 (p. 476). International Publishers.

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Heidegger, M. (1959). An Introduction to Metaphysics (R. Manheim, Trans.). Yale University Press. Heidegger, M. (1965). German Existentialism (D. Runes, Trans.). Philosophical Library. Heidegger, M. (1993). Basic Writings (D. Farrell, Ed.). HarperCollins. hooks, b. (1996). Postmodern Blackness. In W. Anderson (Ed.), The Fontana Postmodernism Reader. Fontana Press. Hutcheon, L. (1991). Circling the Downspout of Empire. In I. Adam & H. Tiffin (Eds.), Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post-colonialism and Postmodernism. Harvester/Wheatsheaf. Kant, I. (1781). A Critique of Pure Reason (N. Kemp Smith, Trans.). Macmillan, 1929. King, M. (1963). I Have a Dream. American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches. https:/ /www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mklihaveadream.htm Kendi, I. (2019). How to be an Antiracist. One World. Lyotard, J. (1997). Postmodern Fables (G. VanDen Abbeele, trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Marx, K., & Engles, F. (1848/2020). The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Martino Fine Books. McHale, B. (2015). The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism. Cambridge University Press. Mussolini, B. (1932). The Doctrine of Fascism. https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/ 2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf Nerozzi, T. (2022). Finland Has Shifted to ‘Secular Religion,’ ‘Postmodernism,’ Says Finish Bishop on Trial for Intolerance. https://www.foxnews.com/world/ finland-secular-religion-postmodernism-bishop Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Poovey, M. (1988). Feminism and Deconstruction. Feminist Studies, 14(1), 51– 65. Rorty, R. (1972). The World Well Lost. The Journal of Philosophy, 69(19), 649– 665. Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton University Press. Rorty, R. (1991). Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Cambridge University Press. Said, E. (2003). Orientalism. Penguin. Sowell, T. (2007). A Conflict of Visions. Basic Books. Sowell, T. (2011). Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books. Sowell, T. (2013). Intellectuals and Race. Basic Books. chapter 3. Sowell, T. (2019). Discrimination and Disparities. Basic Books.

CHAPTER 6

Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship

Information as the Starting Point Entrepreneurship is not entirely about information. However, information determines the extent to which it can be systematically understood and practiced. With the right information, entrepreneurship could be conceived of as a practice guided by environmental structures that are slow-to-change and that can be relied on to anchor entrepreneurial decision-making. In fact, information can guide entrepreneurial choice, which makes the acquisition of information an investment decision. Without information, entrepreneurship would depend more on luck. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce a new theory, Informational Entrepreneurship, which offers a single perspective that can serve as a vantage point for how to understand the impact of social justice Theory on entrepreneurship. This examination is important because postmodern interpretations appear to change the way that entrepreneurs understand information, as well as its insights regarding reality. If there were no connection between the two, then, investing in new information could be eliminated and entrepreneurs could predictably pursue the acquisition of new wealth using what they already understand. Let’s begin with the basics. Information is vital to entrepreneurs creating new wealth. However, information varies in its specificity and capacity to represent facts about opportunities. Specific information only © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_6

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has the capacity to inform us about a single opportunity. A signal is information that changes our understanding about the future. If rivals without such information were to remain uninformed, they would be placed at a competitive disadvantage. Specific information describes special circumstances concerned with people, places, timing, and technology (Fiet, 1996, 2008; Hayek, 1945). It is costly or impossible to trade to others because its value is often ephemerally based on positioning in time and space. Others who are not similarly positioned will be unaware of opportunities that it may describe. Its counterpart is general information, which can be reduced to rules and procedures. Once reduced, it can be inexpensively conveyed to others or can be appropriated by them, which reduces any earning potential to normal economic returns (Copeland & Weston, 1988). To summarize, entrepreneurs must act based on less available, specific information if they hope to avoid high levels of rivalry for the same opportunities. Otherwise, they would be using general information to pursue the same opportunities. The choice is theirs to make. In addition, they can act without further investing or they can invest in more information prior to acting, assuming that it would be specific rather than general information. The advantage of acquiring information first is that it can improve the odds of being successful and it is much less expensive to acquire than it would be to act and commit oneself to a failing new venture simply because an entrepreneur was uninformed.

The Systematic Search for Discoveries Discoveries are valuable if they can be exploited to create above-normal economic returns. An impediment to their exploitation is finding a systematic way to discover them because otherwise an entrepreneur could be endlessly searching without being able to terminate a search with a discovery (Fiet et al., 2005). Even if guided by a postmodern worldview, it seems unlikely that such a vantage point would prohibit anyone from searching systematically. Whether or not systematic search becomes endless or terminates in a discovery is an empirical question. However, if a search were endless, it would not only be expensive, but it would also be frustrating and create feelings of failure. Without leading to a discovery, entrepreneurs would be left to exploit average ideas that result in either average or below normal economic returns.

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When entrepreneurs understand how to make valuable discoveries, they have reduced entrepreneurship to a practice that can be taught, at which point entrepreneurship becomes like any other body of knowledge that also can be mastered. Unfortunately, postmodernism could restrict the practice of Informational Entrepreneurship by restricting positioning in close proximity to opportunities. It should be noted that its practice is not like a recipe to be followed, which leads to the same outcome. Rather it consists of a package of decision support tools that suggests which questions to ask, but which does not dictate the answer that will be found at the end of searching. Judgment Many have argued that judgment is the essence of entrepreneurship, if uncertainty is its most consequential limiting factor (Hayek, 1945; Klein, 2008). However, uncertainty holds that the probability distribution of future events is unknown (Copeland & Weston, 1988), which suggests that this sort of judgment is really guessing, not weighing the probabilities of achieving uncertain outcomes. In contrast, successful entrepreneurs typically think that they operate within a world of risk (Knight, 1933), in which the probability distribution of future events is assumed to be known (Fishchoff et al., 1984). In such a world, the most dangerous probabilities could be avoided. If they were to guess without a reasonable expectation of achieving a beneficial outcome, such an approach would be irrational and detrimental to increasing their odds of success (McCloskey, 1998; Muth, 1961). Others think about entrepreneurial solutions after they already find themselves in difficulties that are beyond their control, at which point they object that they must use judgment heroically to rescue themselves. They often forget to ask themselves why they allowed their circumstances to become so uncertain (Muth, 1961). Perhaps, they did not notice the degradation of their knowledge from being risky to uncertain. With risky information, they could have calculated the odds of their success and would have been able to anticipate their circumstances and maintained control over them (Copeland & Weston, 1988). This is more than pretense and posturing. Entrepreneurs can tilt the odds of success in their favor, not by always avoiding failure, but by focusing instead on what they can understand ex ante about what works (Fiet, 2008).

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Thus, it is more productive to assume that successful entrepreneurs intentionally work to understand the probabilities surrounding future events (Fishchoff et al., 1984); otherwise, they would be taking on uncertainty that is impossible to comprehend. This is not to suggest that some entrepreneurs do not act irrationally, but such an approach has little pedagogical promise as a science that can be understood and taught (Fiet, 2008). Unfortunately, pretending as if improving practice were uninteresting has too often impeded the contribution of entrepreneurship research, even though there are no business disciplines, which have more enthusiastic student advocates. For postmodernists, the odds of making accurate judgments of reality are quite low. In fact, they doubt that science can determine what is true. Instead, they focus on how privileged elites exercise power to oppress the defenseless. One way that oppressors endanger others is through the use of narratives designed to paint the weak as victims of those in power. Naturally, such a hopeless interpretation would demoralize anyone who wanted to play in such a fixed and biased struggle. Rational Choice and Pattern Matching Clearly, acting rationally depends on repeatable patterns that can be leveraged (Nelson & Winter, 1982; Zeira, 1994). For example, day and night, light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, wealth and poverty, conscientiousness and slovenliness, lawful and criminal, and order versus disorder. Patterns are everywhere, all the time (Franklin, 2021). In fact, Informational Entrepreneurship works through a process of matching patterns that are everywhere if we know how to search for them (Baron & Ensley, 2006). Patterns exist in part due to enduring constants in nature, which must be frustrating to those who insist that the world is essentially chaotic. Here is a partial list of some of the most prominent physical constants (Franklin, 2021): • • • •

Speed of light: c = 2.99792458 × 108 m/s Planck’s constant: h = 4.135667662 × 10 –15 eV . s gravitational constant: G = 6.67408 × 10 –11 m 3 /kg . s 2 magnetic constant: μ0 = 4π × 10–7 N/A2

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• electric constant: ∈0 = 8.854187817 × 10–12 F/m • elementary electron charge: q = e = 1.602176565 × 10–19 C • mass of an electron: m 0 = 9.10938291 × 10–31 kg Without these constants, there would be fewer opportunities to reinforce repeatable patterns. However, these do not include those that are based on habitual human nature (Carden & Wood, 2018; Rerup, 2005), which are even more pervasive. So, what is their significance?

Informational Entrepreneurship This chapter proposes a new, more inclusive, theory of entrepreneurship based on repeatable informational patterns, which is really the science of what is possible (Fiet, 2022b; Marschak, 1971). It will serve as the basis for questioning what we can know about both the constraints and the multipliers of successful entrepreneurship. To be known as Informational Entrepreneurship, it will become evident that it can become a practice that entrepreneurs can use to improve their odds of success (Fiet, 2022c). Its implications are more comprehensive than (1) constrained, systematic search, which was its original theoretical conception (Fiet, 1996, 2002). We will also see how it can use information to improve such tactical approaches as (2) positioning in time and space and its impact on discovering and exploiting opportunity (Fiet, 2020), (3) estimating the wealth creating potential of opportunities (Fiet & Patel, 2006), (4) arbitraging windows of opportunity, (5) conventions to acquire resources (Verstraete & Jouison, 2020), (6) limiting risk using forgiving business models (Fiet & Patel, 2008), and (7) cooperative arrangements to discover and exploit opportunities (Patel & Fiet, 2011). Because information is the lowest common denominator of what all entrepreneurs have in common, Informational Entrepreneurship is an effective lens for understanding the influence of postmodernism on entrepreneurship. Anything that inhibits information flow to entrepreneurs is likely to make it more difficult to choose which opportunities to pursue in their quest for new wealth. We will see that postmodernism plays a decisively negative role in decreasing the flow of specific information to entrepreneurs, which is the key to successful pattern matching and the many potential benefits, which entrepreneurship has in store for entrepreneurs, as well as for their stakeholders and society.

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Constrained Systematic Search as Informational Entrepreneurship Constrained, systematic search was the first systematic, informational attempt to identify opportunities that were thought to lead potentially to the discovery of new wealth (Heiner, 1983). Kirzner (1997) correctly noted that it is impossible to search systematically unless one already has the object of such a search in mind. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs think that they know how to search, despite Kirzner’s warning, which they do not by searching for specific discoveries, but by searching information channels known to them, which are frequent sources of low-cost signals, which change our perception of the future (Stigler, 1961). Entrepreneurs search known channels, which they group into a consideration set, based on their prior knowledge (Fiet, 2002). By searching within their personal consideration sets, they can maximize their odds of finding a discovery that fits with what they are qualified to exploit; whereas, staying alert for one is equivalent to searching the entire world; although it is mathematically impossible to maximize the benefits from such random search (Fiet, 2002; Marschak, 1971). Thus, the most vital information to entrepreneurs is the discovery of opportunities that fit what they already know. To the extent that postmodernism restricts certain ideas because they are deemed to be offensive or counter to a cultural narrative, those ideas will be prevented from becoming part of an entrepreneur’s consideration set, which will eliminate some entrepreneurial options. It is noteworthy that information about a discovery must consist of specific information related to people, places, special circumstances, timing, and technology (Fiet, 2008; Hayek, 1945; Jensen & Meckling, 1992). The most fundamental search insight is that not everyone is qualified to perceive nor exploit a discovery because their prior specific knowledge must match what is required. Without such knowledge, it never occurs to them that a situation could be a promising opportunity. Aspiring entrepreneurs can be taught to search systematically by first asking themselves to consider their previous accomplishments These accomplishments require specific information; the same sort that can be found in an information channel (Fiet, 2022c), which of course may be searched systematically. Moreover, they can ask themselves, what was it about themselves that made them successful with each accomplishment. Then, after considering their underlying proclivities for ten to fifteen

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accomplishments, they can use them to suggest success patterns (Baron & Ensley, 2006), based on what they did well and enjoyed doing. The next step would be to consider where they would search to find the most relevant information about accomplishing something about which they are already knowledgeable. The source of such insight would be in one of a person’s information channels, depending on the type of discovery being sought. Grouped together, these channels constitute an entrepreneur’s personal consideration set. Because entrepreneurs can constitute their personal consideration sets, they can also estimate when to search channels (Fiet et al., 2005). In other words, they are able understand when a venture idea matches their prior, specific knowledge of how to search systematically for new opportunities. It is noteworthy that without such knowledge, someone else would be disqualified from being able to criticize which ventures an entrepreneur chooses to launch (Stigler, 1961). These ideas have been empirically tested to demonstrate that they were more effective than random search or alertness (Fiet, 2008; Fiet et al., 2006) and were also used to teach more than 800 undergraduate and graduate students (Nixon et al., 2006), resulting in many student teams qualifying as top finishers in international business plan competitions. Personally, the author launched six real-world, ventures using these same principles of constrained, systematic search. A consideration set is intended to gather as many feasible opportunities as possible, which match what an entrepreneur already knows. Using consideration sets establishes the boundary conditions of where it will be most promising for an entrepreneur to search. In fact, searching outside one’s consideration set would most likely result in finding opportunities for someone else, but not for an entrepreneur doing the searching. Postmodern restrictions to certain types of belief and information impose cultural constraints that hinder the acquisition of specific information, which is necessary to inform entrepreneurs about potential opportunities (Hanson, 2021; Lindsay, 2022; Ramaswamy, 2021). In addition, they place tactical restrictions on unapproved policies that are ridiculed by the woke leaders of postmodernism (Ramaswamy, 2021). Without being more specific at this point, we will see that it changes the attractiveness of an entrepreneur’s options. The following chapters will begin an in-depth examination of postmodern prescriptions to warn entrepreneurs of the looming threats to their future.

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Constrained, systematic search using information channels, specific information and consideration sets rely on entrepreneurs being able to access and evaluate information. Thus, it is informational entrepreneurship. However, as mentioned before, it is only one way to use information entrepreneurially. In 2020, Fiet published Time, Space, and Entrepreneurship, in which he demonstrated the importance of using information to be competitively positioned to discover and exploit opportunities.

Positioning in Time and Space If an entrepreneur is out of position regarding time or space, he or she will never be in range of being able to detect an opportunity signal. Improper timing will mean that a signal will occur when an entrepreneur is somewhere else, even though an entrepreneur could be moving into position later or could have been there already but then left. Being in the wrong place, even if perfectly synchronized with when an opportunity signal occurs, would mean that an entrepreneur would be out of range (Keren, 1984). Positioning is risky because someone could do the right thing at the wrong time or in the wrong location (Ries & Trout, 2001). However, positioning can be worth the risk because an entrepreneur who is positioned within range of an opportunity is likely to be the only one (Ronstadt, 1988), meaning that he or she could become a monopolist with the power to raise the prices being charged. We would expect that he or she would have at least a temporary competitive advantage. A temporary advantage could be extended with prescient repositioning while competitors try to emulate the original, optimal timing, and place. Repositioning suggests that entrepreneurs are unsatisfied with where they are, perhaps because they learned a great deal about a strategy that will not be successful. Ronstadt (1988) understood this well when he introduced the corridor principle. He learned that to make a discovery; it was useful to move around to solve the information scarcity problem, which required changing physical locations. Moving exposes entrepreneurs to new signals that may be at least, location dependent. Of course, it also involves a lower level of risk because one may not find the object of a search. Whether relocating in time or space, one is gathering new and different, specific information, which is required to create unique, competitive advantages.

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Fiet (2020) used routine activity theory to suggest that the places that an entrepreneur travels most frequently are precisely those where an entrepreneur is most likely to detect an opportunity signal. Routinely speaking, finding an opportunity where one is already located economizes on travel expenses while generating economies of scope in search costs. When entrepreneurs make a discovery where they are already located, their current location becomes their “acre of diamonds,” as exemplified by Ali who traveled the world looking for diamonds, who only after many years of searching, returned home a failure, only to find one of the world’s richest diamond deposits where he had lived most of his life (Conwell, 2014). Using routine activities to solve the positioning challenge can be considered a part of informational entrepreneurship because it is based on acquiring, specific, low-cost information, and then using it to monopolize and leverage one’s return on investment (Clarke & Felson, 1993; Cohen & Felson, 1979; Felson, 1994; Jensen & Meckling, 1992; Ries & Trout, 2001). Repositioning to leverage economies of scope is the source of new profits for entrepreneurs who have solved one of their information problems. Specifically, they have solved the information problem of discovering a business opportunity while economizing on the cost of repositioning (Fudenberg & Tirole, 1991). It could be the potential loss from repositioning to an entirely new place and time is what reduces the threat of rivalry. However, even rivals should consider repositioning. The cost of repositioning would be less costly than committing to a venture that was threatened by many other rivals (Makowski & Ostroy, 2001). Yes, repositioning can be costly, but normally not so costly that it would exceed the cost of an entrepreneur failing financially. Likewise, the cost of search is nearly always less costly than being tied to a failing venture that never repositions itself. One of the most threatening mistakes that an entrepreneur could make would be to estimate incorrectly the value of a wealth-generating venture idea. However, once again informational entrepreneurship provides a framework for making such an estimation.

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Estimating the Wealth Creating Potential of Opportunities One of the primary reasons that ventures fail is that they never had the potential to create new wealth and should have been abandoned prior to committing resources toward their exploitation. This occurs because understanding an idea’s potential is an information problem that has been difficult to resolve (Fiet, 1996; Shane, 2000). Entrepreneurs have simply lacked the foresight and standards to be able to sift through venture ideas to determine which ones would be rewarding (Knight, 1933). One way to examine the potential of venture ideas is to predict and track the performance of business plans. Business plans are informative, but not only do they describe venture ideas, but they also contain projections of the wealth that they could generate. However, almost no research has been done in this area, neither conceptually nor empirically, which has addressed wealth creating potential. An exception is the work of Fiet and Patel (2006) who argued that there were isolated concepts, which when tied together, suggested that there could be ways to estimate more accurately an idea’s potential. Their work was the beginning of Informational Entrepreneurship’s contribution to estimating wealth creation. They reasoned that an idea’s potential was jointly determined by who would exploit it Barney, 2011; Fiet, 2002; Wernerfeldt, 1984). Critical to this determination was an entrepreneur’s previous specific knowledge and whether it fit with what was required. This question of fit seemed to be tangentially related to the resource-based theory of the firm and its prediction of a firm’s sustainable competitive advantage. Resourcebased theory evaluated four factors: (1) Value—the potential to increase revenue or decrease costs, (2) Inimitability—whether rivals would face a cost disadvantage implementing the same strategy, (3) R arity—whether there were fewer than the number of rivals required to generate perfect competition, and (4) Organization—whether a firm was structured to exploit a competitive advantage. I suggested modifying the VIRO framework because individual entrepreneurs are not organized themselves as an organization. Also, it was clear that not all entrepreneurs possess the specific knowledge to exploit every idea. Thus, I substituted the concept of Fit for Organization, which referred to whether an entrepreneur’s previous, specific knowledge overlapped with the requirements for evaluating and exploiting a venture idea (Gilad et al., 1988). Further, I reasoned that

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nothing was more important to wealth creation than fit because all subsequent evaluation would rely on the qualifications of an entrepreneur to make judgments, based on what they already knew. In this revised formulation, Fit became the first and most prominent criterion as represented in a new acronym, FVIR . These factors multiplied together became an important index for predicting whether an idea could generate a sustainable competitive advantage but also whether an idea had the potential to generate new wealth. Further, I reasoned that the value that a venture could create would be consistent with the SCP Model, developed by Chamberlin and Robinson in 1933, which was an early theoretical formulation by industry organization economists. Their purpose was to predict when industry conditions and a firm’s strategy would combine to empower monopolistic competition, which was anathema to a consumer’s public interests. S stands for industry structure. C stands for firm conduct or strategy. P stands for average industry profitability. In other words, industry structure determines a firm’s strategic options, which leads to the average profitability of industry rivals. A later adaptation of the SCP Model became the five forces model of industry threats, which was a predictor of industry attractiveness (Porter, 1980). Industry attractiveness can be considered as a proxy for Value in the FVRI model, although at a less general level of analysis (Bain, 1956; Mason, 1939). Industry attractiveness is also the summary dependent variable in the five forces model of industry threats, which is inversely related to an industry’s threat level (Oster, 1990; Robinson, 1933; Rothchild & Stiglitz, 1976). These threats are from (1) buyers, (2) suppliers, (3) potential entrants, (4) substitutes, and (5) rivals. To operationalize the five forces model, there are more than 20 different moderators of the five threats, which are enumerated in the Appendix. The moderators determine the actual in-use level of threat. For example, economies of scale and product differentiation serve as barriers to entry for potential entrants. Using these moderators, it is seemingly plausible to particularize the value of a venture idea as part of broader industry analysis. Thus, combining modified insights from the resource-based theory of the firm and from industry organization economics, we can develop a measure of the wealth creating potential of a venture idea, which is: WCP = F · V · R · I

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The other variables in the model were measured using simple questions, which were scaled for each venture idea. Remarkably, they were able to predict a business plan’s return on investment within a range using the actual but unknown wealth-creatingpotential of thirty-one out of thirty-one business plans. Most of these predictions were related to three to five years into the future. No other known approach, if there is one, has a 100% successful prediction rate. This summary does not describe the protocols and statistical analysis in as much detail as the original work (Fiet, 2008; Fiet & Patel, 2006). Those interested in this approach should consult the original work. What is sufficient for our purposes is to suggest that with the right information it is possible to make very accurate predictions about the future value of venture ideas. Yes, it requires ex ante preparation as well as systematic analysis, but the primary message from this stream of research is that Informational Entrepreneurship can provide very effective decision support when it comes to evaluating the promise of venture ideas. Once more, we see that informational entrepreneurship can leverage the use of specific information. Sometimes this information is hidden and requires research to understand. However, it works, which advocates of chaos theory and alternate postmodern views cannot deny. It works because many environmental conditions are slow-to-change and are otherwise considered to be structural. As examples, the five industry threats are themselves structural and quite easy to understand. Also, it works because individuals as focal actors can invest in the acquisition of risk-reducing, specific information by acting entrepreneurially.

Arbitraging Windows of Opportunity One of the most underutilized means of earning a profit is to discover a business concept, tie it up in a pending purchase and then sell it to someone else, thereby earning a middleman profit. This arbitrage maneuver depends on being able to first recognize a profitable opportunity for someone else’s eventual use. In effect, instead of consummating a sale, an entrepreneur could negotiate for a window of opportunity, all of which could be financed through an eventual sale, which may be pre-negotiated (Fiet, 1991, 2022a; Fiet et al., 2006). Given the right circumstances, all that would be exchanged by a middleman would be information, which makes it another form of Informational Entrepreneurship.

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One of the reasons that many opportunities are never exploited or even discovered is that an actor may think that he or she must immediately comply with uncertain purchase obligations that position an entrepreneur within striking distance of exploiting an opportunity. The obligations are uncertain due to a lack of specific information about what will happen in the future and how to acquire needed resources (Hayek, 1945; Knight, 1933). This problem may be resolvable if an entrepreneur can see opportunities as options rather than commitments (McGrath, 1999). An option is a right but not an obligation to consummate an exchange. One of the reasons that negotiating an option-based opportunity is valuable is that this approach can solve this information problem by providing entrepreneurs with the time to investigate and control any risk factors that are found. This investigatory period is a window of opportunity. Once an entrepreneur can contractually tie up an opportunity, he or she will probably discover that additional resources are needed. Of course, discovering an opportunity for someone else could result from searching systematically for it prior to controlling resources (Fiet, 2008). In effect, searching for someone else’s opportunity expands an entrepreneur’s possible opportunity set, thereby increasing one’s odds of success. So, the question becomes, how to convert stake holders into resource providers while there is time remaining in the window of opportunity.

Conventions I expand Informational Entrepreneurship to include convention theory (Verstraete & Jouison, 2020). Convention theory posits that launching a new venture requires stakeholders who own resources, which could be informational, who must be willing to allow entrepreneurs to use them in their startups. Thus, convention theory can be viewed as a subset of Informational Entrepreneurship. The purpose of convention theory is to convert stakeholders to resource providers. The arguments that entrepreneurs use to convince stakeholders to volunteer their resources are known as conventions. Conventions are so critical to the birth of a new venture that they constitute the core of its business model (Verstraete & Jouison, 2020), which represents the proposed solution to its primary information problem. Conventions represent a remarkable reversal of the build-a-better-mousetrap argument about the world beating a path to your door, presumably this time with the needed resources.

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In effect, attractive, agreed-upon conventions are more important than what entrepreneurs plan to do with resources because without agreement, they would be unable to acquire them, which would prohibit launching all but self-funded new ventures. However, even with sufficient funding, there could still be a shortage of resources because resource owners still may not agree to provide them. Thus, according to convention theory, the beginning of a new venture is agreement with resource providers about its conventions. Like any other contract to solve an information problem, a promised convention could be revoked, disallowed, ignored, forgotten, or violated. However, the ones that are the most binding could include liquidated damages as an inducement and penalty. One way to induce resource providers to supply what is needed would be show them how to make money or to reduce risk in ways that they do not already understand. Being able to show them would depend on first learning about the needs of a resource provider like the way that someone would negotiate for a window of opportunity to learn about someone else’s needs. Resource providers may also be induced to be of assistance if the contemplated project is viewed favorably by them for personal reasons. Obviously, learning about someone would require interacting with them, taking an interest in them, and generally coming to understand them. In effect solving their information problem.

Forgiving Business Models Another way to launch a new venture without any money, in addition to arbitrage and convention theory, is by using forgiving business models (Fiet & Patel, 2008). The primary information problem with being an entrepreneur is that it poses a risk of loss, which presumably is tolerated better by those who already possess resources, but not always (Barney, 1991; Knight, 1933). Some business models are more forgiving than others, which offer no protection from downside risk. Using forgiving business models does not eliminate risk. They shift it to willing stakeholders, not because they are allies, but because the deal on offer to them, becomes their most profitable, known option (Fiet & Patel, 2008). Such a shift can occur because of an imbalance in information, which once again becomes a problem of Informational Entrepreneurship. Thus, entrepreneurs have an alternative either to bearing or not bearing risk under certain conditions. By shifting risk to resource

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providers, entrepreneurs can reduce many costs associated with venture failure. If risk can be shifted disproportionately, an entrepreneur can earn rents from the shift itself. In a forgiving business model (FBM), a resource provider may be induced to bear a disproportionate amount of risk in return for the same or a reduced level of profitability. The risk transfers may consist of (1) a longer credit period or (2) requiring buyers to front manufacturing costs. Resource providers entering disadvantageous exchanges are not foolish or naïve. They act in the same way as shoppers who pay retail. The primary drivers of FBMs are entrepreneurs and markets. Markets consist of buyers and sellers who engage in exchanges. Prior to an exchange they may engage in encounters to assess the feasibility of multiple possible exchanges. Clearly, FBMs use these exchanges to assess what is in the best interests of entrepreneurs. The primary insight from forgiving business models is that resource providers may be induced to accept a disproportionate amount of risk in exchange for agreeing to the terms of an exchange if it is the most valuable opportunity known to them, even if an entrepreneur knows how a resource provider could profit even more. This is another example of a deficit in information, or a lack of insight, which once again positions an exchange squarely in the domain of Informational Entrepreneurship. The risk that a resource provider willingly accepts, given inefficient capital markets may consist of longer credit periods from a supplier or requiring buyers to finance the manufacture of a product, which would reduce the risk to an entrepreneur of non-payment. Resource providers entering disadvantageous exchanges may not be foolish nor naïve. They are likely acting in the same way as shoppers who pay retail only because they do not know how to purchase the same item at wholesale (Akerlof, 1978). Thus, the task of a FBM is to point out resource dependencies that favor entrepreneurs, which can form the basis of profitable cooperative arrangements. When using FBMs, it is helpful to think of markets as multi-actor interaction systems in which property rights to resources are transferred between or among actors. Markets are part of FBMs because they reduce the cost of searching. Markets also contain exogenous drivers that are outside the influence of entrepreneurs, which can increase such factors as sales tax that reduce profitability. Yet, entrepreneurs cannot control such drivers.

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Market interaction costs for resource providers are the total implicit costs leading to and supporting an exchange with a market now or in the future. They may constitute a one-time expense that is not related directly to the cost of an exchange. These costs are a function of time, searchcost-aversion, and asymmetric information (Laffont & Martimort, 2002). Moreover, these costs are endogenous, meaning that they are subject to control by an entrepreneur. Risk aversion to endogenous market factors may lead them to engage in an exchange quickly to avoid the risk of not finding another deal. Given that asymmetric information leads to one not knowing what to know or to expect, it is natural to fear an economic loss and purchase protection by imposing a risk premium on the actual cost of such an exchange, which is the lemons problem (Akerlof, 1978). To protect themselves from risk, resource providers must presume to know the value of their resources to other actors, despite the presence of asymmetric information or a complete lack of information. The greater the perception of asymmetric information, the more likely it is that market interaction costs for resource providers will be more frequent because of needed due diligence to elicit such information. There is a positive relationship between the cost of market interaction for a resource provider and the opportunity for an entrepreneur to employ a FBM in the development of a venture. When resource providers have other options for exchanging goods and services, they are less inclined to do business with any one entrepreneur, which reduces that entrepreneur’s bargaining power. Outside options are inversely related to duplicability, substitutability, asset specificity, and windows of opportunity. The lower the level of any one of these, the greater are a resource provider’s outside options. In addition, there is a negative relationship between the number of outside options available to an entrepreneur’s resource providers and the opportunity for an entrepreneur to employ a FBM in the development of a venture. There are two primary drivers of an FBM—(1) increasing a resource provider’s market interaction costs; and (2) reducing a resource provider’s relative outside options. Many outside options for resource providers and low market interaction costs increase their bargaining power with entrepreneurs, which constrains risk shifting by entrepreneurs. This is not a forgiving business model.

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Few outside options for resource providers and high market interaction costs combine to provide entrepreneurs with the greatest potential for transferring risk, making this the most forgiving business model. Few outside options and low market interaction costs are not optimal for shifting risk. Depending on an entrepreneur’s social skills and the level of trust, there is a possibility that risk transfer could occur. One implication for entrepreneurs is that assessing a resource provider’s outside options often depends on prior knowledge and market learning. However, assessing intangible investments, such as specialized training, depend on the willingness of others to divulge information related to asset specificity or market interaction costs. Most ventures will not possess FBMs, and it takes an astute entrepreneur with prior training in Informational Entrepreneurship or unusual perceptive ability to leverage an FBM. In addition, it is the relative number of outside options available to entrepreneurs versus those available to resource providers that is germane to power versus efficiency arguments. Power derives from the nature of the cooperation that will unfold, which can favor an entrepreneur if he or she can identify the endogenous and exogenous characteristics explored din this research. In addition to forgiving business models, other forms of cooperation may unfold, which will be discussed as another form of Informational Entrepreneurship.

Cooperative Arrangements An entrepreneur’s best odds of finding a promising venture opportunity are found within his or her personal consideration set. One of the advantages of working with others who possess their own consideration set is that they can be combined with those already being used by an entrepreneur (Hirshleifer, 1978). Their sharing can generate savings through economies of scope (c.f., Patel & Fiet, 2011), while simultaneously enlarging the domain that they can see together. This section explores how the use of formal or informal cooperative arrangements can be leveraged to generate economies of scope in searching for venture ideas. Cooperation increases access to someone else’s consideration set without incurring an initial cost to do so. Of course, the potential risk of cooperation is cheating. A cooperative arrangement could be a powerful informational instrument for anyone considering becoming an entrepreneur. Partly, this

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depends on differences in their (1) epistemic structures and (2) combinative capabilities. These two mechanisms could provide them with start-up savings through the sharing of their non-separable learning. Learning consisting of specific information is non-separable in that it cannot be disentangled from prior experience. However, vicarious learning consists of general, not specific information. Developing economies of scope is based on the premise that entrepreneurs can compensate for a mistrust of outsiders by relying more upon those in their communities (Fiet, 2008). When it is not obvious that trust will unfold, a governance mechanism may be employed to limit possible malfeasance. Governance mechanisms operate by promoting or inhibiting the behavior of subordinates particularly when the threats from opportunism and uncertainty are high (Williamson, 1975). When used with constrained, systematic search, they could also assist in opportunity identification by increasing the number of available information channels to search (Fiet, 2008). By developing a highly venture-specific knowledge base, entrepreneurs and their ventures are more likely to access epistemic structures that are adept at identifying market incongruities related to their knowledge bases. An epistemic structure is the enduring way that our brains structure and catalog information to facilitate recall. Entrepreneurs may seek new knowledge to combine with existing knowledge to develop opportunities to enhance their competitive advantage. Knowledge combinability refers to the routines and processes used to combine knowledge situated in epistemic structures. Unique epistemic structures, knowledge combinability, and longtime horizons could provide entrepreneurs with advantages in finding opportunities. An informational entrepreneurship interpretation of cooperative arrangements suggests the following initial contributions. First, it suggests how to combine social capital to increase the scope and effectiveness of constrained, systematic search. Second, it emphasizes the role of cooperation. Third, it explores how governance systems affect team efforts in the identification, combination of, and deployment of resources. Fourth, it shows how to elevate constrained, systematic search from an individual level to a higher, cooperative level. And fifth, it explores the risk of end game scenarios and how they could make cooperation risky. In addition, cooperation suggests that to the extent that cost is a constraint, cooperating entrepreneurs may have a lower cost of capital due to their larger, combined sizes, which could enable cooperative

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entrepreneurs to access more opportunities. Moreover, scaling individual epistemic structures to the collective epistemic structures that could be used by a venture’s team relies on the codified and tacit knowledge found in their routines and epistemic structure. The most important competitive implication of these epistemic structures is their advantage in constituting a common stock of knowledge, from which entrepreneurs can generate savings due to economies of scope. These arguments lead us to consider the advantages of cooperating entrepreneurs. They may be able to maintain the continuity of their epistemic structures longer than those who do not cooperate. They use a joint consideration set, which is the union of the individual consideration sets, of the entrepreneurs who take part in a cooperative effort while searching systematically. The research in this section provides a new lens (cooperation) to guide constrained, systematic search at the level of a new venture.

Discussion and Conclusions Although information is the basic means of conveyance for gaining understanding in a world of limited insight, it has not been the focus of much research. Its possible neglect may be a product of many scholars not being trained in how to analyze it. In addition, trained economists have been more interested in it at the level of markets as a clearing mechanism. Kirzner himself repeatedly argued that information could not be used for making a discovery unless the object of a search were known in advance. He might have been confused because he claims that he was focused on market clearing rather than on discovery (2009). Yet, discovery is only the beginning of the multiple roles that information can play. (1) Constrained, systematic search became the foundation for the subsequent development of Informational Entrepreneurship. However, this book has expanded its domain in seven different directions with more to come. Its next expansion was (2) positioning in time and space and its impact on discovering and exploiting opportunity, followed by (3) estimating the wealth creating potential of opportunities, which was also followed by (4) arbitraging windows of opportunity, (5) conventions to acquire resources, (6) limiting risk using forgiving business models, and (7) cooperative arrangements to discover and exploit opportunities.

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The above decision support tools introduce new avenues for pursuing entrepreneurship that could be inhibited in a postmodern age. To a postmodernist, suggesting that an entrepreneur could systematically search for new wealth seems like a subversive plot to offer false hope to the disadvantaged so that they will continue to tolerate being oppressed. It is curious that those espousing this oppression narrative always seem to be the ones who profit personally through the financial support of others, for example, woke corporate donors. Why is it that the organizers become wealthy, as in the case of Black Lives Matter? Interestingly, while the organizers become rich, the oppressed never receive financial support. Under these circumstances it not surprising that many question the sincerity of such charitable efforts. Also, postmodernism raises the perceived level of threat from entering exchanges, which would inhibit entrepreneurs from repositioning themselves in time and space. The entire postmodern narrative suggests that it would be futile to estimate the wealth creating potential of opportunities because these would only be available to elites. To the extent that a narrative of oppression limits social discourse, entrepreneurs could be disincentivized to seek opportunities for others, which could be used for arbitrage. Once again, social discourse would be limited between oppressors and the oppressed, which would reduce opportunities to negotiate the conventions necessary to acquire resources, nor to perceive nor negotiate forgiving business models. Finally, postmodernism would induce fear, which could create the suspicion that manipulation would subvert the creation of the trust necessary to enter cooperative arrangements. In summary, a postmodern ideology obstructs the flow of information necessary for entrepreneurs to discover and exploit opportunities. If any thing is certain about postmodernism it is its support for a Marxist narrative that pits oppressors against the oppressed with the first intended casualty to be capitalism itself. Of course, one of the first consequences from the loss of capitalism would be the swift erosion of entrepreneurship. Not surprisingly, the rate of crime in major cities has increased dramatically in the last several years because postmodern activists support lax prosecution and no cash bail for those charged with major crimes. They seem to view crime as a form of reparations to get even with society for not giving to them what they have been told that they are owed. If reparations are eventually paid, they will be like

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purchasing something on the lay-away plan, as a substitute for more crime. Crime restricts movement into at-risk, urban zones, which decreases the possibility that entrepreneurs can position themselves near enough to spot opportunities. The same sort of restriction could apply to timing because entrepreneurs could decide to restrict their movement after dark when crime is more rampant. However, recently without cash bail and the decision not to prosecute shoplifters, criminals have felt freer to commit crimes in the middle of the day. It is an empirical question as to whether more rampant crime reduces the overall level of entrepreneurship or whether it merely redirects its timing and place. Nonetheless, some crime probably thrives in the absence of perfect information. Examples would be selling fentanyl, human trafficking, murder, and mayhem. To the extent that market actors distrust each other, it should reduce exchanges, hide market information, and generally make it more difficult for entrepreneurs to exploit hidden opportunities. This chapter has not reviewed all the ways to stimulate entrepreneurship. As examples, surely not all entrepreneurship is intentional, meaning that some entrepreneurs stumble onto their new vocations. However, we are not very accomplished in training entrepreneurs how to unintentionally discover new wealth. Nor does postmodern skepticism offer other ways to generate new wealth. The next chapter examines different forms of discrimination, which have been conceptualized as tools to oppress the disadvantaged. There is no doubt that discrimination can exist. The larger question is whether it exists as part of a deliberate scheme foisted upon the weak with the end game of remaking society into a postmodern utopia, which is never completely specified. What we do know is that those who promote this scheme are always those who profit the most personally. Read on to see if the pattern holds.

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Summary of Postmodernism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship 6.1 Entrepreneurship is not entirely about information. However, information determines the extent to which it can be systematically understood and practiced. With the right information, entrepreneurship could be conceived of as a practice guided by environmental structures that are slow-to-change and that can be relied on to anchor entrepreneurial decision-making. In fact, information can guide entrepreneurial choice, which makes the acquisition of information an investment decision. Without information, entrepreneurship would depend more on luck. 6.2 Informational Entrepreneurship offers a single perspective that can serve as a vantage point for how to understand the impact of social justice Theory on entrepreneurship. If there were no connection between the two, then, investing in new information could be eliminated and entrepreneurs could predictably pursue the acquisition of new wealth using what they already understand. 6.3 Information is vital to entrepreneurs creating new wealth. It varies in its specificity and capacity to represent facts. Specific information only has the capacity to inform us about the special circumstances of a single opportunity’s requisite people, places, timing, and technology (Fiet, 1996, 2008; Hayek, 1945). Others who are not similarly positioned will be unaware of opportunities that it may describe. 6.4 Entrepreneurs must act based on specific information if they hope to avoid rivalry and possible venture failure. The choice is theirs to make. The advantage of acquiring specific information first is that it can improve the odds of being successful. It is much less expensive to acquire it than it would be to act and commit oneself to a failing venture simply because an entrepreneur was uninformed. 6.5 Discoveries are valuable if they can be exploited to create above-normal economic returns. An impediment would be not finding a systematic way to discover them because otherwise an entrepreneur could be endlessly searching without being able to terminate a search (Fiet et al., 2005). Entrepreneurs would be left to exploit average ideas that result in either average or below normal economic returns.

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6.6 When entrepreneurs understand how to search systematically, using Informational Entrepreneurship, they have reduced wealth discovery to a practice that can be taught, at which point it becomes like any other body of knowledge that can be mastered. Unfortunately, postmodernism could restrict its practice by overemphasizing one’s feelings. 6.7 Many have argued that judgment is the essence of entrepreneurship, if uncertainty is its most consequential limiting factor (Hayek, 1945; Klein, 2008). However, uncertainty holds that the probability distribution of future events is unknown (Copeland & Weston, 1988), which suggests that this sort of judgment is really guessing, not weighing the probabilities of achieving uncertain outcomes. 6.8 Other entrepreneurs assume they operate within a world of risk (Knight, 1933), in which the probability distribution of future events is known (Fishchoff et al., 1984). In such a world, the most dangerous probabilities could be avoided. If they were to guess without a reasonable expectation of achieving a beneficial outcome, such an approach would be uncertain, irrational, and detrimental to increasing their odds of success (McCloskey, 1998; Muth, 1961). 6.9 This is more than pretense and posturing, suggesting how entrepreneurs can tilt the odds of success in their favor, not by always avoiding failure, but by focusing instead on what they can understand ex ante about what works (Fiet, 2008). Thus, it is more productive to assume that successful entrepreneurs intentionally work to understand the probabilities surrounding future events (Fishchoff et al., 1984); otherwise, they would be taking on uncertainty that is impossible to comprehend. 6.10 For postmodernists, the odds of making accurate judgments of reality are quite low. In fact, they doubt that science can determine what is true. Instead, they focus on how privileged elites exercise power to oppress the defenseless. One way that oppressors endanger others is thorough the use of narratives designed to paint the weak as victims of those in power. Naturally, such a hopeless interpretation would demoralize anyone who wanted to play in such a fixed and biased struggle. 6.11 Acting rationally depends on repeatable patterns that can be leveraged (Nelson & Winter, 1982; Zeira, 1994). For example, day and night, light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance,

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6.12

6.13

6.14

6.15

wealth and poverty, conscientiousness, and slovenliness, lawful and criminal, and order versus disorder. Patterns are everywhere, all the time (Franklin, 2021). Informational Entrepreneurship works through a process of matching patterns that are everywhere if we know how to search for them (Baron & Ensley, 2006). (1) Informational Entrepreneurship can support such tactical approaches as (2) positioning in time and space and its impact on discovering and exploiting opportunity (Fiet, 2020), (3) estimating the wealth creating potential of opportunities (Fiet & Patel, 2006) (4) arbitraging windows of opportunity, (5) conventions to acquire resources (Verstraete & Jouison, 2020), (6) limiting risk using forgiving business models (Fiet & Patel, 2008) and (7) cooperative arrangements to discover and exploit opportunities (Patel & Fiet, 2011). Because information is the lowest common denominator of what all entrepreneurs have in common, Informational Entrepreneurship is an effective lens for understanding the influence of postmodernism on entrepreneurship. In fact, postmodernism plays a negative role in decreasing the flow of specific information to entrepreneurs, which is the key to successful pattern matching and the many potential benefits, which entrepreneurship has in store for entrepreneurs, as well as for their stakeholders and society. Entrepreneurs search known channels, which they group into a consideration set, based on their prior knowledge (Fiet, 2002). By searching within their personal consideration sets, they can maximize their odds of finding a discovery that fits with what they are qualified to exploit; whereas, staying alert for one is equivalent to searching the entire world; although it is mathematically impossible to maximize the benefits from such random search (Fiet, 2002; Marschak, 1971). Thus, the most vital information to entrepreneurs is the discovery of opportunities that fit what they already know. To the extent that postmodernism restricts certain ideas because they are deemed to be offensive or counter to a cultural narrative, those ideas will be prevented from becoming part of an entrepreneur’s consideration set, which will eliminate some entrepreneurial options.

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6.16 Informational Entrepreneurship has been empirically tested to demonstrate that it was more effective than random search or alertness (Fiet, 2008; Fiet et al., 2006; 2007, 2013) and was also used to teach more than 800 undergraduate and graduate students (Nixon et al., 2006), resulting in many student teams qualifying as top finishers in international business plan competitions. 6.17 Aspiring entrepreneurs can be taught to search systematically by first identifying their accomplishments These require specific information, the same sort that can be found in an information channel (Fiet, 2022c), which of course may be searched systematically. Moreover, they can ask themselves, what was it about themselves that made them successful with each accomplishment? Then, after considering their underlying proclivities for ten to fifteen accomplishments, they can use them to suggest success patterns (Baron & Ensley, 2006), based on what they did well and enjoyed doing. 6.18 Because entrepreneurs can constitute their personal consideration sets, they can also estimate when to search channels (Fiet et al., 2005). In other words, they are able understand when a venture idea would match their prior, specific knowledge of how to search systematically for new opportunities (Stigler, 1961). 6.19 Postmodern restrictions to certain types of belief and information impose cultural constraints that hinder the acquisition of specific information, which is necessary to inform entrepreneurs about potential opportunities (Hanson, 2021; Lindsay, 2022; Ramaswamy, 2021). In addition, they place tactical restrictions on unapproved policies that are ridiculed by the woke leaders of postmodernism (Ramaswamy, 2021). 6.20 If an entrepreneur is out of position regarding time or space, he or she will never be in range of being able to detect an opportunity signal. Improper timing will mean that a signal will occur when an entrepreneur is somewhere else. 6.21 Positioning is risky because someone could do the right thing at the wrong time or in the wrong location (Ries & Trout, 2001). However, positioning can be worth the risk because an entrepreneur who is positioned within range of an opportunity is likely to be the only one (Ronstadt, 1988), meaning that he or she could become a monopolist with the power to raise the

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6.22

6.23

6.24

6.25

6.26

6.27

prices being charged. We would expect that he or she would have at least a temporary competitive advantage. Fiet (2020) used routine activity theory to posit that the places that an entrepreneur travels most frequently are precisely those where an entrepreneur is most likely to detect an opportunity signal. Routinely speaking, finding an opportunity where one is already located economizes on travel expenses while generating economies of scope in search costs. One of the most threatening mistakes that an entrepreneur could make would be to estimate incorrectly the value of a wealth-generating venture idea. However, once again informational entrepreneurship provides a framework for making such an estimate. One reason that ventures fail is that they never had the potential to create new wealth. This occurs because understanding an idea’s potential is an information problem that has been difficult to solve (Fiet, 1996; Shane, 2000). Entrepreneurs have simply lacked the foresight and standards to be able to sift through venture ideas to determine which ones would be rewarding (Knight, 1933). I modified the resource-based theory of the firm (Value, R arity, Imperfect imitability, and Organized) to predict wealth creation. I assumed that an informational advantage would be jointly determined by an entrepreneur’s Fit with opportunities, which replaced the O. The R and the I stayed the same. A complete explanation can be found at Fiet (2022c). The dependent variable in this algorithm is the sustainability of a competitive advantage, which serves as a proxy for above-normal economic returns. Thus, the new algorithm became FVRI. The reliability of the FVRI algorithm was tested as the dependent performance variable. It predicted the performance for all 31 business plans with known, but undisclosed outcomes to the raters. Luck could not explain this extraordinary achievement. One of the most underutilized means of earning a profit is to discover a business concept, tie it up in a pending purchase and then sell it to someone else, thereby earning a middleman profit. This arbitrage maneuver depends on being able to first recognize a profitable opportunity for someone else, using informational entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur could negotiate for a window

6

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6.29

6.30.

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of opportunity, all of which could be financed through an eventual sale, which may be pre-negotiated (Fiet, 1991, 2022a; Fiet et al., 2006). One of the reasons that many opportunities are never exploited or even discovered is that an actor may think that he or she must immediately comply with uncertain purchase obligations that position an entrepreneur within striking distance of exploiting an opportunity. The obligations are uncertain due to a lack of specific information about what will happen in the future and how to acquire needed resources (Hayek, 1945; Knight, 1933). This problem may be solvable if an entrepreneur can see opportunities as options rather than commitments (McGrath, 1999). The purpose of convention theory is to convert stakeholders to resource providers. The arguments that entrepreneurs use to convince stakeholders to volunteer their resources are known as conventions. Conventions are so critical to the birth of a new venture that they constitute the core of its business model (Verstraete & Jouison, 2020), which represents the proposed solution to its primary information problem. Conventions represent a remarkable reversal of the build-a-better-mousetrap argument about the world beating a path to your door, presumably this time with the needed resources. One way to induce resource providers to supply what is needed would be to show them how to make money or to reduce risk in ways that they do not already understand. Being able to show them would depend on first learning about the needs of a resource provider like the way that someone would negotiate for a window of opportunity to learn about someone else’s needs. Resource providers may also be induced to be of assistance if the contemplated project is viewed favorably by them for personal reasons. By shifting risk to resource providers, entrepreneurs can reduce many costs associated with venture failure. If risk can be shifted disproportionately, an entrepreneur can earn rents from the shift itself. In a forgiving business model (FBM), a resource provider may be induced to bear a disproportionate amount of risk in return for the same or a reduced level of profitability. The risk transfers may consist of (1) a longer credit period or (2) requiring buyers to front manufacturing costs. Resource providers entering

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6.33

6.34

6.35

disadvantageous exchanges are not foolish or naïve. They act in the same way as shoppers who pay retail. The primary insight from forgiving business models is that resource providers may be induced to accept disproportionate risk in exchange for agreeing to the terms of an exchange if it is the most valuable opportunity known to them, even if an entrepreneur knows how a resource provide could profit even more. This is another example of a deficit in information, or a lack of insight, which once again positions an exchange squarely in the domain of Informational Entrepreneurship. Resource providers entering disadvantageous exchanges may not be foolish nor naïve. They are likely acting in the same way as shoppers who pay retail only because they do not know how to purchase the same item at wholesale (Akerlof, 1978). Thus, the task of a FBM is to point out resource dependencies that favor entrepreneurs, which can form the basis of profitable cooperative arrangements. Further information about forgiving business models may be found in Fiet (2022c). A cooperative arrangement could be a powerful instrument for anyone considering becoming an entrepreneur. Partly, this depends on differences in their (1) epistemic structures and (2) combinative capabilities. These two mechanisms could provide them with start-up savings through the sharing of their nonseparable learning. Learning consisting of specific information is non-separable in that it cannot be disentangled from prior experience. However, vicarious learning consists of general, not specific information. An informational entrepreneurship interpretation of cooperative arrangements suggests the following initial contributions. First, it suggests how to combine social capital to increase the scope and effectiveness of constrained, systematic search. Second, it emphasizes the role of cooperation. Third, it explores how governance systems affect team efforts in the identification, combination of and deployment of resources. Fourth, it shows how to elevate constrained, systematic search from an individual level to a higher, cooperative level. And fifth, it explores the risk of end game scenarios and how they could make cooperation risky.

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6.36 These arguments lead us to consider the advantages of cooperating entrepreneurs. They may be able to maintain the continuity of their epistemic structures longer than those who do not cooperate. They use a joint consideration set, which is the union of the individual consideration sets, of the entrepreneurs who take part in a cooperative effort while searching systematically. 6.37 To a postmodernist, suggesting that an entrepreneur could systematically search for new wealth seems like a subversive plot to offer false hope to the disadvantaged so that they will continue to tolerate being oppressed 6.38 The postmodern narrative maintains that it would be futile to estimate the wealth creating potential of opportunities because these would only be available to elites. To the extent that a narrative of oppression limits social discourse, entrepreneurs could be disincentivized to seek opportunities for others, which could be used for arbitrage. Once again, social discourse would be limited between oppressors and the oppressed, which would reduce opportunities to negotiate the conventions necessary to acquire resources, nor to perceive nor negotiate forgiving business models.

Appendix: Moderators of Industry Threats Barriers to Entry as Moderators • • • • •

Economies of scale Product differentiation Cost advantages independent of scale Contrived deterrence Government policy.

Moderators that Increase the Treat of Rivalry • • • •

Large number of competing firms Competing firms that are the same size and have the same influence Slow industry growth Lack of product differentiation

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• Productive capacity added in large increments. Supplier Threats as Moderators • • • • •

Suppliers’ industry is dominated by a small number of firms Suppliers sell unique or highly differentiated products Suppliers are not threatened by substitutes Suppliers threaten forward vertical integration Firms are not important customers for suppliers.

Moderators that Increase the Threat of Buyers • • • • •

The number of buyers is small. Products sold to buyers are undifferentiated and standard. Products sold are a significant percentage of a buyer’s final costs. Buyers are not earning a significant economic profit. Buyers threaten backward vertical integration.

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Patel, P., & Fiet, J. (2011). Knowledge Combination and the Potential Advantages of Family Firms in Searching for Opportunities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(6), 1179–1197. This Article Was Equally Co-authored. Porter, M. (1980). Competitive Strategy. Free Press. Ramaswamy, V. (2021). Woke, Inc. Hachette Book Group. Rerup, C. (2005). Learning from Past Experience: Footnotes on Mindfulness and Habitual Entrepreneurship. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 21(4), 451–472. Ries, A., & Trout, J. (2001). Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. McGraw Hill. Robinson, J. (1933). Economics of Imperfect Competition. Macmillan. Ronstadt, R. (1988). The Corridor Principle. Journal of Business Venturing, 3(1), 31–40. Rothchild, M., & Stiglitz, J. (1976). An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 90(4), 629–649. Shane, S. (2000). Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities. Organization Science, 11(4), 448–469. Shane, S. (2003). A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: The Individual Opportunity Nexus. New Horizons in Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing. Stigler, G. (1961). The Economics of Information. The Journal of Political Economy, 69(3), 213–225. Verstraete, T., & Jouison, E. (2020). Three Theories to Frame the Concept of Business Model in the Context of Firm Foundation (Working Paper at Pole of Management Sciences). University Montesquieu Bordeaux IV Entrepreneurship Team. http://www.businessmodelcommuity.com/fs/Root/8ias7-Vertra eteJouison_ICSB2007.pdf Wernerfeldt, B. (1984). A Resource-Base View of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 5(2), 171–180. Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies. Free Press. Zeira, J. (1994). Informational Cycles. The Review of Economic Studies, 61(10), 31–44.

CHAPTER 7

Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon

According to Fernand Braudel (1994), “In no society have all regions and all parts of the population developed equally.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts” (Greenspan, 2007).

Prevalence Rates and Racial Discrimination Disparities in statistical prevalence rates across identity groups have become the gold standard for establishing historical and structural discrimination. However, if we are uncertain about the causes of any disparities, it makes it more problematic to extrapolate to their effects on entrepreneurship, which is the purpose of the treatment in this book. The question is how effective are summary statistics in determining the causes of racial disparities? This is an extremely important question because they have been used to establish the need for corrective actions that could negatively impact another prevalence rate—the one that indicates the rate of successful start-ups by aspiring entrepreneurs. However, if these disparities developed for reasons other than discrimination, the empirical basis for intersectional or any other type of discrimination could become suspect. The answer depends on the empirical reality of the conditions faced by group members. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_7

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Let there not be any doubt about whether the treatment in this book will attempt to cover up or minimize past wrongs. It will not. Its purpose is to promote clarity so that discrimination against any group or individual can be avoided. Its purpose is to promote the inherent dignity of all groups in the pursuit of truth, as they define it. And this is not even a postmodern argument. It is simply the realization that people are entitled to their own views, but of course not to their own facts. Evidence should always be the final decider. For now, discrimination has been accepted as received wisdom. It has also been used as a sledgehammer to attack grand narratives that have provided historical meaning for many groups. Narratives, such as, the founders of our country were inspired, or that we enjoy freedom of speech as citizens, run counter to the postmodern view that the weak in society are dominated by oppressors, often viewed as being white males. Moreover, addressing group guilt is mostly a failed project because individuals must individually confront and rationalize their ancestry’s role in any discrimination. Just imagine, if Germans were not responsible for the holocaust that murdered 6 million Jews? Of course, such a possibility is contrary to historical evidence and consequently guilt pervades the German psyche and tarnishes its national identity. Although no one can excuse the evil intentions that motivated the murders, one can pity those who are present-day inheritors of this terrible legacy, primarily because no living German took part. The discussion in this chapter will largely focus on racial discrimination, even though there are other reputed forms. These other forms will be examined individually in later chapters.

Prerequisites for Disparities Likewise, attempts to explain the causes of these disparities have also produced a range of responses. The large disparities in the economic outcomes of individuals, groups, and nations, which have many other disparate impacts, have produced a variety of reactions resulting from puzzlement to outrage (Sowell, 2019). At one end of this spectrum of responses is the belief that those who are less successful are also less competent. At the other end of the spectrum is the belief that the less fortunate are victims of other people who are more fortunate. Even though there is disagreement about the causes of these disparities, there is general agreement that these disparities exist. The question is,

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what is the best approach or approaches to minimize them? One answer that can be inferred from the treatment in this book is entrepreneurship—entrepreneurship can empower anyone, which of course does not guarantee someone’s success. Apart from entrepreneurship, and presumably other ways to address it, why do disparities exist? One possible explanation is the fact that success in many kinds of endeavors depends on prerequisites that are peculiar to each endeavor. It is also possible that relatively small differences in prerequisites could result in large differences in outcomes. Prerequisites and Probabilities The effect of prerequisites on probabilities is not complicated. Let’s suppose that there is some endeavor with five prerequisites for success, then the chances of success depend on the odds of satisfying all five of those prerequisites simultaneously. It is interesting to consider that these prerequisites need not be rare to skew their joint impact. Consider a case where the prerequisites are so common that the chances are two out of three that a person will have any one of them. Nevertheless, the odds are still against having all five of them. When the odds of having any one of the five prerequisites is two out of three, the chance of having all five simultaneously, is two thirds multiplied by itself five times, which comes out to 32/243 or about one in eight. Note that there is a sharp reduction in the probability of the success of an endeavor when there are multiple required factors, even if the prerequisites are few and common. A multiplicity of precursor factors is just one of the things that makes equality of outcomes less likely. Both prerequisites and other factors increase the possible combinations and permutations affecting outcomes. This decrease in the odds of success is so obvious that it is surprisingly overlooked by most observers. More common is to assume that one single factor accounts for either success or lack of success. What does this little exercise in arithmetic mean in the real world? One inference is that we should not expect success to be evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions, or nations if an endeavor has more than one prerequisite for success. Because many start-ups are launched by teams of individuals, they would also have multiple, simultaneous prerequisites, which by themselves do not make them more important. Also, if a prerequisite really is required, lacking only one of them would lead to utter failure, even if a startup were

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otherwise well endowed. For example, according to the United Nations (1957), as late as 1950, more than 40 percent of the world’s adult population was illiterate, which would be a fundamental requirement for most types of success in the modern world. This illiteracy included more than half the adults in Asia and Africa. If someone is not prepared to undergo extended toil, especially in disadvantageous circumstances, to become literate, even while possessing all the other prerequisites, this unmet need could nevertheless result in utter failure. Even more difficult is that not all a venture’s prerequisites may be conveniently accessible, which could be interpreted as discrimination. Intelligence, Prerequisites, and Disparities Could differences in intelligence compensate for lacking prerequisites? In other words, do only the intelligent and strong prosper? A study at Stanford University followed 1470 people, mostly men for more than a half century who had IQs greater than 140 (Terman & Merrill, 1937). Data on this group showed significant disparities, even within this rare group, all of whom had IQs within the top one percent. The most prominent factor in the Terman study that may account for differences in outcomes could be family backgrounds. Men with the most outstanding achievements came from middle-class and upper-class families and were raised in homes where there were many books. Also, half of the fathers were college graduates when such an educational level was relatively rare. Guides, Mentors, and Potential Benefactors It may be that sometimes what is missing from those who are low achievers is someone to point an individual with great potential in the right direction. Think of Tiger Woods whose father, Earl, guided him into golf at the age of three. It would be wonderful if everyone had such a guide and mentor, but of course that is not the case. Nevertheless, lacking someone to provide direction is not an instance of deliberate discrimination even if lower achieving populations have a lower incidence of eligible mentors to help the next generation of entrepreneurs. Perhaps, it could be an example of discrimination by omission, but that would assume that society had a general obligation to provide mentors. Normally, we would

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think of lacking mentors as simply a demographic characteristic that has developed over time in a population. It is not surprising that most professional golfers have never won a single PGA tournament in their lives. However, just three golfers—Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods—have won more than 200 tournaments among themselves. Moreover, the presence of similarly skewed distributions is also common in baseball and tennis. Another interesting example would be if a hundred people were in a room with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates; the average person in the room would be a millionaire. In this case, the prevalence of individual millionaires in the room would be much lower, all of which indicates that summary statistics can be confusing in multiple ways, especially with diverse prerequisites, none of which must result from explicit discrimination. Dynamism, Agriculture, and Disparate Impact Consider the case of when the prerequisites themselves change over time. This could occur with new kinds of endeavors or with pertinent advances in human knowledge. What someone once possessed as a competence could then become a poor match for a particular type of achievement. And a poor match could eventuate through no fault of any individuals or groups. Other advances in human knowledge could be impelled by macro-environmental factors such as a pandemic, government policy or war, among endless others, the point being that each of these are typically viewed as being beyond the control of individuals. Most impactful of all to human advances was the development of agriculture so that ten percent of humans could produce enough food to feed all the rest. The remainder, unburdened from agriculture, was then free to gather in cities. Historically, cities, perhaps because of their more abundant mutual resources, were the locales where many scientific, technological, humanitarian, and entrepreneurial accomplishments occurred. The cities themselves tended to be founded first in fertile river valleys, in such locations as Mesopotamia in Iraq, in the Indus River Valley in India, the Nile River basin in Egypt, and the Yellow River Valley in China. Because these fertile valleys were more abundant sources of prerequisites, human progress was impeded by fewer obstacles. Still, there is no control that we can exercise over where we are born, which may mean that we will be constrained by an unmerited, disparate impact.

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These prerequisite conditions have resulted in skewed patterns of success, which have stymied efforts by both the political left and the political right to attribute blame or to identify solutions. Analysts on opposite sides of a debate about prosperity and fairness may both assume a background level of probabilities that is not realistic. Unfortunately, misunderstanding probabilities can drive ideological movements, as they focus excessively on disparate impact statistics, which is or has been enough to create the presumption of discrimination.

Empirical Evidence Behind many well-intentioned efforts to explain obvious disparities is the implicit assumption that they would not exist without corresponding disparities in genetic makeup or how the presumably oppressed are treated by others. Let’s consider more cases. Genetic Determinism In the early twentieth century, the key factor behind economic and intellectual differences in groups was assumed to be genetics (Sowell, 2013). Juxtaposed against that view then is the opposite, and often politicized, view today that disparities in outcomes imply discrimination. American colleges and universities earlier had hundreds of courses on eugenics (Leonard, 2005), in the same way today that many institutions of higher learning have courses and whole departments teaching that disparate outcomes imply discrimination. Genetics was another one-factor explanation of disparate outcomes that proved to be too convenient to be explanatory, as indicated by its enthusiastic appeal. Likewise, discrimination, another one-factor explanation easily generated emotional appeal without considering the numerous moderators detailed in this chapter. Both genetics and discrimination could account for some variance, but in cases where multiple prerequisites are necessary to produce an outcome, utter failure was usually the outcome. People Studies of National Merit finalists found that the first-born child in families of up to five children were finalists more often than all the other

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children combined (Altus, 1966; Belmont & Marolla, 1973). Of course, this result raises the question of why was there not equality of outcomes among children who were raised under the same roof? If children from the same family are unequal achievers, why should we assume that equality of outcomes will exist in less similar situations? These sorts of results challenge supporters of the roles of heredity and the environment. Yet, the author of this book is very well acquainted with a college professor who had a donor father. The donor father provided semen to artificially inseminate his friend’s mother. The resulting half-siblings only met through DNA testing much later in life, after they had raised their own families. Of the 62 known half-siblings, 85% have earned doctorates or have become medical doctors. Of this group, many are well known internationally in their fields. As an aside, their donor father invented the first birth control pill and appears to have been highly intelligent himself, although he had no contact with his children, so nurture could not have had an effect. In this case, nature seems to have been more influential than nurture. Also, due to their varying circumstances, external enablers do not seem to have been paramount (Davidsson, 2015; Gladwell, 2008). One possible explanation is that fifty-six of the sixty-two half-siblings were Jews whose ancestry could be traced back to Ostropol, Ukraine; whereas, the remaining two siblings, who were also high achievers, were Christians. So, whether we argue that birth order and how one was raised makes all the difference or whether it mostly depends on inherited intelligence, either way, the achievement outcomes are discernibly different. In fact, how would we make them the same, even if that were our stated goal? Or do we really want outcomes to be the same if what causes differences in outcomes is due to differences in effort? One possible way would be using rewards and punishments. One could incentivize equal outcomes and punish efforts resulting in unequal outcomes (Skinner, 1938). Institutions Differences in achievement do not only exist among people. The institutions that they create rise and fall over time in their comparative advantages and disadvantages. The ancient Greeks and Romans were far more advanced than their British or Scandinavian contemporaries who were largely illiterate when the Greeks and Romans had landmark intellectual giants who were laying the intellectual foundations for Western

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civilization. Interestingly, a tenth-century Muslim scholar noted the Europeans grew paler the farther north you go and that the “farther they are to the north, the more stupid, gross, and brutish they are” (Lewis, 1982). The fact that Northern Europe and Western Europe would move ahead of Southern Europe economically and technologically many centuries later was an encouraging indication that backwardness in each era does not mean backwardness forever. Nevertheless, this brief survey does not deny that great economic and social disparities existed among nations and people at given times and places. There is also ample evidence that the entrepreneurial institutions of interest have also risen and fallen dramatically over time. Many American businesses began as peddlers (Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, for example) or were started by men born into poverty (J.C. Penney; F.W.Woolworth) or were begun in a garage (Hewlett Packard). Also, there have been businesses that fell from power after achieving the pinnacle of success (Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward). Another example of a fallen giant is Eastman Kodak, which was the world’s premier photographic film company. However, it failed to anticipate the arrival of digital technology and it was left behind by its digital competitors. Without a film-based infrastructure, its related products, which had been world leaders, quickly receded into obsolescence. The author of this book knew the CEO of Kodak during its final demise. He was a kind and good man. His board wanted him to downsize the company by laying off workers who he claimed were the reason that Kodak had achieved its prior success. He told the board that firing them was his job and that he would not do it. Then, he suggested that the board could fire him and have his replacement begin laying off workers, which is exactly what happened. He died a few years later, but never said an unkind word about his former employer. He was a man of principle that did not match the demands of the times. Geography Geography is another intractable obstacle to the equal or random distribution of outcomes (Zeihan, 2022). For example, it is less expensive to ship over water than it is over land. Thus, coastal locations had lower distribution costs than ones that were forced to trade over land. As commerce developed near these coastal locations, they attracted other factors of production that were prerequisites for launching new ventures.

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Costs began to shift with the advent of the railroads. The largest commerce center in the United States associated with railroads was Chicago. Although transportation by railroad was more costly than by ship, the railroad hubs were closer to inland centers of commerce, so they were able to compete with coastal shippers that did not have direct access to inland markets. These geographically based cost differences did not create a level playing field, with some locations enjoying a sustainable advantage consisting of lower costs. Other differences were related to soil fertility, the climate for agriculture, and resort living. Less noticed is that those who live in mountainous areas face an economic disadvantage compared with others who do not to face such unwelcoming terrain. Demography Demography relates to the ages, economic endowment, educational background, and distribution of a population. For example, in the United States, the income differences between middle aged people and young adults are larger than the income differences between blacks and whites. Also, people between 45 and 54 years of age earn double the medium income of people who are less than 25 (Fontenot et al., 2017). Interestingly, these age differences have increased over time as the physical vitality of youth has become less valuable economically. Not only do these age differences matter but differ by several decades between ethnic groups. In the United States, for example, the medium age of Japanese Americans is 51 and the medium age of Mexican Americans is 27 (U.S. Census, 2018). From this difference in age alone, we can infer that Japanese Americans earn more than Mexican Americans. The next section dimensionalizes discrimination so that we may understand its facets, causes, and implications. We will see that there is more than one type and that the types matter if we wish to address it with the wisest policies.

Discrimination What is the difference between having discriminating tastes when it comes to discerning differences in quality and discrimination according to identity group membership? The first has a positive connotation whereas the second has been charged with disparate outcomes among individuals

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and groups, although we have seen in this chapter that achieving equal outcomes is unlikely. However, recognizing the rarity of equal outcomes is not an argument for or against them because prevalence by itself does not make an outcome positive or negative. It is the nature of an outcome that determines its value to individuals and groups, which is when being discriminating becomes most useful. In those cases, when discrimination has been both negative and determinative, the fundamental question is, which kind of discrimination has led to the disparate outcomes? Another way to pose this question is to ask whether disparities in outcomes are caused by internal differences in behavior and capabilities or are those disparities due to external impositions based on biased misjudgments and antagonisms? At a minimum, we need to understand what we mean when we use a word like discrimination. We will see that it can have conflicting meanings that can lead to the misinterpretation of disparities. For this discussion, I acknowledge the pioneering work of Thomas Sowell (2007) for the framework that will follow. Types and Causes The broader meaning of discrimination—an ability to discern differences in the qualities of people and things, and choosing accordingly—can be called Discrimination I. It is the same as being discriminating. The narrower, but more commonly used meaning of discrimination— treating people negatively, based on arbitrary aversions or animosities to individuals of a particular race or sex, for example—can be called Discrimination II. This is the type of discrimination that has led to antidiscrimination laws and policies, with their associated political differences. Ideally, Discrimination I, when applied to people, would mean judging each person as an individual, regardless of which group that person is a member. Of course, people have different fears and concerns, which often causes falling short of the ideal in practice. An example, of fear would be encountering a stranger in the shadowy dark and making a quick, unreliable judgment about which ethnic group the stranger could represent. Then, reacting in a stereotypical way, perhaps driven by fear, to run away from a presumably dangerous group member. In other cases, Discrimination I may result in judging individuals according to their behavior, and not according to their group membership. However, it may be that a member of a disparaged ethnic group

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has already been presorted, for example, by admittance to a prestigious academic program, so that Discrimination I can be preferred to Discrimination II. Clearly, students in a prestigious academic program are not going to be a random sample of a larger population, which would be more susceptible to being judged by Discrimination II. Discrimination I typically requires more costly discernment, especially when applied at the individual level; whereas Discrimination II can be an arbitrary judgment based on unexamined antipathy toward members of a group. Discrimination I—basing decisions on empirical evidence—has two variations. The ideal and more costly variation is seeking and paying for information that would permit judging everyone as an individual rather than as a member of a group. This is called Discrimination 1A. In other cases, when information seeking is thought to be too costly, a person may be judged on information about the group to which a person is a member. This is called Discrimination 1B. Both variations are different from Discrimination II, which has no empirical basis but is judged to only depend on personal bias or an aversion to members of a particular group. It is conceivable that an employer with no animosity to a group could engage in Discrimination 1B—empirically based generalizations, thinking that some groups react differently in the presence of other groups. An example would be Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics being asked to work together when there were known animosities between them. The obverse could also be true when two groups are known to be friendly to each other. An example of a congenial relationship would be women choosing to work in a particular job, such as nursing or when males choose to be lumberjacks. Misjudging the basis for discrimination can lead to poor policies, which are less likely to achieve their goals. This is not an outcome that would satisfy anyone on either side of the postmodern debate. However, it does relate directly to the validity of claims of oppression or lack thereof. A false charge could lead to allotting resources to address a problem that does not exist. Or it could result in allotting resources to address a real problem that was mis-specified and thus received the wrong type or amount of support. Any mistakes in addressing the correct problems could hurt lawabiding citizens who are in effect paying taxes with the expectation that real problems will be addressed.

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Crime as a Form of Discrimination Crime raises the cost of doing business in those neighborhoods where it occurs. The cost of crime could impact both the residents of poor neighborhoods but also entrepreneurs who are trying to build sustainable businesses. The inevitable result of crime is that businesses will shutter leaving disadvantaged neighbors with fewer retail businesses in their neighborhoods. Those that do survive are forced to raise their prices to offset their higher costs, which forces those with the fewest resources to absorb the increased costs. Those residents who created none of the increased costs can be victims of those who did, rather than being victims of those who charged the resulting higher prices. This is not just a philosophical argument to shift blame. The difference between understanding the source of the higher prices and blaming those who charge those prices is the difference between doing something to lessen the problem and doing things to make the problem worse by driving needed businesses out of a neighborhood. Advocates often charge the surviving businesses with Discrimination II when in fact they are only passing on their increased costs from trying to compete in crime ridden neighborhoods, which would be Discrimination 1B—much more than a subtle distinction. As an example, residents of Eastern Kentucky refer to the higher prices and interest rates common in their area as the hillbilly tax (Cooklis, 2009). Crime is unfair to individuals of any identity. It harms law-abiding residents the most in high-crime neighborhoods. The most common solution historically would be stronger law enforcement by the courts and police. Instead, what we see in many precincts are advocates who wish to defund the police and appoint district attorneys who will not prosecute crimes such as shop lifting. Even murderers are often released on their own recognizance. The adage “Crime does not pay” has lately been turned on its head. Demographics One of the factors that is overlooked by those who equate statistical disparities with Discrimination II is that different ethnic groups have different median ages. Japanese Americans have a median age that is nearly two decades older than the median age of Mexican Americans. This is like comparing the earnings of a twenty-year-old with the earnings of a

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forty-year-old. We would expect younger workers to be paid less, yet in this case it surely does not have anything to do with their ethnicity— rather the higher earnings of Japanese Americans would reflect their greater experience. This is an example of conditions prior to job applicants reaching an employer having a disparate impact on their chances for promotion, compensation, and certainly their preparation for success in a job, once hired. With experience comes more opportunities to practice making correct decisions, which could be related to wisdom. Another demographic factor is the type of family in which a child is raised. Children from a family with professional parents hear nearly twice as many words per hour as children from a working-class family, and nearly three times as many words per hour as children raised in families on welfare (The Economist, 2014; Gayle et al., 2018). It is unrealistic to assume that such differences compounded over the years while growing up have no impact when applying for jobs as adults. Generally, collecting statistics on types of employment would tell us nothing about an applicant’s verbal proficiency even if they came from an educationally disadvantaged home. Attitudes May not Lead to Outcomes Employers are left to make sense of how to help their firms prosper. In most cases, they are not operating charities, nor do they consider themselves employers of last resort. Their primary loyalty is to the owners of the firm—its shareholders. They are probably not insensitive to the good that they can do through their hiring practices. Nevertheless, if they do not consider the survival and prosperity of their firms as their priority; they could go bankrupt and not be available to help any stakeholders. In competitive markets for labor, or for an employer’s products and services, the validity of an owner’s beliefs behind the decisions of a firm can determine whether it operates at a profit or a loss. In short, we simply cannot go directly from attitudes to performance outcomes, without doing a reality check, even if these attitudes include racism and sexism. Firms are preoccupied with surviving if they can and then possibly prospering. Economists have recognized the loosely coupled relationships between attitudes and outcomes. Examples consist of Adam Smith to the followers of Karl Marx. This argument was perhaps best formulated and expressed by Friedrich Engles, the co-author of the Communist Manifesto. Engles

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wrote, “what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed” (Marx & Engles, translated 1942). Nor did Adam Smith, the patron saint of free-market capitalism, attribute the benefits of capitalism to the good intentions of capitalists (1776). In fact, his views were even more negative than those of Karl Marx (Smith, 1776, p. 128). In summary, examining an outcome by itself is not a sure way to retroactively determine whether there was single attitude that generated the outcome. People tend to sort themselves into groups with other motives for acting.

Non-random Interaction Humans tend not to interact randomly. Nor do they interact as frequently with all members of a population. Instead, they spend more time with closer associates (c.f., Granovetter, 1985), which are a subset. Typically, individuals play a decisive role in how they sort and unsort themselves. It will be useful to understand this sorting process to understand that it probably supersedes many other motivations for action, not just in the United States but around the world. Whether groups were immigrants from a small area in Spain to neighborhoods in Buenos Aires (Moya, 1998) or the settlement of lower East Side Manhattan by a procession of Jews from Hungary, Romania, Russia, Germany, and other places in Eastern Europe, they remained temporally and spatially separated (Gill, 2011). The same was true of Lebanese immigrants to Sierra Leone in Africa and Columbia, like other immigrants to other places, they tended to settle in their own enclaves, perhaps for sociality and protection (van der Laan, 1975). This sorting occurs in not only where people choose to live but also in their social interactions. Whether it is Japanese immigrants settling in enclaves in Brazil or German Prussians and Bavarians choosing to interact with their own kind and then selecting marriage partners from among their most similar group members, the pattern repeats itself all over the world. The same could be said for Italian immigrants to Griffith, Australia, where they settled between 1920 and 1933 and then selected marriage partners from among those with the most similar origin. All the above patterns are statistically significant, but ordinarily hidden from casual observation. Unfortunately, the black white separation patterns in residential housing have been treated as if they were unique

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when they are common worldwide. Nevertheless, there has been discriminatory (type II) imposition of residential patterns in housing, but not just in the United States. Discrimination was noteworthy when European Jews were herded into ghettos. There are documented examples of discrimination in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Harlem among many others. Once initial voluntary sorting occurred, those so located often determined that they enjoyed a privileged position in their segregated communities, although outsiders often viewed these social communities as being impenetrable (Douglas, 2005; Gregory, 2005). One worry that these communities feared was social retrogression from lower class immigrants with similar backgrounds (Grossman, 2016). Retrogression Fears of social retrogression from the arrival of less acculturated members of one’s own group were not peculiar to blacks or to the United States. When Jewish refugees from Europe sought to gain entrance to Australia before the Second World War, the Australian Jewish Welfare Society opposed allowing hordes of refugees to enter the country, and Jewish refugees were put on notice by receiving a card from this organization that read (Elazar & Medding, 1983): Above all, do not speak German in the streets and in the trams. Modulate your voices. Do not make yourself conspicuous anywhere by talking with a group of persons, all of whom are loudly speaking a foreign language. Remember that the welfare of the old-established Jewish communities in Australia, as as well as of every migrant depends on your personal behavior. Jews collectively are judged [on account of] … individuals. You personally have a very grave responsibility.

Not only did minorities fear being categorized by Discrimination II, but this fear was quite widespread. Also, because there was a lot mixing and sorting of minorities, the process was not without consequent discrimination. After the civil war, blacks migrated to Northern cities. Many of the migrants had been slaves and were less acculturated than were the blacks who were already living in these cities. The mixing of these two types of blacks resulted in some retrogression. The same happened in the 1940s when tens of thousands of blacks, mostly from the South moved to the

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Pacific coast to seek employment with the manufacturers that were provisioning the war. Moreover, the new black arrivals were overwhelmingly more numerous than the existing black population. These new arrivals were seen as vulgar and ill-behaved (Johnson, 1993). Like what happened with the blacks in the Northern cities, the arrival of the newcomers was followed by retrogressions in black white relations (Frazier, 1949). The most common explanation of discrimination against blacks was racism. However, it cannot account for either the progress or the retrogressions that took place at different times and places. This is not to deny racism, but the evidence suggests that the discrimination that took place was not simply Discrimination II. It more closely resembled Discrimination 1B because as the blacks began to consist increasingly of people steeped in culture that originated in the South, they were unwelcome in the North by both blacks and whites in Northern communities. As late as 1944, when a landmark study was published, most blacks living in the North had been born in the South (Myrdal, 1944). It showed the sheer size of the black communities outside of the South. This study postulated that these larger communities were not as able to acculturate these Southern blacks in the norms of the Northern cities where most of them were living. What this means is that Discrimination IB had staying power, despite how much some might want to characterize it as Discrimination II. As these new black arrivals left the South, some have argued that the black population was misperceived, and that this explains the retrogressions. However, to make this argument is to suggest that the preexisting black and white populations were both mistaken when they reached very similar conclusions about the behavior of the incoming black migrant population. At the very least, such a conclusion, as would be the case with Discrimination IB, should require at least some empirical evidence. Causation If we wish to establish a causal explanation for discrimination, it is by no means simple. We could argue that whites who did not want blacks living in their neighborhoods are racist. But if we want to go beyond attributions to cause and effect, we have entered the world of facts, with its testing of beliefs against evidence, which leads us to directly confront the differences between Discrimination I and Discrimination II.

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In the earliest days of slavery in colonial America, there is no doubt that slaves lived where they were told. However, there were also free people of color, who were an inconvenient reminder to the slaveholders that slavery was not inevitable but for a time imposed. At this time, slavery existed virtually everywhere else in the world. There were relatively few slaves compared with the far larger number of indentured servants from Europe who committed to servitude for a period until they paid off in many cases the cost of their ship passage. Shockingly, in early colonial America, more than half the white population in the colonies south of New England arrived as indentured servants. Thus, for many, black and white, servitude became common place. Thus began a cycle of retrogressions followed by progress, followed by new retrogressions followed by new progress, in the treatment of the black population. If we examined the causes for these oscillations, we would learn something about Discrimination I and Discrimination II. Even if racist ideas, assumptions, and aversions could explain discrimination against blacks that would still not explain these oscillations—which represented major changes, back and forth, lasting for generations, in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nor would racist ideas explain the widespread existence of slavery today. In fact, according to a report by the United Nations, 50 million people are stuck in modern slavery. Twenty-eight million people were in forced labor and twenty-two million were living in a marriage that they had been forced into (Larson, 2022), which means that one out of every 150 people in the world are caught up in modern forms of slavery, the report said. The report also noted that modern slavery is present in basically every country, with more than half of cases of forced labor and a quarter of forced marriages in upper-middle income or high-income countries. Fourteen percent of those in forced labor were doing jobs imposed by state authorities, which is used as evidence to argue against compulsory prison labor in many countries, including the United States. The United States was not the only country criticized in the report. North Korea uses incredible amounts of forced labor under exceptionally harsh conditions. In contrast, the report warned of possible forced labor in China where Beijing is accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

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The Oppressive Intentions of Discrimination This chapter has considered different types of discrimination, from discriminating among individual characteristics based on a careful examination of the data (Discrimination 1) and discrimination against a class of individuals based on their identification with or membership in a group— all without examining individual data (Discrimination II). We have seen that Discrimination I can be used to reward individuals according to their effort and achievement; whereas, Discrimination II, is morally reprehensible because it targets and disadvantages individuals without regard to the outcomes that they initiate. The use of Discrimination II has often been asserted when there are differences in the prevalence rates indicated by summary statistics. However, to make such an assertion without examining the data for individual cases is to fall prey to the same error that is being asserted as a case of oppression. It should be laughable and ironic on its face. Statistical differences represent population averages. They tell us nothing about individual cases. This chapter has also addressed the questionable belief that normal individuals should achieve the same level of achievement, and if not, that this is prima facia evidence of Discrimination II, which would be the most improbable outcome of all. The main thrust of this chapter has been to examine the multiple factors that impact outcomes—from prerequisites, to demographic and geographical moderators, to age, agriculture, family background and education, to sex, health, effort, intelligence, and to cultural influences. For example, multiculturalism is based on the false premise that all cultures are equally valuable, which in nearly every incidence can be proven to be false. It would only be true if the outcomes were the same and they are not. Then, the question arises, valuable to whom? The “to whom” question would introduce even more variety to a system that is already experiencing disequilibrium. The question of whether all cases of discrimination are Discrimination II is fundamental to postmodern arguments debunking grand narratives, the role of oppression, the value of rationality in discerning reality, and multiple socialist initiatives, reputed to address oppression. However, if the oppression is not diabolically systematic, there will be no postmodern oppressors to neuter. Or if one existed, incapacitating this one source of discrimination, would not eliminate population differences, which have multiple sources.

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As we see that equal outcomes would be the exception, postmodern efforts to address them are likely to be misguided unless one believes that the elites who oversee the process are gifted in ways that exceed human intelligence (Hayek, 1945). In contrast, liberal capitalism argues to allow the markets to perform their informational and allocational roles using price as an efficient means of signaling value to other market actors. The next chapter discusses the fundamental role of information in entrepreneurship as well as how postmodern skepticism can alter the interpretation of information signals, which entrepreneurs rely on to assign prices to products and services. We will see that group differences can express themselves in various potential forms of discrimination. Whether these forms are discrimination II or merely different forms of discriminating behavior is an empirical question.

Summary of Discrimination as a Postmodern Phenomenon 7.1 According to Fernand Braudel (1994), “In no society have all regions and all parts of the population developed equally.” Daniel Patrick Moyihan once said, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts” (Greenspan, 2007). 7.2 Disparities in prevalence rates across identity groups have become the standard for demonstrating historical and structural discrimination. This argument is based on a fallacy—that differences in outcomes are caused by single-variable explanations, such as discrimination. 7.3 If we were uncertain about the causes of disparities; we could not extrapolate to their effects on entrepreneurship. The question is how effective are summary statistics in determining the causes of racial disparities? If disparities developed for reasons other than discrimination, the empirical basis for Marxism, intersectionalism, postmodernism, and social justice theory could become suspect. 7.4 The purpose of this chapter is to promote the inherent dignity of all groups in the pursuit of truth, as they define it. And this is not even a postmodern argument. It is simply the realization that people are entitled to their own views, but of course not to their own facts. Evidence should always be the final decider.

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7.5 Possible discrimination has been used as a sledgehammer to attack grand narratives that have provided historical meaning for many groups. Narratives, such as, the founders of our country were inspired, or that we enjoy freedom of speech as citizens, run counter to the postmodern view that the weak in society are dominated by oppressors, often viewed as being white males. 7.6 Addressing group guilt is mostly a failed project because individuals must individually confront and rationalize their ancestry’s role in any discrimination. 7.7 The large disparities in the economic outcomes of individuals, groups, and nations, which have many other disparate impacts, have produced a variety of reactions resulting from puzzlement to outrage (Sowell, 2019). 7.8 At one end of this spectrum of reactions is the belief that those who are less successful are also less competent. At the other end is the belief that the less fortunate are victims of other people who are oppressors. Even though there is disagreement about the causes of these disparities, there is general agreement that they exist. The question is, what is the best approach to minimize them? One answer is entrepreneurship because it can introduce new moderator variables that can be controlled by individuals. 7.9 Let’s suppose that there is some endeavor with five prerequisites for success. Now, consider a case where the prerequisites are two out of three that a person will have any one of them. Nevertheless, the odds are still against having all five. When the odds of having any one of the five prerequisites is two out of three, the chance of having all five simultaneously is two thirds multiplied by itself five times, which comes out to 32/243 or about one in eight. 7.10 What does this exercise mean in the real world? One inference is that we should not expect success to be evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions, or nations if an endeavor has more than one prerequisite for success. 7.11 The most prominent factor in the Terman intelligence study that may account for differences in outcomes could be family backgrounds. Men with the most outstanding achievements came from middle-class and upper-class families and were raised in homes where there were many books. Also, half of the fathers were college graduates when such an educational level was relatively rare.

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7.12 If a hundred people were in a room with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, the average person in the room would be a millionaire. In this case, the prevalence of individual millionaires in the room would be much lower, all of which indicates that summary statistics can be confusing in multiple ways, especially with diverse prerequisites, none of which must result from explicit discrimination. 7.13 Consider when a prerequisite changes. This could occur with new endeavors or with advances in human knowledge. Someone’s competence could become a poor match for an achievement. Advances in knowledge could be impelled by macroenvironmental factors such as a pandemic, government policy or war, among endless others; the point being that each of these are typically viewed as being beyond the control of individuals, with or without discrimination. 7.14 In the early twentieth century, the key factor behind economic and intellectual differences in groups was assumed to be genetics (Sowell, 2013). Juxtaposed against that view then is the opposite, and often politicized, view today that disparities in outcomes imply discrimination. Genetics was another one-factor explanation of disparate outcomes that proved to be too convenient to be explanatory. 7.15 Studies of National Merit finalists found that the first-born child in families of up to five children were finalists more often than all the other children combined (Altus, 1966; Belmont & Marolla, 1973). Of course, this result raises the question of why was there not equality of outcomes among children who were raised under the same roof? If children from the same family are unequal achievers, why should we assume that equality of outcomes will exist in less similar situations? 7.16 So whether we argue that birth order and how one was raised makes all the difference or whether it mostly depends on inherited intelligence, either way, the achievement outcomes are different. In fact, how would we make them the same? Or do we really want outcomes to be the same if what causes differences in outcomes is due to differences in effort? 7.17 Differences in achievement do not only exist among people. The institutions that they create rise and fall over time. The ancient Greeks and Romans were far more advanced than their British or Scandinavian contemporaries who were largely illiterate when the

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7.18

7.19

7.20

7.21

7.22

Greeks and Romans had landmark intellectual giants who were laying the intellectual foundations for Western civilization. There are entrepreneurial institutions that have risen and fallen, most of which drove the fates of their founders. Some American businesses began as peddlers (Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s) or were started by men born into poverty (J. C. Penney; F. W. Woolworth) or were begun in a garage (Hewlett Packard). Also, there have been businesses that fell from power after achieving the pinnacle of success (Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward). Geography is another intractable obstacle to the equal or random distribution of outcomes (Zeihan, 2022). For example, it is less expensive to ship over water than it is over land. Thus, coastal locations had lower distribution costs than ones that were forced to trade over land. As commerce developed near these coastal locations, they attracted other factors of production that were prerequisites for launching new ventures. Costs began to shift with the advent of the railroads. The largest commerce center in the United States associated with railroads was Chicago. Although transportation by railroad was more costly than by ship, the railroad hubs were closer to inland centers of commerce, so they were able to compete with coastal shippers that did not have direct access to inland markets. Demography relates to the ages, economic endowment, educational background, and distribution of a population. In the United States, the income differences between middle aged people and young adults are larger than the income differences between blacks and whites. Also, people between 45 and 54 years of age earn double the medium income of people who are less than 25 (Fontenot et al., 2017). Discerning differences in people and things, and choosing accordingly—can be called Discrimination I. It is the same as being discriminating. The narrower, but more commonly used meaning of discrimination—treating people negatively, based on arbitrary aversions or animosities to individuals of a particular race or sex, for example—can be called Discrimination II. This is the type of discrimination that has led to anti-discrimination laws and policies, with their associated political differences. Ideally, Discrimination I, when applied to people, would mean judging each person as an individual, regardless of which group that person is a member.

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7.23 Discrimination I—basing decisions on empirical evidence—has two variations. The ideal and more costly variation is seeking and paying for information that would permit judging everyone as an individual rather than as a member of a group. This is called Discrimination 1A. In other cases, when information seeking is thought to be too costly, a person may be judged on information about the group to which a person is a member. This is called Discrimination 1B. 7.24 Both variations are different from Discrimination II, which has no empirical basis but is judged to only depend on personal bias or an aversion to members of a particular group. It is conceivable that an employer with no animosity to a group could engage in Discrimination 1B—empirically based generalizations, thinking that some groups react differently in the presence of other groups. 7.25 Crime is unfair and discriminates against individuals of any identity. It harms law-abiding residents the most in high-crime neighborhoods. The most common solution historically would be stronger law enforcement by the courts and police. Instead, what we see in many precincts are advocates who wish to defund the police and appoint district attorneys who will not prosecute crimes such as shop lifting. 7.26 The most common explanation of discrimination against blacks was racism. However, it cannot account for either the progress or the retrogressions that took place at different times and places. This is not to deny racism, but the evidence suggests that the discrimination that took place was not simply Discrimination II. It more closely resembled Discrimination 1B because as the blacks began to consist increasingly of people steeped in culture that originated in the South; they were unwelcome in the North by both blacks and whites in Northern communities. 7.27 As late as 1944, most blacks living in the North had been born in the South (Myrdal, 1944). Larger communities in the North were not as able to acculturate these Southern blacks in the norms of the Northern cities where most of them were living. What this means is that Discrimination IB had staying power, despite how much some might want to characterize it as Discrimination II. 7.28 Nor would racist ideas explain the widespread existence of slavery today. In fact, according to the United Nations, 50 million people are stuck in modern slavery. Twenty-eight million people were in forced labor and twenty-two million were living in forced

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marriages (Larson, 2022), which means that one out of every 150 people in the world is caught up in modern forms of slavery. 7.29 The use of Discrimination II has often been asserted when there are differences in the prevalence rates indicated by summary statistics. Statistical differences represent population averages. They tell us nothing about individual cases. This chapter has addressed the questionable belief that normal individuals should achieve the same level of achievement, and if not, that this is prima facia evidence of Discrimination II, which would be the most improbable outcome of all. 7.30 The question of whether all cases of discrimination are Discrimination II is fundamental to postmodern arguments debunking grand narratives, the role of oppression, the value of rationality in discerning reality, and multiple socialist initiatives, reputed to address oppression. However, if the oppression is not diabolically systematic, there will be no postmodern oppressors to neuter. Or if one existed, incapacitating this one source of discrimination, would not eliminate population differences, which have multiple sources.

References Altus, W. (1966). Birth Order and Its Sequelae. Science, 151, 45. Belmont, L., & Marolla, F. (1973). Birth Order, Family Size, and Intelligence. Science, 182(4117), 1098. Braudel, F. (1994). A History of Civilization (R. Mayne, Trans.). The Penguin Press. Cooklis, R. (2009). Lowering the High Cost of Being Poor. Cincinnati Enquirer (May 28), p. A7. Davidsson, P. (2015). Entrepreneurial Opportunities and the Entrepreneurship Nexus: A Re-Conceptualization. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(5), 674– 695. Douglas, D. (2005). Jim Crow Moves North: The Battle over North School Segregation, 1865–1954 (pp. 2–5, 61–62). Cambridge University Press. The Economist (July 26, 2014). Choose Your Parents Wisely (p. 22). Elazar, D., & Medding, P. (1983). Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies— Argentina, Australia, and South Africa (pp. 282–283). Fontenot, K., Semega, J., & Kollar, M. (2017). Income and Poverty in the United States: 2017. In Current Population Reports (pp. 60–363). U.S. Census Bureau, 2018.

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Frazier, E. (1949). The Negro in the United States (revised, p. 270). Macmillan. Gayle, G., Golan, L., & Soytas, M. (2018). Intergenerational Mobility and the Effects of Parental Education, Time Investment, and Income on Children’s Educational Attainment. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, 100(3), 291–292. Gill, J. (2011). Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America (p. 140). Grove Press. Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 9(November), 481–510. Grossman, J. (2016). African American Migration to Chicago. Ethnic Chicago, fourth edition, edited by Holli, M. and Jones, P. pp. 323, 330. St Claire: Drake and Horace. Cauyton Gregory, J. (2005). The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America. University of North Carolina Press. Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success (p. 111). Little, Brown and Company. Johnson, M. (1993). The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (p. 198). University of California Press. Larson, N. (Sept. 12, 2022) 50 Million People Stuck in ‘Modern Slavery’: UN. Barron’s. https://www.barrons.com/news/50-million-people-stuck-inmodern-slavery-un-01662966307 Leonard, T. (2005). Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(4), 216. Lewis, B. (1982). The Muslim Discovery of Europe (p. 139). W. W. Norton. Marx, K., & Engles (1942). Selected Correspondence 1846—1895. Translated by Torr, D. New York: International Publishers, p. 476. Moya, J. (1998). Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930 (pp. 119, 145–146). University of California Press. Myrdal, G. (1944). An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (p. 965). Harper and Brothers. Skinner, B. (1938). Behavior of Organisms. Appleton-Century-Crofts. Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/smith-an-inquiry-intothe-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations-cannan-ed-vol-1. P. 423. Sowell, T. (2007). A Conflict of Visions. Basic Books. Sowell, T. (2013). Intellectuals and Race. Basic Books. chapter 3. Sowell, T. (2019). Discrimination and Disparities. Basic Books. Terman, L. and Merrill, M. (1937). Measuring intelligence: A guide to the administration of the new revised Stanford-Binet tests of intelligence. Houghton Mifflin.

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United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (1957). World Illiteracy at Mid-Century: A Statistical Study. Paris, p. 15. Van der Laan, H. (1975). The Lebanese Traders in Sierra Leone (pp. 237–240). Mouton & Co. Zeihan, P. (2022). The End of the World Is Just the Beginning. Harper Business.

CHAPTER 8

Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns

The Spread of Postmodern Ideology The postmodern viewpoints evident in critical race Theory quickly spread to new areas of potential grievance. As examples, feminisms and gender studies were presented as sophisticated simplifications of complex questions about identity, whereas disability and fat studies were developed to buttress intersectional theories of group identity. The result of these movements was to shift individual responsibility to one’s identity based on group membership. Of course, shifting the responsibility for one’s choices from individuals to a larger group implies that individuals are not responsible for their own success nor failure, meaning that it is the group identity itself that deserves the credit or blame. Who wants to live like that as part of such a joyless existence unless one is to be substantially compensated? This chapter will discuss the postmodern implications of feminisms and gender studies followed by disability and fat studies. We will see that each of these subdivisions creates moving targets for entrepreneurial success and failure.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_8

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Feminisms and Gender Studies It is no surprise that approximately one half of all humans are female. Nor is it new information that females have been subjugated historically, largely by biology to care for children. That left males freer to leave home and look for a means to support a growing family, which in some ways could have disadvantaged females in the workplace. However, it would be a mistake to apply present standards to the evolution of the human family structure. Life was more brutal and unforgiving. Families benefitted from female nurturing as much as from males protecting their families from scarcity and environmental threats. Postmodernism presented an opening and justification for females to escape the traditional family structure, mainly because it became possible for families to contract for the services needed for their children from outside of the family. Fathers who could outsource some of their duties to provide for their family were also able to rebalance and restructure nurturing responsibilities with their wives. Postmodern views facilitated this evolution by arguing that sex was a construct more than a condition dictated by biology. Some also argued that children would be indifferent as to whether the nurturing came from males or females. However, this interchangeability argument is not supported by the fact that there is a special bond developed between a mother and her children that begins with breast feeding. Males can feed their children with bottled milk, but that is not as intimate as a mother and her baby lying next to each other, skin touching skin. In this relationship, males are biologically disadvantaged in developing the same level of intimacy with their children as their wives. The very survival of humans could depend on the self-assurance that babies can develop, in part motivated by the intimate love and support that they feel from their mothers. After they are no longer dependent on their mothers for milk, their relationship could diminish in its intimacy. However, mothers presumably would have already bonded with their babies. Thus, although mothers and fathers can share some family responsibilities, there is also evidence that they have different roles dictated by biology. It could be that our modern commercial society has provided families with outsourcing opportunities to switch roles; however, this would be an empirical question that is beyond the scope of this treatment.

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The previous chapter on critical race Theory explained how the Theory had become divided into a materialist and a postmodern interpretation. These were both quickly supplanted by an increasingly sophisticated approach based on intersectionality, which combined many forms of identity Theory. The previous bifurcated interpretation was largely abandoned in favor of multiple, shared axes of marginalized identity, which were theorized to exist under the ineffective purview of earlier feminists of the materialist and postmodern persuasions. This change was so sudden that after the early 1990s, several papers followed Crenshaw’s (1989, 1991) initial formulation (Bell, 2008; Butler, 2006; Crenshaw, 2018; Crenshaw et al., 2001; hooks, 1996; Lyotard, 1997). Jointly these new axes magnified potential oppression, bigotry, injustice, and grievance, as well as one’s own complicity in allowing and sometimes passively advocating for unnamed systems of power and privilege. To an outsider, this intersectional approach can seem very frustrating because everyone is guilty of something, and it may be impossible to do anything right. Some have compared it to a circular firing squad continually undermining itself over petty differences and grievances (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). It operates by using calls to the various oppressed “tribes” to support each other under the banner of allyship and later solidarity, both of which become problematic themselves as they inevitably attempt to privilege and center the needs of the oppressors at the expense of oppressed minority groups. It is nearly impossible to escape the impression that it is not feasible to do anything right, perhaps by design so that everyone will feel guilty. Given that its advocates are sincere in their desire to bring positive changes, one must eventually confront the question of whether making everyone feel guilty of something is the best way to instigate change. If one assumes that guilt is the most effective way to relieve oppression, then we are all doomed to live a miserable existence, which further raises the question of whether guilt is what would motivate someone to be entrepreneurial. Assuming rational expectations, entrepreneurs can formulate a view of the future that they themselves want to be able to enact. It seems reasonable that it would need to be a hopeful view; otherwise, what would motivate them to marshal the resources, design a plan, and then organize the work to bring success?

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Previous Feminisms and How They Have Changed Feminism has never presented a unified view despite a general belief in gender equality. In terms of equality, most of the population is now feminist (Risman, 2018). Nevertheless, feminist scholarship and activism have always been much more theoretical and ideological; and these ideologies have changed over time, all the while failing to merge into a single strand. Feminists come in a dizzying array of camps, including, radical cultural feminists, radical lesbian feminists, radical libertarian feminists, separatists, French psychoanalytical feminists, womanists, liberal feminists, neoliberal feminists, Marxist feminists, socialist/materialist feminists, Islamic feminists, Christian feminists, Jewish feminists, choice feminists, equity feminists, postfeminists, and intersectional feminists (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Each of these groups is interested in women’s rights, roles, and experiences but they differ in how they understand them. It is essential to remember that most of these intersectional tokens do not exist in nature but instead are intellectual naming exercises. Yet they can be advocated passionately just the same. There are far too many types of feminism to explore in depth, so I will focus on four that have acted as early fountainheads of what has continued to develop. Those to be examined in more depth are: (1) liberal feminism, (2) radical feminism, (3) materialist feminism, and (4) intersectional feminism. Liberal feminism was the most common from the late 1960 through the mid-1980. This liberal variety was most effective in reshaping the workplace. Radical and materialist feminism drew on Marxism and socialism and are somewhat overlapping and competing during the same period. Materialist feminism was concerned with how patriarchy and capitalism act together to constrain women. Radical feminists emphasized patriarchy and saw men as oppressing women. The goal of the radicals was to remake society and dismantle the concept of gender (not sex) and overthrow patriarchy and capitalism. Intersectional feminism is the new postmodern variant that replaced the others after the mid-1990s. Most important was that liberal feminism enjoyed the most support from society but that the radical and materialist versions dominated the academy. Postmodern Theory accepted identity oppression as real and thus made it a target of feminist activism. It incorporated aspects of queer Theory, postcolonial Theory, and critical race Theory through the lens of intersectionality. It also tended to neglect class issues and focus more on identity

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in the form of race, gender, and sexuality (Lorber, 2006). In fact, postmodern feminism denied that women had common experiences, which complicated what it meant to be a woman. While liberal feminists wanted to reject gender roles but still be able to access the same opportunities as men, radical feminists wanted to dismantle gender as an oppressive social contract. In contrast, intersectional (postmodern) feminists saw gender as both culturally constructed and real, so much so that people ought to be able to have their experiences acknowledged as real. The virtue of such acknowledgments was in stark contrast to the modern tradition of evidence-based, scientific falsification and deniability. Completely centered on a woman’s experience, nothing else was required by postmodernism to establish truth claims of oppression. By the late 2000s, the intersectional, postmodern shift in feminism had become undeniable. The shift changed its focus from material disadvantages within social structures like law, economics, and politics to the oppressive nature of discourses. Judith Lorber (2006) summarized the four main tendencies of this paradigm shift: 1. Making gender—not biological sex—central. 2. Treating gender and sexuality as social constructs. 3. Reading power into the above constructions—power that acts in the Foucauldian sense of a permeating grid (1969, 1973, 1977); and 4. Focusing on one’s standpoint—that is, one’s identity. Lorber (2006) viewed these changes as increasingly sophisticated and woke, but if they were, they were a return to applied postmodern Theory. More notable was the fact that intersectionality offered feminists a renewed sense of purpose by providing them with new problems to investigate. For example, black feminists could accuse feminism of being white and ignoring problems common to racial prejudice. Meanwhile queer feminists could accuse feminist thought of excluding lesbians and other non-traditional sexual orientations. Layered on top of these paradigms was the new care-perspective, which argued that a mindful activist would become woke not only to the ways in which others are oppressed but to the ways that feminism itself could have been complicit in the oppression. Ultimately, this last concern should be subsumed

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within the framework of gender studies, which is technically distinct from feminism, even though it draws upon it and informs it.

Gender Studies The academic study of gender emerged as a part of literary Theory in the 1950s and 1960s. Initially, it was referred to as women’s studies because it considered women’s issues and advocated for the political empowerment of women (Beauvoir, 1974; Friedan, 2013; Greer, 2012). Some of its early arguments were that women are constructed by cultural understandings of their inferiority to men (Beauvoir, 1974). In addition, women were allegedly unfulfilled by domesticity (Friedan, 2013). Later, Germaine Greer argued in the Female Eunuch (2012) that women were sexually repressed and alienated from their own bodies and unaware of how much men hated them. The above textual references fall under the rubric of radical feminism, even though they originated from gender studies. During much of the 1970s and 1980s, feminist scholars looked at women’s roles in the family and workplace and at social expectations that women be feminine, submissive, and beautiful, if not sexually available and pornographic. Many of these gender studies used a Marxist lens to view women as a subordinated class that exists to support men who in turn were the capitalists. In consciousness-raising sessions, they tried to fully comprehend their own oppression and its culturally supported nature. One can imagine leaving one of these sessions having reached a crescendo of dissatisfaction and being very unhappy, regardless of one’s actual circumstances. They borrowed the Marxist concept of false consciousness, which prevented women from understanding the realities of their situation. It is easy to understand that with these views that gender studies became a high-minded crusade to combat the internalized misogyny that it claimed had developed in women, and which had become viewed as normal and natural. Gender studies reached the point where it was insufficient to only understand patriarchy as rule by fathers and husbands. Instead, it posited that male dominance had gone further until it permeated every discourse whereby power and privilege were elevated to become the organizing principles of the multidimensional organizing systems of intersectionality. In addition, Lorber (2006) argued that gender and sexuality are socially

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constructed. She also documented a shift away from feminism to gender studies. Gender in its new postmodern conception became something that is done by and to people and that we all do to each other. The next steps were to understand how societal structures became and are gendered whereby they created expectations using a set of socially legitimized discourses that define the roles into which women are to be socialized. Doing Gender Gendering has become increasingly sophisticated and nuanced. It now includes race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as other more peripheral issues. Also, gendering is now interdisciplinary. The one point of consistency is that each of these specific areas of interest study gender in a specific way. It applies a lens of gendered analysis that draws on intersectionality, queer Theory, postcolonial Theory, and ultimately on postmodern conceptions, of power and discourse, all which Kant (1781) anticipated in his most subjective conceptions. Gendering is an oppressive action, not typically done knowingly. Instead, it is fomented by social interactions on multiple levels that can become increasingly complex. In their massively influential work with more than 13,000 citations to academic papers, Doing Gender, West and Zimmerman (1987) were determined to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction: We contend that the “doing” of gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of society is hostage to its production. Doing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional, and micropolitical activities that cast pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminism “natures.” (page 126)

Consistent with the shift away from sex and toward gender, understood as a social construction, West and Zimmerman (1987) explicitly reject biology as a source of differences in male and female behaviors, preferences, or traits. Doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men, differences that are not natural, essential, or biological.

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Once the differences have been constructed, they are used to reinforce the “essentialness” of gender. (p. 137)

This process, they argue, is achieved by socialization and is well underway by the age of five. Being a “girl” or a “boy” then, is not only being more competent than a “baby,” but also being competently female or male, that is, learning to produce behavioral displays of one’s “essential” female and male identity. (142)

Other scholars influenced by postmodernism quickly agreed that gender was done rather than being inborn (Butler, 2006; Connell, 2010; Lorber, 2006; West & Zimmerman, 1987). As indicated by Connell (2010), gender was also something that could be redone and even undone. Clearly, these scholars championed the idea that raising our consciousness (wokeness) about gender could give us power over it to address the oppression endured by females. The Demise of Liberal Feminism Postmodernism affected liberal feminism differently. Unlike radical and materialist feminists who had been engaged in more activism, liberal feminists were modernists following the scientific method, which worked in concert with liberal democracy, within the framework of universal human rights with an Enlightenment focus on reason and science. They were probably blindsided by the popularity and adoption of anti-science, postmodern assumptions. These trends are summarized by Pilcher and Whelehan (2017, p. 54): Liberal feminism draws on the diversity of liberal thought dominant in Western society since the Enlightenment, which affirms that women’s subordinate social position can be addressed by existing political processes under democracy. For liberals the key battle is access to education;... [they argue] that if men and women are educated equally then it follows that [women] will get equal access to society. Liberal feminists would be loath to use the language of “revolution” or “liberation” favored by radicals and socialists; it is their belief that democracy itself is naturally adaptable to equality for both sexes. This liberal position is broadly held to be the dominant, “commonsense” stance on feminism, applicable to most women

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who identify as “feminist,” [and which] remains highly visible in popular discourse.

This liberal approach is angrily refuted by postmodernists who prefer to emphasize identity categories, so that they can apply identity politics to enforce meaning-making structure for the benefit of one’s identity classification. Skin color and gender are the main determinants of the oppressed’s opportunities. The postmodern view is that the liberal feminists want everyone to conform to white, Western, male, heterosexual discourse. In fact, it would be surprising if the postmodernist even recognized the accomplishments of Martin Luther King who argued for a color-blind society. Masculinity Through a Feminist Lens The study of masculinity within gender studies is tinged with its own form of hatred (Walters, 2018). Although men and masculinity are mostly studied by men, they study masculinity within a feminist framework (Kimmel, 1995). Thus, men speaking for themselves would be speaking from power into powerful, anti-women discourses, whereas women speaking for men would be speaking into those already-powerful discourses against their own interests, neither of which can be allowed. Men are still essentially the enemy from a feminist perspective. The elephant-in-the-room question is why do some men allow themselves to be trapped in this downward spiral? A partial answer may be found in men’s and masculinities studies relying on the concept of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2018). Hegemonic masculinity refers to dominant forms of masculinity, which are understood to maintain men’s superiority over women and to perpetuate aggressive and competitive expressions of maleness, which are socially enforced by hegemonic and dominant discourses around what it means to be a real man. A synonym could be toxic masculinity, which is a “constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence” (Kupers, 2005). Like Freud who perfected his fixation on males having a sexual addiction by studying only people who were sick, i.e., those with castration anxiety, (Murphy et al., 2010), Kupers (2005) practiced the same sort of psychology by only studying male deviates who were already locked up in prison. In addition to being highly unethical because

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prisoners are not free to opt out of such studies, these types of biased samples give science a bad name and are as disgusting as the sicknesses that they study. Of course, the purpose of these studies is to accuse men of being misogynistic, which furthers the feminist narrative. However, drawing such comparisons with sick men casts doubt on the legitimacy of the feminist scholars who make such allusions. Gender and Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurs are generally not preoccupied with assertions about how biological differences are less important than socially constructed gender categories that pit oppressors against the oppressed. Postmodernism seeks to justify any differences that exist as being structural artifacts of discrimination, which is a Marxist argument for class struggle. Entrepreneurship depends on capitalism, which is antithetical to Marxist class struggle. Capitalism provides for arm’s length exchanges that are free from coercion because an exchange partner can walk away if he or she thinks they are going to be bullied. Capitalism also facilitates liberal democracy, which by itself can address inequity by empowering individuals to act in their individual self-interests while it generates new wealth. If entrepreneurs were preoccupied with achieving feminist and gender equity, rather than leaving it to liberal democracy to sort out any difficulties, they would be less focused on discovering ways to generate new wealth. Plus, emphasizing differences by pitting classes of people against each other will cause markets to fragment and for governments to overspend so that it becomes more complicated to address inequities commercially or through imposed governmental solutions. Apart from class struggle there are other issues that ought to focus the economic curiosity of entrepreneurs. Two of these issues are the collapse of worldwide, free trade and the coming demographic cliff, which will make it more costly to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. It appears that free trade peaked in 2019 and has been in a downward spiral since, which will increase everyone’s costs. The demographic cliff, which is coming in 2025, will leave short-handed businesses with even fewer prospects to recruit, which again will increase labor costs. Together these two challenges will reduce our standard of living to the point that it may already be in a protracted dissent, leaving society with fewer resources to address the most meaningful differences (Zeihan, 2022). These are real challenges with objective evidence to support their existence, both of

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which will make it more costly to generate new wealth. In some ways, it would be irrational to focus on problems that are mainly identified by activists who have a commercial stake in their resolution. It is also ironic that humanity’s best option for confronting the coming dissipation of wealth is entrepreneurship, the seemingly unintentional target of postmodernism. The next sections will discuss disabilities and obesity as liabilities. Together and separately, they are classifications that have been identified by postmodern, identity activists for special treatment. Of course, special treatment is not costless, so they could impact the prevalence of entrepreneurship.

Disability as a Postmodern Concern Disability activism began in the 1960s about the same time as the civil rights movement. A disability could consist of any of the following, among others: chronic pain, hearing loss, vision loss, impaired mobility or paralysis, loss of a limb, emotional instability, impaired intellectual capacity, social ineptitude, being short or tall or even disfigurement or ugliness. Surely this list could be augmented to describe fewer common situations and more fortunate individuals who are allegably disabled. Over the next 20 years, the activist goal of making society more accommodating and accepting of disabled people was mostly achieved. Beginning in the 1980s, however, disability studies turned toward postmodernism plus the incorporation of intersectional feminism, queer Theory, and critical race Theory (McRuer & Berube, 2006; Scuro, 2019). This turn brought with it the addition of the view that disability was a social or cultural construct. Those who espouse this postmodern perspective have since become increasingly radical and in denial about reality (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Furthermore, disability came to be valorized as a set of related marginalized identity groups, which were contrasted with normal able-bodied identities. The postmodern political principle is a call to identity politics, which requires someone identifying with a marginalized group or being assigned to a relatively privileged one, which is viewed as being unfair, which comes with it a political and moral obligation to help others. In contrast, The individual model of disability presupposes that the problems disabled people experience are a direct consequence of their impairment, which

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leads professionals to attempt to adjust the individual to their disabling condition. [Plus,] there is likely to be a program of re-ablement designed to return the individual to as near normal a state as possible. (Oliver et al., 2012)

Disability studies are also supported by the postmodern theme of fragmenting the universal and giving individuals a group identity, which has already been mentioned as a potential threat to entrepreneurs. Group identity effectively reduces the size and resiliency of the markets that entrepreneurs can serve. Normal identities, such as being disabled, are problematized for the alleged implications of their very existence. This represented a shift from understanding disability as something that resides in the individual to viewing it as something imposed upon individuals by an unwelcoming and uninterested society that does not accommodate their needs. Of course, disabled entrepreneurs are the ones who must adjust their approaches to markets according to their remaining competencies. Such a view was a stark rejection of the progress that had been made beginning in the 1960s. The responsibility for the disability shifted from the individual to society for not being more accommodating. Consequently, a person would only be considered disabled as a result of society’s expectations that a person be able-bodied. The shift to a social constructionist view of disability seems to have taken place in two stages. In the first, the social disability model replaced the medical model of disability, sometimes called the individual model. In the social model, the obligation is society’s to accommodate an individual with impairments. The social model of disability acknowledges impairment as being a cause of individual limitation, but disability is imposed on top of this. This may be summed up this way: Disability is the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by the political, economic, and cultural norms of a society which takes little or no account of people who have impairments and thus excludes them from mainstream activity. (Therefore disability, like racism or sexism, is discrimination and social oppression).... This social model of disability, like all paradigms, fundamentally affects society’s worldview and within that, the way particular problems are seen. (Oliver et al., 2012)

Oliver and colleagues (2012) desired to affect a conceptual shift from a binary understanding of disabled versus able-bodied people to the idea of

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a spectrum of capabilities, whose meanings have been understood differently in different times and cultures. They did not initially come to this radical interpretation, but that changed. The second shift refocused scholarship on the study of power and privilege, which was a renewed emphasis on class struggle, which seemed rather unfair from the outset. How is a disabled person supposed to compete with an able-bodied person when the capabilities being tested are precisely those that a disabled person possesses in a diminished capacity? Ableism Ableism is the acceptance of the notion that it is better to be able-bodied than disabled and that it is normal to be able-bodied. On the other hand, disableism implies prejudice against disabled people, as well as the belief that regardless of the minimal nature of a person’s disability that a disabled person is assumed to be inferior as a person to an able-bodied person. Thus, because this discrimination is not completely related to a disability, it really is discrimination against a class of people, as construed by the able-bodied. Queer Theory, with its focus on deconstructing what is normal, has proven to be very compatible with disability studies because they allegedly inform each other (McRuer & Berube, 2006): Like compulsory heterosexuality [which is the opposite of being queer], then, compulsory able-bodiness functions by covering over, with the appearance of choice, a system in which there is no choice.... Just as the origins of heterosexual/homosexual identity are now obscured for most people so that compulsory heterosexuality functions as a disciplinary formation seemingly emanating from everywhere and nowhere, so too are origins of able-bodied/disabled [divide] obscured.... to cohere in a system of compulsory able-bodiness that similarly emanates from everywhere and nowhere.

Foucault’s influence is evident here (1969, 1973, 1977). The passage reflects his notion that power operates on all levels to constrain people into conforming with expectations. The solution to the challenge of discrimination may be to blur the boundaries of ableist categories to the point of making them disappear. This is argued to be a subjective classification that is dictated by medical discourse, which, allegedly, unjustly

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seeks to categorize people as normal and abnormal. Thus, this new, postmodern approach has fit nicely with the social model of disability, ever since its adoption by queer Theory (Goodley, 2014). It is distressing that Goodley (2014) considers diagnosing, treating, and curing disabilities as cynical practices, urged forward by corrupt ableist assumptions. He thinks they have become corrupted so that they can serve a neoliberal system in capitalist markets for the purpose of providing goods and services. He acknowledges that the able-bodied are more functionally useful but such an assessment disadvantages the impaired by using a medical model rather than a social model. He describes society in intersectional terms, as “merging overlapping discourses of privilege.” For him, the social model is not sufficiently intersectional, suggesting that the disabled should object to cures. Instead, he suggests: [The]... modes of ableist cultural reproduction and disabling material conditions can never be divorced from hetero/sexism, racism, homophobia, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and capitalism (p. 35).

The notion that disabled people have a responsibility to subvert social norms, using their disabilities, in the service of the postmodern disruption of categories, is one more alarming feature of disability studies, which is not unique to Goodley. According to Campbell (2012), [A] chief feature of an ableist viewpoint is a belief that impairment or disability (irrespective of type) is inherently negative and should opportunity present itself, be ameliorated, cured, or indeed eliminated. (Campbell, 2012, p. 5)

In fact, Campbell (2012) characterizes able-bodiness and disability as performances that people learn from society, thereby constituting each in a binary that must be overthrown. Shockingly, scholarship and activism reframe disability as a cynical ploy to wish that disabled people, rather than their disabilities, did not exist. Others depict disability as a performance and as an identity to be celebrated. Such counter factual thinking cannot be disabused using facts when activists want to use it as a cudgel to evoke sympathy to justify reparations. It is empirically false to argue that all identities are equally valuable according to the results that someone can achieve. There is a reason that

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the handicapped have their own Olympics, which is that they could not compete with the able-bodied. A similar battle is being waged in the courts regarding the reputed unfairness of allowing transgender, formerly male, athletes being allowed to compete against female athletes. The Beginning of the End Disability studies and the social model of disability started off well until it was smitten by a postmodern turn. Their initial aims were to kindly place less responsibility on the disabled for their predicaments. Some of the most positive achievements were legislative with funding for physical accommodation. However, it was an error to turn disability studies into an identity-based crusade to root out oppression. The danger was that most people are sympathetic to the disabled and to accuse them of the obverse could be highly offensive to their better selves. The first test of societal compassion was to help. Beyond that, to act as if society owed the disabled compensatory treatment does not elicit as much sympathy. Entrepreneurship is a test of reality and how individuals can interact with buyers and stakeholders within an industry structure. Industry actors enter exchanges when a bid on offer improves their individual circumstances. If these actors do not see an exchange making them better-off, they may have very little incentive to act apart from a charitable inclination. Clearly, it is more difficult for the disabled to offer equal value when offering some service or products to an outsider within the confines of an industry exchange. What the disabled need the most in the context of an industry exchange is a favorable, trusting atmosphere between the exchange parties (Williamson, 1975). Assuming good faith by both parties to an exchange is a mutually, more appealing approach. Many people are compassionate, toward the disabled, and perhaps most sensitive to those who were injured during military or public service, even if they are typically self-interested. In the early 60s, helping the disabled enjoyed a great deal of public support with many accommodations written into law and public policy. With the rise of applied postmodernism complicated by intersectionalist linkages with other identity groups, the messaging turned against the disabled, and particularly against those with entrepreneurial aspirations.

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Fat Studies as Postmodernism Fast studies first appeared in the 1960s at about the same time as disability studies. This postmodern interpretation attempts to portray negative perceptions of obesity as related to racism, sexism, and homophobia, while explicitly rejecting science, preferring instead its intersectionalist narrative based on being an oppressed class of victims. It focuses on the social construction of obesity and seeks to empower obese people to reject medical advice while encouraging them to seek out a supportive community that views obesity more favorably. Like other postmodern strands, it sees knowledge as a principle of power, perpetuated in discourses that hate fat people. It is not hatred toward fat people, however, which is driving the risks to their health. Doctors are not prevaricating about those who are killed by obesity. One mortal threat is nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, which is fatty liver disease. Recently, there has been mild euphoria among pharmaceutical companies because Madrigal discovered a treatment that seems promising because it produces reduced scarring and inflammation of the liver (Wainer, 2022). Five percent of the market for this drug would be worth $8.5 billion, assuming a price of $15,000. Of course, the best way to tackle fatty liver disease, just like other illnesses generally caused by obesity, will always be to make lifestyle adjustments such as cutting down on unhealthy foods. However, according to the postmodern narrative, this is just another way to torment fat people. Such a misguided assertion is simply not supported by medical evidence. Being misguided did not prevent the obese who were so disposed to organize against medical science. By 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and the Fat Underground were arguing being fat was normal. This claim was famously argued in the book, Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight by Linda Bacon (2010). Unfortunately, numerous meta-analyses have been conducted since even before the publication of this book, which refute its claims. Although consistent with medical findings, its refutation could change as science learns more. We should always be cautious in the face of evolving science; however, those arguing for the virtues, or at least the harmlessness of being fat, were not as forthcoming with research that supported their position. Instead, like other postmodern projects, fat studies were organized first as a social movement to combat the oppression of the obese

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using medical science as a demonstration of discrimination (Cooper, 2016). Developing Theory maintained that it was impossible to dismantle weight/size oppression without addressing the intersectionality of all oppressions. In fact, such an argument gained momentum in the early 1990s, which was the heyday of Intersectionalism. Fat activism was virtually abandoned by radical feminism about the same time that it was revived by postmodern feminism. The origins of fat feminism are immersed within a feminism that is problematic, maligned, unfashionable and obscure, that is, radical lesbian feminism, including, at times, lesbian separation. Critiques of this feminism surfaced with queer... and postmodern feminisms because of, for example, its essentialism and its fundamentalism. (Cooper, 2016, p. 145)

True to its intersectional attachments, within fat studies, it is common to address negative attitudes against obesity alongside racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, disableism, and imperialism, even though there is substantial evidence that obesity is a result of consistently consuming more calories than are needed and that it carries significant health risks (Farrell, 2011; Rothblum & Solovay, 2009). Power as a Paranoid Tautology Visualize power as a grid, which is the postmodern view. It posits that we are born and prepositioned by elements of our identity, which give us different access to power and privilege. In time, we learn to perform our positioned identity and thus transmit power through ourselves as part of a power grid system. Our learning is mostly achieved through hegemonic socialization, which supports the construction of our roles. All this is a tautology that would be difficult to refute because it is alleged to be everywhere. To navigate this complex grid of power-laden discourses that frame how fat people are viewed and denied privileges, one must first be trained to detect it. Training people was what Critical Theory, including postmodernism, was invented to do (Tovar, 2018). So, Theory insists that we need Theory. Thus, the charge itself, it contends, contains the alleged proof, which is an unconvincing tautology. Tautological arguments did not prevent those who were interested in protecting and even advocating for fatness, nor was it alone among other

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intersectional causes in doing so. In fact, the only surprise regarding these arguments would have been if activists had not made them because they are a fundamental part of their paradigm. Captivated by such tautological reasoning, Cooper (2016) was skeptical of an emerging body-positivity movement that placed the responsibility for adapting to societal norms on individuals rather than on group identity. Perhaps these two opposing views, individual identity versus group identity, could accommodate each other’s differences by acknowledging the health benefits of non-obesity (thinness) while separating the condition from the people who are fat. If one considers fatness as a reflection of someone’s lack of self-discipline or minimal intelligence, or of shifting the cost of care to society without taking responsibility for one’s own well-being, this would be insulting. Unfortunately, these discourses have developed separately, which hindered the sharing common assumptions, which could have progressed to sharing mutually understandable communications. Instead, fat studies and a critical orientation have moved in the opposite direction, by denying science: Although [fat studies and critical postmodernism]... do not wholly reject the scientific method as a means of creating knowledge about the world, a critical orientation rejects the notion that it is even possible to produce knowledge that is objective, value-free, and untouched by human bias. A critical orientation similarly rejects the idea that any one way of creating knowledge about the world is superior to another or is even sufficient.... As such, [Critical Dietetics] draws on poststructuralism and feminist science (two other windows) that hold that there is not one truth that can be generated about any single thing, that multiple truths are possible depending on who is asking and for what purpose, and that knowledge is not apolitical even if it is considered positivist (i.e. value neutral or unbiased). (Coveney & Booth, 2019)

In summary, fat studies is hardly a rigorous approach to studying anything. Yet, it has found a home within various subfields known collectively as social justice scholarship. These studies consist of various forms of critical Theory, which internally they consider themselves to be objectively real, but not real in the sense that entrepreneurs require—a realism that describes the world in which they must thrive. Rather social justice scholarship makes sense internally to those who study it. In fact, fat studies as a form of scholarship become, fantastically, whatever its scholars assert, regardless of the empirical evidence. Such assertions go back to the

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founding of postmodernism in 1781, when Immanuel Kant first began to write about its pretentions.

Summary of Feminisms, Gender, Disability, and Fat Studies as Postmodern Concerns 8.1 The postmodernism evident in critical race Theory quickly spread to new areas of grievance. Feminisms and gender studies were presented as sophisticated simplifications of complex questions about identity, whereas disability and fat studies were developed to buttress intersectional theories of group identity. The result of these movements was to shift individual responsibility to one’s identity based on group membership. 8.2 It is no surprise that approximately one half of all humans are female. Nor is it new information that females have been subjugated historically, largely by biology to care for children. That left males freer to leave home and look for a means to support a family, which could have disadvantaged females in the workplace. 8.3 Postmodernism presented an opening for females to escape the traditional family structure. Fathers who could outsource some of their duties to provide for their family were able to rebalance and restructure nurturing responsibilities with their wives. Postmodern views facilitated this evolution by arguing that sex was a construct more than a condition dictated by biology. 8.4 Although mothers and fathers can share some family responsibilities, there is evidence that they have different roles dictated by biology. 8.5 A materialist and a postmodern interpretation were both quickly supplanted by intersectionality, which combined many forms of identity Theory. The previous bifurcated interpretation was largely abandoned in favor of multiple, shared axes of marginalized identity, which were theorized to exist under the ineffective purview of earlier feminists of the materialist and postmodern persuasions. 8.6 This change was so sudden that after the early 1990s, several papers followed Crenshaw’s (1989, 1991) initial formulation (Bell, 2008; Butler, 2006; Crenshaw, 2018; Crenshaw et al., 2001; hooks, 1996; Lyotard, 1997). Jointly these new axes magnified potential oppression, bigotry, injustice, and grievance, as well as one’s own complicity in allowing and sometimes passively advocating for unnamed systems of power and privilege.

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8.7 Intersectionality operates by using calls to the various oppressed “tribes” to support each other under the banner of allyship and later solidarity, both of which become problematic themselves as they inevitably attempt to privilege and center the needs of the oppressors at the expense of oppressed minority groups. 8.8 If guilt is the most effective way to relieve oppression, then we are all doomed to live a miserable existence. Entrepreneurs can envision a future that they want to be able to enact. It should be a hopeful future that would induce them to marshal the resources, design a plan, and then organize the work to bring success. 8.9 Feminists comprise an array of camps, including, radical cultural feminists, radical lesbian feminists, radical libertarian feminists, separatists, French psychoanalytical feminists, womanists, liberal feminists, neoliberal feminists, Marxist feminists, socialist/ materialist feminists, Islamic feminists, Christian feminists, Jewish feminists, choice feminists, equity feminists, postfeminists, and intersectional feminists (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). 8.10 Each of these groups is interested in women’s rights, roles, and experiences but they differ in how they understand them. It is essential to remember that most of these intersectional tokens do not exist in nature but instead are intellectual naming exercises. Yet they can be advocated passionately just the same. 8.11 The feminist variants to be considered are: (1) liberal feminism, (2) radical feminism, (3) materialist feminism, and (4) intersectional feminism. Liberal feminism was most effective in reshaping the workplace. Materialist feminism was concerned with how patriarchy and capitalism act together to constrain women. Radical feminists emphasized patriarchy and saw men as oppressing women. Their goal was to remake society and dismantle gender (not sex) and overthrow patriarchy and capitalism. Intersectional feminism is the new postmodern variant after the mid-1990s. Most important was that liberal feminism enjoyed the most support but that the radical and materialist versions dominated the academy. 8.12 Postmodern Theory accepted identity oppression as real. Thus, it incorporated queer Theory, postcolonial Theory, and critical race Theory through the lens of intersectionality. It also tended to neglect class issues and focus more on identity in the form of race, gender, and sexuality (Lorber, 2006). In fact, postmodern

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feminism denied that women had common experiences, which complicated what it meant to be a woman. Completely centered on a woman’s experience, nothing else was required by postmodernism to establish truth claims of oppression. By the late 2000s, the intersectional, postmodern shift in feminism had become undeniable. It changed its focus from material disadvantages within social structures like law, economics, and politics to the oppressive nature of discourses (Lorber, 2006). It has four tendencies: (1) Making gender—not biological sex—central; (2) Treating gender and sexuality as social constructs; (3) Reading power into the above constructions; and (4) Focusing on one’s standpoint—that is, one’s identity. Gender studies emerged as a part of literary Theory in the 1950s and 1960s. Initially, it advocated for the political empowerment of women (Beauvoir, 1974; Friedan, 2013; Greer, 2012). Some of its early arguments were that women are constructed by cultural understandings of their inferiority to men (Beauvoir, 1974). In addition, women were allegedly unfulfilled by domesticity (Friedan, 2013). During the 1970s and 1980s, feminist scholars looked at women’s roles in the family and workplace and at expectations that women be feminine, submissive, and beautiful, if not sexually available and pornographic. Many of these gender studies used a Marxist lens to view women as a subordinated class that exists to support men who in turn were the capitalists. Gender studies reached the point where it was insufficient to only understand patriarchy as rule by fathers and husbands. Instead, it posited that male dominance had gone further until it permeated every discourse whereby power and privilege were elevated to become the organizing principles of the organizing systems of intersectionality. Gendering now includes race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as other more peripheral issues. Also, gendering is now interdisciplinary. The one point of consistency is that each of these specific areas of interest studies gender in a specific way. It applies a lens of gendered analysis that draws on intersectionality, queer Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and ultimately on postmodern conceptions, of power and discourse.

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8.19 Liberal feminists were modernists following the scientific method, which worked in concert with liberal democracy, within the framework of universal human rights with an Enlightenment focus on reason and science. They were probably blindsided by the popularity and adoption of anti-science, postmodern assumptions. 8.20 For liberal feminists, the key battle is access to education. If men and women are educated equally, then women will get equal access. They would not use the language of “revolution” or “liberation” favored by radicals and socialists; it is their belief that democracy itself is naturally adaptable to equality for both sexes. 8.21 This liberal approach is angrily refuted by postmodernists who prefer to emphasize identity categories, so that they can apply identity politics to enforce meaning-making structure for the benefit of one’s identity classification. 8.22 Hegemonic masculinity refers to dominant forms of masculinity, which are understood to maintain men’s superiority over women and to perpetuate aggressive and competitive expressions of maleness, which are socially enforced by hegemonic and dominant discourses around what it means to be a real man. A synonym could be toxic masculinity. 8.23 Like Freud who perfected his fixation on males having a sexual addiction by studying only people who were sick, i.e., those with castration anxiety, (Murphy, Patrick & Llewelyn, 2010), Kupers (2005) practiced the same sort of psychology by only studying male deviates who were already locked up in prison. 8.24 Entrepreneurs are generally not preoccupied with how biological differences are less important than socially constructed gender categories that pit oppressors against the oppressed. Postmodernism seeks to justify any differences that exist as being structural artifacts of discrimination, which is a Marxist argument for class struggle. Entrepreneurship depends on capitalism, which is antithetical to Marxist class struggle. If entrepreneurs were preoccupied with achieving feminist and gender equity, rather than leaving it to liberal democracy to sort out any difficulties, they would be less focused on discovering ways to generate new wealth. 8.25 Apart from class struggle, there are other issues that ought to focus the economic curiosity of entrepreneurs. Two of these are the collapse of worldwide, free trade and the coming demographic cliff, which will make it more costly to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities (Zeihan, 2022). Free trade peaked in 2019 and

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has been in a downward spiral since, which will increase everyone’s costs. The demographic cliff, which is coming in 2025, will leave short-handed businesses with even fewer prospects to recruit, which again will increase labor costs. Disability activism began in the 1960. A disability could consist of any of the following, among others: chronic pain, hearing loss, vision loss, impaired mobility or paralysis, loss of a limb, emotional instability, impaired intellectual capacity, social ineptitude, being short or tall, or even disfigurement or ugliness. Surely this list could be augmented to describe fewer common situations and more fortunate individuals who are allegedly disabled. Over the next 20 years, the activist goal of making society more accommodating and accepting of disabled people was mostly achieved. Beginning in the 1980s, disability studies turned toward postmodernism plus the incorporation of intersectional feminism, queer Theory, and critical race Theory (McRuer & Berube, 2006; Scuro, 2019). This turn brought with it the addition of the view that disability was a social or cultural construct. Those who espouse this postmodern perspective have since become increasingly radical and in denial about reality (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). The disabled were problematized for the alleged implications of their very existence. This represented a shift from understanding disability as something that resides in the individual to viewing it as something imposed upon individuals by an unwelcoming and uninterested society that does not accommodate their needs. Of course, disabled entrepreneurs are the ones who must adjust their approaches to markets according to their remaining competencies. The social model of disability acknowledges impairment as being a cause of individual limitation, but disability is imposed on top of this. Thus, disability is the disadvantage caused by the political, economic, and cultural norms of a society, which takes little account of people who have impairments and thus excludes them from mainstream activity. Therefore disability, like racism or sexism, is discrimination and social oppression. Ableism is the acceptance of the notion that it is better to be able-bodied than disabled and that it is normal to be ablebodied. Disableism implies prejudice against disabled people who are assumed to be inferior as a person to an able-bodied person. Thus, because this discrimination is not completely related to a

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disability, it really is discrimination against a class of people, as construed by the able-bodied. It is distressing that Goodley (2014) considers diagnosing, treating, and curing disabilities as cynical practices, urged forward by corrupt ableist assumptions. He thinks that they have become corrupted so that they can serve a neoliberal system in capitalist markets for the purpose of providing goods and services. He acknowledges that the able-bodied are more functionally useful, but such an assessment disadvantages the impaired by using a medical model rather than a social model. Campbell (2012) characterizes able-bodiness and disability as performances that people learn from society, thereby constituting each in a binary that must be overthrown. Shockingly, scholarship and activism reframe disability as a cynical ploy to wish that disabled people, rather than their disabilities, did not exist. It is false to argue that all identities are equal according to the results that someone can achieve. There is a reason that the handicapped have their own Olympics, which is that they could not compete with the able-bodied. A similar battle is being waged in the courts regarding the reputed unfairness of allowing transgender, formerly male, athletes being allowed to compete against female athletes. Disability studies and the social model of disability started off well until it was smitten by a postmodern turn. Their initial aims were to kindly place less responsibility on the disabled for their predicaments. Some of the most positive achievements were legislative with funding for physical accommodation. However, it was an error to turn disability studies into an identity-based crusade to root out oppression. Entrepreneurship is a test of reality and how individuals can interact with buyers and stakeholders within an industry structure. Industry actors enter exchanges when a bid on offer improves their individual circumstances. If these actors do not see an exchange making them better-off, they may have very little incentive to act apart from a charitable inclination. Fat studies first appeared in the 1960s at about the same time as disability studies. This postmodern interpretation attempts to portray obesity as related to racism, sexism, and homophobia, while explicitly rejecting science, preferring instead its intersectionalist narrative based on being an oppressed class of victims.

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8.37 Doctors are not lying about those who are killed by obesity. One mortal threat is fatty liver disease. Recently, Madrigal discovered a treatment that seems promising because it produces reduced scarring and inflammation of the liver (Wainer, 20,222). Five percent of the market for this drug would be worth $8.5 billion, assuming a price of $15,000. Of course, the best way to tackle fatty liver disease will always be to make lifestyle adjustments. 8.38 Being misguided did not prevent the obese to organize against medical science. By 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and the Fat Underground were arguing being fat was normal. Unfortunately, numerous meta-analyses have been conducted, which refute its claims. 8.39 If one considers fatness as a reflection of someone’s lack of self-discipline or minimal intelligence, or of shifting the cost of care to society without taking responsibility for one’s own wellbeing, this would be insulting. Unfortunately, these discourses have developed separately, which hindered the sharing of common assumptions, which could have progressed to sharing mutually understandable communications. Instead, fat studies and a critical orientation have moved in the opposite direction, by denying science. 8.40 Fat studies are not a rigorous approach for studying anything. Yet, they have found a home within various subfields known collectively as social justice scholarship. These studies consist of various forms of critical Theory, which internally they consider themselves to be objectively real, but not real in the sense that entrepreneurs require—a realism that describes the world in which they must thrive.

References Bacon, L. (2010). Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight. Ben Bella Books. Beauvoir, S. (1974). The Second Sex (H. Parshley, Trans.). Vintage Books. Bell, D. (2008). And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. Basic Books. Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble. Routledge. Campbell, F. (2012). Contours of Ableism: The Production of Disability and Ableism. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Connell, C. (2010). Doing, Undoing or Redoing Gender? Gender & Society, 24(1), 31–55. Connell, R. (2018). Masculinities. Vancouver: Langara College. Cooper, C. (2016). Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement. Hammer On Press. Coveney, J., & Booth, S. (2019). Critical Dietetics and Critical Nutrition Studies (p. 18). Spring. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1(1989), 139–167. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241– 1299. Crenshaw, K. (2018). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. Feminist Legal Theory, pp. 57–80. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (2001). Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New Press. Farrell, A. (2011). Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. New York University Press. Foucault, M. (1969). The Archaeology of Knowledge (A. M. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1973). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish (A. M. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon. Friedan, B. (2013). The Feminine Mystique. W. W. Norton & Company. Goodley, D. (2014). Dis/ability Studies: Theorizing Disablism and Ableism. Routledge. Greer, G. (2012). The Female Eunuch. Fourth Estate. hooks, b. (1996). Postmodern Blackness. In W. Anderson (Ed.), The Fontana Postmodernism Reader. Fontana Press. Kimmel, M. (1995). The Politics of Manhood: Profeminist Men Respond to the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement (and the Mythopoetic Leaders Answer). Temple University Press. Kupers, T. (2005). Toxic Masculinity as a Barrier to Mental Health Treatment in Prison. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(6). Lorber, J. (2006). Shifting Paradigms and Challenging Categories. Social Problems, 53(4), 448. Lyotard, J. (1997). Postmodern Fables (G. Van Den Abbele, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. McRuer, R., & Berube, M. (2006). Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York University Press.

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Murphy, T., Patrick, J. and Llewelyn, S. (2010). Companion to Psychiatric Studies (Eigth Edition). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-7020-3137-3.00012-7 Oliver, M., Sapey, B., & Thomas, P. (2012). Social Work with Disabled People. Palgrave Macmillan. Pilcher, J., & Whelehan, I. (2017). Key Concepts in Gender Studies. Sage. Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Risman, B. (2018). Good News! Attitudes Moving Toward Gender Equality. Psychology Today. www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/gender-que stions/20182/good-news-attitudes-moving-toward-gender-equality. Rothblum, E., & Solovay, S. (Eds.). (2009). The Fat Studies Reader. New York University Press. Scuro, J. (2019). Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies. Lexington Books. Tovar, V. (2018). You Have the Right to Remain Fat (pp. 67–68). Feminist Press. Wainer, D. (2022, December 20). Drug Trial Surprise Could Put Madrgal in Big Pharma’s Sights. Wall Street Journal, B10. Walters, S. (2018). Why Can’t We Hate Men? Washington Post, June 8, 2018. Available at: www.washsingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men/ 2018/06/08/fla3a8e0-6451-11e8-a69c-b944de66dc7_story.html?noredirec t=on. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender and Society, 1(2) pp. all. Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies. Free Press. Zeihan, P. (2022). The End of the World Is Just the Beginning. Harper Business.

CHAPTER 9

Postmodernism’s Critical Race Theory and Intersectionalism

Ending Racism by Seeing It Everywhere It is difficult to envision how anything as laudable as entrepreneurship could be reduced to a class struggle and an instrument of oppression but that is what critical race Theory has managed to accomplish. Entrepreneurs are seen as becoming conspirators to use their newfound power to oppress the weakest among us. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with acquiring wealth. The obverse is true, in fact, because they can use it however, they wish, and even to do good if that is their choice. Entrepreneurship is a dire threat to Marxism because it demonstrates that individual determination can be more powerful than class struggle. It proves that entrepreneurs can create their own options. When entrepreneurs are winning, they are not concerned about class struggle or whether someone else is winning or losing, which has the effect of demonstrating the utility of capitalism in a very tangible way, which again, provides evidence of the determinative nature of reality. Postmodernism has falsely claimed that reality is only a construct to achieve more power for the elites. No, reality exists, even when someone stops believing in it. Destroying entrepreneurship would eliminate an effective route for creating dynamic markets in which those who have a dream and who sacrifice to achieve it can see themselves becoming wealthy in less than

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_9

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a generation. Of course, only asserting racism is not a substitute for evidence validating its existence.

A Social Construct The idea that race is a social construct originated with W. E. B. Du Bois, who argued that any biological differences between the races were mostly social and cultural, to perpetuate the unjust treatment of racial minorities (2019). Later postmodernism obfuscated this argument about differences by asserting that truth cannot be found anyway so that even if these differences existed, they would be unknowable. In our postmodern age, it has become permissible to skip the step in which evidence validates or disconfirms the existence of racism by seeing racism everywhere. It does not matter whether it exists because postmodernism and critical race Theory further asserted that there is no truth nor right way to interpret a text or nature (Kant, 1781). Values were to be and are socially constructed. It asserted that all ways of life and cultures were legitimate, which is in stark contrast to the evidence that some cultures are superior in the provision of social order and higher living standards, as well as the values that acknowledge the highest and best attributes of human progress (Sowell, 2011).

Activist Protests Regardless of the evidence, all that an activist must do is to scream loudly about racism’s alleged existence (Wallace, 2022), despite its being illegal. Possibly because protestors saw rewards for themselves in reputed racism, it was easy to be motivated to rally many supporters to the cause (Lindsay, 2022). Of course, some supporters could have been true believers (Hofer, 1989), but truth really was not necessary to assert racism. Protesters could act as if it were true, regardless of any inconvenient facts. Soon, for example, the racial riots after George Floyd’s unwarranted death could become an exercise in logrolling, which included forcing major corporations to donate to woke political causes, all for the purpose of eradicating racism. Although their donations enriched the leaders of Black Lives Matter and others, none of these donations found their way to the underserved communities for which they were intended. In this case, if there were a class struggle, it was between the charlatan fund raisers and the racial communities who might have needed help. Caught in the

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middle were the seemingly woke corporations that were blackmailed into providing financial and public support. In addition, some of these corporations did prosper financially by supporting woke causes, but others, such as Disney, lost the support of many families, once they figured out that the Magic Kingdom had become hostile to their interests.

Justifying Colonialism and the Slave Trade While other factors might have played a role, race, and racism probably did arise as social constructs, asserted by Europeans to morally justify colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade. In their defense, they were not the only racists. Racism has appeared in most cultures at some time in their history (Sowell, 2011). The European justification included color-based prejudice, certainly in the early period between 1500 and 1800 (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Initially, it could have begun as religious discrimination, but it gave way to racism—a belief in the superiority of some races over others. Racism was used to justify kidnapping, exploiting, and abusing slaves. It was argued that the victims of these abuses were inferior or subhuman, even if they had converted to Christianity. A common point of confusion is failing to acknowledge that other peoples at other times also practiced slavery, colonialism, and even genocidal imperialism. What all these incidences seem to have in common is that the slaves were judged to be inferior and lacking human rights.

Early Crusaders The earliest efforts to challenge racism were made by former American slaves, including Sojourner Truth (1850) and Frederick Douglass (2013). Later in the twentieth century, influential race critics like W.E. B. Du Bois (2019) and Winthrop Jordan (2012) documented the history of colorbased racism in the United States. Their work was thorough and should have been enough to expose racism for its ugly and unfounded ideology but a belief in the racial supremacy of whites survived nonetheless, which was especially pronounced in the American South where its economy had come to rely on slave labor. Ideology could have driven the racism, but at least in the American South, economic convenience seems to have prevailed. Otherwise, why was slavery less prevalent in other parts of the country? This is really a

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default argument, though, because I am not arguing for leaderless, unassisted homogeneity. Nature tends to create winners and losers. Thus, the most surprising outcome of racial accounting would be if nature always produced the same outcomes for all subgroups.

Historicity Historians will judge the historicity of the origins of racism. What seems clear is that postmodernism was not part of its origins, but racism became a tool, if not a convenient context, for a Marxist demonstration of class warfare. As soon as it became a postmodern cause, its defenders became steeped in other issues such as the destruction of capitalism and democracy, which allegedly enabled or at least permitted the perpetuation of racism. It is almost as if the postmodern activists were borrowing legitimacy from the indisputable history of slavery, with all its abuses. However, the similarity of slavery’s struggle should be considered separately, and not mixed with the creepingly dangerous postmodern ideology that has roots that go back to Kant (1781). The two tracks can be confused and then added to intersectional ideology to more powerfully refute capitalism, the bedrock of entrepreneurship. Historically, this is the wrong narrative to support if our goal is to address scarcity and poverty. Capitalism and entrepreneurship are the solutions to these ills, not their causes. If they were the causes, it would be easy to point to examples that destroy wealth over time and those examples do not exist. Some Europeans have criticized America for practicing cut-throat capitalism because it can create winners and losers, even though they do not dispute capitalism’s economic success. However, when socialism fails, when it is rescued, that rescue inevitably comes by making economic reforms that resuscitate capitalism with entrepreneurs leading the way. Many countries have turned to a mixed capitalist model, which is capitalism constrained by government policies to achieve social benefits for all its stakeholders. Today, mixed capitalism is the most prevalent economic model in countries worldwide. Those countries that promote mixed capitalism probably understand that they are sacrificing higher growth to achieve more immediate, social objectives. However, mixed capitalist economies generate less new wealth and fewer public goods for redistribution. The enlightened bureaucrats who preside over mixed capitalism are going to have fewer resources at their disposal, so the empirical question

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becomes, would not these countries be wealthier if they simply allowed entrepreneurs to make capitalists wealthier? Many think that we already have the answer, but soon we will have much more data to demonstrate that entrepreneurship is the answer.

Critical Race Theory Critical race Theory began in the 1970s through the study of law as it pertains to issues of race. The word critical refers to its intention and methods that emphasized identifying and exposing problems to facilitate revolutionary political change. Activists turned to this approach because they said that legal remedies had been unable to eliminate residual discrimination. To secure not just equal rights but preferential rights, legal scholars turned to the tools of cultural criticism. This required developing new critical approaches and eventually Theory. Like other types of cultural criticism, critical race Theory can be viewed as being divided into at least two parts—(1) materialist and (2) postmodern. The materialist approach theorizes about how material systems—economic, legal, political—affect racial minorities. By contrast, postmodern theorists were more concerned with linguistic and social systems and therefore aimed to deconstruct discourses, detect implicit biases, and counter underlying racial assumptions and attitudes (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Because of these differences in their approaches, the former has criticized postmodernism for being excessively focused on intangible and subjective discourse analysis, which seemed to critics to be far removed from real world discrimination. The postmodern response is that material reality cannot be meaningfully improved while discourses continue to favor white people. Critical race Theory in both forms, materialist, and postmodernist, was less than satisfied with liberalism, preferring instead, radicalism. Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and a step-by-step progress, critical race Theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality Theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law... Critical race scholars are [also] discontented with liberalism as a framework for addressing America’s racial problems. Many liberals believe in color blindness and neutral principles of constitutional law, [which are viewed as being ineffectual because]... they believe in equality, especially equal

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treatment for all persons, regardless of their different histories or current situations (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017).

All the above sentiments about postmodernism are true—especially its illiberal nature, which is among the most persistent criticisms of it. The materialists dominated the critical race movement from the 1970s to the 1980s (Bell, 2008), but from the late 1990s, the postmodernists were increasingly ascendant. Over time, the postmodernists came to focus on microaggressions, hate speech, safe spaces, cultural appropriation, implicit association tests, media representation, whiteness, and the now familiar trappings of current racial discourse (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). These changes were wrought by a slew of radical scholars including bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Patricia Hill Collins. They were happy to blur the boundaries with critical racism by adding in both patriarchy and white supremacy in ways that spoke from the perspective of legal scholarship and sociology. They set the stage for another wave of feminist scholars including Patricia Williams, Angela Harris, and Kimberle Crenshaw— a student of Derrick Bell who invented the term Critical Race Theory (Hicks, 2018), and later added to it Intersectionalism. This flood of changes implied new commitments to change the social order. Gone was the central focus on material realities as the structural basis for understanding racism, and especially poverty. These foci were replaced by the analysis of discourse and power. Added very soon were an interest in identity politics and standpoint Theory, which posits that one’s identity and position in society predetermine how one comes to knowledge. These developments, together with the blurring of boundaries and the dissolution of the individual in favor of group identity, reveal the dominance of postmodernism in critical race Theory by the early 1990s. With the advent of this latest postmodern turn, the Marxist class struggle moved to a new arena for the battle, one in which words and social systems were used to oppress the weak, and in this case, racialized minorities; mainly, it was postulated by white males. With this assertion, the roles began to switch with white males becoming the victims because their identity group made them automatically guilty in the same way as someone was guilty of a microaggression, which is an offensive, thoughtless act, even if the offense were unintentional. Of course, if it were not intended, there would be no legitimate way to feel remorse nor to feel that compensation was owed to the oppressed.

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The concept of the positional self has also become central to understanding a postmodern interpretation of critical race Theory (Harris, 1990). Position occupies a particular location within the privilege/ oppression landscape. In fact, it suggests that there are multiple selves, meaning that although we are born with a self, we are also composed of partial or contradictory selves, or even antithetical selves. This idea of multiple selves is rooted in identity and positionality and frequently expresses itself in postmodern scholarship, with often blindingly different layers of marginalized identity. Position is important because it changes how knowledge is studied and understood within critical race Theory. When there are disagreements, positionality leaves room to assert that misunderstandings are unavoidable and divisive, depending on where people are positioned. Being positioned differently allows critical theorists the space to assert that racism is ordinary; not aberrational. That is, that racism is the everyday experience of people of color in the United States (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). A further extension of positionality asserts that a unique voice of color exists and consequently the oppressed have a presumed competence to speak about race and racism. The experiences of shared oppression are what qualify minorities to speak as witnesses to their own misery. Of course, such a view cannot be disconfirmed by others who are not properly positioned, thus, ruling out other explanations that contradict the scientific method developed over thousands of years since it was first postulated by Aristotle, the original polymath. Critical race Theory began as a legal movement. However, it has rapidly spread. For example, many education scholars consider themselves critical race theorists and use it to understand school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, affirmative action, high stakes testing, curriculum controversies and history, bilingual and multicultural education, and alternative and charter shools (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Delgado and Stefacic explain how CRT has become widely embedded: Political scientists ponder voting strategies coined by critical race theorists, while women’s studies professors teach about intersectionality—the predicament of women of color and others who sit at the intersection of two or more categories. Ethnic studies courses often include a unit on critical race Theory, and American studies departments teach material or critical white studies developed by CRT writers. Sociologists, theologians,

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and health care specialists use critical Theory and its ideas. Philosophers incorporate critical race ideas in analyzing issues such as viewpoint discrimination and whether Western philosophy is inherently white in its orientation, values, and method of reasoning.

Despite the widespread seepage of these ideas into a growing number of disciplines, as well as their adoption by a growing number of advocacy groups, no known scholars have examined their impact on entrepreneurs who are typically focused elsewhere. Instead, they are thinking about how they can grow their market, connect with buyers, establish reliable supplier relationships, and convince investors and lenders to finance their operations. To the extent that these exchanges are enveloped by suspicions of a class struggle, mainly instigated by power-hungry, white males, entrepreneurship will be sabotaged, regardless of whether they act conspiratorially as oppressors. This subterfuge would be exacerbated by the fact that they presumably control most of the wealth and resources needed by entrepreneurs to succeed. True believers become even more convinced because most of the media and large, publicly traded corporations have adopted woke policies to strengthen their monopolistic control over information and public agendas (Ramaswamy, 2021). Moreover, who would trust a white male not to exercise his power in a self-interested fashion or to keep his word or to be a reliable partner during future turmoil? They are positioned to be guilty by the radical ideology of critical race Theory. A natural extension of Critical Race Theory and Marxism is Intersectionality.

Intersectionality The critical race scholar, Kimberle Crenshaw, was the first advocate to call attention to the possibility that some individuals could simultaneously suffer multiple forms of discrimination in rather injurious ways (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991, 2018). Intersectionality began as a heuristic, morphed into a theory, and then developed into a practice to catastrophize any alleged discrimination in whatever form it was manifest. It was natural that the nexus for many critical Marxist theories found common ground in Intersectionality. Recall that Marxism’s primary impetus was that there is a struggle between classes, which Intersectionality takes to the extreme by identifying as many as 30 different class struggles, which are supposedly interconnected, and which can only be viewed as incomplete if they are

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not viewed together (Fiet, 2022). It quickly becomes evident that how one classifies him or herself, regardless of the particulars, can become a point of grievance. It is fair to ask, why not the obverse? That is, why not interpret our differences, regardless of how they may be grouped with those of others, as essential for being ourselves? It is not enough to be a feminist who is black; according to Intersectionality, such a person must understand that she is entitled to voice grievances against anyone who is able-bodied or not able-bodied, anyone who is patriotic or not patriotic, anyone who is a blonde, a brunette or a redhead, anyone who is tall or short, and so on. A truly intersectional female can commiserate with anyone on the planet, so that they can touch anyone in their misery, which used to be referred to as empathy, but no longer because it does not incorporate class struggle. According to Intersectionality, there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. My question for Dr. Crenshaw, and those who have been so eager to support her views, is, do people need to feel victimized in everything that they do? Is there any place to draw a line beyond which they are personally responsible for their own circumstances? Isn’t hers a nihilistic view of life? Is it realistic Table 9.1 Intersectionality’s class divisions The privileged

The oppressed

Genderism Sexism or androcentrism White racism Eurocentrism Heterosexism Ableism Educationalism Ageism

Versus Versus Versus Versus versus Versus Versus

Politics of appearance Classism (upper and middle) Language bias (Anglophones) Colorism (light, pale) Anti-Semitism Pro-natalism Radical environmentalist

Versus Versus Versus Versus Versus Versus Versus

Fiet (2022)

Gender “deviant” Female People of color Non-European origin LGBTQ Persons with disabilities Non-literate versus Old Unattractive Working class, poor English as a second language Dark Jews Infertile Conservation

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to believe that every role that people play in life allows them to play the victim card? If that were the case, it would be impossible to succeed with achieving any goal. Entrepreneurial success, for instance, would be impossible. All marriages would result in divorce, juvenile delinquency, failure, and misery. In the face of such odds, religion would be powerless to save and empower anyone. Nuclear implosion of both the familial as well as the atomic version, would be inevitable and devastating. Intersectionality’s purpose is to highlight differences among groups even when they have no apparent nexus; and then to provide an aggrieved group with a justification for its comparative disadvantage by blaming it on the unfair actions of another group. In the Intersectionalist view, neither winners nor losers are justifiable, unless you are privileged. If so, you must be regressed back to the mean, where on average, most everyone is worse-off. Its purpose is to justify group grievances and then to assign their causes to another group or groups, thereby creating anger and hostility among the groups. In Marxism, the express purpose of class struggle is to destroy society as we know it, along with a hope of entrepreneurial success, and then to “build it back better,” to quote a prominent politician. Unfortunately, the prescription has never worked, not once, although there are many instances when Marxist forces, such as during the Cultural Revolution, have destroyed society by robbing from those above the mean, and along the way killed millions of victims. Intersectionality as an ideology must be promoted if it is to be influential. As with other Marxist projects, the promoters and charlatans are allowed to be winners, as was recently evidenced by the Marxist cofounder of Black Lives Matter, who was discovered buying her fourth luxury house. There is no problem owning four homes, except in her case when she made her money by bullying corporate contributors into funding her lifestyle, which is expressly the opposite of what she publicly advocates for others. Nor have any of the donations she received gone to advance the interests of those she claims are aggrieved. They were apparently ponzies and props in her scheme. According to Matsuda (1990, p. 1189), The way I try to understand the interconnection of all forms of subordination is through a method I call ‘ask the other question.’

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When I see something that looks racist, I ask, ‘Where is the patriarchy in this? When I see something that looks sexist, I ask, ‘When I see something that looks homophobic, I ask ‘Where are the class interests in this?’.

Matsuda (1990) typifies those who conduct critical research, the basis of which is that because someone thinks that a situation exists, it is true to that person, which is all that is needed to justify it scientifically. Of course, such an argument is farcical to those trained in the scientific method. How would we know whether a person was delusional who held such a view? Moreover, as Popper (1935) would argue, there is no way to falsify it, so this is not science. The Intersectionalist position is that gender, race, and class combine to form intersectional social hierarchies that operate on multiple levels (Crenshaw et al., 2001). These may be on individual, inter-subjective, organizational, and representational levels. With all of this possibly going on at the same time, a person can simultaneously experience both privilege and oppression, which bring us to Intersectionality’s class division. Table 9.1 shows how privilege and oppression are dichotomized. In between is domination. This quick review brings us to the question of how does Intersectionality impact entrepreneurship? Lower levels of cooperation increase business risk, which could result in the failure of some entrepreneurial ventures. Assuming Intersectionalists are able “to build back better,” improvements in entrepreneurial prospects are contingent on those changed conditions. Intersectionality increases the possibility that our society and country will descend into irreparable chaos in which all civil interactions will cease, at which point Darwin (2017) predicted what would occur. It appears that chaos is the worldview envisioned by intersectionalists. Their supposedly benevolent purposes would have more credibility if they were building people up individually by helping to improve themselves. Instead, we see those with a little success being attacked so that no one is willing to succeed only to have the fruits of their labors stolen from them. However, racism is not the end of the intersectionalist story, as we will learn in the next chapter.

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Summary of Postmodernism’s Critical Theory and Intersectionalism 9.1 It is difficult to envision how entrepreneurship could be reduced to a class struggle and an instrument of oppression but that is what critical race Theory has managed to accomplish. Entrepreneurs can be viewed as conspirators who use their power to oppress the weak. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with acquiring wealth. The obverse is true because they can use it to do good. 9.2 Entrepreneurship is a threat to Marxism because it demonstrates that individuals can overcome class divisions. It also proves that they can create their own options. When entrepreneurs are winning, they are not concerned about class struggle, which demonstrates the utility of capitalism, which again, provides evidence of reality. Postmodernism has falsely claimed that reality is only a construct to achieve. 9.3 How does postmodernism impact entrepreneurship? First, if you are a member of an aggrieved group, you may think that society and your oppressors owe you reparations. If you can convince your oppressors, you may be able to use it as seed money to launch or expand a venture. Second, if you are an oppressor, you will be required to decide whether you owe someone else’s reparations and what the consequences will be of your decision. Third, Intersectionality creates a divided market, which will segment opportunities for prospective entrepreneurs. Fourth, implementing a low-cost strategy requires being able to serve buyers with average preferences. Intersectionality could separate buyers into small groups so that achieving economies of scale would be impossible. Fifth, intergroup hostility more power for the elites. No, reality exists, even when someone stops believing in it. 9.4 The claim that race is a social construct originated with W. E. B. Du Bois, who argued that any biological differences between the races were mostly social and cultural, to perpetuate the unjust treatment of racial minorities (2019). Later postmodernism obfuscated this argument about differences by asserting that truth cannot be found anyway so that even if these differences existed, they would be unknowable.

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9.5 In our postmodern age, it is no longer necessary to validate the existence of racism, which has been replaced by seeing it everywhere. It does not matter whether it exists because there is no truth nor right way to interpret a text or nature (Kant, 1781). 9.6 Values were to be socially constructed. It asserted that all ways of life and cultures were legitimate, which is in stark contrast to the evidence that some cultures are superior in the provision of social order and higher living standards, as well as the values that acknowledge the highest and best attributes of human progress (Sowell, 2011). 9.7 All that activists needed to do was to assert the existence of racism (Wallace, 2022). Possibly because they saw rewards for themselves in declaring racism, it was easy to be motivated to rally supporters (Lindsay, 2022). Of course, some supporters could have been true believers (Hoffer, 1951), but truth really was not necessary to assert racism, which is a dishonorable legacy. Truth matters, wherever it leads. 9.8 The European justification for racism included color-based prejudice, certainly in the early period between 1500 and 1800 (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Initially, it could have begun as religious discrimination, but it gave way to racism—a belief in the superiority of some races over others. Racism was used to justify kidnapping, exploiting, and abusing slaves. It was argued that the victims of these abuses were inferior or subhuman, even if they had converted to Christianity. 9.9 A common point of confusion is failing to acknowledge that other peoples at other times also practiced slavery, colonialism, and even genocidal imperialism. What all these incidences seem to have in common is that the slaves were judged to be inferior and lacking human rights. 9.10 The earliest efforts to challenge racism were made by former American slaves, including Sojourner Truth (1850) and Frederick Douglass (2013). Later in the twentieth century, influential race critics like W.E. B. Du Bois (2019) and Winthrop Jordan (2012) documented the history of color-based racism in the United States. 9.11 Ideology could have driven the racism, but at least in the American South, economic convenience seems to have prevailed. Otherwise, why was slavery less prevalent in other parts of the country? This is really a default argument, though, because I am

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9.12

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not arguing for leaderless, unassisted homogeneity. Nature tends to create winners and losers. Postmodern activists borrowed legitimacy from slavery. However, the similarity of slavery’s struggle should be considered separately, and not mixed with the creepingly dangerous postmodern ideology that has roots that go back to Kant (1781). Historically, this is the wrong narrative to support if our goal is to address scarcity and poverty. Capitalism and entrepreneurship are the solutions to scarcity and poverty, not their causes. If they were the causes, it would be easy to point to examples that destroy wealth over time and those examples do not exist. When socialism fails, its rescue inevitably comes by making economic reforms that resuscitate capitalism with entrepreneurs leading the way. Many countries have turned to a mixed capitalist model, which is capitalism constrained by government policies to achieve social benefits. Countries promoting it probably understand that they are sacrificing higher growth to achieve more immediate, social objectives. Critical race Theory began in the 1970s through the study of law. The word critical refers to its intention and methods that emphasized identifying and exposing problems to facilitate revolutionary political change. Activists turned to this approach because they said that legal remedies had been unable to eliminate residual discrimination. Critical race Theory can be viewed as divided into two parts— (1) materialist and (2) postmodern. The materialist approach theorizes about how material systems—economic, legal, political—affect racial minorities. Postmodern theorists were focused on linguistic and social systems. They deconstructed discourses, detected implicit biases, and countered underlying racial assumptions and attitudes (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). The postmodernists came to focus on microaggressions, hate speech, safe spaces, cultural appropriation, implicit association tests, media representation, whiteness, and the now familiar trappings of current racial discourse (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). These changes were wrought by a slew of radical scholars including bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Patricia Hill Collins. They added both patriarchy and white supremacy to their narrative, which set the stage for more feminist scholars including Patricia

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Williams, Angela Harris, and Kimberle Crenshaw—a student of Derrick Bell who invented the term Critical Race Theory (Hicks, 2018), and later added to it Intersectionalism. These changes were commitments to change the social order. Added were an interest in identity politics and standpoint Theory, which posits that one’s identity and position in society predetermine how one acquires knowledge. The Marxist class struggle moved to a new arena for a battle, one in which words and social systems were used to oppress racialized minorities. The roles switched with white males becoming the victims because their identity made them guilty in the same way as someone was guilty of a microaggression. The concept of the positional self became central to understanding a postmodern, critical race Theory (Harris, 1990). Position occupies a particular location within the privilege/oppression landscape. It suggests that there are multiple selves, meaning that although we are born with a self, we are also composed of partial or contradictory selves, or even antithetical selves. Position is important because it changes how knowledge is understood within critical race Theory. When there are disagreements, positionality leaves room to assert that misunderstandings are unavoidable and divisive, depending on where people are positioned. It also gives activists a mechanism for asserting that racism is ordinary; not aberrational, such that it is the everyday experience of people of color in the United States (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Despite the seepage of critical race Theory into a growing number of disciplines, no known scholars have examined its impact on entrepreneurs. To the extent that entrepreneurs are viewed as engaging in class struggle, mainly instigated by power-hungry, white males, entrepreneurship will be viewed with suspicion. Crenshaw called attention to the possibility that some could simultaneously suffer multiple forms of discrimination (1989, 1991, 2018). Known as intersectionality, it began as a heuristic, morphed into a theory, and then developed into a practice to catastrophize discrimination. It was natural that the nexus for many critical Marxist theories found common ground in Intersectionality.

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9.24 Marxism’s primary impetus was a struggle among classes, which Intersectionality takes to the extreme by identifying as many as 30 different struggles, which must be viewed together (Fiet, 2022). (Refer to Table 9.1.) How one is classified could become a grievance. Why not the obverse? That is, why not interpret our differences as essential for being ourselves? 9.25 It is not enough to be a feminist who is black; according to Intersectionality, she is entitled to voice grievances against anyone who is able-bodied or not able-bodied, anyone who is patriotic or not, anyone who is a blonde, a brunette or a redhead, anyone who is tall or short, and so on. 9.26 Must people feel victimized in everything that they do? Is there any place to draw a line beyond which they are personally responsible for their own circumstances? Isn’t Intersectionalism a nihilistic view of life? Is it realistic to believe that every role that people play in life makes them victims? If that were the case, it would be impossible to succeed with achieving goals. Entrepreneurial success, for instance, would be impossible. 9.27 Intersectionality’s purpose is to highlight differences even when they have no apparent nexus; and then to provide a justification for a group’s comparative disadvantage by blaming it on the unfair actions of another group. Neither winners nor losers are justifiable unless you are privileged. If you are privileged, you must be regressed back to the mean, where on average, most everyone is worse-off. 9.28 In Marxism, the purpose of class struggle is to destroy society, along with a hope of entrepreneurial success, and then to “build it back better,” to quote a prominent politician. Unfortunately, this prescription has never worked, not once, although there are many instances when Marxist forces, such as during the Cultural Revolution, have destroyed society by robbing from those above the mean, and along the way killed millions of victims. 9.29 Most critical researchers perceive that because a situation exists that this is all that is necessary to establish discrimination and bias. Of course, such an argument is farcical to those trained in the scientific method. Moreover, as Popper (1935) would argue, there is no way to falsify it, so this is not science. 9.30 How does intersectionality impact entrepreneurship? First, entrepreneurs could think that they are owed reparations. Second, they would be required to decide if they owe reparations. Third,

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Intersectionality creates a divided market, which will segment opportunities for prospective entrepreneurs. Fourth, Intersectionality could separate buyers into small groups so that achieving economies of scale would be impossible.

References Bell, D. (2008). And we are not saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. Basic Books. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1, 139–167. Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241– 1299. Crenshaw, K. (2018). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. Feminist Legal Theory, pp. 57–80. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (2001). Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New Press. Darwin, C. (2017). On the origin of species. Macmillan Collector’s Library. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press. Derrida, J. (1994). Specters of Marx. Routledge. Douglass, F. (2013). Narrative of the life Frederick Douglass. CreateSpace. Du Bois, W. (2019). The souls of black folk: The unabridged classic. Clydesdale. Fiet, J. (2022). The theoretical world of entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing. Harris, A. (1990). Race and essentialism in feminist legal theory. Stanford Law Review, 42(3), 384. Hicks, S. (2018). Explaining Postmodernism. Ockham’s Razor Publishing. Hofer, E. (1989). The true believer-thoughts on the nature of mass movements. HarpPeren. Hoffer, E. (1951). The true believer: Thoughts on the nature of mass movements. Harper & Row. Jordan, W. (2012). White over Black American attitudes toward the Negro, 1550– 1812. University of North Carolina Press. Kant, I. (1929). 1781. MacMillan.

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Kant, I. (1781). A Critique of Pure Reason. (Norman Kemp Smith, trans.). MacMillan, 1929. Kendi, I. (2019). How to be an antiracist. One World. Lindsay, J. (2022). Race Marxism: The truth about critical race theory and Praxis. New Discourses. Marx, K., & Engles, F. (1848/2020). The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Martino Fine Books. Matsuda, M. (1990). Beside my sister, facing the enemy: Legal theory out of coalition. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1189. Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical theories: How activist scholarship made everything about race, gender, and identity—And why this harms everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Popper, K. (1935). The logic of scientific discovery. Routledge. Ramaswamy, V. (2021). Woke, inc. Hachette Book Group. Sowell, T. (2011). Intellectuals and society. Basic Books. Wallace, D. (2022, February 15). Louisville activist arrested for attempted murder of mayoral candidate. Available at: https://www.foxnews.com/us/louisvilleactivist-attempted-murder-mayoral-candidate-socialism-gun-control

CHAPTER 10

Queer Theory

Freedom from Being Normal Queer Theory celebrates differences from normal categories of sex and gender. It regards these categories as instruments of oppression. Because it derives directly from postmodernism, it is skeptical that these categories are based in any biological reality. In other words, you are not supposed to believe your lying eyes because of course there are biological differences between males and females. However, it views them quite artificially, as a product of our speech. In the process, it completely ignores biology and emphasizes downstream socialization, operationalized by social constructions perpetuated by language. One does not need to be a trained biologist to understand that people who ignore the biology are quite mad. People may entertain different views of the biology, but it exists just the same. Queer Theory presupposes that oppression follows from categorization. Categorization arises each time language scripts a sense of what is “normal” by producing and maintaining rigid categories of sex (male and female), gender (masculine and feminine), and sexuality (straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and so on) and scripting people into them. These seemingly uncomplicated concepts are viewed as being oppressive, if not violent. So, the main objective of queer Theory is to examine, question, and subvert them, to destroy them, which they term, break them down.

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Breaking down these categories depends on the postmodern knowledge principle—which rejects the possibility that an objective knowledge reality is attainable—and the postmodern political principle—which promotes the idea that society is structured in unjust systems of power that reinforce and perpetuate themselves. Queer Theory uses these principles to identify the linguistic existence of categories and how they oppress those who they claim do not fit neatly into them. Language creates the categories, enforces them, and scripts people into them, which results in the blurring of arbitrary boundaries. These boundaries are regarded as absurd and arbitrary, which is a demonstration of the fact that Queer Theory can be frustratingly difficult to understand, mainly because it values incoherence, illogic, and unintelligibility. It becomes obscure by design and largely irrelevant, except to itself.

The History of Queer Theory Queer Theory developed in a particular historical context. It was a product of groups that sought to revolutionize feminist, gay, and lesbian studies, and related activism since the 1960s. The concurrent civil rights movement helped to spark a scholarly interest in homosexuality, and how it had been categorized and stigmatized, both historically but also in the present. Later in the 1980s, the AIDS crisis made gay rights issues more urgent social and political concerns. Queer Theory is trying to make a point, which is to change the way that we see sexuality. Christian history has considered homosexuality to be a heinous sin. This contrasts with its treatment by the Greeks, when it was acceptable for men to have sex with adolescent boys until they were ready to marry, after which they were supposed to switch to having sex with women. In both cases, homosexuality was something that people did, not who they were. Homosexuality as an identity only began to be recognized in the nineteenth century. Contemporary medical texts describe homosexuality as a perversion. By the middle of the twentieth century, homosexuals were regarded less as corrupt degenerates who required punishment and more as shamefully disordered individuals who required psychological treatment. Today’s evolution of homosexuality has become, “Some people are gay. Get over it.” One question for queer theory, presented as applied postmodernism, is whether homosexuality is a specific identity. Considered as an identity, it is viewed as problematic. It is a problem both because it presents LGBT

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(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans) as stable categories and because it does not interpret them as merely social constructs, built by the powerful to promote their dominance and oppression. Thus, at its roots it manifests having been influenced by Marxism—strange, but true. Sexuality would seem to be far removed from economic considerations, but to a true believer, both sets of concerns share intersectional ties. Over the last century and a half, there have been significant changes in how we view homosexuality, even though our views of sex and gender have changed much less. Common observation has understood humans to overwhelmingly consist of two, rather stable, sexes and gender as being mostly correlated with sex. Nevertheless, gender roles have changed much more. Traditionally, men have been associated with the public sphere and thinking (sapientia) and women with the private sphere and body (scientia). Men were to women as culture is to nature (Ortner, 1974). Women were suited for subservient, domestic roles, and nurturing and men to leadership, public engagement, and assertive managerial roles. Together, these attitudes are referred to as biological essentialism. They typified society through the end of the nineteenth century when feminist thought, and activism began to erode them. It is important to remember that queer Theorists view sex, gender, and sexuality as social constructions, mainly dependent on the prevailing culture. They are less concerned about material progress than about dominant discourses, such as categories like male, feminine and gay. It was in this context that queer Theory arose, and its founders, including Gayle Rubin (1993), Judith Butler (1993, 2006), and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2008), drew significantly on the work of Michael Foucault (1990) and his concept of biopower. Biopower implied that there were biological explanations for sex, gender, and sexuality statuses, which lead people to become more accepting while dismissing explanations based on social constructions (Inala & Inala, 2002). Ironically, liberalism generated the type of progress postmodern Theories tend to claim credit for, without using postmodern Theories.

Queer as Both a Verb and a Noun Queer Theory, like its theoretical cousins in postmodernism, is dominated by problematizing of discourses—how things are spoken about—the deconstruction of categories, and discourses that have been abandoned

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because they no longer seem to Theorists to be sensible and true (c.f., Foucault, 1990). The word queer refers to anything that falls outside of binaries (such as male/female, masculine/feminine, and heterosexual/homosexual) and to a way of challenging the links among sex, gender, and sexuality. For example, it challenges whether women should be expected to be feminine and sexually attracted to men, and vice versa, and it also disputes that one must fall into a category of male or female, masculine or feminine, or any sexuality, or finally, if any of these categories should be considered stable. To be queer allows someone to be simultaneously male, female, or neither, to present as masculine, female, or neuter, or any mixture of the three, and to change any of these identities at will. In fact, the categories can change on a whim. Changing one’s identity becomes more than self-expression; it becomes a political statement about the realities of sex, gender, and sexuality being socially constructed. The political angle to be achieved is to force legally others to change their views and adjust to a queer person’s preferences, even when the facts in evidence contradict his/her/their reality. Aristotle is probably turning over in his grave. One could argue that this is a delusional theory of identity. Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes. Given this approach, an advocate can claim that I am the person who I imagine myself to be, regardless of how I appear to you. How does someone reason with a person who thinks that he or she or they is entitled to invent reality to suit their likes and dislikes? Such a person is living in a different world—one that is different from the one in which most other people live. In other circumstances, we would refer people with such troubles to a psychiatrist for treatment. However, society is encouraged to accept their new version of normativity. The political project is to challenge what is called normativity—that some things are more common or regular to the human condition, thus more normative from a social (thus moral) perspective, than others. The main industry of queer Theorists, what delights them the most, is to intentionally conflate the two meanings of normative, and deliberately make strategic use of the moral understanding of the term to contrive problems with its descriptive meaning. Normativity is considered pejoratively by queer Theorists and is often preceded by a prefix like hetero(straight), cis- (gender and sex match), or thin- (not obese). By challenging normativity in all its manifestations, queer Theory seeks to unite the minority groups that fall outside of normative categories under a

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single banner: queer. This project is asserted to be liberating for people who do not fall neatly into sex, gender, and sexuality categories, along with those who would not if they had not been socialized into them (Halperin, 1997). Queerness produces a de facto coalition of minority gender and sexual identities under a set of acronyms that tend to begin with LGBTQ (Halberstam, 2005). Because normativity is a political project, it has become common to hear queer being used as a verb. To queer something is to question its stability, to disrupt seemingly fixed categories, and to problematize any “binaries” within it. When scholars use queer as a verb, they mean that they intend to remove something from a category. Queering is about deconstructing any sense of normal so that they can liberate people from expectations that norms carry. Deconstructing categories makes queer Theory notoriously difficult to define, partly because being comprehensible would be inconsistent with queer Theory’s distrust of language. It would also violate its aim to avoid categorization, including of itself. This proclivity toward avoiding categorization is in stark contrast to what queer Theory does in practice. In fact, it is a leader in hurling categories at others. Its main delights seem to be inventing new labels for normal people, situations, and relationships and then to launch them at easy targets who are surprised and left without defense—thinking where did that come from? An example would be charging someone with a microaggression, which does not require intentionality. Merely, the inadvertent commission of an offensive act, regardless of its severity, is supposed to be evidence of its immorality. However, immorality requires intentionality—otherwise, it is the same as someone not doing what they were accused of doing. I heard an advocate defend charging someone with a microaggression by asking the question—don’t you want to be a better person? I remember thinking that if I did not intend to harm someone that I could not be guilty of a microaggression, regardless of the number of times that I was accused. Sorry. Guilt requires intent. Most people do not need to be made to feel guilt to do good. Nor are we required to follow someone else’s rules unless they were legislated by our elected representatives. Activists are self-appointed, not elected. Often lost is a recognition that categories bring stability and more certainty. Not only does Theory queer categories, but it also queers

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markets, in some cases due to pride or superstition, which retroactively could cause parties to abandon their previous commercial promises. For entrepreneurs, complicating nature by introducing unstable, flexible categories introduces uncertainty into related business decisions. It also blurs buyer characteristics, behavior, and choices, making it difficult to determine their preferences. Further, it introduces a multitude of new factors and splinters existing buyer groups into an untold number of subgroups, which if they are to be served by an entrepreneur, they must either be reassembled or be served individually at great additional expense. There is nothing about the macro effects of queer Theory that is good for entrepreneurship. Even if we give queers the benefit of the doubt that we can predict their behavior, the paradigm allows for unexpected changes, so that no outcome is final nor predictable.

Summary of Queer Theory 10.1 Queer Theory celebrates differences from normal categories of sex and gender. It regards these categories as instruments of oppression. Because it derives directly from postmodernism, it is skeptical that these categories are based in biological reality. In other words, you are not supposed to believe your lying eyes because of course there are biological differences between males and females. 10.2 Queer Theory views biological differences as products of our speech. It ignores biology and emphasizes socialization, operationalized by social constructions perpetuated by language. One does not need to be a trained biologist to understand that people who ignore the biology are quite mad. People may entertain different views of the biological differences, but they exist. 10.3 Queer Theory assumes that oppression follows from categorization. Categorization arises each time language scripts what is “normal” by producing and maintaining rigid categories of sex (male and female), gender (masculine and feminine), and sexuality (straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and so on) and scripting people into them. These seemingly uncomplicated concepts are viewed as being oppressive, if not violent. 10.4 Breaking down these categories depends on the postmodern knowledge principle—which rejects the possibility that an objective knowledge reality is attainable—and the postmodern political

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principle—which promotes the idea that society is structured in unjust systems of power that reinforce and perpetuate themselves. Queer Theory uses these principles to identify the linguistic existence of categories and how they oppress those who they claim do not fit neatly into them. Queer Theory is trying to change the way that we see sexuality. Christianity considers homosexuality to be a heinous sin. This contrasts with its treatment by the Greeks, when it was acceptable for men to have sex with adolescent boys until they were ready to marry, after which they were supposed to switch to having sex with women. In both cases, homosexuality was something that people did, not who they were. Homosexuality as an identity only began to be recognized in the nineteenth century. Contemporary medical texts describe homosexuality as a perversion. By the middle of the twentieth century, homosexuals were regarded less as corrupt degenerates who required punishment and more as shamefully disordered individuals who required psychological treatment. Today’s evolution of homosexuality has become, “Some people are gay. Get over it.” A question for queer theory is whether homosexuality is a specific identity. Considered as a postmodern identity, it is problematic because it presents LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans) as stable categories and because it does not interpret them as merely social constructs. Thus, at its roots it manifests having been influenced by Marxism—strange, but true. Sexuality would seem to be far removed from economic considerations, but to a true believer, both sets of concerns share intersectional ties. Humans have been overwhelmingly considered to consist of two, rather stable, sexes and their gender to be mostly correlated with their sex. Nevertheless, gender roles have changed more. Traditionally, men have been associated with the public sphere and thinking (sapientia) and women with the private sphere and body (scientia). Women were suited for subservient, domestic roles, and nurturing and men for leadership, public engagement, and assertive managerial roles. Together, these attitudes are referred to as biological essentialism. They typified society through the end of the nineteenth century when feminist thought and activism began to erode them.

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10.10 It is important to remember that queer Theorists view sex, gender, and sexuality as social constructions, mainly dependent on the prevailing culture. They are less concerned about material progress than about dominant discourses, such as categories like male, feminine, and gay. 10.11 Biopower implied that there were biological explanations for sex, gender, and sexuality statuses, which lead people to become more accepting while dismissing explanations based on social constructions (Inala & Inala, 2002). Ironically, liberalism generated the type of progress postmodern Theories tend to claim credit for, without using postmodern Theories. 10.12 The word queer refers to anything that falls outside of binaries (such as male/female, masculine/feminine, and heterosexual/ homosexual) and to a way of challenging the links among sex, gender, and sexuality. To be queer allows someone to be simultaneously male, female, or neither, to present as masculine, female, or neuter, or any mixture of the three, and to change any of these identities at will. In fact, the categories can change on a whim. 10.13 Changing one’s identity becomes a political statement about the realities of sex, gender, and sexuality being socially constructed. The political angle to be achieved is to force legally others to change their views and adjust to a queer person’s preferences, even when the facts in evidence contradict his/her/their reality. Aristotle is probably turning over in his grave. 10.14 Queer theory is delusional because an advocate can claim that I am the person who I imagine myself to be, regardless of how I appear to you. How does someone reason with a person who thinks that he or she or they is entitled to invent reality? Such a person is living in a different world—one that is different from the one in which most other people live 10.15 The political project is to challenge normativity—that some things are more common or regular to the human condition, thus more normative from a social (thus moral) perspective, than others. The main industry of queer Theorists is to intentionally conflate the two meanings of normative and deliberately make strategic use of the moral understanding of the term to contrive problems with its descriptive meaning.

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10.16 Normativity is a slur by queer Theorists and is often preceded by a prefix like hetero- (straight), cis- (gender and sex match), or thin- (not obese). By challenging normativity in all its manifestations, queer Theory seeks to unite the minority groups that fall outside of normative categories under a single banner: queer. 10.17 Because normativity is a political project, it has become common to hear queer being used as a verb. To queer something is to question its stability, to disrupt seemingly fixed categories, and to problematize any “binaries” within it. When scholars use queer as a verb, they mean that they intend to remove something from a category. 10.18 Avoiding categorization is in stark contrast to what queer Theory does in practice. It is a leader in hurling categories at others. Its main delights seem to be inventing new labels for normal people, situations, and relationships and then to hurl them at easy targets who are surprised and left without defense—thinking where did that come from? 10.19 For entrepreneurs, complicating nature by introducing unstable, flexible categories introduces more uncertainty into business decisions. It also blurs buyer characteristics, behavior, and choices, making it difficult to determine their preferences. Further, it introduces new decision factors and splinters existing buyer groups into subgroups, which must be served individually. There is nothing about the macro effects of queer Theory that is good for entrepreneurship.

References Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge. Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble. Routledge. Foucault, M. (1990). The History of Sexuality: Volume I, an Introduction, trans. Hurley, R. New York: Penguin. Halberstam, J. (2005). In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York University Press. Halperin, D. (1997). The Normalization of Queer Theory. Journal of Homosexuality, 45(2–4). Inala, M. and Inala, S. (2002). The Effect of Biological Explanation on Attitudes towards Homosexual Persons: A Swedish National Sample Study. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 56(3).

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Ortner, S. (1974). Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? In Woman, Culture and Society, ed. Rosaldo, M. and Lamphere, l. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Rubin, G. (1993). Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality. in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Abelove, H., Barale, M. and Halperin, D. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. Sedgwick, E. (2008). Epistemology of the Closet. University of California Press.

CHAPTER 11

Postmodern Social Justice in Action

Reification means to make into a real thing. It refers to abstract concepts that are treated as if they were real. In contrast, the first phase of postmodernism during the 1960s and 1970s, but which had roots going back to the 1700s, referred to the impossibility of objective knowledge, as well as, knowledge as power, whereas, the second phase during the 1980s and 1990s included the rise of Intersectionalism, which explored group identity as a source of power. Beginning about 2010, social justice scholarship was undertaken as if its abstract concepts unfailingly described reality, which was the beginning of the reification narrative, accepted almost as if it were a religious principle. This was also the beginning of a radical third phase in the most recent postmodern project. It is not being reckless to make assumptions when information is missing. In fact, it is an integral part of critical thinking, which is not the same as critical Theory. Critical thinking, based on checking our assumptions and evidence, and is the way that we test our views about reality. In the 2000s, during the third phase of postmodernism, when social justice proponents began to evaluate society as if their assumptions could not be questioned, it transitioned rather quickly to activism. There had always been activists, but these were more uncompromising and less accommodating in their commitments. Activism per say is fine so long as it does not pretend to be scholarship, which unfortunately it continued © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_11

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to do. Proponents would argue that we have progressed from the end of the world in terms of social justice to the beginning of a new utopian vision. However, their paradigm did not allow for the testing of whether improvements had been made. Nor did it specify the nature of the coming utopia. Like its infallible precepts, we were not supposed to question the coming utopia. Being forced to conclude that the future is admittedly unknown does not bode well for entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs prefer to launch new ventures in a more certain environment. The foundational principles of postmodernism posited that (1) objective knowledge is impossible, that (2) knowledge is a construct of power, and that (3) society is made up of systems of power and privilege that need to be deconstructed (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). As discussed previously, this view was made actionable in the second phase during the 1980s and 1990s, which saw postmodernism fragment into postcolonial Theory, queer Theory, critical race Theory, intersectional feminism, disability studies, and fat studies, among others. These views became unquestionable as they were concretized in the combined literatures of social justice scholarship, which morphed into third-phase activism. Soon these views began to take root in the public consciousness as allegedly factual descriptions of the workings of knowledge, power, and social relations. After decades of being treated like knowns, the principles, themes, and assertions of Theory became known knowns, which are ideas taken for granted because people “just know” that they are true. Those who accept these ideologies as true become true believers (Hoffer, 1951). It is no surprise that just knowing really is not science because it lacks controlled testing. There is no provision to falsify hypotheses. Instead, it is a metanarrative, which becomes the truth according to social justice. The truth is justified in the same way that religion is justified. It is based on a belief system. Perhaps, we should refer to it as Social Justice Religion. Another name for it is Wokeism, which I have previously classified as one of nine world religions (Fiet, 2022), due to its sudden worldwide impact. It represents a complete conviction that knowledge is constructed in the service of power, which is actuated by one’s identity. It is a much more sophisticated version of oppression than was ever conceived of by Karl Marx. We discover the identity-based use of power in relationships by disclosing the linguistic tricks that people employ to disguise their malfeasance.

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Wokeism There is a tidal wave sweeping every facet of Western culture, taking the form of a new secular religion. Known as Wokeism, its roots reach back to Immanuel Kant (1781) but then become entangled with postmodernism, critical theories, and social justice scholarship. Currently it may only be a movement, but it is approaching the status of a religion. Mainly, it has appeared as an alternative to Christianity. Thus, it is not surprising that it has rejected the counsel of Martin Luther King about refraining from judging others by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character, perhaps because he was a Christian minister. Where it is practiced, it offers a different utopian vision of the future. To get to this utopia, we are coached to practice identity-based discrimination. Wokeism is not a political or social movement, despite its origins, or a social movement within a modern framework of enlightenment values (Funk, 2020). Nor is it the type of awakening proclaimed by the Buddha who was attempting to become one with a Daoist universe. Concepts such as logic, science, math, and reason are viewed as tools of an oppressive white patriarchy. Surprisingly, values such as hard work, individualism, punctuality, and delayed gratification are interpreted as perpetuating white supremacy (Sohande, 2019). It is also the case that these same values that characterize entrepreneurs would be viewed as white supremacist threats. Wokeism is not compatible theoretically with entrepreneurship. Nor does it create new wealth; instead, it is a scheme for redistributing a shrinking amount of wealth because it takes away incentives to be productive from those who want to make a difference or to improve their own standing in the world. In contrast, it views self-interest seeking as comparable to sin, which should be punished through such tactics as boycotts and cancellation (Peterson, 2021). It is useful to understand its precepts so that proponents of entrepreneurship can offer counterarguments.

Social Justice Precepts Social justice scholarship (Wokeism) affirms that patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, ableism, fatphobia, and even postcolonialism, are literally structuring society and adversely infecting everything. These prejudices are present always and everywhere just beneath a nicer-seeming surface that cannot quite contain

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them. This is the reification of the postmodern knowledge principle. This “reality” is viewed as profoundly problematic and thus needs to be constantly identified, condemned, and dismantled so that things may be rectified. Social justice scholarship distrusts categories and boundaries and seeks to blur them and is intensely focused on language as a means of creating and perpetuating power imbalances. An example of the blurring of boundaries that is occurring nationwide at many universities as they combat weight stigma and fatphobia by claiming that it is related to historical racism, the University of Chicago at Illinois released the following policy statement: [It] said the country’s focus on body size is rooted in racism dating back to Charles Darwin.… [It] advised against using extremely stigmatizing words like obesity in favor of terms such as people in larger bodies.… Though lifestyle factors such as nutrition and exercise are important, it is essential to note the historical racism and injustices within our current food environment.… The U.S. food system is built on stolen land taken from Black and Latinx indigenous people. Not only has this created large scale food apartheid and trauma for people indigenous to this land, but it has also caused a disconnection of indigenous people from their cultural practices and identities. (Chasmar, 2022)

One could be excused for not being convinced by this alleged distal effect on the choices made today about what people choose to eat, especially given the prevalence of food assistance programs. In fact, there is an argument to be made that these programs themselves could cause obesity. As is evident in this narrative, social justice warriors deploy marginalized groups but have little time for universal principles or individual intellectual diversity. According to Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020, p. 183): We now have social justice texts—forming a Gospel of Social Justice—that express with absolute certainty, that all white people are racist, all men are sexist, racism and sexism are systems that can exist and oppress absent even a single person with racist or sexist intentions, sex is not biological and exists on a spectrum, language can be literal violence, denial of gender identity is killing people, the desire to remedy disability and obesity is hateful, and everything needs to be decolonized.

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The above precepts from the Gospel of Social Justice represent the final reification of postmodernism’s third phase. It is important to understand how the latest turn from applied postmodernism’s emphasis on group identity to social justice Theory seeks to blur boundaries and categories while being intensely focused on language as a means of creating and perpetuating power imbalances. Also, with the transition to social justice, Theory’s precepts have been simplified and much more confidently expressed. A moral person woke to Truth according to Social Justice must serve its metanarrative, or Gospel, to advocate for its Theoretical view of how the world works and how it ought to work instead. It is commonplace for true believers in social justice Theory to act as if they were morally superior because they are attuned to microaggressions that the rest of us dolts do not consider. In fact, those who do not accept Theory deserve to be censored and canceled so that they do not express contrary views. Mainly charges of injustice are only a ruse, even if the new converts believe them for a while and even if they exist. Soon many of them come to support Theory to gain control to push elitist propaganda, which is a manifestation of their own power and greed. Accusing others of social justice sins is among the first diversionary charges that they level against others, the non-elites, which also tends to divide us politically. Complete indoctrination really does create an alternative universe for them, a separate reality, intended to serve as the starting point for destroying society as we know it so that it can be transformed into a new, unspecified reality where the cognoscenti will rule the rest of us. Social justice research no longer fits into neat categories. It has become so intersectional that it calls on various oppressed groups according to need, while problematizing society and only abiding by one rule; Theory itself can never be denied. Theory is real—that is, reified. Thus, social justice research has become a sort of Theory of everything—a set of unquestionable truths with a capital T. Its central tenants were taken from the original postmodernism and solidified within the derived Theories. To summarize, if we think of the first postmodernists in our era—that is, those from the late 1960s as a manifestation of radical skepticism and despair; and the second wave, from the late 1980s, as a recovery from hopelessness and as a drive to justify its core ideas defending oppressed groups, and making them politically actionable, then, during the third wave, between the late 2000s and the early 2010s, it has fully recovered its activist zeal and certainty. Thus, in the short period of 50 years the world has changed and entered a postmodern age with the devotion evident

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among the believers in a new world religion (Fiet, 2022; Hoffer, 1951; Ramaswamy, 2021). Where does this progression leave entrepreneurship? The purpose of this book and particularly this chapter is to answer this question.

Social Justice Evolving One of the surprising omissions from the list of intersectional identities is economic class, which would be of particular interest to entrepreneurs. Traditional Marxists could be criticized for focusing almost exclusively on economic class; however social justice Theory was an evolution—the next step in the postmodern progression. It was an evolution that risked losing touch with its roots as it morphed into a quasi-religion. Today, economic class is barely mentioned unless it is combined intersectionally with other forms of marginalized identity. Vivek Ramaswamy (2021, pp. 215, 216) explains how Wokeness is like a religion by retelling a story from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which is about an economic religion that has lost its way. I quote from his retelling: The story begins with Jesus Christ returning to Earth during the Spanish Inquisition. He shows up in Seville and starts performing biblical miracles, healing the lame and the sick. But when an old cardinal recognizes him, instead of celebrating Christ’s return, he has him arrested. The Inquisition’s leaders sentence Christ to be burned to death the next day. The Grand Inquisitor shows up in Christ’s prison cell and gives an extended explanation of how Christ’s return stands in the way of the Church’s mission. The Grand Inquisitor begins by reminding Jesus of the three temptations the devil offered him in the desert, taking the devil’s side and arguing that Christ was wrong to reject each of them for the sake of keeping his freedom. Freedom, claims the Grand Inquisitor, is an obstacle to salvation, not the pathway to it. He says that instead of extolling the virtues of free will, Jesus should’ve won people’s hearts by turning stone to bread and feeding them, should’ve gained their worship by casting himself down from the mountain to be lifted up by angels and should’ve ensured their salvation by ruling all the kingdoms of the Earth.

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The theme of the Grand Inquisitor’s lecture is that the Church has outgrown Christ. He agrees with Christ’s goal of delivering salvation, but he claims that people cannot be trusted to make correct decisions; they must be forced to do good, which is the same thinking used by large, centrally managed socialist governments and woke corporations (Ramaswamy, 2021). The Grand Inquisitor views all men as sinners and the duty of the Church is to compel them to recognize their sin so that they can be saved. One cannot avoid noticing that social justice theorists also think that we are sinners who must be told what to do by Theory and by big government; otherwise, we will lose our way. If Christ were to preach free will to them, it would interfere with that project, because fallen as they are, most people will only choose to fall further into sin. The same could be said of the FBI that told social media platforms what acceptable speech was, thinking that most of us were dupped sinners who had lost our way. Although avoiding sin is virtuous, terms such as diversity, equity, and inclusion have become terms of art, symbols, that are now more important than what they were supposed to represent. It is at such moments of awareness, not wokeness, that it becomes perilous to realize that we are not allowed to question the goals of social justice Theory because they represent the only truths—other propositions are not allowed. Anything worthwhile is already included in social justice’s truth. The idea of total inclusion is either a lie or an inadvertent misrepresentation, perpetrated against the simple-minded who are not permitted to think for themselves. It is quite ironic that intersectionality developed and spread on college campuses where students should have the opportunity to learn how to think critically. Instead, they were indoctrinated with the opposite notion—that thinking for oneself was an affront to the religion of social justice. By the mid-2000s, if you studied one of the key social justice topics, sex, gender identity, race, sexuality, immigration status, indigeneity, colonial status, disability, religion or weight, you were expected to factor in all of the others, otherwise, you were not being inclusive and would be symbolically burned at the stake for not worshiping at the altar of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It hardly seems believable that anyone could be disadvantaged if they did not consider how their individual status could be affected by other distal categories. It is a measure of their devotion to the cause of social justice that few of its true believers questioned the oppression metanarrative, probably because they would have been

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excommunicated from the group of believers. These relationships are set forth in intersectional Theory (Crenshaw, 1991, 2018), but there has yet to be rigorous research that demonstrates how these categories are entwined so that they could impact anyone in the disadvantaged categories. It is no surprise that many working-class and poor people often feel profoundly alienated from today’s left (Sowell, 2019). Lest we forget, “In no society have all regions and all parts of the population developed equally” (Braudel, 1994).

Advocacy by the Believers Social justice Theory uses identity as a lens to determine what is true. Since 2010, much of its scholarship has been labeled feminist, queer, etc., which has implications for epistemology and pedagogy. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and how it is produced, whereas pedagogy is the theory of education. Even when it does not use this academic terminology, nearly all social justice scholarship is concerned with what is said, what is believed, what is assumed, what is taught, what is conveyed, what biases are imported through teaching, discourses, and stereotypes. All these usages start from the premise that society works through systems of power and privilege maintained in language. These systems create falsehoods consisting of knowledge from the perspectives of the privileged. Those who wish to disagree with, or wish to disrupt, this gathering linguistic consensus may find that they are a little late—although, perhaps, not impossibly late. In the same way that language could be used to control an oppression metanarrative, it can also be used by advocates for their utopian ends to disarm and neuter philosophical opponents. After so much focus on how language could be used to oppress the weak, it can also be used to disarm the casual advocacy of opponents who are not equally prepared. Social justice theorists have become formidable, linguistic advocates because it has been their focus for more than a decade, none of which should be used as a basis for establishing what is true. As I have argued in the previous chapters, truth is knowledge of things as they are, things as they were, and things as they will be in the future. This standard has always been pursued narrative-free by truth seekers. Although there is evidence throughout history that some have used self-interest seeking with guile to strategically misrepresent information

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for personal gain (Williamson, 1975), such a tendency toward opportunistic misrepresentation is not limited to powerful, white males. It also afflicts those from minority identity groups. As an example, consider the seemingly fraudulent behavior of those who founded Black Lives Matter. They presented themselves as advocates for the oppressed. However, it appears that they only used this approach to extort more than $80 million from corporations while not making any obvious distributions to help those they claimed to represent. Their vice is an example of destructive rather than productive entrepreneurship (Baumol, 1990). Social justice scholarship boldly demands that reason and evidence should not be prioritized to know what is true. In fact, its “scholars” claim that the oppressed are entitled to epistemic justice and research justice (Kid et al., 2017). It would not be unreasonable to remind them that no one owns truth, even if they claim that they are “speaking their truth.” They have the audacity to further demand that truth should be based on only the lived experiences, emotions, and cultural traditions of intersectional minority groups. The truths of others are to be ignored because nothing can be allowed to “cancel” the metanarrative. Not only is the social justice approach audacious and wrongheaded, but it is incredibly arrogant. Having only been developed since 2010, to accept its premises, one must reject 2500 years of Western cultural and scientific learning, which goes back to Aristotle, the Greek polymath who was the father of modern science. Although no conclusions based on science should be considered sacrosanct and untouchable, consider how many times the developing Western scientific knowledge has been challenged and tested. It has been tested far too often to have created a reliable record of the challenges. It almost seems beyond belief that a cabal of scholars and activists think that they are wiser and more entitled to “speak their truth,” even when it dismisses 2500 years of cumulative knowledge! These social justice claims are a new sort of asserted knowledge, until now never spoken so strongly as to take priority over the scientific method. This boldness has developed despite the inauspicious and slow-moving origins of postmodernism in the writings of Kant (1781). However, what sort of a dullard could be convinced by such self-centered “reasoning”? It seems more reasonable to assume that they are not confused but rather are speaking from the perspective of creating their own power narrative, regardless of whether they have falsifiable evidence to support it.

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There have been valid grievances, and which, where a direct cause can be identified, should be addressed. An example of a bridge too far would be arguing that Michelle Obama should receive reparations when through her own efforts in a democratic, capitalist system she has earned the right to become one of the most privileged females in American history. Making such a payment to her would be to provide evidence of the false claims upon which it would be based. Reparations is more than an agenda. It is happening now. The Civil Justice Association of California is calling for direct cash payments of $350,000, tax-exempt status, free college education, grants for homeownership, business grants, access to low to no business funding and capital. However, scholar Victor Davis Hanson argues that California is too broke to offer reparations. However, the activists persist, desiring to make California a national model (Whitlock, 2023). Research justice often involves deliberately avoiding citing white, male, and Western scholars in favor of citing those with some intersectionally marginalized status (Dotson, 2014). This can even involve glossing over the contributions of those from privileged identity groups. Only hatred or ignorance could motivate such exclusionary practices. Regardless of what has occurred in the past, many of its advocates cannot seem to understand that such a strident approach cannot be effective. Nor has it worked historically to oppress minorities. The future must be based on truth and mutual respect—to which they could respond that it is a little late for mutual respect. If that is the case, then the reputed oppressed and oppressors could simply declare identity war against each other, which would not bode well for those without power. If war were declared, or only if suspicions of ill intent were to continue, anyone can understand that such a fraught atmosphere would be the end of entrepreneurship. Notice that I did not mention “the beginning.” Beginnings would be irrelevant because consummating exchanges requires some degree of trust (Williamson, 1975). In the face of failed exchanges, those with a little power would exercise it to take whatever they wanted. Not only would these events signal the end of entrepreneurship, but also the end of civilization as we know it. The social justice terminology for this debacle would be epistemic violence, as if giving it a name would reduce its catastrophic nature. Nevertheless, naming is the social justice way.

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Social Justice Naming Exercises When an ideology reifies its central tenants, its adherents often develop an interest in knowledge and its production. This occurs because the ideology needs to demonstrate that its assumptions are based on reality. In the case of social justice Theory, this is ironic because it has loudly proclaimed the opposite by stating that the oppressed are entitled to their own truths. Plato defined knowledge as justified true beliefs, which begs the question of who is authorized to justify the beliefs. Ideally, that person would be knowledgeable about the phenomenon, which lends credibility to the contention that those doing the suffering—the oppressed minority group members—are the experts. However, science demands more—a representative sample of an aggrieved population, falsifiable hypothesis testing, and a theory to be tested. It also requires controlling for alternative explanations. Asserting truth without scientific testing is not science; it could be religion, but even religions have standards for how to establish truth, who is authorized to proclaim it, and how will its adherents judge it. Failing both scientific and religious tests, true believers fall back on naming exercises that benefit from the novelty of giving assertions new names, without being required to explain either the inner workings of the “truth” nor how it relates to the rest of the world. A newly asserted truth (a naming exercise) can stand independently on its own and be just as effective as the ardor of its advocates. That is, until those affected by it demand either an accommodation or an exception. These are timeworn patterns of ideologues. Even before the influence of postmodernism, identity studies focused on the relationships between one’s identity and what one can know (Walsh, 2017). For instance, feminist philosophy devised various epistemologies—theories of how knowledge is produced and understood. Three methods were used to justify claims: (1) feminist empiricism, (2) standpoint Theory, and (3) postmodern radical skepticism. Feminist empiricism asserts that science as a process generally operates correctly except that before feminism, it was plagued with male-centric biases that prevented it from being truly objective. This method fell out of fashion during the science wars of the 1990s. Standpoint Theory replaced feminist empiricism and posited that one’s identity and position in society predetermine how one comes to knowledge. Postmodern radical skepticism asserted that inequities could be addressed after identifying them. The second and third

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methods are of greater interest to social justice scholarship because they support the knowledge principle that truth flows from identity. They have been mainstreamed now because they are concerned with knowledge and knowledge production and theoretically derived notions of justice and injustice. The term epistemic injustice was coined for the purpose of identifying and correcting oppressive situations. Fricker (2007) defined it as when someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. Injury can occur in several ways: (1) when someone is not recognized as someone who can know something; (2) when her knowledge is not recognized as valid; (3) when she is prevented from being able to recognize something; or (4) when her knowledge is not understood. Epistemic injustice comes in two varieties: (1) testimonial injustice—when people are not considered credible because of their identity, which paradoxically also should apply to white males; and (2) hermeneutical injustice—when someone’s knowledge cannot be understood. Fricker’s (2007) assertion that certain groups are treated unjustly because of their identities is not without merit. Some groups have been perceived historically as being unworthy of deference, whereas others may not have the same disadvantage. The former could be due to social prejudices rather than to their lack of expertise. Examples could be lesbians and gay men in small communities. The same could also impact an atheist’s disbelief who then would not be qualified to discuss his or her faith. However, considered, the above problems afflict individuals more than groups. Consequently, Fricker (2007) suggested that individuals should cultivate individual virtue so that they would not cause epistemic injustice. As one would expect, her individualist approach was not acceptable to postmodern advocates for social justice. Subsequent scholars have attempted to reorient her work to address social justice by maintaining that knowledge is intrinsically tied to identity. However, it seems reasonable to assume that a little self-awareness could correct for any group-based biases without the need to cancel anyone’s views. People should simply be free to disagree when their evidence and reasoning do not support the same conclusions. The possibility of postmodern bias has not deterred those who view science skeptically, arguing that it has been used in the past to impose unjust agendas. One instance that is frequently mentioned is to support colonialism by arguing that it was bringing civilization to backward natives. Instead of science, social justice argues in favor of other ways of

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knowing, such as using deeply lived experience. Dotson (2012) famously referred to the dominance of reason and science as a culture of justification when the obverse could be argued. She also argued for a culture of praxis, which is coded language for forcing agreement with a social justice agenda. Others pointed out that there is a reason/emotion divide, suggesting that always supporting reason was an error (Wolf, 2017). This last naming exercise was a cover for allowing them to make irrational arguments. It should be clear with all these new terms, and these are only a sample, that social justice has developed its own codes to infer the worst about someone else’s motives. No one is allowed to argue in a way that does not support unquestioned devotion to Social Justice Religion. Not only is it impermissible to raise doubts about it, but this would be equivalent to committing a sin, which has already been framed as being pernicious by naming exercises that are ready to be used as weapons (Hicks, 2018). Much of the confidence to make such accusatory pronouncements comes from standpoint Theory.

Standpoint Theory Standpoint Theory is the argument underlying the oppression asserted by social justice Theory. It operates on two assumptions. First, those occupying the same social positions or identities—race, gender, sex, sexuality, ability status, and so on—will have the same experiences of dominance and oppression, which they will interpret in the same ways. Second, it assumes that those experiences will provide them with a more authoritative and fuller picture. From these assumptions, it follows that one’s relative position, within a social dynamic, dictates what one can and cannot know. Thus, the privileged are blinded by their privilege while the oppressed are enlightened by a kind of double sight, so that they can unexplainably understand the experiences of both. These ideas are further explored by the feminist, Nancy Tuana (2017): Standpoint Theory was designed to be a method that would render transparent the values and interests, such as androcentrism, heteronormativity and Eurocentrism, that underlie allegedly neutral methods in science and epistemology and clarify their impact. Such attention to the subject of knowledge illuminates the various means by which oppressive practices can

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result in or reinforce epistemic inequalities, exclusions, and marginalizations. In this way, feminist and other liberatory epistemologists aimed to transform the subject of knowledge in the sense of focusing on knowledge obscured by dominant interests and values and thereby to identify and provide tools for undermining the knowledges and practices implicated by oppression.

Concisely stated, the idea is that those in dominant groups experience a world organized by and for dominant groups, whereas members of oppressed groups experience a different world that denies them privileged access to the same benefits as those enjoyed by the dominant groups. Although Tuana (2017) and other justice theorists argue that science is not neutral, nor by extension, mathematics, they are confused. It is not the rules of science that are biased; the ones who can be biased are the individual scientists who often make public pronouncements, seemingly at times for their self-aggrandizement. Not only can scientists be biased, but all humans including social justice theorists can also be biased. Thus, bias is an empirical question that need not depend on someone’s position or identity. Clearly, being associated with the normative identity does not prevent anyone from being biased— even reputed experts. Dr Anthony Fauci found himself in the unenviable role of making public health policies as he went along because not enough was known about COVID. He should not be criticized for making decisions based on the best available evidence. However, he falsely stated masking provided protection even when conflicting data were available, all while advocating for vaccines that provided limited protection, which was also known. He also supported the cancellation of others who had data themselves. Perhaps most damaging, he ignored the costs of lockdowns as if preventing the spread of disease were all that mattered. This was not science—it was public policy. Unfortunately, he argued repeatedly that if you disagreed with him that you disagreed with science when in fact, he had it backwards. It is immaterial what individual scientists think when their views are not supported by the science itself. To act otherwise, would be to create doubts about science as a system. In contrast, entrepreneurs must act based on reality. Fancy fictions are irrelevant. Standpoint Theory demands essentialism, which refers to oppressed groups essentializing themselves to achieve group political action, which

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would not necessarily create new wealth. Political action could redistribute wealth. However, to the extent that it rewards people who did not earn it themselves, it disincentivizes the wealth creators. The counter claim is that the theory does not assume all members of the same group have the same nature but that they experience the same problems, which seems unlikely. How could they? They are different people living different lives. Nevertheless, standpoint Theory is at the heart of identity politics. All of this is anathema to entrepreneurship, which does not require that anyone enter an exchange with someone else. Rather, entrepreneurs are free to enter the marketplace and conduct an exchange with whomever they wish. Any professed narratives such as essentialism that inhibit free trade by entrepreneurs will reduce the general level of entrepreneurship in society. The reasoning that grants double sight to the oppressed but not to the oppressor, is often attributed to Marxism’s class-struggle. The key difference between Marxism and postmodernism is whether the oppressed suffer from false consciousness as the result of the hidden imposition of power (Hegel, 1807), as well as due to their socialization. Mills (2017) explains this difference: The racially subordinated—victims, after all, of genocide, expropriation, and slavery!—are often quite well able to recognize their situation. It is not (or not always) that the imprisoned lack the concepts, the hermeneutical resources, to understand their situation, but that the privileged lack the concepts and find them incredible or even incomprehensible, because of their incongruity with white-supremacist ideology. Even if they were to “hear” what blacks are saying, they still would not be able to ‘hear’ them because of the conceptual incoherence of the Black framework of assumptions with their own dominant framework. Whites are imprisoned (reversing the metaphor) in a cognitive state which both protects them from dealing with the realities of social oppression and, of course disables them epistemically.

These assertions are the equivalent of being damned if you do or damned if you do not because the framework is not scientifically falsifiable. What is false is its self-belief that it occupies the moral high ground. In the view of its adherents, social justice scholarship reifies the postmodern knowledge principle—makes it “real” —and combines it with the postmodern political principle, which is a drive to change the underlying

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systems of power that it assumes are inherent in every social interaction. It does this by instilling the four postmodern themes of epistemic injustice, all with an unprecedented level of conviction. All the above is happening in the background while entrepreneurs are focused elsewhere. They are likely to be sucked unknowingly into a vortex of social re-engineering. If an exchange were to fail because of socialized resistance, it is possible that they would not understand the context.

Critical Pedagogy Versus Critical Thinking Since the reification of social justice Theory, anyone who disagrees with its power metanarrative is accused of supporting epistemic pushback. Bailey (2014) interprets the pushback as willful by dominant groups trying to preserve social injustices. In her view, criticisms of Social Justice are immoral and harmful. She tells us: I focus on these ground-holding responses because they are pervasive, tenacious, and bear a strong resemblance to critical thinking practices, and because I believe that their uninterrupted circulation does psychological and epistemic harm to members of marginalized groups. (Bailey, 2017)

In charging that critical thinking harms minorities, she neglects to compare the magnitude of that harm to leaving them unprepared to face reality. Entrepreneurs are experts in facing reality because in many cases there is no safety net for them. If they fail, they fail. In contrast, her approach relies on extorting remuneration from others, whereas, critical thinking prepares using, and entrepreneurs, to be the judges of our own reality, preferably using the scientific method. Because social justice scholars like Bailey assume that disagreement with their work must be a result of intellectual and moral failings, no such disagreement can be tolerated. Treating privilege-preserving epistemic pushback as a form of critical engagement validates it and allows it to circulate more freely; this, as I’ll argue later, can be epistemic violence to oppressed groups. (Bailey, 2017)

Critical thinking should therefore be shut down and replaced with social justice scholarship. In fact, for Bailey, critical thinking itself is a problem

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that needs to be replaced by critical pedagogy, in which the word “critical” means something else. She explains: The critical-thinking tradition is concerned primarily with epistemic adequacy. To be critical is to show good judgement in recognizing when arguments are faulty, assertions lack evidence, truth claims appeal to unreliable sources, or concepts are sloppily crafted and applied.… Critical pedagogy regards the claims that students make in response to social justice issues not as propositions to be assessed for their truth value, but as expressions of power that function to re-inscribe and perpetuate social inequities. Its mission is to teach students ways of identifying and mapping how power shapes our understanding of the world. This is the first step toward resisting and transforming social injustice. (Bailey, 2017)

This is a specific admission that Bailey’s aim is not to seek truth, but to teach a specific understanding of Social Justice, for the purposes of activism. The fact that her essay was published in a leading feminist philosophy journal, Hypatia, indicates that its views are considered acceptable by most social justice professors. In a perfect world, one would ask, where are the academic administrators who allow such bullying to repress student thinking? Why do they not intervene to evaluate whether teaching students to think in only one approved way is really education that prepares students to be successful in life? Of course, these are empirical questions, but there is evidence that the majority of administrators support social justice professors who are pushing their power narrative. In the next chapter, we will learn that there are even more ways to be oppressed, which translates into more ways to deconstruct accepted ways of doing things that have worked for centuries.

Summary of Postmodern Social Justice in Action 11.1 The first phase of postmodernism was during the 1960s and 1970s but had roots going back to the 1700s. It referred to the impossibility of objective knowledge, as well as knowledge as power.

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11.2 The second phase during the 1980s and 1990s included the rise of Intersectionalism, which explored group identity as a source of power. 11.3 Beginning in the 2000s, the third phase, known as social justice scholarship, was undertaken as if its abstract concepts unfailingly described reality, which was the beginning of the reification narrative, accepted almost as if it were a religious principle. Reification means to make into a real thing. This was also the beginning of a radical phase of postmodern project. It is not being faithless to make assumptions when information is missing. In fact, it is required by critical thinking. Critical thinking, based on checking our assumptions and evidence, is the way that we test our views about reality. 11.4 Social justice Theory transitioned quickly to activism. There had always been activists, but the new ones were more uncompromising and less accommodating in their commitments. Activism per say is fine so long as it does not pretend to be scholarship, which unfortunately it continued to do. 11.5 Proponents argue that we have progressed from the end of the world in terms of social justice to the beginning of a new, unknown utopian vision. Like its infallible precepts, we were not supposed to question the coming utopia. Being forced to conclude that the future is admittedly unknown does not bode well for entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs prefer to launch new ventures in a more certain environment. 11.6 Postmodernism, the precursor of social justice, posited that (1) objective knowledge is impossible, that (2) knowledge is a construct of power, and that (3) society is made up of systems of power and privilege that need to be deconstructed (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). As discussed previously, this view was made actionable in the second phase during the 1980s and 1990s, which saw postmodernism fragment into postcolonial Theory, queer Theory, critical race Theory, intersectional feminism, disability studies, and fat studies, among others. 11.7 Those who accept these precepts without questioning them become true believers (Hoffer, 1951). It is no surprise that “just knowing” is not science because it lacks controlled testing. Nor is there provision to falsify hypotheses. Instead, it is a metanarrative, which becomes the truth according to social justice Theory. It is justified in the same way that religion is justified, based on a

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belief system. Perhaps, we should refer to it as Social Justice Religion. Another name for it is Wokeism, which I have previously classified as one of nine world religions (Fiet, 2022). There is a tidal wave sweeping every facet of Western culture, taking the form of a new secular religion. Known as Wokeism, its roots reach back to Immanuel Kant (1781) but then become entangled with postmodernism, critical theories, and social justice scholarship. Currently it may only be a movement, but it is approaching the status of a religion. It has appeared as an alternative to Christianity. It is not surprising that it has rejected the counsel of Martin Luther King about refraining from judging others by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character, perhaps because he was a Christian minister. Woke social justice is not a political or social movement, despite its origins, nor a derivative of enlightenment values (Funk, 2020). Nor is it the type of awakening proclaimed by the Buddha who was attempting to become one with a Daoist universe. Concepts such as logic, science, math, and reason are viewed as tools of an oppressive white patriarchy. Surprisingly, values such as hard work, individualism, punctuality, and delayed gratification are interpreted as perpetuating white supremacy (Sobande, 2019). Wokeism is not compatible theoretically with entrepreneurship. Nor does it create new wealth; instead, it is a scheme for redistributing a shrinking amount of wealth because it takes away incentives to be productive. It views self-interest seeking as comparable to sin, which should be punished through such tactics as boycotts and cancellation (Peterson, 2021). It is useful to understand its precepts so that proponents of entrepreneurship can offer counterarguments. Social justice scholarship (Wokeism) affirms that patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, ableism, fatphobia, and even postcolonialism, are adversely infecting everything. These prejudices are present always and everywhere just beneath a nicer-seeming surface that cannot quite contain them. This “reality” is profoundly problematic and needs to be constantly identified, condemned, and dismantled. Social justice scholarship distrusts categories and boundaries and seeks to blur them and is intensely focused on language as a means of creating and perpetuating power imbalances. An

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example of the blurring of boundaries is occurring nationwide at many universities as they combat weight stigma and fatphobia by claiming that it is related to historical racism. The country’s focus on body size is rooted in racism dating back to Charles Darwin. Social justice Theory, as explained by fat studies, advises against using extremely stigmatizing words like obesity in favor of terms such as people in larger bodies. Though lifestyle factors such as nutrition and exercise are important, it is essential to note the historical racism and injustices within our current food environment. From the fat studies example above, we can see how social justice shifts the responsibility for even taking care of our own bodies. If we are not responsible for our own bodies, how could we be responsible for anything else? We now have social justice texts—forming a Gospel of Social Justice—that express with absolute certainty, that all white people are racist, all men are sexist, racism and sexism are systems that can exist and oppress absent even a single person with racist or sexist intentions, sex is not biological and exists on a spectrum, language can be literal violence, denial of gender identity is killing people, the desire to remedy disability and obesity is hateful, and everything needs to be decolonized. The above precepts represent the final reification of postmodernism’s third phase. It is important to understand how the latest turn from applied postmodernism’s emphasis on group identity to social justice Theory seeks to blur boundaries and categories while being intensely focused on language as a means of creating and perpetuating power imbalances. It is common for social justice advocates to act as if they were morally superior because they are attuned to microaggressions that the rest of us dolts do not consider. In fact, those who do not accept Theory deserve to be censored and cancelled so that they do not express contrary views. Soon many of them come to support Theory to push elitist propaganda, which is a manifestation of their own power and greed. Accusing others of social justice sins is among the first diversionary charges that they level against others, the non-elites, which also tends to divide us politically.

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11.19 Social justice research no longer fits into neat categories. It has become so intersectional that it calls on various oppressed groups, while problematizing society and only abiding by one rule; Theory itself can never be denied. Theory is real—that is, reified. Thus, social justice research has become a sort of Theory of everything—a set of unquestionable truths with a capital T. Its central tenants were taken from the original postmodernism and solidified within the derived Theories. 11.20 One of the surprising omissions from intersectional identities is economic class, which would be of particular interest to entrepreneurs. Traditional Marxists could be criticized for focusing almost exclusively on economic class. Today, economic class is barely mentioned unless it is combined intersectionally with other forms of marginalized identity. 11.21 Although avoiding sin is virtuous, terms such as diversity, equity, and inclusion have become terms of art, symbols, that are now more important than what they were supposed to represent. It is at such moments of awareness, not wokeness, that it becomes perilous to realize that we are not allowed to question the goals of social justice Theory because they represent the only truths—other propositions are not allowed. Anything worthwhile is already included in social justice’s truth. 11.22 By the mid-2000s, if you studied one of the key social justice topics, sex, gender identity, race, sexuality, immigration status, indigeneity, colonial status, disability, religion, or weight, you were expected to factor in all the others, otherwise, you were not being inclusive. 11.23 It hardly seems believable that anyone could be disadvantaged if they did not consider how their individual status could be affected by other distal categories. It is a measure of their devotion to the cause of social justice that few of its true believers questioned the oppression metanarrative. 11.24 There has yet to be research that demonstrates how these categories are entwined so that they could impact anyone in the disadvantaged categories. It is no surprise that many workingclass and poor people often feel alienated from today’s left (Sowell, 2019). Lest we forget, “In no society have all regions and all parts of the population developed equally” (Braudel, 1994).

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11.25 Theory uses identity to determine what is true. Nearly all social justice scholarship is concerned with what is said, what is believed, what is assumed, what is taught, what is conveyed, what biases are imported through teaching, discourses, and stereotypes. These usages assume that society works through systems of power and privilege maintained in language. 11.26 Those who disagree with this gathering linguistic consensus may find that they are a little late—although, perhaps, not impossibly late. After so much focus on how language could be used to oppress the weak, it can also be used to disarm the casual advocacy of opponents who are not equally prepared. 11.27 Although there is evidence throughout history that some have used self-interest seeking with guile to strategically misrepresent information for personal gain (Williamson, 1975), such a tendency toward opportunistic misrepresentation is not limited to powerful, white males. It also afflicts those from minority identity groups. 11.28 Social justice scholars claim that the oppressed are entitled to epistemic justice and research justice (Kid et al., 2017). It would not be unreasonable to remind them that no one owns truth, even if they claim that they are “speaking their truth.” They have the audacity to further demand that truth should be based on only the lived experiences, emotions, and cultural traditions of intersectional minority groups. The truths of others are to be ignored because nothing can be allowed to “cancel” the metanarrative. 11.29 To accept social justice theory, one must reject 2500 years of Western cultural and scientific learning, which goes back to Aristotle. It seems beyond belief that a cabal of scholars and activists think that they are wiser and entitled to “speak their truth.” 11.30 Such claims had never been asserted so strongly as to claim priority over the scientific method. It seems reasonable to assume that they are not confused but rather are speaking from the perspective of creating their own power narrative. 11.31 Research justice favors citing those with intersectional status (Dotson, 2014), which would require ignoring everyone else. Many advocates do not understand that such a strident approach cannot be effective. The future must be based on truth and mutual respect—to which they could respond that it is a little

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late for mutual respect. If so, they could simply declare identity war, which would not bode well for those without power. If identity war were declared, it would be the end of entrepreneurship. Consummating exchanges requires some degree of trust (Williamson, 1975). In the face of failed exchanges, those with a little power would exercise it to take whatever they wanted. The social justice terminology for this debacle would be epistemic violence, as if giving it a name would reduce its catastrophic nature. Nevertheless, naming is the social justice way. When an ideology reifies its central tenants, its adherents often develop an interest in knowledge and its production. This occurs because the ideology needs to demonstrate that its assumptions are based on reality. In the case of social justice Theory, this is ironic because it has loudly proclaimed the opposite by stating that the oppressed are entitled to their own truths. Plato defined knowledge as justified true beliefs, which begs the question of who is authorized to justify the beliefs. Ideally, that person would be knowledgeable about the phenomenon, which lends credibility to the contention that those doing the suffering—the oppressed minority group members—are the experts. However, science demands more—a representative sample, falsifiable hypotheses, and a theory to be tested. It also requires controlling for alternative explanations. Asserting truth without scientific testing is not science; it could be religion, but even religions have standards for how to establish truth, who is authorized to proclaim it, and how will its adherents judge it. Failing both scientific and religious tests, true believers fall back on naming exercises that benefit from novelty. A newly asserted truth (a naming exercise) can stand independently and be as effective as the ardor of its advocates. That is, until those affected by it demand either an accommodation or an exception. Naming exercises frequently fail scrutiny by those affected. These are timeworn patterns of ideologues. Even before the influence of postmodernism, identity studies focused on the relationships between one’s identity and what one can know (Walsh, 2017). Feminism devised various epistemologies—theories of how knowledge is produced and understood. Three methods were used to justify claims: (1) feminist empiricism, (2) standpoint Theory, and (3) postmodern radical skepticism.

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11.37 The term epistemic injustice was coined for the purpose of identifying and correcting oppressive situations. Fricker (2007) defined it as when someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. Injury can occur in several ways: (1) when someone is not recognized as someone who can know something; (2) when her knowledge is not recognized as valid; (3) when she is prevented from being able to recognize something; or (4) when her knowledge is not understood. 11.38 Standpoint Theory explains the oppression asserted by social justice Theory. It is based on two assumptions. First, those sharing the same identities will have the same experiences, which they will interpret similarly. Second, their experiences provide them with an authoritative understanding. The privileged are blinded by their privilege while the oppressed are enlightened by a kind of double sight, so that they can understand the experiences of both (Tuana, 2017). 11.39 Those in dominant groups experience a world organized by and for dominant groups, whereas members of oppressed groups experience a different world that denies them privileged access. Although Tuana (2017) argues that science is not neutral, nor by extension, mathematics, they are confused. It is not the rules of science that are biased; the ones who can be biased are the individual scientists. 11.40 Since the reification of social justice Theory, anyone who disagrees with its power metanarrative is accused of supporting epistemic pushback. Bailey (2014) interprets the pushback as willful by dominant groups trying to preserve social injustices. In her view, criticisms of Social Justice are immoral and harmful. 11.41 Bailey (2014) neglects to compare the magnitude of the harm of leaving the oppressed unprepared to face reality. Entrepreneurs are experts in facing reality because in many cases there is no safety net for them. If they fail, they fail. In contrast, her approach relies on extorting remuneration, whereas, critical thinking prepares entrepreneurs, to be the judges of our own reality, preferably by using the scientific method. 11.42 Critical thinking is concerned with epistemic adequacy, which is to show good judgment in recognizing when arguments are faulty, assertions lack evidence, truth claims appeal to unreliable sources, or concepts are sloppily crafted and applied. Critical pedagogy regards the claims that students make in response

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to social justice issues not as propositions to be assessed for their truth value, but as expressions of power that function to perpetuate social inequities.

References Bailey, A. (2014). The Unlevel Knowing Field: An Engagement with Dotson’s Third-Order Epistemic Oppression. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 3(10). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=279 8934 Bailey, A. (2017). Tracking Privilege-Preserving Epistemic Pushback in Feminist and Critical Race Philosophy Classes. Hypatia, 32(4), 877. Baumol, W. (1990). Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive and Destructive. Journal of Political Economy, 98, 893–921. Braudel, F. (1994). A History of Civilizations (R. Mayne, Trans., p. 17). Penguin Press. Chasmar, J. (2022). Woke University’s Newest Social Justice Crusade: Fighting ‘Fatphobia.’ Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/woke-universitiessocial-justice-crusade-fatphobia Crenshaw, K. (1991). Maping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241– 1299 Crenshaw, K. (2018). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antirascist Politics. Feminist Legal Theory, 57–80 Dotson, K. (2012). How Is This Paper Philosophy? Comparative Philosophy, 3(1). Dotson, K. (2014). Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression. Social Epistemology, 28(2), 115–138. Fiet, J. (2022). The Theoretical World of Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press. Funk, M. (2020). Wokeism—The New Religion of the West. Converge Media. https://www.convergemedia.org/Wokeism-the-new-religion-of-the-west/ Hegel, G. (1807). The Phenomenology of Spirit. Hicks, S. (2018). Explaining Postmodernism. Ockham’s Razor Publishing. Hoffer, E. (1951). The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Harper & Row. Kant, I. (1781/1929). A Critique of Pure Reason (N. Kemp Smith, Trans.). Macmillan.

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Kid, I., Medina, J., & Polhaus, G. (2017). Introduction in the Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (I. Kid, J. Medina, & G. Pohlhaus, Ed., p. 1). Routledge. Mills, C. (2017). Ideology. In I. Kid, J. Medina, & G. Pohlhaus (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Espistemic Injustice. Routledge. Peterson, J. (2021). My Road to Cancellation. Deseret News. https://www.des eret.com/2021/6/20/22516382/my-to-cancellation Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—And Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Ramaswamy, V. (2021). Woke, Inc. Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. Center Street. Sohande, F. (2019). Woke-Washing: Intersectional Femvertising and Branding Woke Bravery. European Journal of Marketing, 54(11), 2723–2745. Sowell, T. (2019). Discrimination and Disparities. Basic Books. Tuana, N. (2017). Feminist Epistemology: The Subject of Knowledge. In J. Kidd, J. Meddina, & G. Pohlhuas (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (p. 125). Routledge. Walsh, M. (2017). The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West. Encounter Books. Whitlock, S. (2023, January 23). Activist at California Slavery Reparations Meeting Denounces Proposed Payment of $223,000: ‘Not Enough!’. Fox News Digital. Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies. Free Press. Wolf, A. (2017). Tell Me How that Makes You Feel: Philosophy’s Reason Versus Emotion Divided and Epistemic Pushback in Philosophy Classrooms. Hypathia, 32(4), 893–910.

CHAPTER 12

Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory

Deconstructing Western Traditions Deconstructing Western traditions was among postmodernism’s paramount goals. The impetus for this project came from one of its derivatives—postcolonial Theory, which sought to enforce decolonization. Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism in all its manifestations (Frantz, 2019). Unlike race and gender Theories, which had already taken hold in cultural studies, postcolonialism developed later, and could seem to be an add-on in this book, an add-on that is properly sequenced, both historically and within these pages. Prominent within postcolonial Theory are the (1) postmodern knowledge principle and the (2) postmodern political principle, the first rejecting objective truth and the second, which views the world as constructed from systems of power. There is not much that is different in postcolonialism—just a new arena for the application of postmodern precepts. The reader will already be familiar with its goals, tools, and methods. As a review, the four primary themes of postmodernism are also evident in postcolonial Theory: (1) the blurring of boundaries, (2) a belief in the power of language, (3) the loss of individual importance to the group, and (4) denial of the universal (Hicks, 2018). Thus, to understand postcolonialism, one must understand its postmodern origins.

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Postcolonialism arose in a specific historical context: the moral and political collapse of European colonization, which had dominated European politics for five centuries (Frantz, 1967). European colonization began during the fifteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. It proceeded under the assumption that the European powers had the right to expand their territories and exert their political and cultural authority over other peoples and regions. Pardon the comparison, but this seems like someone claiming that they have the right to beat up their spouse. Why wouldn’t both contentions be preposterous because they are based on the assumptions that the victimized have no rights of their own? Although justifying colonial empires was not unique to Europeans, they were equipped with sweeping justifications in the form of metanarratives to legitimize this right on its own terms. Two such justifications were (1) the French claiming that theirs was to civilize the conquered and that it was (2) a country’s Manifest Destiny, which was argued by the American President, James K. Polk, as he expanded the country toward the Pacific Ocean, taking possession of everything along the way. Of course, any country could stake a claim to having a manifest destiny, and particularly when it enviously views the territory of a neighbor. A current example would be Russia manifestly declaring that it had a right to claim Ukrainian territory. Except for the last Ukrainian example, others took place hundreds of years ago. It is tempting to use today’s standards, which find subjugation abhorrent, to judge those from previous eras, who perhaps thought that colonialism was very similar to a stewardship, which they were exercising wisely. That tendency is referred to as presentism. Although presentism could be misleading when used to criticize previous behavior, neither does it facilitate the evaluation of the choices made by others who lived by different standards. Fortunately, we do not need to evaluate specific examples. For our purposes, we are using these examples as if they were part of one grand, postcolonial metanarrative. In our day, the question becomes what would colonialism do to entrepreneurship? It could be a tremendous advantage for entrepreneurs if they were the colonizers. However, if they were the colonized, it is doubtful that they would have the option of launching a venture for themselves, unless it were approved by the dominant, colonizing power. Fortunately, colonialism does not exist in the West. It has been replaced

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by more democratic liberalism, and in many cases with a market-based economic system of trade. Historically, European colonialism suddenly faltered and collapsed in the middle of the twentieth century, having commenced with the formal loss of the American colonies between 1776 and 1781 (Frantz, 1970). Following World War II, decolonization gathered momentum. By the 1960s, it was common for there to be concerns about it, both among scholars and the public. The collapse of colonialism was at the heart of the social and political milieu in which postcolonialism arose. This collapse was followed by rejecting colonialist metanarratives by focusing, true to form, on the discourses of colonialism, the same tool employed by postmodernism. The activists studied the discourses of colonialism, which they asserted were intended to protect the interests of the powerful and privileged. Postcolonialism transformed Marxist exploitation to a more palatable form of cultural dominance.

Applied Postmodernism The key idea in postcolonial Theory is that the West constructs itself in opposition to the East, through the way It talks. “We are rational, and they are superstitious.” “We are honest, and they are deceptive.” “We are normal, and they are exotic.” “We are advanced, and they are primitive.” “We are liberal, and they are barbaric.” Very often, the East is constructed as a foil to the West. The term the other is used to describe the denigration of others to promote one’s own interests. Said (2003) called this way of thinking Orientalism—a move that allowed him to assert a powerful pejorative assessment of Orientalists who were scholars who studied the Far East, South Asia, the Middle East. They could be assessed in this way because they were viewed from other than a Western perspective. Said (2003) was influenced by Foucault (1972) who proposed that the way we speak constructs knowledge. Given that powerful groups can direct discourse, which then both defines and constitutes knowledge, the elites could control the discourses. For example, Said (2003) writes: I have found it useful here to employ Michel Foucault’s notion of a discourse, as described by him in The Archaeology of Knowledge and in Discipline and Punish, to identify Orientalism as a discourse—one cannot

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possibly understand [its] enormously systematic [nature], by which European culture was able to manage—and even produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the Post-Enlightenment period.

The desire to deconstruct the hegemonic West has been a pervasive theme, becoming stronger with Said’s influence. Said (2003) saw power imbalances in the interactions between dominant and marginalized groups. Inherent in his efforts was a desire to correct the histories that had been written by the dominant, in most cases, Western groups. His intent was to recover lost voices. My argument is that history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and rewritten, always with various silences and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated, so that “our” East, “our” Orient becomes “ours” to possess and direct.

From Deconstruction to Reconstruction Postcolonialism became a form of deconstruction to not only correct earlier abominations, to not make too subtle a point, but also to prepare for a more utopian future when all cultures and origins would be respected for their contributions, despite their being unequal. Their inequality is demonstrable against various standards (Sowell, 2019), depending on the goal against which they are evaluated. The goals could be anyone of the following or others: prosperity, nutrition, education, fertility, economic freedom, democracy, health, or longevity. The only surprising comparison among nations or groups would have been if their contributions had been equal. The fact that they are unequal has tempted the creation of a false narrative that equitable outcomes are to be expected and should be created through political activism, and in other instances through war and conquest. No nation in history has successfully created equal outcomes, nor are today’s activists likely to succeed. What is more likely to be successful is what has worked in the past—democratic freedom protected by a bill of rights where economic agents are free to pursue their entrepreneurial and capitalist ambitions—all within a system that is legally enforceable. The recent history of postcolonial Theory is more than deconstruction. Rather, it is a call for reconstruction, which includes a

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radical political agenda, which the original postmodernism lacked. Postcolonialism has come to resemble activist feminist scholarship. Prominent postcolonial feminist, Linda Hutcheon, makes this clear: Both have distinct political agendas and often a theory of agency that allows them to go beyond the postmodern limits of deconstructing existing orthodoxies into the realms of social and political action. (Hutcheon, 1991)

I do not question the motivation of those who want to address discriminatory narratives. Let’s assume that their motivation is not selfinterested—that they are not charlatans and that they really do wish to make the world into a better, fairer place. I do question whether they can make it into a fairer place, which would require all of us to agree on the definition of what is fair, after which it raises the question of who is authorized to evaluate the fairness. The surprising part of activism is that its proponents are so willing to expose their true purpose while pretending that they are unbiased social scientists who are not conflicted. Two other postcolonial theorists of note are Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988) and Homi K. Bhabba (1994). While Bhabba (1994) was interested in culture, both were concerned with the deconstruction of language to subordinate the colonized. Spivak’s most influential work is a 1988 essay, Can the Subaltern Speak? It focuses intently on language and expresses concern about the role of power structures to constrain it. Spivak argues that subalterns—colonized peoples of subordinate status—have no access to speech, even while seemingly representing themselves. Spivak draws on Derrida (1978, 1994) for the deconstructive idea that there is subversive power in stereotypes within power-laden binaries, while inverting their hierarchy. She calls this strategic essentialism—making something essential, which is a linguistic tool used for domination. There is little doubt of the use of a linguistic tool in this repulsive passage from 1871: The regeneration of the inferior or degenerate races, by the superior races is part of the providential order of things for humanity… Nature has made a race of workers, the Chinese race, who have wonderful manual dexterity and almost no sense of honor; govern them with justice, levying from them, in return for the blessing of such a government, an ample allowance for the conquering race, and they will be satisfied; a race of tillers of the soil, the Negro; treat him with kindness and humanity, and all will be as it

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should; a race of masters and soldiers, the European race…. Let each do what he is made for, and all will be well. (Renan, 1871/2009)

Fortunately, this is not an attitude that one encounters much today. It has been less morally tenable during the twentieth century, with the fall of colonialism and the rise of civil rights movements. Today, it would be recognized as unacceptable extremism. Nevertheless, these disappearing attitudes are cited in postcolonial Theory as though their past existence has produced an indelible template that determines how people discuss and understand issues today. Postcolonial Theory establishes most of its claims by assuming that there must be permanent problems, which we have inherited through language constructed centuries ago. Such a theory could be enlightening if there were contemporary, supportive evidence. Typically, one finds activists borrowing authority from the past without providing the required evidence that such claims are dominant today. The dominance of their influence would be necessary to demonstrate in a multi-factorial model that every other possibility was less important. Along the way, different viewpoints developed.

Viewpoints Compared The real social changes that rendered the attitudes in the previous paragraph almost universally objectionable were not predicated on postmodern principles. They preceded these developments and proceeded from and functioned by means of universal and individual liberalism. This classical form holds that science, reason and human rights are the endowment and property of every individual and do not belong exclusively to any set of people, regardless of their group. Thus, to assert Oriental binaries is to perpetuate them, rather than to overcome them. Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020) identify contrasting viewpoints that clarify the range of postcolonial Theory: Western colonialism: “Westerners are rational and scientific while Asians are irrational and superstitious. Therefore, Europeans must rule Asia for its own good.” Liberalism: “All humans have the capacity to be rational and scientific, but individuals will vary widely. Therefore, all humans must have all opportunities and freedoms.”

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Postmodernism: “The West has constructed the idea that rationality and science are good to perpetuate its own power and marginalize nonrational, nonscientific forms of knowledge production from elsewhere.” Applied postmodernism: “We must now devalue white, Western ways of knowing and promote Eastern ones to equalize the power imbalance.” This last viewpoint is often referred to as decolonizing, which leads to a discussion of the extent of this trend.

Decolonizing Everything The early roots of postcolonial Theory took the form of literary criticism as it attempted to deconstruct dominant narratives, frequently described in obscure language; however, the field gradually expanded and simplified. By the early 2000s, the concept of decolonizing everything began to dominate scholarship and activism. Scholars retained postmodern themes but extended their reach beyond actual colonialism to perceived attitudes of superiority toward certain identity statuses. These included displaced indigenous groups and people from racial or ethnic minorities who were considered in some ways to be subaltern, diasporic, hybrid, or whose nonWestern beliefs, cultures, or customs had been devalued. To which in hindsight, it is useful to ask, devalued for the purpose of what? To simply enslave others? It is also fair to ask what were the purposes of these beliefs, cultures, and customs? That is, other than that people have an innate right to practice them if they wish. This is not to suggest that they had no useful purpose other than to repeat accepted themes. However, it is a separate question, which also is fair to ask, whether such traditions deserve to be honored or devalued. And if they were not valuable, discrimination itself could diminish them and thus serve a useful purpose, which could improve the lot of the supposed targets. This was in some cases the attitude of the colonizers who reckoned that they were doing the colonized a favor. The reverse of colonization could be the lax enforcement of the Southern US border as a postcolonial way of repairing the damage done by the colonizers. Of course, no person or group has the inherent right to impose their will on

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someone else, even if the target is wrong. They should still be independent agents. The same principle pertains to the colonized who may feel entitled to ignore national boundaries. To the extent that these minority groups were victimized by majoritygroup opportunists, one can certainly understand the more militant Social Justice approach, which has taken hold since around 2010. This change represents the reification of postcolonial Theory. What does it mean to decolonize something? The answer can vary widely, depending on the context. It can refer to the inclusion of scholars of all nationalities and races while reducing the influence of white scholars (Bailey, 2014). These campaigns are focused especially on reducing the influence of white scholars from former colonizing powers. However, we also see an emphasis on other ways of knowing, which come with a strong inclination to critique, problematize, and disparage knowledge understood as Western. Postcolonialism asserts that the production of value-free knowledge is impossible because it is always situated in some potentially prejudicial context. Our politics shape our understanding of the world, and the pretense of neutrality ironically makes our endeavors less valid (Andrews, 2018). After politicizing differences, the next step was historical revisionism—often rewriting history to serve a political agenda, which they did by accusing rigorous methods of being positivist and thus biased. Note this characterization by Dalia Gebrial (2018): The public’s sense of what history is remains influenced by positivist tendencies, whereby the role of the historian is to simply “reveal” facts about pasts that are worth revealing, in a process removed from power. This epistemological insistence on history as a positivist endeavor functions as a useful tool of coloniality … as it effaces the power relations that underpin what the production of history has thus far looked like.

The complaint above is that history cannot be trusted because it is written by the winners. Although there could be some truth to this claim, competent historians attempt to mitigate this tendency by seeking disconfirming evidence to help them get to the truth and maintain credibility with their scholarly peers. A related problem arises when academia itself becomes politicized to advocate for a particular outcome, even while claiming to follow the science. Some only claim to follow the science while secretly discrediting findings that do not suit their preferred worldview.

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In addition to not really following the science of empirical scholarship, decolonial narratives frequently attack rationality, which postcolonial scholars see as a Western way of thinking, such as is suggested by the following: It will be difficult to contest the idea that … philosophy as a field or a discipline in modern Western universities remains a bastion of Eurocentrism, whiteness in general, and white heteronormative male structural privilege and superiority. (Maldonado-Torres et al., 2018)

These authors relate the worth of philosophical concepts to their authors’ gender, race, sexuality, and geography—in the typical style of standpoint Theory. Ironically, they do this by introducing Foucault’s idea of powerknowledge, despite the evidence that he was a white Western man, whose influence has been most strongly felt in the West (1972). In addition to rejecting Western influence, it is not enough to add other philosophical approaches to the field one wishes to decolonize. Postcolonial Theorists insist European philosophy must be entirely rejected, to the point of deconstructing time and space as Western constructs. Any serious effort to decolonize philosophy cannot be satisfied with simply adding new areas to an existing arrangement of power/knowledge, leaving the Eurocentric norms that define the field … in place, or reproducing such norms themselves. For example, when engaging in non-European philosophies it is important to avoid reproducing problematic conceptions of time, space, and subjectivity there embedded in the Eurocentric definition of European philosophy and its many avatars. (Maldonado-Torres et al., 2018)

It is clear from this statement that postcolonial Theory has rejected Western thinking so that it can completely supplant it with a reconstructed view. Inherent in this rejection are all four of the postmodern themes: (1) the blurring of boundaries, (2) the power of language, (3) cultural relativism, and (4) the loss of the universal and the individual in favor of group identity. Each of these themes is evident in the following statement of the purpose of decolonizing: Philosophy seems to have a special place among discourses in the liberal arts because it focuses on the roots of the university at large: reason. This

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includes providing criteria for identifying and demarcating the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences, as well as for distinguishing reason from faith, secularism from religion, and the “primitive” and the ancient from the modern. These are central columns in the edifice that sustains modern Western rationality and the modern Western university. The modern Western research university and liberal arts therefore owe much of their basic conceptual infrastructure to philosophical formulations of rationality, universalism, subjectivity, the relationships between the subject and object, truth and method—all of which become relevant targets of critical analysis in the decolonial turn. (Ibid., 66–67)

The above is a perfect example of applied postmodernism, which of course is actionable by advocates and activists. Because these are nerds making these claims, it is not surprising that they refer to their approach as reified philosopy.

Postcolonialism’s Impact on Entrepreneurship One could commence the examination of postcolonialism’s impact on entrepreneurship by noting the obvious at the macro level—that it could shut down trade, close markets, and/or reduce their size, and generally foreclose opportunities to generate new wealth. There is not much here that is new or surprising. What is new, lurks below this surface-level analysis. The newness is hidden in its postmodern origins and themes. It divides us, sets us against each other, and generally increases our mutual distrust, as illustrated earlier in the language that we use to describe each other and how it frames us as being different and underappreciated. Recall that the key idea in postcolonial Theory is that the West constructs itself in opposition to the East, through the way It talks. “We are rational, and they are superstitious.” “We are honest, and they are deceptive.” “We are normal, and they are exotic.” “We are advanced, and they are primitive.” “We are liberal, and they are barbaric.” Very often, the East is constructed as a foil to the West. The term the other is used to describe the denigration of others to promote one’s own interests. Postcolonialism results from or creates mutual distrust of others who are perceived as being different. When it already exists, it plays upon and magnifies it. When it does not exist, it justifies mutual suspicion, leading to distrust and fear. The fear could grow into hatred and at a minimum, fewer interactions leading to exchange and trade.

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More serious than the immediate foreclosure of trade, is that it shuts down the consideration of future possibilities while providing a framework with a scholarly seal of approval. Of course, without trade, there could not be opportunity. Without opportunity, there could be no entrepreneurship. Without entrepreneurship, markets would lose their dynamism, which enables them to adjust and reward those who have invested wisely or merely placed their bet on the direction of market adjustment. If these market interactions seem like a finely tuned balancing act, it is because they are. Although they tend to regress toward equilibrium, fine adjustments can nudge them out of equilibrium. Being out of equilibrium is not the problem because entrepreneurs can be expert equilibrators whose efforts move opposing forces toward equilibrium and additional stability. Although entrepreneurs advocate for and pursue change, it is stability that they crave, even if it is between tenacious bouts of instability.

Summary of Postmodernism in the Form of Postcolonial Theory 12.1 Deconstructing Western traditions was among postmodernism’s paramount goals. The impetus for this project came from one of its derivatives—postcolonial Theory, which sought to enforce decolonization. Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism in all its manifestations (Frantz, 2019). 12.2 The four primary themes of postmodernism are also evident in postcolonial Theory: (1) the blurring of boundaries, (2) a belief in the power of language, (3) the loss of individual importance to the group, and (4) denial of the universal (Hicks, 2018). Thus, to understand postcolonialism, one must understand its postmodern origins. 12.3 European colonization began during the fifteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. It assumed that the European powers had the right to expand their territories and exert their political and cultural authority over other peoples and regions. 12.4 The Europeans were equipped with metanarratives to legitimize this right on its own terms. Two such justifications were (1) the French claiming that theirs was to civilize the conquered and that it was (2) a country’s Manifest Destiny.

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12.5 It is tempting to use today’s standards, which find subjugation abhorrent, to judge those from previous eras, who perhaps thought that colonialism was a benevolent form of stewardship for the colonized. This tendency is referred to as presentism. It is typically not helpful in evaluating the choices made by others who lived by different standards. 12.6 What would colonialism do to entrepreneurship? It could be a tremendous advantage for entrepreneurs if they were the colonizers. However, if they were the colonized, it is doubtful that they would have the option of launching a venture for themselves, unless it were approved by the dominant, colonizing power. 12.7 European colonialism suddenly faltered and collapsed in the middle of the twentieth century, having commenced with the formal loss of the American colonies between 1776 and 1781 (Frantz, 1970). Following World War II, decolonization gathered momentum. 12.8 This collapse was followed by rejecting colonialist metanarratives by focusing, true to form, on the discourses of colonialism, the same tool employed by postmodernism. Postcolonialism transformed Marxist exploitation to a more palatable form of cultural dominance. 12.9 The key idea in postcolonial Theory is that the colonizers construct themselves in opposition to the colonized. “We are rational, and they are superstitious.” “We are honest, and they are deceptive.” “We are normal, and they are exotic.” “We are advanced, and they are primitive.” “We are liberal, and they are barbaric.” The term the other is used to describe the denigration of others to promote one’s own interests. 12.10 All postmodern analysis depends on class struggle. It presupposes equal outcomes in the absence of oppression. This is a false premise. The inequality is demonstrable using various standards (Sowell, 2019), depending on the goals against which they are evaluated. The goals could be one of the following: prosperity, nutrition, education, fertility, economic freedom, democracy, happiness, health, or longevity. The only surprising comparison among nations or groups would have been if their contributions had been equal.

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12.11 No nation in history has successfully created equal outcomes, nor are today’s activists likely to succeed. What is more likely is what has worked in the past—democratic freedom protected by a bill of rights where economic agents are free to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions—all within a system of legally enforceable boundaries. 12.12 Postcolonial Theory assumes that there must be permanent problems, which we have inherited through language constructed centuries ago. Typically, one finds activists borrowing authority from the past without providing the required evidence. The dominance of their influence would be necessary to demonstrate in a multi-factorial model that every other possibility was less important. 12.13 Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020) identify contrasting viewpoints that clarify the range of postcolonial Theory: Western colonialism: “Westerners are rational and scientific while Asians are irrational and superstitious. Therefore, Europeans must rule Asia for its own good.” Liberalism: “All humans have the capacity to be rational and scientific, but individuals will vary widely. Therefore, all humans must have all opportunities and freedoms.” Postmodernism: “The West has constructed the idea that rationality and science are good to perpetuate its own power and marginalize nonrational, nonscientific forms of knowledge production from elsewhere.” Applied postmodernism: “We must now devalue white, Western ways of knowing and promote Eastern ones to equalize the power imbalance.” 12.14 The early roots of postcolonial Theory took the form of literary criticism as it attempted to deconstruct dominant narratives, frequently described in obscure language; however, the field gradually expanded and simplified. 12.15 By the early 2000s, the concept of decolonizing everything began to dominate scholarship and activism. Scholars retained postmodern themes but extended their reach beyond actual colonialism to perceived attitudes of superiority toward certain identity statuses.

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12.16 To the extent that minority groups were victimized by majoritygroup opportunists, one can certainly understand the more militant Social Justice approach, which has taken hold since around 2010. This change represents the reification of postcolonial Theory. 12.17 What does it mean to decolonize everything? It can refer to the inclusion of scholars of all nationalities and races while reducing the influence of white scholars (Bailey, 2014). These campaigns are focused especially on reducing the influence of white scholars from former colonizing powers. However, we also see an emphasis on other ways of knowing, which come with a strong inclination to critique, problematize, and disparage knowledge understood as Western. 12.18 Postcolonialism asserts that the production of value-free knowledge is impossible because it is always situated in a context. The pretense of neutrality ironically makes our endeavors less valid (Andrews, 2018). The next step was historical revisionism to serve a political agenda, which they did by accusing rigorous methods of being positivist and biased. 12.19 The complaint that history cannot be trusted because it is written by the winners could be true, except that competent historians attempt to mitigate this tendency by seeking disconfirming evidence to help them get to the truth and maintain credibility with their scholarly peers. 12.20 A related problem arises when academia becomes politicized while claiming to follow the science. Some may claim to follow the science while secretly discrediting findings that do not suit their preferred worldview. In addition, decolonial narratives frequently attack rationality, which postcolonial scholars see as a Western way of thinking. 12.21 Postcolonial Theory rejected Western thinking so that it could supplant it with a reconstructed view. Rejection included all postmodern themes: (1) the blurring of boundaries, (2) the power of language, (3) cultural relativism, and (4) the loss of the universal and the individual in favor of group identity. 12.22 Postcolonialism results from or creates mutual distrust of others. When it already exists, it plays upon and magnifies it. When it does not exist, it justifies suspicion, leading to distrust and fear. The fear could grow into hatred and at a minimum, fewer interactions would lead to exchange and trade.

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12.23 More serious than the immediate foreclosure of trade is that it shuts down the consideration of future possibilities while providing a framework with a scholarly seal of approval. Of course, without trade, there could not be opportunity. 12.24 Without opportunity, there could be no entrepreneurship. Without entrepreneurship, markets would lose their dynamism, which enables them to adjust and reward those who have invested wisely or merely placed their bet on the direction of market adjustment.

References Andrews, K. (2018). Introduction in Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire (R. Chantiluke, B. Kwoba, & A. Nkipo, Eds.). Zed books. Bailey, A. (2014). The Unlevel Knowing Field: An Engagement with Doton’s Third-Order Epistemic Oppression. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 3(10). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=279 8934 Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. Routledge. Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Difference. University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. (1994). Specters of Marx. Routledge. Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge: And the Discourse on Language (A. Smith, Trans.). Tabistock. Frantz, F. (1967). The Wretched of the Earth (C. Farrington, Trans.). Penguin Books. Frantz, F. (1970). A Dying Colonialism (H. Chealier, Trans.). Penguin Books. Frantz, F. (2019). Back Skin, White Masks (R. Philcox, Trans.). Penguin Books. Gebrial, D. (2018). Rhodes Must Fall: Oxford and Movements for Change. In G. Bhambra, C. Gebraial, & K. Nisancioglu (Eds.), Decolonizing the University. Pluto Press. Hicks, S. (2018). Explaining Postmodernism. Ockham’s Razor Publishing. Hutcheon, L. (1991). Circling the Downspout of Empire. In I. Adams & H. Tifflin (Eds.), Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post-Colonialism and PostModernism. Harvester/Wheatsheaf. Maldonado-Torres, N., Vizcaino, R., Wallace, J., & Annabel, J. (2018). Deco lonizing Philosophy. In K. Bhambra, D. Gebrial, & K. Nisancioglue (Eds.), Decolonizing the University. Pluto Press.

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Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—And Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Renan, J. (1871/2009). La Reforme Intellectuelle et Morale, as quoted in Soueif, A. The Function of Narrative in the War on Terror. In C. Miller (Ed.), War on Terror. Manchester University Press. Said, E. (2003). Orientalism. Penguin. Sowell, T. (2019). Discrimination and Disparities. New York: Basic Books. Spivak, G. (1988). Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography. In R. Guha & G. Chakravorty (Eds.), Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 13

Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship

This book has highlighted the sources of many current philosophical assumptions about the world in which we live. Why should we care about them? The most important reason is that they are the wellspring for the theoretical assumptions and boundary conditions that we use to apply the scientific method and even to understand our personal identity. Quite literally, they change how we see, understand, and interpret the world, as well as our perception of the odds of achieving our personal aspirations, which are foundational to entrepreneurship. We will see that current social justice assumptions create the lenses to infer that the world in which we live is incompatible with the Western philosophical traditions that have provided the backdrop for world progress since the early Greek philosophers. The first elements of this review will be theoretical followed by their impact on individuals striving to be entrepreneurs. In effect, this chapter answers the question of why we should be aware of social justice Theory.

Theoretical Social Justice Let us be unmistakably clear—social justice advocates are assumed to be virtuous whereas others are asserted to be evil, deserving of opposition, even by destroying their property, partially because their language is asserted to be violent, which hardly creates a level playing field. If this © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_13

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discussion at times seems tilted toward science, it is because this perspective is given so little credence during a time of social justice advocacy. Let the truth prevail and let readers use this information as they will while being aware of differing perspectives. Meanwhile, the world is headed into an intellectual war, which makes the ideas in this chapter essential reading. Identity and Religion One’s identity can come from one’s identity group or community, which are posited to intersect to expand the number of identities and their potential grievances. Social justice’s emphasis on community leaves the impression that there is a religious aspect associated with virtue signaling. However, religion tends to be organized around doctrines whereas advocacy is intended to advance the interests of the allegedly oppressed. The modifier “allegedly” is used because the truth is an empirical question, however notably some strands of social justice Theory reject the possibility that truth exists. Where oppression exists, of course, it should not be tolerated. Social justice and postmodern deconstructionism reject doctrinal metanarratives, which make their commitments resemble disorganized religion. Colloquially, they are known as Wokeism. We may think of social justice as premodern mythology in which deities are in charge, but it is more postmodern in that it privileges feelings over science, claiming that truth will not be discovered by science because it has a political objective to oppress the weak. It is noteworthy that no credible evidence has been presented that science’s objective is to oppress the weak. It is more likely that this oppression narrative is generally a invention by advocates to advance their self-interests. There is also a teleological aspect to social justice meaning-making, which is to say a system through which the purpose of life can be given a sense of concreteness. Such a framework should explain what the purpose in the context is of the operative mythology. In social justice Theory, the telos in play is remaking society into a utopia, according to the moral vision of social justice advocates, which they fail to concretize. It is safer for society at large to pursue a more secularist approach, which is the prevention of the intertwining of religious institutions with the state because the state could impose its religious dogma on non-believers.

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Postmodernism and Intersectionalism The modern science-based paradigm accepts Enlightenment suppositions as characterized by liberalism, rationality, science, skepticism, and individualism. Premodernism had religious motivations, but modernism was skeptical of faith claims. Postmodernism proclaimed that God is dead as its advocates adopted a bleak nihilism. Today, social justice Theory is an extension of postmodernism. Postmodern, social justice doctrines are: (1) knowledge and truth are largely socially constructed. (2) Our beliefs are a function of social power, who wields it, who is oppressed by it, and how it influences the messages that we hear. (3) Power is oppressive, self-interested, and drives a zerosum game. (4) Most claims are power plays, or strategies for legitimizing particular social arrangements. Kimberle Crenshaw (1991) introduced Intersectionalism with two contributions: First, it staked absolute claim to identity politics. And second, it had to walk back earlier claims of anti-realism for oppressed minority identities to exist. Postmodernism assumes that social construction defines cultures in which exist pervasive conflicts of inequity, dominance, and oppression, with white, male, straight, Western, European, colonialist, and with the able-bodied, and these then possessing disproportionate dominance over others. This chapter summarizes a new intellectual, social, and economic environment for entrepreneurship, largely created in our current, social justice-oriented, postmodern age, but with roots that go back centuries. It traces postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712– 1778] and Immanuel Kant [1724–1804] to its development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault [1926–1984], Jacques Derrida [1930–2004], and Richard [1931–2007], followed by its expression today in Intersectionalism (Crenshaw, 1989) and Wokeism (Kendi, 2019). One postmodern trend has been away from the centrality of the individual and toward the collective, with an emphasis on critical approaches that deconstruct our world so that there is no world or self to understand. The advantage of deconstructionism is that one does not need to be correct if he or she is entertaining.

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A Subjective, Imaginary World Just imagine if there were no world or self. Then, there could be no markets, no capitalism, and no future for individuals, only passing struggles between the oppressed and the oppressors. Having deconstructed reason, truth, and the idea of a correspondence of thought to reality, and then set them aside, “reason,” writes Foucault [1926–1984] (1969, p. 95), “is the ultimate language of madness.” There are causal linkages between postmodernism and social justice Theory and the creation of the new wealth necessary to address poverty. These linkages take many forms including, skepticism, socialism, critical theories, in nearly all their varieties, and many attempts to impose the administrative state on free markets. Social justice Theory (Wokeism) has appeared as an alternative to Christianity (with the largest number of adherents). Where it has been practiced, it offers a different utopian vision of the future. Concepts such as logic, science, math, and reason have been viewed as tools of an oppressive white patriarchy. Those who have questioned the widespread nature of its influence have been accused of being motivated by white fragility or an excessive commitment to one’s self-interests. Incompatibility Postmodernism in the form of social justice Theory does not appear to be compatible theoretically with entrepreneurship, despite its implied goal of increasing resources for the poor and the historically disadvantaged, mainly through redistribution, reparations, or enlightened public policy, and the like. Nor does postmodernism recognize the effectiveness of the invisible hand for rewarding entrepreneurship and those who create value (Smith, 1776), often protesting that systematic racism is unfair to the historically disadvantaged. In addition, nor does it consider that those who are disadvantaged today may themselves rise to the top economically if they adopt and pursue habits that have brought others success. Strands of social justice Theory’s appearance can be traced to disparate intellectual origins, each of which has its own history and derivation, which include separate but related forms of critical Theory (including, postcolonial Theory; queer Theory; critical race Theory; feminism and

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gender studies; mad studies, as well as, disability and fat studies), postmodernism, poststructuralism, and even a new form of dialectical materialism, that old standby that was used by Marx and Engels (1848) to describe class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, as interpreted for us by the Frankfurt school. These various strands of struggle have since been expanded to describe intersectional oppressions in more circumstances with more being victimized and arguably entitled to reparations. The concept of Intersectionalism describes how systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and other forms of discrimination intersect to create unique dynamics and effects (Crenshaw et al., 2001; Matsuda, 1990). According to its logic, all forms of inequality are mutually reinforcing and thus must be analyzed and addressed simultaneously (Crenshaw, 1991). There are more than 30 intersectionalist classes to divide society (Fiet, 2022a). These socially just, class struggles clearly impact entrepreneurial aspirations by transfixing aspirants toward seeing oppression, real or imaginary. Incomplete Arguments Social justice warriors often make arguments without an argument , relying simply upon the charge of oppression without providing evidence (Sowell, 2011). Or they rally to the memory of martyred saints, as if their treatment were commonplace and continuing. If there is evidence to provide, they would be better served to make the argument so that it can be evaluated. Of course, if in providing evidence, they were to lose their political standing, we would expect to see them be less forthcoming, which over time would work to the detriment of their cause. Let the truth prevail, regardless of the outcome and who is impacted. In the end, truth will always prevail. Political advantage will only be short-term. Reshaping the World When so many aspects of our lives have changed, including the textual basis for noticing and documenting the changes, we can become acclimated to this new normal, which further desensitizes us to the underlying dynamism. A centuries-long process of progressive changes has led many of us to be unwitting participants in this new postmodern age. The entire premise of this book is that these changes have largely mitigated against

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entrepreneurship. It is not surprising that this larger philosophical context has gone unnoticed, and to my knowledge there has been no research on the effects of these changes on the incidence of entrepreneurship. The rationalists and the empiricists agreed on one point, which was a touchstone for Kant (1781). If we think of concepts as indicating something universal, then we must think of them as having nothing to do with sense experience; and if we think of concepts as having something to do with experience, then we must abandon the idea of knowing any universal truths. This alleged confluence struck a devastating blow to enlightenment’s modernism. But wait—modernism will reemerge if it is on the side of truth. The rationalists and the empiricists agreed on one point, which was a touchstone for Kant (1781). If we think of concepts as indicating something universal, then we must think of them as having nothing to do with sense experience; and if we think of concepts as having something to do with experience, then we must abandon the idea of knowing any universal truths. This binary struck a devastating blow to enlightenment’s modernism. Kant’s skepticism depended on two assumptions. First, that identity is an obstacle to cognition. In other words, the more we view ourselves as representative of a class, the more our perceptions are subject to being influenced by that identity. For awareness of reality to occur, a subject would need to be able to view it without being influenced by an identity, which is contrary to current forms of social justice Theory. Second, he assumed that abstractness, universality, and necessity have no legitimate basis in our experience. The difficulty as he saw it is that there is no way to account for abstractness empirically. Postmodernists argue that most of us are too cowardly to try to grasp reality, which is the reason that we desperately cling to reason—reason allows us to tidy things up, to make ourselves feel safe and secure, to escape from the swirling horror that in our honest moments we admit reality to be. Only in our bravest moments do we have sufficient courage to pierce through the illusions of reason to the irrationality of reality. Clearly, postmodernists take pride in the required courage of their version of reasoning or is it a false narrative to avoid the obligations of reality?

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Truth, Objectivity, and Reason According to Rorty (1972), to say that we should drop the idea of truth as out there waiting to be discovered is not to say that we have discovered that, out there, there is no truth. It is to say that our purposes would be served best by ceasing to see truth as a deep matter, as a topic of philosophical interest, or ‘truth’ as a term which repays ‘analysis.’ ‘The nature of truth’ is an unprofitable topic, resembling in this respect ‘the nature of man’ and ‘the nature of God’... Bertrand Russell (2009) asked: “Can we prove that there is an external world? No. Can we prove that there is cause and effect? No. Can we validate the objectivity of our inductive generalizations? No. Can we find an objective basis for morality? Definitely not.” He concluded that [modern] philosophy cannot answer its questions, which meant that any value that philosophy might have cannot lie in being able to offer truth or wisdom. The function of philosophy is analysis, elucidation, and clarification (Wittenstein, 1922). Philosophy is not a subject. Entrepreneurship is a subject with content that is the most popular of any topics in the curricula across business schools nationwide. Yet, entrepreneurship scholars are so immersed in description that decision support for entrepreneurs rarely occurs to them. Postmodernism has influenced entrepreneurship scholars who claim that research can only describe how events occurred at a particular point in time. Mainly, entrepreneurship theory has gone untested. Testing would require two-sample experiments with controls for alternative explanations. Recently, social justice advocates have claimed that judging science on its merit is hurtful. In fact, this ideology now dominates research in the United States more pervasively than it did at the height of the Soviet Union’s Marxist influence (Coyne & Krylov, 2023). An extension of this insidious claim is that science is malleable and subjective. That science is malleable is a pernicious lie. That it can be altered by dishonest scientists with an agenda is a fact, one that is urged on today by social justice Theory. What happens when philosophers reject reason? We find the consistent answer in postmodernism. The result is metaphysical anti-realism, epistemological subjectivity, privileging feelings over logic and reason when it comes to questions of value; and finally, conceding the relativistic nature

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of both knowledge and values, and the consequent devaluation of the scientific method (Hicks, 2018). Attacking Western Values The immediate goal of postmodernism was to criticize as absurd accepted ways of understanding and living in society. Theory did not content itself with causing nihilistic despair. It needed something to do, which it saw as applying itself to problems at the core of society, which centered around unjust access to power and its application against those with fewer resources and influence. The new scholarship maintained that knowledge is power, that language is dangerous and unreliable, and that all cultures are equally valid, which they are not (Sowell, 2019). Western cultures have been more successful in providing for the needs of people. Finally, collective experience is superior to individual experience and universality. Its focus was cultural power, which was also its moral vision, all while citing the original postmodern theorists. Postmodern social justice Theory became the default view. This is quite remarkable when one considers the enduring influence of scientific inquiry, which suddenly seemed replaceable. Self-reports and abused feelings became evidence of oppression with automatic, socially approved reprisals which were justified to offset past, often unspecified, offenses. Questioners were ridiculed and canceled. It remains to be seen if cancellations will persist—it is possible that they have reached a tipping point when they will no longer be tolerated. Women’s Studies Women’s studies developed at the intersection between postmodern, gender studies, and literary theory. Literary theory implied that discourses were used to oppress women. A more politicized argument was made by radical feminism, which argued that discrimination against women accounted for the lower prevalence of female entrepreneurs. In this view, feminism was really a Marxist class struggle in a different arena. The classes are male and female, which are the oppressors and the oppressed. Although women’s studies did not begin as postmodern, it emulates it with different forms of feminist Theory through a Marxist

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lens. It also views Western patriarchy as an extension of capitalism through which women are exploited and marginalized. Marxism was easy to adopt because science was diminished, reality depended on feelings and was assumed without proof, and the manipulation of language was an effective tool for oppressing women. The Marxist prescription was to deconstruct and dismantle capitalism as a tool of the mostly white, patriarchy. Along the way, it opposed the grand narratives about America, its capitalist system, and the roles of family and religion (Poovey, 1988). Judith Butler (2006) saw gender roles as not being stable, which was the opposite of Poovey’s (1988) argument. Butler emphasized the socially constructed nature of both gender and sex. For Butler, “woman” is not a class of people but a performance that constructs “gendered” reality. Gendered performativity became her catch-all, which are behaviors and speech that make gender real. If gender is viewed as performative, one is not left guessing as to its views on female entrepreneurship. Intersectionality Can anyone argue that intersectionality promotes capitalism or entrepreneurship, especially female entrepreneurship? On the contrary, it leads to the balkanization of identity groups. However, the roadblocks to commerce are more than perceptual, there are real and growing costs to be accused of discrimination, especially when a charge is all that is necessary to establish someone’s guilt. Do you use the word ‘intersectionality’ a lot, even if you aren’t exactly sure what it means? If yes, you are progressing well along your journey to Wokefulness. The real purpose of being ‘woke’ is to divide the world into hyper-socially aware, self-appointed gatekeepers of language and behavior, and the rest of humanity. There is more that could be said about possible sources of postmodern grievance and intersectional remuneration. These include feminisms, gender, disability, postcolonialism, and fat studies. Their specification justifies more identities that could be theoretically disadvantaged. We will not explore them further because they inevitably lead to the same oppression narrative. In other words, in the end, there is nothing new theoretically. The next section begins a summary of how these ideas affect entrepreneurship in practice.

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Social Justice and Applied Entrepreneurship Imagine you are an entrepreneur who thinks he knows how to improve the way that the world works. You could be diminished by virtue signaling and cancellation, and eventually be charged with being an apostate from the stories of oppression that give meaning to a group’s creation story. Entrepreneurship does not fit well with social justice’s victimhood narrative. One who asserts being independent and self-reliant is likely to be excluded from fellowship by advocates and those acting out their victimhood. Surprisingly, values such as hard work, individualism, punctuality, and delayed gratification have been interpreted by Wokeism as perpetuating white supremacy. It has also been the case that these same values that have characterized entrepreneurs were viewed as white supremacist threats. Those who charge white supremacy are often guilty themselves of displaying a cavalier lack of concern for personal practices that lead to success, such as waiting until after one is married before conceiving a child. If adopting effective practices is a sign of supremacy, most people would be happy with that and wish the same for the poor. This negative portrayal is unfortunate because no one wins when entrepreneurs fail. The world becomes worse for a failure and poorer consequently. Thus, entrepreneurs must succeed despite reverse opposition from those who are described as being oppressed, as well as by those who may have real power to control the narrative. Entrepreneurship enables the potential development of new wealth through personal empowerment that positions those so inclined to have preferential access to resources and opportunities, whereas postmodernism ignores, or in its worst forms, denies the possibility of increasing the size of the economic pie. Rather, it attempts to accomplish its goals through the forced reallocation of the resources of the wealthy as if it all belonged to the state and were a public good, often resulting in confiscatory taxation and smothering regulations. The Anti-realist Struggle Against Entrepreneurship Although there are other aspects of class struggle that could be asserted, it is not necessary to provide them with a thorough intersectional review. They all lead to the same conclusion—that the weak will be inevitably victimized and prevented from becoming entrepreneurs. Added

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together, these instances emotionally rebut entrepreneurship offering real opportunity to the oppressed. If an ideology can succeed in taking away someone’s hope of a better future, the victimized will become malleable so that they are willing to take extreme, disruptive actions, which is ruinous for entrepreneurs who despair with increased uncertainty, which makes this tautological logic only appealing to those who have not learned how to think critically. Where is the evidence? Could there be alternative explanations? Perhaps, these questions are not asked because they would lead to different ideological outcomes. A Realist Perspective on Information Entrepreneurship is not entirely about information. However, information determines the extent to which it can be systematically understood and practiced. With realistic information, entrepreneurship could be conceived of as a practice guided by environmental structures that are slow-to-change and that can be relied on to anchor entrepreneurial decision-making (Fiet, 2020; Hammond, 2001). In contrast, a postmodern approach dismisses a systematic approach by arguing that feelings count more than facts. Such creativity-based, anti-realism does not need to rely on facts, preferring to think that facts can be ideated into existence, regardless of an entrepreneur’s resources. Ideation can work, but there is no need to take such an indirect approach. Informational entrepreneurship uses invested information to guide entrepreneurial choice, which makes the acquisition of information a rational, investment decision based on already committed, sunk cost investments. Without realistic information, entrepreneurship would depend entirely on luck. There are two basic types of entrepreneurship. One is based on innovation and often on luck or sometimes on two, a more systematic approach. The second has been broadly classified as arbitrage. Anokhin and Wincent (2014) show that if you only try to explain new entry into industries with innovative (creative) opportunities, you explain about 12% of entry and innovation is significant. However, if you add arbitrage opportunities to the set of predictors, you explain 36% and innovation (creativity) loses its significance. If you additionally add interactions of arbitrage opportunities with different measures of appropriability regime strength,

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you explain 50% of the variance in entry rates while innovation remains non-significant. As suggested by these important findings, there is a widely accepted misunderstanding about the success rates of these two types of entrepreneurial entry. They indicate that aspiring to be lucky is apt to be less effective than a systematic approach. Besides, this is not a contest. It is information that aspiring entrepreneurs can use to become more successful. Nor is it a question of whether creativity works. It does work, but less often than a systematic approach. Plus, we do not know how to teach entrepreneurs to be creatively entrepreneurial. We act as though we do, but there is a paucity of research results indicating how to do it. In contrast, we do know how to teach them to find opportunities using constrained, systematic search (Fiet, 2007; Fiet & Patel, 2008; Patel & Fiet, 2009, 2010). This is one instance when the prescription for entrepreneurial discovery also has a higher prevalence rate of successful entrepreneurship than descriptive, luck-based creativity. Informational Entrepreneurship and Social Justice Theory Information is vital to entrepreneurs developing or discovering new wealth. It varies in its specificity and capacity to represent facts. Specific information can only inform us about the special circumstances of a single opportunity’s requisite people, places, timing, and technology (Fiet, 1996; 2008; Hayek, 1945). Others who are not similarly positioned will be unaware of opportunities that it may describe. This review expands the definition of Arbitrage Entrepreneurship to Informational Entrepreneurship, which contains 7 decision support tools (Fiet, 2022b). These tools are: (1) constrained, systematic search, (2) positioning, (3) estimating new wealth, (4) arbitrage windows, (5) convention theory, (6) forgiving business models, and (7) cooperative arrangements. The expansion is based on using specific information as a source of competitive advantage and the discovery of new wealth. Readers will understand immediately that this is a prescriptive interpretation, not a descriptive one. Description is quite uninteresting because most of the time it describes failure. Nor do feelings count, so observers will notice this approach is more modern than postmodern. As described in the previous section this is an advantage for Informational Entrepreneurship because a postmodern approach, which eschews provable, objective reality, has few positive implications for the discovery of new wealth.

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Social justice Theory, based on the feelings of the oppressed, adds nothing of immediate value to the scientific discovery of wealth, nor to how entrepreneurs could be coached to search systematically to find opportunity, primarily because it is anti-realist. Anti-realism has won the day among advocates, so social justice theorists can exert extraordinary influence, even when it is not merited. When entrepreneurs understand how to search systematically, using Informational Entrepreneurship, they have reduced wealth discovery to a practice that can be taught, at which point it becomes like any other body of knowledge that can be mastered. Unfortunately, postmodernism could restrict its practice by overemphasizing one’s feelings. Many have argued that judgment is the essence of entrepreneurship, if uncertainty is its most consequential limiting factor (Hayek, 1945; Klein, 2008). However, uncertainty holds that the probability distribution of future events is unknown (Copeland & Weston, 1988), which means that this sort of judgment is really guessing, not weighing the probabilities of achieving uncertain outcomes. Another way to invest in the acquisition of specific knowledge is to cooperate with others who already own it. However, the oppression narrative relies on power dynamics, and intervention as it spreads rumors about the more powerful taking information from the weak. The oppressors ought to disabuse themselves of the notion that they can monopolize specific information. Rather it must be acquired one detail at a time. For social justice Theory to have a predictable, positive effect on entrepreneurship, one’s case for wealth creation must be based on a known standard, such as the one used by Informational Entrepreneurship. Its standard is the fit between an entrepreneur’s specific knowledge and what is required to discover and exploit an opportunity. In contrast, if our standard were based on the old way of thinking, which was alertness, we could not measure the deviations from what were rationally expected. The old way of thinking works some of the time, but we do not know how to teach it without falsely labeling systematic search as alertness. Nor could an unknown or inscrutable standard benefit entrepreneurs. Specific knowledge works because entrepreneurs are competently knowledgeable to know whether an idea has commercial potential. Investing in specific information is more than pretense and postering, even in a world described by social justice Theory. It represents a way that entrepreneurs can tilt the odds of success in their favor, not by always avoiding failure, but by focusing instead on what they can understand

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ex ante about what works (Fiet, 2008). Thus, it is more productive to assume that successful entrepreneurs intentionally work to understand the probabilities surrounding future events (Fischoff et al., 1984); otherwise, they would be taking on uncertainty that is impossible to comprehend. Unfortunately, social justice Theory is focused elsewhere on microaggressions, radical feminism, an oppression narrative and canceling those with different views. To summarize for entrepreneurs, they would do better to think scientifically using an approach like Informational Entrepreneurship than they would trying to succeed as an entrepreneur acting like a social justice warrior.

Summary of Theoretical and Applied Implications of Social Justice Theory for Entrepreneurship 13.1 Our philosophical assumptions they change how we see, understand, and interpret the world, as well as our perception of the odds of achieving our personal aspirations, which are foundational to entrepreneurship. The first elements of this review will be theoretical followed by their impact on individuals striving to be entrepreneurs. 13.2 Social justice advocates are assumed to be virtuous whereas others are asserted to be evil, deserving of opposition, even by destroying their property, partially because their language is asserted to be violent, which hardly creates a level playing field. 13.3 If this discussion at times seems tilted toward science, it is because this perspective is given so little credence during a time of social justice advocacy. Let the truth prevail and let readers use this information as they will while being aware of differing perspectives. Meanwhile, the world is headed into an intellectual war, which makes the ideas in this chapter essential reading. 13.4 Social justice’s emphasis on community leaves the impression that there is a religious aspect associated with virtue signaling. However, religion tends to be organized around doctrines whereas advocacy is intended to advance the interests of the allegedly oppressed. The modifier “allegedly” is used because the truth is an empirical question, however notably some strands of social justice Theory reject the possibility that truth exists.

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13.5 Social justice and postmodern deconstructionism reject doctrinal metanarratives, which make their commitments resemble disorganized religion. Colloquially, they are known as Wokeism. 13.6 Social justice’s emphasis on community leaves the impression that there is a religious aspect associated with virtue signaling. However, religion tends to be organized around doctrines whereas advocacy is intended to advance the interests of the allegedly oppressed. The modifier “allegedly” is used because the truth is an empirical question, however notably some strands of social justice Theory reject the possibility that truth exists. 13.7 There is also a teleological aspect to social justice meaningmaking, which is to say a system through which the purpose of life can be given a sense of concreteness. Such a framework should explain what the purpose in the context is of the operative mythology. In social justice Theory, the telos in play is remaking society into a utopia, according to the moral vision of social justice advocates, which they fail to concretize. 13.8 It is safer for society at large to pursue a more secularist approach, which is the prevention of the intertwining of religious institutions with the state because the state could impose its religious dogma on non-believers. 13.9 The modern science-based paradigm accepts Enlightenment suppositions as characterized by liberalism, rationality, science, skepticism, and individualism. Premodernism had religious motivations, but modernism was skeptical of faith claims. Postmodernism proclaimed that God is dead as its advocates adopted a bleak nihilism. Today, social justice Theory is an extension of postmodernism. 13.10 Postmodern, social justice doctrines are: (1) knowledge and truth are largely socially constructed. (2) Our beliefs are a function of social power, who wields it, who is oppressed by it, and how it influences the messages that we hear. (3) Power is oppressive, self-interested, and drives a zero-sum game. (4) Most claims are power plays, or strategies for legitimizing particular social arrangements. 13.11 Can anyone argue that intersectionality promotes capitalism or entrepreneurship, especially female entrepreneurship? On the contrary, it leads to the balkanization of identity groups.

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13.12 There is more that could be said about possible sources of postmodern grievance and intersectional remuneration. These include feminisms, gender, disability, postcolonialism, and fat studies. Their specification justifies more identities that could be theoretically disadvantaged. 13.13 Do you use the word ‘intersectionality’ a lot, even if you aren’t exactly sure what it means? If yes, you are progressing well along your journey to Wokefulness. The real purpose of being ‘woke’ is to divide the world into hyper-socially aware, self-appointed gatekeepers of language and behavior, and the rest of humanity. 13.14 Imagine you are an entrepreneur who thinks he knows how to improve the way that the world works. You could be diminished by virtue signaling and cancellation, and eventually be charged with being an apostate from the stories of oppression that give meaning to a group’s creation story. Entrepreneurship does not fit well with social justice’s victimhood narrative. One who asserts being independent and self-reliant is likely to be excluded from fellowship by advocates and those acting out their victimhood. 13.15 Surprisingly, values such as hard work, individualism, punctuality, and delayed gratification have been interpreted by Wokeism as perpetuating white supremacy. It has also been the case that these same values that have characterized entrepreneurs were viewed as white supremacist threats. Those who charge white supremacy are often guilty themselves of displaying a cavalier lack of concern for personal practices that lead to success. 13.16 This negative portrayal of entrepreneurship is unfortunate because no one wins when entrepreneurs fail. The world becomes worse for a failure and poorer consequently. Thus, entrepreneurs must succeed despite reverse opposition from those who are described as being oppressed, as well as by those who may have real power to control the narrative. 13.17 Entrepreneurship enables the potential development of new wealth through personal empowerment that positions those so inclined to have preferential access to resources and opportunities; whereas postmodernism ignores, or in its worst forms, denies the possibility of increasing the size of the economic pie. 13.18 Postmodernism attempts to accomplish its goals through the forced reallocation of the resources of the wealthy as if it all belonged to the state and were a public good, often resulting in confiscatory taxation and smothering regulations.

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13.19 If an ideology can succeed in taking away someone’s hope of a better future, the victimized will become malleable so that they are willing to take extreme, disruptive actions, which are ruinous for entrepreneurs who despair with increased uncertainty. 13.20 Entrepreneurship is not entirely about information. However, information determines the extent to which it can be systematically understood and practiced. With realistic information, entrepreneurship could be conceived of as a practice guided by environmental structures that are slow-to-change and that can be relied on to anchor entrepreneurial decision-making. 13.21 A postmodern approach dismisses a systematic approach by arguing that feelings count more than facts. Such creativitybased, anti-realism does not need to rely on facts, preferring to think that facts can be ideated into existence, regardless of an entrepreneur’s resources. 13.22 Ideation can work, but there is no need to take such an indirect approach. Informational entrepreneurship uses invested information to guide entrepreneurial choice, which makes the acquisition of information a rational, investment decision based on alreadycommitted, sunk cost investments. Without realistic information, entrepreneurship would depend entirely on luck. 13.23 Information is vital to entrepreneurs developing or discovering new wealth. It varies in its specificity and capacity to represent facts. Specific information can only inform us about the special circumstances of a single opportunity’s requisite people, places, timing, and technology (Fiet, 1996; 2008; Hayek, 1945). 13.24 Informational Entrepreneurship contains 7 decision support tools (Fiet, 2022b). These tools are: (1) constrained, systematic search, (2) positioning, (3) estimating new wealth, (4) arbitrage windows, (5) convention theory, (6) forgiving business models, and (7) cooperative arrangements. The expansion is based on using specific information as a source of competitive advantage and the discovery of new wealth. 13.25 Social justice Theory, based on the feelings of the oppressed, adds nothing of immediate value to the scientific discovery of wealth, nor to how entrepreneurs could be coached to search systematically to find opportunity, primarily because it is antirealist. Anti-realism has won the day among advocates, so social justice theorists can exert extraordinary influence, even when it is not merited.

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13.26 When entrepreneurs understand how to search systematically, using Informational Entrepreneurship, they have reduced wealth discovery to a practice that can be taught, at which point it becomes like any other body of knowledge that can be mastered. Unfortunately, postmodernism could restrict its practice by overemphasizing one’s feelings. 13.27 For social justice Theory to have a predictable, positive effect on entrepreneurship, one’s case for wealth creation must be based on a known standard, such as the one used by Informational Entrepreneurship. Its standard is the fit between an entrepreneur’s specific knowledge and what is required to discover and exploit an opportunity. 13.28 Investing in specific information is more than pretense and postering, even in a world described by social justice Theory. It represents a way that entrepreneurs can tilt the odds of success in their favor, not by always avoiding failure, but by focusing instead on what they can understand ex ante about what works (Fiet, 2008). 13.29 To summarize for entrepreneurs, they would do better to think scientifically using an approach like Informational Entrepreneurship than they would try to succeed as an entrepreneur acting like a social justice warrior.

References Anokhin, S., & Wincent, J. (2014). Technological Arbitrage Opportunities and Differences in Entry Rates. Journal of Business Venturing, 29, 437–452. Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble. Routledge. Copeland, T., & Weston, J. (1988). Financial Theory and Corporate Policy (3rd ed.). Pearson. Coyne, J., & Krylov, A. (2023). The hurtful Idea of Scientific Merit. Wall Street Journal. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hurtful-ideaof-scientific-merit-controversy-nih-energy-research-f122f74d Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241– 1299. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Poliies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1, 139–167.

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Crenshaw, K. (2018). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. Feminist Legal Theory, 57–80. Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G. & Thomas, K. (Eds.) (2001). Critical Race Theory: the Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New York: New Press. Fiet, J. (2022a). The Theoretical World of Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar. Fiet, J. (2022b). Informational Entrepreneurship in a World with Limited Insight. Palgrave Macmillan. Fiet, J. (2020). Time, Space and Entrepreneurship. Routledge Studies in Entrepreneurship. Routledge Press Fiet, J. (2007). A Prescriptive Analysis of Search and Discovery. Journal of Management Studies, 44(4), 592–611. Fiet, J. (2008). Prescriptive Entrepreneurship. Boston: Edward Elgar Publishing. Fiet, J. (1996). The Informational Basis of Entrepreneurial Discovery. Small Business Economics, 8(6), 419–430. Fiet, J., & Patel, P. (2008). Entrepreneurial Discovery as Constrained, Systematic Search. Small Business Economics, 30(3), 215–229. Fischoff, B., Watson, S., & Hope, C. (1984). Defining Risk. Policy Science, 17 , 123–139. Hammond, K. (2001, March). Michael Porter’s Big Ideas: Here is H Michael E. Porter Regards the Business Landscape. Fast Company, pp. 73–78. Hayek, F. A. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530. Hicks, S. (2018). Explaining Postmodernism. Ockham’s Razor Publishing. Kant, I. (1781). A Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. MacMillan, 1929. Kendi, I. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist. New York: One World. Klein, P. (2008). Opportunity Discovery, Entrepreneurial Action, and Economic Organization. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2(3), 175–190. Marx, K. and Engles, F. (1848/2020). The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books. Matsuda, M. (1990). Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1189. Patel, P., & Fiet, J. (2009). Systematic Search and Its Relationship to Firm Founding. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(2), 501–526. Patel, P. and Fiet, J. (2010). Enhancing the Internal Validity of Entrepreneurship Experiments by Assessing Treatment Effects at Multiple Levels Across Multiple Trials. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 76(1), 127– 140. Poovey, M. (1988). Feminism and Deconstruction. Feminist Studies, 14(1), 51– 65.

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CHAPTER 14

Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation

A Reification of Postmodernism Social Justice Theory, the latest reification of postmodernism, exists to oppose a liberal, democratic order that empowers individuals to act in their own self-interest, allegedly because self-interest seeking results in the unequal distribution of rewards. In fact, Theory foments and advocates for unrest to disturb equilibrium conditions that support the status quo. It aims to replace it with a new utopia argued to improve the lot of those from newly privileged identity groups. It shows cavalier disregard for those who will be dispossessed of their resources, simply because they could have the wrong skin color, among other arbitrary justifications. The goal of social justice theory is not equality but equity, meaning that fair and similar treatment is not enough. Its goal is the same outcomes, which it benchmarks by assuming that if discrimination did not exist that equal outcomes would be the norm. However, it ignores the fact that no country in human history has achieved equal outcomes because they would have multifactorial antecedents, only one of which could be discrimination. In fact, no single-factor solution could generate equitable outcomes. Other factors that could be causal are intelligence, one’s work ethic, timing, environmental munificence, location, family stability, education level, birth order, DNA, and one’s personal health—even nutrition. Notice that inequality could result even without considering any of the 30 favored intersectional factors mentioned previously. However, if equal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2_14

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outcomes were the norm, they could harm minorities because they would take away the incentive to work hard to achieve better outcomes, which in the end could leave them in a pitiful malaise of under achievement. Dictatorial regimes trying to impose top-down, single-factor solutions have been rejected in the past in favor of a society with equal opportunities for all. The Nazi vilification of Jews is a prominent example of such a failed scheme. Social justice Theory boldly alleges that certain groups must be privileged over everyone else to compensate for alleged, past oppression. Its remedy is to provide remuneration to anyone sharing a group identity, regardless of whether they should have an individual claim. Social justice Theory opposes free markets because it accuses them of encouraging cutthroat capitalism that permits oppression of the less powerful. It is more interested in individuals possessing the same level of wealth than it is in creating new wealth, initially for a few. The good news is that entrepreneurs tend to spread around their good fortune, which can make everyone wealthier. Inequality is viewed as being the cardinal sin. However freeing individuals to pursue their self-interests may not lead to equitable outcomes. Social justice Theory would rather dominate a society with regulations that support its preferred social order. Nor is empowering the oppressed seen as being particularly virtuous if they lose their dependence on the elites. Instead, it aims to awaken all of us to alleged social injustices that oppress and divide identity groups, conceivably in a search for justice. It is Marxist in its advocacy for a class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors. However, it is also possible that those who advocate for social justice are elites who are intent on accruing more power to themselves. If they suddenly became wealthy that would expose their original intention, which was not to do good but to gain power for themselves. It is timely to ask how many statesmen and politicians become wealthy when they have never had a job in the private sector yet are intent on imposing regulations on everyone else who wishes to work. Power is viewed by social justice theory as harmful unless the elites control it. Opposing entrepreneurship takes away a tool that entrepreneurs can use to make them less dependent on the elites, which stands in juxtaposition to the deconstruction that social justice advocates espouse to clear the field for a coming utopia. Its goal is deconstruction first, not building positive social structures. It views society as having

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been constructed to use language based on metanarratives to oppress minorities. It is not enough to merely recognize social justice inequalities. Rather, social justice must be pursued with the fervor of a woke religion. Many true believers view their role in correcting wrongs as being devoted to a religion. It espouses not just a single wrong, but a confluence of intersecting wrongs committed against oppressed identity groups, in fact, more than 30 intersecting identities. It is a religion with sacraments, a loosely constructed organizational structure, saints and martyrs for the cause, and an unquestioning attitude toward its Theory. Theory is not to be questioned because that would be woke heresy. It approves canceling and boycotting those who question Theory, indicating that it is not seeking validation in the market for ideas because its ideas are the truth, in their minds. Its overt activism justifies the commission of violence against those with whom it disagrees. In contrast, it accuses those who question theory of committing violence. The reason for accusing those who question Theory is to cause sufficient fear to silence debate. In its exclusivity, it is an ugly doctrine that foments divisions among those with common interests.

Entrepreneurship Is Different Entrepreneurship is different. Entrepreneurs prosper more when divisions disappear and markets increase in size, which creates economies of scale, and even greater profits. Larger markets also reduce uncertainty over the demand for a product or service, which entrepreneurs prefer. In large markets, differences in identity tend to meld together due to their intragravitational pull, which is comparable to a form of group think. Entrepreneurs prosper more when they are freed from regulatory metanarratives that dictate how they are allowed to capture new wealth. Social justice elites are afraid to allow the markets to deliver new wealth because they argue the markets would create winners and losers, which is largely true. However, the advocates ignore the fact that someone who loses in a free market does not need to remain a loser. They are free to rise again, depending on how they leverage Informational Entrepreneurship (Fiet, 2022b). Entrepreneurs are under appreciated for the peace and certainty that they bring to markets by capturing new wealth. They are the grand equilibrators of supply and demand and the chief instruments that bring

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markets into equilibrium. Initially, they pursue above-normal economic returns. However, as more entrepreneurs enter the market and reduce uncertainty, this attracts still others until everyone is earning the same normal returns. It is ironic that while they are pursuing their own selfinterests, they also bring new wealth to society, which provides the means to address the needs of the poor or disadvantaged. The solution to many of society’s economic and social problems could be found by encouraging entrepreneurship. Yet social justice targets it, thereby eliminating a solution to the allegation of oppression. Entrepreneurship testifies to the success of its own record while empowering the oppressed, which is an inconvenient truth for the ideologues.

Changing the Narrative---Classic Liberalism Without Identity Politics Social justice Theory need not be the only interpretation of society’s challenges. Besides, even though it has roots that extend back to Kant in (1781), it is a relative newcomer since its reification, compared to the hundreds of years of tested policy that has evolved from classical liberalism, free-market capitalism, and a determination to use the scientific method to discover truth and to be aligned with reality. Activists would prefer that truth could be socially constructed and that it could be interpreted according to standpoint theory. That way, they could claim the supremacy of identity over everything else, including the argument that one can change his or her own identity, in effect allowing them to shop for their preferred truth. The problem with shopping for truth is that it does not produce structurally reliable outcomes on which to anchor the shifting sands of one’s personal preferences. As it stands now, left unexamined is the fact that this new social justice religion incentivizes the oppressed to be the central characters in their own postmodern belief system, which empowers them to disavow the views of others who identify differently. Both groups, the oppressed who truly believe and the advocates, are without shame in taking this approach. They do not hesitate to challenge and cancel others, to intimidate them, to boycott them, and to label them as evil and stupid, which is not a way to win friends and gather supporters to a cause. However, they scarcely care how others interpret their hostility because their goal is to conquer, not persuade.

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Liberal Principles Liberalism has a particular way of producing knowledge (Rauch, 2014). It depends on two principles to participate in the reality industry, which is charged with producing true statements about the external world. These principles are the skeptical rule and the empirical rule. The first can be summarized as no one gets the final say and the second maintains that no one has personal authority. These principles have been extraordinarily effective because no one can fix the outcome in advance. Within social justice scholarship and activism, knowledge only merits being common currency when it speaks from the standpoint of oppression and is consistent with Theory. To claim otherwise is to participate in alleged bigotry, which does not make sense. Such a ready, illogical assertion belies an agenda that is not focused on being aligned with reality. Plus, the results are not good. They represent an erosion of the system by which we generate reliable statements about reality and a concomitant loss of the ability to resolve conflicts. This leads to social divisions, as people lose the ability to speak to one another. Eventually, we reach the point where you have “your truth” and I have “my truth.” When our truths diverge, there is no means of resolution. In effect, divergence establishes denominations of truth, as with most other religions.

Denominations of Truth We ought to be able to do better than establishing denominations of truth. Each of the postmodern principles and themes has a kernel of truth and points to a potential problem that could be addressed. Regardless of what the different camps advocate, the solution for those who are concerned about social justice requires the rejection of separate truths—those based either on science or one’s personal experiences. They should reject having their own truths, even if it seems to undermine their argument. This analysis is a call to reinstitute the value of reason and evidence-based analysis that is free from predetermined political assumptions. Progress would be evident by self-correcting and adapting. We must also recognize that very little of what the postmodernists and their academic and activist descendants put forth is original, which is the reason that we have reviewed its origins. It did not spring from nothing, nor did it originate spontaneously in a fully formed narrative. Rather it brought with it knowledge principles from other times and places, ripe

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with assumptions about truth that anachronously seem out-of-step with modern science. There is nothing that postmodern social justice can do that classic liberalism cannot do better. This classical form holds that science, reason, and human rights are the endowment and property of every individual and do not belong exclusively to any set of people, regardless of their identity group. Such personal interpretations are nothing more than self-interest seeking that often denies reality.

Solutions In a liberal society that values the pursuit of truth, it seems advantageous to develop policies that privilege science, reason, and the identities that we inherited at birth. Regardless, the competing narratives have become hostile, even violent in some precincts. Moreover, they have certainly become antagonistic toward conditions that enable entrepreneurship, probably because entrepreneurship can legitimately be seen as a threat to a social justice narrative. If entrepreneurs can be their own agents, then it becomes more challenging to play the victim card. Helplessness is simply not appealing when there have been successful entrepreneurs from every demographic group. It is extremely important to recognize that none of the arguments against intersectional victimhood speaks to the question of whether discrimination exists in many societies. It would be unreasonable to assume that it does not exist, suggesting that understanding the extent of social injustice is an empirical question. When it is found to exist, it must be confronted and eliminated. The question is how we can find solutions that allow us to navigate between these extremes in a way that fosters more entrepreneurship.

Secularism We already have the answer to the problem of how to deal with reified philosophical systems that threaten to impose themselves on society. The answer is called secularism (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). Secularism is best known as a legal principle: the separation of church and state. However, it is based on a more profound philosophical idea—that no matter how certain you may be that you are in possession of The Truth, you have no right to impose your belief on society. Broadly construed, this means

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that you can hold whatever moral belief you want and require people to follow them within a voluntary community, whose members adopt those beliefs as matters of private conscience, but you cannot enforce them on outsiders. Believe what you will, but, in exchange, you must allow others to believe what they will. Matters of conscience must be accompanied by the inalienable right to reject without blame the moral injunctions and prescriptions of any ideology. In a secular society, no one is legally or morally compelled to feel guilty for rejecting the tenants of any faith, including wokeness or even those from a majority religion. No one is subject to the dictates of any moral group. That is up to everyone, and no ideological or moral group can decide that for another person. Social justice as a reified postmodern project is more prescriptive than descriptive. Prescription itself is not the problem. The problem is considering it to be the only source of truth. It is an academic theory that can prioritize what it believes ought to be true over describing what is. It prioritizes personal belief in its dogma as a political obligation. Thus, as a believer, one is obligated to support a postmodern political struggle. It has ceased to search for knowledge because it believes that it has The Truth. Thus, it has become its own system of faith. Its scholarship has become a sort of theology. Declarations of ought have replaced the search for what is. Social justice Theory views knowledge as a cultural construct that is used to enforce power, which can occur in multiple unjust ways. This is a plausible argument that can be submitted to the marketplace of ideas where it will stand or fall on its own merits. It becomes problematic when it takes this belief as a given and asserts that to disagree is, itself, an act of dominance and oppression. It is worse to insist that everything short of constant spiritual submission to the belief system amounts to complicity in moral evil. Secularism relegates these matters to an individual’s private conscience. Nor are non-believers required to accept or pay lip service to a belief that they do not share, to avoid social stigma. A secular solution to reified postmodernism suggests taking two steps. First, we must oppose the institutionalization of a belief system. Second, we must battle the ideas in social justice Theory, especially when they are as powerful as postmodern ideas are now. We may also want to include explaining how they may inadvertently rule out many entrepreneurial solutions in the marketplace of ideas.

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The answer to reified social justice Theory is not new, nor is it immediately gratifying. The answer is classic liberalism. You do not need to become an expert on the work of great liberal thinkers such as Jonathan Rauch or John Stuart Mill. Nor do you need to become well versed in Theory or social justice scholarship so that you can confidently refute it. But you need to have a bit of courage to stand up to an ideology with a lot of power. When you are challenged by the dogma or threatened to be canceled, you need to stand up and say, “No, that is your ideological belief and I do not have to go along with it.” Or you could say, “I don’t share your religion, so I don’t have to follow its commandments.” We can take a principled stand against it without needing to apologize or take responsibility for society’s failures if we will admit them and show how entrepreneurship is one answer. I acknowledge the contributions of Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020) who have proposed a way to respond that defines the boundary conditions of many social justice attributions. I follow their basic approach but add to it entrepreneurship as a solution.

Principled Opposition to Social Justice Here is a secular template or manifesto to confront social justice advocates on their Theoretical terms. We need to demonstrate the boundary conditions of postmodernism while showing how they have crossed the line by denying scientific reality and creating unsatisfactory standards for establishing what is The Truth. This is not all that we must do, though, because society has problems, which can be effectively addressed with entrepreneurial solutions (Fiet, 2008, 2022b). You may of course create and use your own form of principled opposition. These are arguments that we can and must win to overcome social justice Theory’s failed and misleading assumptions.

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Principled Analysis of Social Injustice Manifesto Racism I AFFIRM that racism is a problem in society that must be addressed. I DENY that critical race Theory and intersectionality provide the most useful tools to do so because in my view racial issues are best addressed by more rigorous analyses. I CONTEND that racism is defined as prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behavior against individuals or groups on the grounds of race and can be successfully addressed as such. I DENY that racism is a necessary part of society, because of discourses, nor that it is unavoidable and present in every interaction to be discovered and called out, nor that it is part of a ubiquitous, systematic problem that is everywhere. I DENY that the best way to address racism is by providing social significance to racial categories and radically increasing their salience, which Martin Luther King understood. I CONTEND that everyone can choose not to hold racist views and should be expected to do so. Fortunately, racism is declining and becoming rarer. We should treat individuals first as human beings and second as members of a race. In addition, I contend that race is best addressed by being honest about racialized experiences while working toward shared goals. I CONTEND that the entrepreneurial solution to racism can improve the lives of people of all races, including those from racial minorities. I CONTEND further that entrepreneurship can create new wealth for those from any race, making the pursuits of all races more economically sustainable.

Sexism I AFFIRM that sexism is a problem in society that needs to be addressed. I DENY that Theoretical approaches to gender, including queer Theory and intersectional feminism, which operate based on tabula rosa theories of sex and gender are useful to address them because in my view it is necessary to acknowledge biological realities.

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I CONTEND that sexism is defined as prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behaviors against individuals or a whole sex on the grounds that sex can be successfully addressed as such. I DENY that sexism and misogyny are systematic forces that operate in society through socialization, expectations, and linguistic enforcement, even in the absence of sexist or misogynistic people or intentions. I DENY that there are psychological or cognitive biological differences on average between men and women and that gender and sex are therefore merely social constructs. I CONTEND that men and women are human beings of equal value who are equally capable of being discriminated against based on their sex, that sexist acts are intentional acts, undertaken by individuals, who should be expected to do otherwise, and that gender and sex have both biological and social origins, which need to be acknowledged to optimize human flourishing. I CONTEND that men and women naturally attach themselves to different social networks, which they may use independently to conduct business transactions, and that these network differences could expose them to different economic exchanges, which sometimes disadvantage women. I CONTEND that entrepreneurship can be the grand equilibrator for both men and women, and that it allows all of us to interact together despite our individual sex and gender, while sharing economic benefits.

Bigotry Against Sexual Minorities I AFFIRM that discrimination and bigotry against sexual minorities remains a problem in society and requires addressing. I DENY that this problem can be solved by queer Theory, which attempts to render all categories relevant to sex, gender, and sexuality meaningless. I CONTEND that homophobia and transphobia are defined as prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory acts against homosexual and transgendered people on the grounds of their sexual and gender identity. I DENY that dismantling categories of sex, gender, or sexuality or that forwarding concepts of an oppressive “heteronormativity” and “cisnormativity” is the best way to make society more welcoming to sexual minorities.

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I CONTEND that sexual minorities represent a naturally occurring variation on sexuality and gender identity and can easily be accepted as such in the same way that other variations are currently recognized as traits found in a minority of humans. Homophobia and transphobia are intentional acts undertaken by individuals who should be expected to do otherwise. I CONTEND that treating sexual minorities like any other minority group, though the use of entrepreneurship, can bring greater wealth and integration to not only them, but other members of society. I CONTEND moreover that bringing them into a capitalist, marketbased system will increase the demand for goods and services produced by society, and that doing the opposite will shrink the demand for goods and services. I CONTEND, finally, that not only is entrepreneurship the grand equilibrator, but it also will increase the number and intensity of exchanges between and among sexual minorities, which increase mutual satisfaction and decrease discrimination. ********* I could examine other cases currently dominated by Theory, such as colonialism, disability, obesity, and so on. However, the above examples are sufficient to illustrate how to not only critique social injustice, but also to use secularism and entrepreneurship as the grand keys to minimize its detrimental influence. One more general example concerns Theory as it has developed in social justice scholarship. *********

Social Injustice I AFFIRM that social injustice still exists and that scholarship on issues of social justice is necessary and important. I AFFIRM the value of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches, including the study of race, gender, sexuality, culture, and identity. I AFFIRM that many of the ideas generated even by the reified postmodernism of social justice scholarship—including the basic idea of intersectionality, that unique injustices can lie in “intersected” identities

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that require special consideration—are insightful and worthy of submission to the marketplace of ideas for evaluation, adaptation, further study, refinement, and potentially eventual application. I DENY that any ideas, ideologies, or political movements can be identified as the authoritative position of any identity group, since such groups are comprised of individuals with diverse ideas and a common humanity. I DENY the worth of any theoretical approach that refuses to submit itself to criticism or refutation and contend that that is sophistry rather than scholarship. I DENY that any approach that assumes a problem to exist (in a systemic way) and then searches “critically” to find proofs of it is of any significant worth, especially as a form of scholarship. I CONTEND that, if these methods are reformed and made rigorous, they could be of tremendous scholarly value and significantly advance the cause of humanity—not least the cause of social justice. I CONTEND that social justice scholarship is theoretical whereas entrepreneurship has been practiced since the dawn of civilization, and recently the latter has been studied systematically, an example of which is Informational Entrepreneurship that contains seven decision support tools that can further empower entrepreneurs to address social injustices. I CONTEND that the creation of new wealth is indisputable evidence that society has more to share with minorities and to build a more cohesive society, which surely must serve arriving at the utopian solution that many advocates have implied is their goal. Others have referred to it as the entrepreneurial solution, but the intent is the same—a time when social and economic justice will prevail, not centrally directed, but empowered by entrepreneurs.

Summary of Entrepreneurship with a Social Justice Interpretation 14.1 Social justice Theory, the latest reification of postmodernism, exists to oppose a liberal, democratic order that empowers individuals to act in their own self-interest, allegedly because self-interest seeking causes the unequal distribution of rewards.

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14.2 Social justice Theory aims to replace democracy and capitalism, the hallmarks of entrepreneurship, with a new utopia argued to improve the lot of those from newly privileged identity groups. It shows cavalier disregard for those who will be dispossessed of their resources, simply because they could have the wrong skin color, among other arbitrary justifications. 14.3 The goal of social justice theory is not equality but equity, meaning that fair and similar treatment is not enough. Its goal is the same outcomes, which it benchmarks by assuming that if discrimination did not exist that equal outcomes would be the norm. However, it ignores the fact that no country in human history has achieved equal outcomes because they would have multifactorial antecedents, only one of which could be discrimination. 14.4 Other factors that could be causal are intelligence, one’s work ethic, timing, the munificence of the environment, geographic location, family stability, education level, birth order, DNA, and one’s personal health—even nutrition. Notice that inequality could result even without considering any of the 30 favored intersectional factors mentioned previously 14.5 Social justice Theory opposes free markets because it accuses them of encouraging cutthroat capitalism that permits oppression of the less powerful. It is more interested in individuals possessing the same level of wealth than it is in creating new wealth, initially for a few. 14.6 Inequality is viewed as being the cardinal sin. However freeing individuals to pursue their self-interests may not lead to equitable outcomes. Social justice Theory would rather dominate a society with regulations that support its preferred social order. Nor is empowering the oppressed seen as being particularly virtuous if they lose their dependence on the elites. Instead, it aims to awaken all of us to alleged social injustices that oppress and divide identity groups, conceivably in a search for justice. 14.7 If equal outcomes were the norm, they could harm minorities because they would take away the incentive to work hard to achieve better outcomes, which in the end could leave them in a pitiful malaise of under achievement. 14.8 Social justice Theory opposes free markets because it accuses them of encouraging cutthroat capitalism that permits oppression of the less powerful. It is more interested in individuals

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14.9

14.10

14.11

14.12

14.13

14.14

14.15

possessing the same level of wealth than it is in creating new wealth. Social justice Theory is Marxist in its advocacy for a class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors. However, it is also possible that those who advocate for social justice are elites who are intent on accruing more power to themselves. If they suddenly became wealthy that would expose their original intention, which was not to do good but to gain power for themselves. It is not enough to merely recognize social justice inequalities. Rather, social justice must be pursued with the fervor of a woke religion. Many true believers view their role in correcting wrongs as being devoted to a religion. It espouses not just a single wrong, but a confluence of intersecting wrongs committed against oppressed identity groups, in fact, more than 30 intersecting identities. It is a religion with sacraments, a loosely constructed organizational structure, saints and martyrs for the cause, and an unquestioning attitude toward its Theory. Theory is not to be questioned because that would be woke heresy. It approves canceling and boycotting those who question Theory, indicating that it is not seeking validation in the market for ideas because its ideas are the truth, in their minds. Its overt activism justifies the commission of violence against those with whom it disagrees. In contrast, it accuses those who question theory of committing violence. The reason for accusing those who question Theory is to cause sufficient fear to silence debate. Entrepreneurship is different. Entrepreneurs prosper more when divisions disappear and markets increase in size, which creates economies of scale, and even greater profits. Larger markets also reduce uncertainty over the demand for a product or service, which entrepreneurs prefer. Entrepreneurs are underappreciated for the peace and certainty that they bring to markets by capturing new wealth. They are the grand equilibrators of supply and demand and the chief instruments that bring markets into equilibrium.

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14.16 Initially, entrepreneurs pursue above-normal economic returns. However, as they enter the market and reduce uncertainty, this attracts other potential entrants until everyone is earning the same normal returns. 14.17 It is ironic that while they are pursuing their own self-interests, they also bring new wealth to society, which provides the means to address the needs of the poor or disadvantaged. 14.18 The solution to many of society’s economic and social problems could be found in entrepreneurship. Yet social justice targets it to eliminate a threatening alternative solution to the allegation of oppression. Entrepreneurship testifies to the success of its own record while empowering the oppressed, which is an inconvenient truth for the ideologues. 14.19 Social justice Theory need not be the only view of society’s challenges. However, it is a relative newcomer since its reification, compared to the hundreds of years of policy that has evolved from classical liberalism, free-market capitalism, and a determination to use the scientific method to discover truth and to be aligned with reality. 14.20 Activists would prefer that truth could be socially constructed and interpreted according to standpoint Theory. That way, they could claim the supremacy of identity over everything else, including the argument that one can change his or her own identity, in effect allowing them to shop for their preferred truth. 14.21 As it is now, left unexamined is the fact that this new social justice religion incentivizes the oppressed to be the central characters in their own postmodern belief system. 14.22 Advocates do not hesitate to cancel others, to intimidate them, to boycott them, and to label them as evil and stupid. However, they scarcely care how others interpret their hostility because their goal is to conquer, not to persuade. 14.23 Classical liberalism depends on two principles to produce true statements—the skeptical rule and the empirical rule. The first can be summarized as no one gets the final say and the second maintains that no one has personal authority. These principles have been extraordinarily effective because no one can fix the outcome in advance. 14.24 Within social justice scholarship and activism, knowledge only merits being used when it speaks from the standpoint of oppression and is consistent with Theory. To claim otherwise is to

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14.25

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participate in alleged bigotry, which does not make sense. Such a ready, illogical assertion belies an agenda that is not focused on being aligned with reality. Plus, the results are not good. The results cast doubt on the system that we use to generate reliable statements about reality and a concomitant loss of the ability to resolve conflicts. This leads to social divisions, as people lose the ability to speak to one another. Eventually, we reach the point where you have “your truth” and I have “my truth.” When our truths diverge, there is no means of resolution. In effect, divergence establishes denominations of truth, as with most other religions. We ought to be able to do better than establishing denominations of truth. Regardless of what the different denominations advocate, the solution for those who are concerned about social justice requires the rejection of separate truths—those based either on science or one’s personal experiences. Very little of what the postmodernists and their descendants put forth is original. It did not spring from nothing, nor did it originate spontaneously in a fully formed narrative. Rather it brought with it knowledge principles from other times and places, ripe with assumptions about truth that anachronously seem out-of-step with modern science. There is nothing that postmodern social justice Theory can do that classic liberalism cannot do better. Science, reason, and human rights are the endowment and property of every individual and do not belong to anyone, regardless of their identity. Such personal interpretations are self-interest seeking and often deny reality. In a liberal society that values truth, it is better to privilege science, reason, and the identities that we inherited at birth. The social justice narratives have become antagonistic toward conditions that enable entrepreneurship, perhaps because it is a threat. None of the arguments against intersectional victimhood addresses whether discrimination exists. Understanding the extent of social injustice is an empirical question. When found, it must be confronted and eliminated. The question is how we can find solutions that foster more entrepreneurship.

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14.32 We already know how to deal with reified philosophical systems. The answer is called secularism (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020). It is based on the idea that no matter how certain you may be that you are in possession of The Truth, you have no right to impose your belief on society. 14.33 You may hold whatever moral belief and require others to follow them within a voluntary community, whose members adopt those beliefs as matters of private conscience, but you cannot enforce them on outsiders. Believe what you will, but, in exchange, you must allow others to believe what they will. 14.34 Matters of conscience require the right to reject without blame the moral injunctions of any ideology. In a secular society, no one can be compelled to feel guilty for rejecting any faith. That is up to everyone, and no ideological or moral group can decide that for another person. 14.35 Social justice is a theory that prioritizes what it believes ought to be true over describing what is. Its beliefs become tantamount to a political obligation. It has ceased to search for knowledge because it believes that it has The Truth. Thus, it has become its own system of faith. Its scholarship has become a sort of theology. Declarations of ought have replaced the search for what is. 14.36 A secular solution to reified postmodernism suggests taking two steps. First, we must oppose the institutionalization of a belief system. Second, we must battle the ideas in social justice Theory, especially when they are as powerful as postmodern ideas are now. We may also want to include explaining how they may inadvertently rule out many entrepreneurial solutions in the marketplace of ideas. 14.37 You should stand and say, “No, that is your ideological belief and I do not have to go along with it.” We can take a principled stand against social justice Theory without needing to apologize or take responsibility for society’s failures if we will admit them and show how entrepreneurship is one answer. 14.38 Here is a secular template or manifesto to confront advocates on their Theoretical terms. (Refer to the chapter for a more detailed elaboration.) We need to demonstrate the boundary conditions of postmodernism while showing how it has crossed the line by denying scientific reality and creating unsatisfactory standards for establishing what is The Truth.

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14.39 This is not all that we must do because society has problems, which can be effectively addressed with entrepreneurial solutions (Fiet, 2008, 2022b). 14.40 Racism is a problem in society that must be addressed. The best way to address it is not by providing social significance to racial categories and radically increasing their salience. 14.41 Race is best addressed by being honest about racialized experiences while working toward shared goals, in the same way that entrepreneurs form venture teams and work to launch new enterprises. 14.42 We deny that the best way to address racism is by providing social significance to racial categories and radically increasing their salience, which Martin Luther King understood. Everyone can choose not to hold racist views and should be expected to do so. 14.43 Sexism is a problem in society that needs to be addressed. Theoretical approaches to gender, including queer Theory and intersectional feminism, which operate based on tabula rosa theories, are not useful to address them because in our view it is necessary to acknowledge biological realities. 14.44 Sexism and misogyny are not systematic forces that operate in society through socialization, expectations, and linguistic enforcement, even in the absence of sexist or misogynistic people or intentions. 14.45 Men and women are human beings of equal value who are equally capable of being discriminated against based on their sex, that sexist acts are intentional acts, undertaken by individuals, who should be expected to do otherwise, and that gender and sex have both biological and social origins, which need to be acknowledged to optimize human flourishing. They naturally attach themselves to different social networks, which they may use to conduct business transactions, and that these network differences could expose them to different economic exchanges, which sometimes disadvantage women. 14.46 Discrimination and bigotry against sexual minorities remain problems in society and require addressing. They will not be solved by queer Theory, which attempts to render all categories relevant to sex, gender, and sexuality meaningless.

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14.47 We deny that dismantling sex, gender, or sexuality is likely to promote equality, or that forwarding concepts of an oppressive “heteronormativity” and “cisnormativity,” are the best ways to make society more welcoming to sexual minorities. 14.48 Sexual minorities represent a naturally occurring variation on sexuality and gender identity and can easily be accepted as such in the same way that other variations are viewed as traits. Homophobia and transphobia are intentional acts undertaken by individuals who should be expected to do otherwise. 14.49 Treating sexual minorities like any other minority group, using entrepreneurship, can bring greater wealth and integration to not only them, but also to other members of society. Bringing them into a capitalist, market-based system will increase the demand for goods and services produced by society, and that doing the opposite will shrink the demand for good and services. Not only is entrepreneurship the grand equilibrator, but it also will increase the number and intensity of exchanges between and among sexual minorities, which increase mutual satisfaction and decrease discrimination. 14.50 Social justice does not widely exist however the study of social justice is necessary and important. The value of interdisciplinary approaches, including the study of race, gender, sexuality, culture, and identity with the humanities, are in the early stage of development, despite their postmodern derivation. They may yet yield valuable insights when their research methodologies become consistent with modern science 14.51 No ideas, ideologies, or political movements can be identified as the authoritative position of any identity group, since such groups are comprised of individuals with diverse ideas and a common humanity. We deny the worth of any theoretical approach that refuses to submit itself to criticism or refutation and contend that it is sophistry rather than scholarship. Moreover, we deny that any approach that assumes a problem to exist (in a systemic way) and then searches “critically” to find proofs of it is of any significant worth, especially as a form of scholarship.

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References Fiet, J. (2022a). The Theoretical World of Entrepreneurship. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Fiet, J. (2022b). Informational Entrepreneurship in a World of Limited Insight. Palgrave Macmillan. Kant, I. (1781 [1929]). A Critique of Pure Reason (N. Kemp Smith, Trans.). Macmillan. Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—And Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing. Rauch, J. (2014). Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought. University of Chicago Press. Wood, C. (2018). Why Postmodernism and Science Can’t Stand Each Other. Science on Religion—Patheos. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonrel igion/2018/11/postmodernism-science-cant-stand-each-other/

Epilogue

This book is the first and only known treatment of the relationship between postmodern social justice Theory and entrepreneurship. This is quite remarkable given the growth and popularity of social justice Theory as a quasi-religion, as well as the ongoing interest in entrepreneurship as a solution to many of society’s ills. One would expect that there would be a natural interaction. The Theory modestly lacks a savior, so it does not claim to be a source of salvation. Nor does it worship a savior, even though it pretends that it is a source of its own Truth. Even with the lack of research on the intersection, the Theory has largely been a failure when measured against any objective scientific standard. However, its advocates do not care if it fails as science because it is really a political agenda, not science. A Political Agenda As a political agenda, Theory has been remarkably successful, as demonstrated by its wide acceptance and its rapid growth. It does not claim to be authorized to proclaim The Truth because it has no such authorization but also because it doubts that truth can be found. However, it pretends to be authorized, which is part of a novel pretension to buy itself time; meanwhile, it strengthens its political grip on society.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2

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Situational Feelings and Truth Another factor is that social justice Theory and its preexisting postmodern origins view truth as being situational and subject to change, based on one’s feelings. Ironically, it claims to have The Truth, in fact the only Truth, even though it cannot explain the source of its authority. Nor is anyone permitted to question its Truth, so it is easy to imagine that no advocate would be entirely forgiving to someone who raises questions. It claims that anyone questioning its Truth is committing violence against those whose feelings could be hurt. What is a violent idea? It is anything that could hurt their feelings by advancing another agenda using principles of scientific inquiry. For the postmodernist, compared with the scientific method of Newton and Bacon, there are no correct outcomes if they do not resonate with what a social justice warrior feels. Given the 2500 years that trace the development of modern science, it is remarkable that anyone would think that it would be abandoned because it allegedly oppressed the least fortunate. After all, the trajectory of modern science has been to improve and advance Western civilization, thereby elevating the situation on average for all stakeholders. Entrepreneurs are the ultimate realists. Some could argue that humans are often irrational. This is true. However, acting in their clear-eyed role as entrepreneurs, they do not care about narratives if they cannot be verified empirically. Otherwise, unless they were lucky, they could not discover new sources of wealth. By contrast, for a social justice advocate, interpretation and investigation never terminate with reality. Language connects only with more language, never with a non-linguistic reality. In Jacques Derrida’s words, “The fact of language is probably the only fact ultimately to resist all parenthization” (Derrida, 1978). We cannot get outside of language. Language is an internal, selfreferential system, and there is no way to get external to it—although even to speak of internal and external is also meaningless on postmodern grounds. There is no non-linguistic standard to which to relate language, so there can be no standard by which to distinguish between the literal and the metaphorical, the true and the false. Deconstruction is therefore in principle an unending process.

EPILOGUE

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Lacking Non-linguistic Standards Leads to Tautological Arguments When advocates assert that they have The Truth, this is a non-linguistic standard that is not realistic. It could be realistic. However, scientific proof requires evidence. To assert that one’s reasoning is The Truth without being obligated to provide support ignores the rules of evidence and is based on a postmodern belief system. Conceivably, every ideology in the world would prefer the same unmerited privilege—to be free to assert whatever they wish. Let’s consider social justice’s wish list. It asserts without specific justification that social construction defines cultures in which exist pervasive conflicts of inequity, dominance, and oppression, with white, male, straight, Western, European, colonialist, able-bodied, and these then possessing disproportionate dominance over others. Clearly, such views reflect a Marxist orientation assuming that the dominance is socially unjust. In this postmodern cosmology, it is not a righteous God who created and ordered the world, but a powerful and privileged one who did it to perpetuate the power and privilege of elites for the purpose of self-aggrandizement (Wood, 2018). These constitute one set of beliefs. Let’s consider another set of beliefs proposed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York (Dolan, 2023). He reminds us that any group can assemble a list of priorities or grievances. His priorities are referenced in their entirety. Here are the items that he includes on his list: • Moms and dads in lifelong, life-giving marriage, cherishing many children, who are routinely ridiculed and regularly stereotyped as threatening to the planet. • Fragile unborn babies, who have no legal protection in most states, with all of us forced to pay for the taking of their lives. • Parents, especially struggling ones, who must pay constantly increasing taxes to support monopoly government schools and who are denied the right to use tax dollars to send their children to the schools of their choice. • Citizens who for ethical reasons can’t obey the tidal wave of bureaucratic decrees on health care and are forced to choose between their consciences and the jobs.

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• A gay person trying his best, with God’s grace, to live according to biblical teaching, who hears church leaders call that morality unjust and oppressive. • Immigrants who came to this country eager to work in the belief that America was a sanctuary but who can’t get a labor permit and are treated with scorn. • A woman who chooses to give birth to a baby while worried by hints and even outright threats that she’ll lose her job. • Young people who are spiritually thirsty for a sense of awe, reverence, and transcendence but who have difficulty finding a church to satisfy their needs. • Relief agencies labeled as lawbreakers by members of Congress for welcoming feeding and housing refugees. • Our beloved elders near the end of life, who are coaxed into feeling useless, a burden, with euthanasia the answer. • Folks who want only inspiration, encouragement, and clear teaching from their pastors and religious leaders, but who instead must listen to dissent every Sabbath. • Cops who face danger daily, who see their colleagues killed and wounded, their resources shrinking, and the criminals they apprehend released in an hour. • Elderly people who are scared to take the bus or subway, or to walk down the block for milk and bread. • Parents who worked two jobs and saved for decades to send their children to college and struggled to pay back the loans they had to take, only to see their neighbors with weekend homes have their loans forgiven. I will allow Cardinal Dolan to conclude his own list. “These good people tell us they are also marginalized and excluded. Rarely do I find them bitter, angry, or judgmental. They, too, want a society that is inclusive–not merely for the group now chic to defend, but all.” This epilogue concludes by noting the overarching role of language in leading us out of centuries of medieval darkness and toward the mediating role of language in creating the image of ourselves that is most realistic. In juxtaposition to its advantages, we have seen in these pages a myriad of missed opportunities where language was used to mischaracterize missed opportunities. Entrepreneurship may be the perfect decision support tool to reign in untethered social justice Theory.

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References Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Difference (A. Bass, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. Dolan, T. (2023, March 13). You want ‘Inclusion,” I’ve Got a List. Wall Street Journal, p. A15. Wood, C. (2018). Why Postmodernism and Science Can’t Stand Each Other. Science on Religion—Patheos. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonrel igion/2018/11/postmodernism-science-cant-stand-each-other/

Index

A able-bodied, 5, 12, 173–176, 185, 186, 263, 303 Ableism, 175, 185, 199 abuse, 68, 86, 94, 96 access to education, 170, 184 activism, 9, 89, 91, 92, 97, 100, 166, 173, 176, 179, 185, 186, 210, 211, 215, 219, 220, 235, 236, 249, 251, 257, 283, 285, 294, 295 affirmative action, 29, 37, 197 agriculture, 141, 145, 154 alleged distal effect, 222 allyship, 165, 182 alternative to Christianity, 20, 33, 221, 237, 264 analytic/synthetic, 70 analytical assistant, 70 antecedents, 7, 281, 293 Antifa, 20, 24, 33 anti-rascist, 87, 96 anti-science, 2, 170, 184

a practice, 103, 105, 107, 124, 125, 198, 205, 271, 273, 277, 278 arbitrage, 114, 116, 122, 128, 131 arbitraging, 107, 121, 126 arguments without an argument , 25, 35, 265 asymmetric information, 118 attributional framework, 2 authoritarian, 3, 46 authoritative understanding, 242 B barriers to social mobility, vii, 7 beautiful, 168, 183 Being, 65–67, 76, 77, 110, 116, 129, 170, 178, 187, 197, 209, 220, 236, 255 bias, 147, 159, 180, 199, 206, 230, 232 bigotry, 165, 181, 285, 290, 296, 298 binary, 174, 176, 186 biological essentialism, 211, 215 Biopower, 211, 216

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. O. Fiet, Entrepreneurship in a Time of Social Justice Advocacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35463-2

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birth order, 143, 157, 281, 293 black feminists, 167 Black Lives Matter, 17, 20, 23, 24, 33, 122, 192, 200, 227 blurred boundaries, 100 blurring of boundaries, 196, 222, 238, 245, 253, 255, 258 boundary conditions, 16, 71, 109, 261, 288, 297 boycotts, vii, 23, 221, 237 Brown, Michael, 23 Buddha, 20 C cancel culture, 20, 33 cancellation, vii, 3, 12, 23, 221, 232, 237, 270, 276 cannot answer its questions, 70, 78, 267 capitalism, 7, 10, 17, 25–27, 30, 32, 36, 37, 43–45, 57, 58, 91, 94, 99, 100, 122, 150, 155, 166, 172, 176, 182, 184, 191, 194, 202, 204, 245, 264, 269, 275, 282, 284, 293, 295 cardinal sin, 282, 293 care-perspective, 167 castration anxiety, 171, 184 Categorization, 209, 214 cavalier lack, 20, 34, 270, 276 channels, 108–110, 120, 126, 127 character, 20, 30, 42, 57, 84, 95, 221, 237 choice feminists, 166, 182 Christian feminists, 166, 182 circular firing squad, 165 cisnormativity, 221, 237, 290, 299 class struggle, 9, 24, 35, 91, 99, 172, 175, 184, 191, 192, 196, 198–200, 202, 205, 206, 256, 265, 268, 282, 294 climate activism, 87, 96

coastal locations, 144, 158 collective, 17, 18, 32, 52, 60, 87, 97, 121, 263, 268 colonialism, 89, 90, 98, 176, 193, 203, 230, 245–247, 250, 251, 255–257, 291 colonialist, 5, 12, 247, 256, 263, 303 common sense, 22 community, 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 178, 287, 297 comparable to sin, 23, 221, 237 conflict, 7, 16, 45, 58, 66–69, 76, 77 consideration set, 108, 109, 119, 121, 126, 131 constitutive mechanism, 50, 59 constrained, systematic search, 107–110, 120, 121, 130 content discipline, 70, 71 contention, vii, 229, 241 context, 3, 10, 11, 16, 28, 47, 65, 75, 84, 177, 194, 210, 211, 234, 245, 246, 252, 258, 262, 266, 275 contradiction, 66–69, 76, 77 control, 7, 105 conventions, 107, 115, 116, 121, 122, 126, 129, 131 convention theory, 115 corridor principle, 55, 110 critical, 17, 18, 24, 32, 35, 43, 73, 75, 83, 87, 89, 93, 95, 97, 100, 115, 129, 163, 165, 166, 173, 180–182, 185, 187, 191, 192, 195–198, 201, 202, 204–206, 219–221, 234–237, 242, 254, 263, 264, 289 critical race Theory, 24, 35, 43, 87, 89, 93, 97, 100, 163, 165, 166, 173, 181, 182, 185, 191, 192, 195–198, 202, 205, 220, 236, 264, 289 Critical thinking, 219, 234, 236, 242

INDEX

cultural appropriation, 196, 204 cultural constructionism, 94, 100 cultural criticism, 195 cultural structures, 7 culture of justification, 231 culture of praxis, 231 cutthroat, 282, 293 D Da-sein, 66, 76 decision support tools, 71, 105, 122, 292 decisive break, 50 decolonizing, 251, 253, 257 Deconstruction, 46, 58, 248, 302 deconstructionism, 2, 11, 17, 32, 263 deeply lived experience, 231 default view, 88, 97, 268 delayed gratification, 20, 33, 221, 237, 270, 276 democracy, 23, 170, 172, 184, 194, 248, 256, 293 demographic cliff, 172, 184 Demography, 145, 158 denial of the universal, 245, 255 Derrida, J., 7, 15, 31, 46, 47, 51, 58, 65, 69, 74–76, 79, 83, 90, 92, 95, 98, 249, 263, 302 dialectical materialism, 24, 35, 83, 95, 265 Disability, 173, 174, 177, 181, 185, 186 disableism, 175, 179 discourse analysis, 95, 100, 195 discourses, 89, 91, 98, 167, 169, 171, 176, 178–180, 183, 184, 187, 195, 204, 211, 216, 226, 240, 247, 253, 256, 268, 289 Discoveries, 104, 124 discriminating tastes, 145 discrimination, 17, 23, 24, 27, 32, 35, 86, 87, 91, 93, 94, 96, 98,

309

100, 123, 137, 138, 140–142, 145–148, 151–160, 172, 174, 175, 179, 184, 185, 193, 195, 198, 203–206, 221, 251, 265, 268, 269, 281, 286, 290, 291, 293, 296, 298, 299 disillusionment, vii disparities, 137–140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 155–157 DNA, 143, 281, 293 dogmatism, 49, 59 dominance, 5, 12, 29, 36, 76, 168, 183, 196, 211, 231, 247, 250, 256, 257, 263, 287, 303 double sight, 231, 233, 242 E economic class, 224, 239 economic convenience, 193, 203 economic freedom, 248, 256 economic justice, viii, 292 economies of scope, 111, 119–121, 128 education, 3, 154, 197, 226, 228, 235, 248, 256, 281, 293 elites, 5, 9, 75, 93, 100, 106, 122, 125, 131, 155, 191, 202, 219, 223, 238, 247, 282, 283, 293, 294, 303 emotional core, 74, 79 empiricism, 70, 229, 241 encounters, 117, 250 endogenous market factors, 118 Enlightenment, 4, 12, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37, 44, 45, 47–52, 54, 57–61, 69, 75, 79, 88, 97, 170, 184, 195, 221, 237, 248, 266 entrepreneurship, vii, viii, 6–10, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21–23, 26, 28, 31, 34, 36, 43, 45–47, 50, 53, 55, 57, 58, 62, 66, 70, 71, 75, 76, 78, 88, 94, 100, 103, 105–107,

310

INDEX

110, 111, 114, 120, 122–126, 128, 130, 137, 139, 155, 156, 173, 191, 194, 195, 198, 201, 202, 204–206, 214, 217, 220, 221, 224, 227, 228, 233, 236, 237, 241, 245, 246, 254–256, 259, 261, 263, 264, 266, 267, 269, 271, 273–275, 277, 282–284, 286, 288–293, 295–297, 299, 301 environmental munificence, 281 environmental structures, 103, 124, 271, 277 epistemic adequacy, 235, 242 epistemic certainty, 84 epistemic pushback, 234, 242 epistemic structure, 120, 121 epistemic violence, 228, 234, 241 epistemological subjectivity, 74, 79, 267 equal distribution, 26, 36 equally valuable, 90, 154, 176 equilibrium argument, 26, 36 equitable outcomes, 248, 281, 282, 293 equity, viii, 17, 18, 21, 32, 54, 90, 98, 166, 172, 182, 184, 225, 239, 281, 293 essentialism, 179, 232, 233, 249 European, 5, 12, 29, 36, 151, 193, 203, 246–248, 250, 253, 255, 256, 263, 303 evil, 1, 10, 138, 284, 287, 295 F faith, 4, 12, 15, 17, 28, 31, 41–43, 45, 48, 49, 51–53, 56–61, 83, 85, 86, 91, 99, 177, 230, 254, 263, 275, 287, 297 false consciousness, 168, 233 false narrative, 248 family backgrounds, 140, 156

family stability, 281, 293 Fancy fictions, 232 Fascist, 84, 95 Fat, 178, 179, 181, 186, 187 fat feminism, 179 fatphobia, 221, 222, 237, 238 fat studies, 24, 35, 87, 96, 163, 178–181, 187, 220, 236, 238, 265 fear, vii, 55, 61, 67, 77, 118, 122, 146, 151, 254, 258, 283, 294 feelings, 2, 9, 11, 17, 46, 53, 65, 68, 74, 76, 77, 79, 88, 91, 97, 99, 104, 125, 267–269, 273, 278, 302 Feminism, 166, 170, 241 feminist, 87, 90–92, 96, 99, 165–168, 170–172, 180–184, 196, 199, 204, 206, 210, 211, 215, 226, 229, 231, 232, 235, 241, 249, 268 fertile river valleys, 141 fertility, 145, 248, 256 field of experience, 66 flow of phenomena, 69, 70 food apartheid, 222 forced marriages, 153, 160 forgiving business models, 107, 116, 117, 119, 121, 122, 126, 130, 131 Foucault, M., 7, 15, 17, 31, 32, 46, 47, 51, 58, 69, 74, 75, 79, 89–92, 98, 175, 211, 212, 247, 253, 263, 264 free markets, 18, 30, 32, 37, 43, 57, 264, 282, 293 French psychoanalytical feminists, 166, 182 FVIR, 113

INDEX

G Gender, 164, 168, 169, 172, 181, 183, 199 gendered performativity, 92 Gendering, 169, 183 gender studies, 24, 35, 98, 163, 168, 169, 171, 181, 183, 265, 268 genetics, 142, 157 Geography, 144, 158 good, 1, 10, 22, 30, 34, 55, 144, 149, 150, 177, 191, 202, 213, 214, 217, 225, 235, 242, 250, 251, 257, 270, 276, 282, 285, 291, 294, 296, 299 Gospel of Social Justice, 222, 238 grammar, 73 grand equilibrators, 283, 294 grand narratives, 15, 28, 31, 84, 91, 95, 99, 101, 138, 154, 156, 160, 269 grievance, 2, 4, 11, 84, 163, 165, 181, 199, 206 group guilt, 138, 156 group identity, 163, 180, 181, 196 guilty as charged, 93, 100 H Hamilton, Alexander, 44 happiness, 30, 44, 45, 55, 57, 256 hard work, 20, 33, 53, 221, 237, 270, 276 hate speech, 196, 204 health, 27, 154, 178–180, 198, 232, 248, 256, 281, 293 Hegel, G., 47, 51–53, 60, 233 Hegemonic masculinity, 171, 184 Heidegger, M., 7, 47, 51, 55, 65–69, 73–77, 79, 85 Helplessness, 286 hermeneutical injustice, 230 heteronormativity, 221, 231, 237, 290, 299

311

heterosexual, 92, 99, 171, 175, 212, 216 heuristic, 198, 205 historical revisionism, 252, 258 homosexual, 92, 99, 175, 212, 216, 290 homosexuality, 210, 211, 215 human dignity, 49 human nature, vii, 9, 17, 26, 36, 42, 45, 57, 74, 107 human rights, 170, 184, 193, 203, 250, 286, 296 I identity, 1, 2, 4, 7–10, 12, 16, 24, 31, 35, 46, 48, 50, 51, 59, 68, 84–87, 93–96, 100, 101, 137, 138, 145, 148, 155, 159, 163, 165–167, 170, 171, 173–177, 179–184, 186, 196, 197, 205, 210, 212, 215, 216, 219–230, 232, 233, 236, 238–241, 251, 253, 257, 258, 261, 263, 265, 266, 269, 275, 281–284, 286, 290–296, 299 identity group, 1, 10, 145, 196, 286, 292, 299 ideology, vii, 2, 3, 5, 11, 28, 84, 122, 193, 194, 198, 200, 204, 229, 233, 241, 287, 288, 297 implicit association tests, 196, 204 incentive, 23, 25, 27, 36, 90, 98, 177, 186, 221, 237, 282, 293 individual essence, 65, 76 individualism, 4, 12, 20, 33, 42–45, 56–58, 85, 221, 237, 263, 270, 275, 276 Industry attractiveness, 113 Inequality, 25, 26, 282, 293 inequity, 5, 12, 172, 263, 303 information, 8, 26, 27, 36, 44, 103–105, 107–112, 114–124,

312

INDEX

126–130, 147, 155, 159, 164, 181, 198, 219, 226, 236, 240, 271, 272, 277 Informational Entrepreneurship, 103, 105–108, 112, 114–116, 119, 121, 124–127, 273, 278, 292 Inimitability, 112 injustice, 165, 181, 223, 230, 234, 235, 242, 286, 291, 296 instrument, 4, 119, 130, 191, 202 intellectual authoritarianism, 43, 57 intelligence, 140, 143, 154–157, 180, 187, 281, 293 intelligent, 140, 143 interchangeability, 164 intersectional, 2, 11, 24, 35, 71, 75, 87, 94, 137, 163, 165–167, 173, 176, 179–183, 185, 194, 199, 201, 211, 215, 220, 223, 224, 226, 227, 236, 239, 240, 265, 281, 286, 289, 293, 296, 298 Intersectional feminism, 166, 182 intersectionalism, 4, 12, 15, 17, 18, 23, 24, 31, 35, 50, 155, 179, 206, 219, 236, 263, 265 intersectionality, 24, 35, 93, 94, 100, 165–169, 179, 181–183, 197, 205, 206, 225, 269, 275, 276, 289, 291 intersectional tokens, 166, 182 irrationalist epistemological, 55 Islamic feminists, 166, 182

J Jewish feminists, 166, 182 Judeo-Christian, 51, 52, 60 judgment, 105, 125, 146, 147, 235, 242, 273

K Kant, I., 2, 6, 7, 15, 31, 37, 47–55, 59–61, 65, 66, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 79, 84, 85, 92, 169, 181, 192, 194, 203, 204, 221, 227, 237, 263, 266, 284 King, Martin Luther, 171, 221, 237, 289, 298 knowers, 61 knowing, 42, 49, 54, 56, 59, 61, 118, 220, 236, 251, 252, 257, 258, 266 knowledge, vii, 3, 4, 11, 18, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 54, 56, 59, 61, 69, 72–75, 78, 79, 87, 90, 94, 97, 98, 100, 105, 106, 108, 109, 112, 119–121, 125–127, 141, 157, 178, 180, 196, 197, 205, 210, 214, 219, 220, 222, 226, 227, 229–231, 233, 235, 236, 241, 242, 245, 247, 251–253, 257, 258, 266, 268, 273, 278, 285, 287, 295–297 knowledge claims, 4, 12, 87, 263, 275 Knowledge combinability, 120 Knowledge is power, 54, 61 known knowns, 220 L language, 1, 2, 4, 10, 11, 17, 24, 27, 32, 35, 46, 58, 68, 69, 72–75, 78, 79, 87, 89–91, 95, 97–100, 151, 170, 184, 199, 209, 210, 213, 214, 222, 223, 226, 231, 237, 238, 240, 245, 249–251, 253–255, 257, 258, 264, 268, 269, 276, 283, 302, 304 legitimacy, 3, 11, 36, 172, 194, 204 lemons problem, 118 LGBT, 87, 96, 210, 215 liberal feminism, 166, 170, 182

INDEX

liberal feminists, 166, 167, 170, 171, 182, 184 liberalism, 4, 8, 12, 30, 37, 44, 94, 195, 211, 216, 247, 250, 263, 275, 284, 286, 288, 295, 296 liberal politics, 47 linguistic advocates, 226 linguistic games , 17 linguistic trick, 31, 37 literary texts, 46, 58 literary theory, 91 location, 110, 111, 127, 197, 205, 281, 293 Locke, J., 42–44, 56, 57 logic, 20, 24, 33, 35, 67, 69, 70, 72–74, 77–79, 221, 237, 264, 265, 267 logical absurdity, 67 logical positivism, 51, 60, 69 longevity, 30, 248, 256 loss of individual importance, 245, 255 lowest common denominator, 8, 107, 126

M madness, 17, 32, 264 male, 5, 12, 30, 37, 91–93, 99, 100, 168–171, 177, 183, 184, 186, 198, 209, 211, 212, 214, 216, 228, 229, 253, 263, 268, 303 manifesto, 10, 288, 297 markets, vii, 5, 8–10, 17, 32, 43, 47, 57, 90, 98, 117, 121, 145, 149, 155, 158, 172, 174, 176, 185, 186, 191, 214, 219, 245, 254, 255, 259, 264, 283, 294 martyrdom, 20, 33 Marxism, 22, 91, 99, 155, 166, 191, 198, 200, 202, 206, 211, 215, 233, 269

313

Marxist, vii, 5, 9, 84, 91, 95, 99, 122, 166, 168, 172, 182–184, 194, 196, 198, 200, 205, 206, 219, 247, 256, 268, 269, 282, 294, 303 Marx, K., 24, 35, 47, 74, 79, 83, 95, 149, 220, 265 materialist, 165, 166, 170, 181, 182, 195, 196, 204 Materialist feminism, 166, 182 math, 20, 33, 221, 237, 264 mathematical trick, 50 mathematics, 42, 56, 69, 232, 242 meaning-making, 7, 171, 184 mechanics, 42, 56 media representation, 196, 204 medium age, 145 mentor, 140 metanarrative, 2, 11, 220, 223, 225–227, 234, 236, 239, 240, 242, 246, 247, 255, 256, 283 metaphysical anti-realism, 74, 79, 267 method discipline, 70, 71 microaggression, 196, 204, 205, 213 misogyny, 168, 290, 298 mixed capitalist model, 194, 204 modern, 4, 10, 12, 29, 36, 41–44, 47, 50, 53, 56, 57, 59, 69, 73, 84, 88, 140, 153, 159, 164, 167, 221, 227, 253, 254, 286, 296, 299, 302 modernism, 4, 12, 15–18, 24, 31, 32, 41–43, 45, 48–50, 56–59, 72, 73, 95, 263, 266, 275 morally superior, 223, 238 moral tribes, 3, 7, 11 mysticism, 17, 42, 43, 56, 57 N naming exercise, 229, 231, 241 national challenges, 21, 34 naturalism, 17, 42, 44, 45, 53

314

INDEX

nature of truth, 72, 78, 267 neoliberal feminists, 166, 182 new commitments, 196 new normal, 47, 265 Nietzsche, F., 47, 51, 55, 66, 67, 73–76, 79 nihilistic despair, 85, 89, 96, 97, 268 normativity, 212, 213, 216, 217 noumena, 54, 72 noumenal self , 66, 76 nutrition, 222, 238, 248, 256, 281, 293 O Objectivity, 31, 37 odds, vii, 16, 31, 104–108, 115, 119, 124–126, 139, 156, 200, 261, 273, 274, 278 opportunities, vii, 3, 6, 9, 11, 22, 26, 29, 34, 36, 37, 44, 55, 103–105, 107–110, 112, 115, 120–124, 126–129, 131, 149, 164, 167, 171, 172, 184, 202, 207, 250, 254, 257, 270, 272, 276, 282, 304 oppressed, 2, 4, 12, 17, 24, 25, 30, 32, 35, 84, 89, 91, 93, 99, 122, 131, 142, 165, 167, 171, 172, 178, 182, 184, 186, 196, 197, 223, 227–229, 231–235, 239–242, 263–265, 268, 275, 282–284, 293–295, 302 oppression, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 25, 29, 30, 35, 37, 54, 87–89, 91, 95, 97, 99, 100, 122, 131, 147, 154, 160, 165–168, 170, 174, 177–179, 181–183, 185, 186, 191, 197, 201, 202, 205, 209, 211, 214, 220, 225, 226, 231–233, 239, 242, 256, 263, 265, 268, 282, 284, 285, 287, 293, 295, 303

oppressors, vii, 2, 17, 24, 32, 35, 84, 91, 99, 106, 122, 125, 131, 138, 154, 156, 160, 165, 172, 182, 184, 198, 202, 228, 264, 265, 268, 282, 294 optics, 42, 56 optimism, 45, 55, 61 options, 7, 44, 54, 58, 61, 75, 79, 108, 109, 113, 115, 118, 119, 126, 129, 191, 202 order and light, 46, 66 Organization, 112 original sin, 4, 17, 42, 57 P patriarchy, 20, 23, 33, 91, 99, 166, 168, 176, 182, 183, 196, 201, 204, 221, 237, 264, 269 patriotic narratives, 29, 36 pedagogical promise, 106 personal feelings, 2 philosophical assumptions, 16, 31, 261 philosophy, 42, 45, 48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 60, 65, 66, 69–73, 76–78, 88, 198, 229, 235, 253, 267 physical constants, 106 plight of the poor, 25 poetry, 73 political class, 25 political obligation, 287, 297 political principle, 173, 210, 215, 233, 245 pornographic, 168, 183 positional self, 197, 205 positioning in time and space, 104, 107, 121, 126 postcolonial, 87, 89, 96, 97, 169, 183, 250, 253, 255, 257, 258 postcolonial Theory, 9, 24, 35, 90, 95, 98, 101, 166, 182, 220, 236, 245, 247, 248, 250–258, 264

INDEX

postfeminists, 166, 182 postmodern, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9–12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 28–33, 36, 37, 42, 45, 47, 52, 55, 58, 61, 65–67, 71, 72, 74–76, 78, 79, 84–93, 96, 97, 99, 103, 104, 109, 114, 122, 123, 131, 138, 147, 154–156, 160, 163, 165–167, 169–171, 173, 174, 176–179, 181–186, 192, 194–197, 203–205, 210, 211, 214–216, 219, 222–224, 229, 230, 233, 236, 241, 245, 249–251, 253–258, 263, 265, 268, 284–287, 295–297, 299, 301–303 postmodernism, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 15–23, 25, 28, 29, 31–36, 43, 45–48, 50, 51, 55, 56, 58–60, 65, 68, 69, 71–76, 78, 79, 83–85, 88–90, 92–100, 105, 107–109, 122, 124–127, 155, 164, 167, 170, 172, 173, 177–181, 183–185, 191, 192, 194–196, 202, 209–211, 214, 219–221, 223, 227, 229, 233, 235–239, 241, 245, 247, 249, 251, 254–257, 263–265, 267, 270, 273, 275, 276, 278, 281, 287, 288, 291, 292, 297 postmodern religion, 2, 11 post structuralism, 24 poverty, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 30, 32, 54, 106, 126, 144, 158, 194, 196, 204, 264 power, 3–5, 9, 12, 16, 23, 29, 31, 36, 37, 47, 49, 55, 59, 74, 75, 79, 84, 85, 87, 89–91, 96–98, 106, 110, 118, 119, 125, 127, 144, 152, 158, 159, 167–171, 175, 178, 179, 183, 191, 196, 198, 202, 205, 219, 220, 222,

315

223, 227, 228, 233–238, 240–243, 245, 246, 248, 249, 251–253, 255–258, 263, 268, 275, 282, 287, 288, 294, 303 pragmatism, 51, 60 prejudice, 23, 167, 175, 185, 193, 203 premodern, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 42, 43, 56, 57 premodernism, 4, 12, 15–18, 31, 32, 69, 77, 263, 275 prerequisites, 139, 142 prerequistes, 156 prescriptive, 19, 287 presentism, 50, 246, 256 pretense and posturing, 105, 125 prevalence rates, 137 private conscience, 287, 297 privilege, vii, 2, 4, 5, 11, 28, 87, 96, 165, 168, 176, 179, 181–183, 201, 220, 226, 231, 234, 236, 240, 242, 253, 286, 296, 303 pro-objectivity, 72 prosperity, 142, 149, 248, 256 psychosocial standing, 1 punctuality, 20, 33, 221, 237, 270, 276 purpose in life, 3, 11, 262, 275

Q queer feminists, 167 Queer Theory, 9, 24, 35, 87, 91, 92, 99, 166, 169, 173, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185, 209–215, 217, 220, 236, 264, 289, 290, 298

R racial discourse, 196, 204 racism, 85, 149, 152, 159, 174, 176, 178, 179, 185, 186, 192–194,

316

INDEX

196, 197, 199, 201, 203, 205, 222, 238, 289, 298 radical cultural feminists, 166, 182 radical feminism, 91, 93, 98, 100, 166, 168, 179, 182, 268 radicalism, 195 radical lesbian feminists, 166, 182 radical libertarian feminists, 166, 182 radical skeptism, 94 railroads, 145, 158 randomly distributed, 139, 156 random search, 108, 109, 126, 127 R arity, 112, 128 rational gnostics, 48 rational thinking, 48, 59 reality, 7, 17, 30, 32, 37, 42, 48–55, 59–62, 65, 66, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75–78, 84, 89, 91, 92, 95, 98–100, 103, 106, 125, 137, 149, 154, 160, 173, 177, 185, 186, 191, 195, 202, 209, 210, 212, 214, 216, 219, 222, 223, 229, 232, 234, 236, 237, 241, 242, 264, 266, 269, 284–286, 288, 295–297, 302 real man, 171, 184 reason, 7, 16–18, 20, 30–33, 37, 42–45, 47–61, 65, 67–71, 73–77, 79, 86, 92, 128, 144, 170, 176, 184, 186, 212, 216, 221, 227, 231, 237, 250, 253, 261, 264, 266, 267, 283, 285, 286, 294, 296 reason/emotion divide, 231 reconstruction, 248 redistribution, 21, 34, 264 regulation, 7 reification, 3, 219, 222, 223, 234, 236, 238, 242, 252, 258, 281, 284, 292, 295 relativism, 48, 95, 101, 253, 258

religion, viii, 2–5, 10, 11, 17, 19, 28, 33, 53, 54, 61, 72, 78, 85, 91, 93, 99, 100, 200, 220, 221, 224, 225, 229, 236, 237, 239, 241, 254, 269, 283, 284, 287, 294, 295, 301 remuneration, 2, 234, 242, 282 reparations, 24, 28, 34, 35, 122, 176, 202, 206, 228, 264, 265 repeatable patterns, 106, 107, 125 research justice, 227, 240, 254 resource providers, 115–119, 129, 130 revered saints, 20, 33 Risk aversion, 118 Rorty, R., 7, 15, 31, 45–47, 51, 58, 65, 69, 71, 72, 74–76, 78, 79, 83, 95, 263 Rousseau, J., 15, 31, 48, 263 routine activity, 111, 128 S safe spaces, 196, 204 safety nets, viii same experiences, 231, 242 same level, 154, 160, 164, 282, 293, 294 sapientia, 211, 215 scarcity, 110, 164, 194, 204 science, 2, 4, 10–12, 17, 20, 30, 33, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49, 53, 56, 59, 69, 70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 91, 95, 99, 100, 106, 107, 125, 170, 172, 178, 180, 184, 186, 187, 201, 206, 220, 221, 227, 229–232, 236, 237, 241, 242, 250–253, 257, 258, 263, 264, 269, 275, 285, 286, 296, 299, 301, 302 scientia, 211, 215 scientific method, 2, 4, 6, 15, 16, 31, 41, 56, 74, 79, 84, 170, 180,

INDEX

184, 197, 201, 206, 227, 234, 240, 242, 261, 268, 284, 295, 302 SCP Model, 113 second-tier postmodernists, 47 seeing racism everywhere, 192 self-interest seeking, 23, 221, 226, 237, 240, 281, 286, 292, 296 separatists, 166, 182 sexually available, 168, 183 sex was a construct, 164, 181 shifting risk, 116, 119, 129 simple description, 71 single-issue struggle, 199 skeptics, 49 skewed patterns, 142 skin color, 84, 95, 281, 293 slavery, 153, 159, 193, 194, 203, 204, 233 Slave Trade, 44, 193 Smith, Adam, 43, 57, 149 social and financial mobility, vii social arithmetic, 18, 32 social construction, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 45, 58, 92, 93, 95, 99, 100, 169, 178, 209, 211, 214, 216, 263, 303 social constructs, 65, 76, 167, 183, 192, 193, 202, 211, 215, 290 socialization, 170, 179, 209, 214, 233, 290, 298 social justice, vii, 1–6, 9, 11, 12, 18, 20, 21, 25, 28, 31–35, 50, 87, 89, 94–97, 100, 103, 124, 155, 180, 187, 219–232, 234–243, 262–264, 268, 275, 281–286, 288, 291–297, 299, 301, 302, 304 Social justice Theory, vii, 10, 226, 284, 287, 292–295 socially constructed, 4, 12, 31, 37, 66, 72, 78, 92, 99, 169, 172,

317

184, 192, 203, 212, 216, 263, 269, 275, 284, 295 social model of disability, 174, 176, 177, 185, 186 social power, 4, 12, 74, 75, 79, 263, 275 society’s expectations, 174 solidarity, 165, 182 sorting, 150, 151 speaking their truth, 227, 240 specific information, 9, 26, 36, 44, 94, 100, 103, 104, 107–110, 114, 115, 120, 124, 126, 127, 129, 130, 219 spectrum of capabilities, 175 speculative metaphysical, 55 stake holders, 115 standpoint, 167, 183, 196, 205, 229, 231–233, 241, 242, 253, 284, 285, 295 stolen land, 222 straight, 5, 12, 209, 212, 214, 217, 263, 303 structural, 15, 50, 87, 88, 96, 114, 137, 155, 172, 184, 196, 253 structuralism, 88 subhuman, 193, 203 submissive, 168, 183 subordination, 17, 43, 84, 200 summary statistics, 137, 141, 154, 155, 157, 160 supernaturalism, 17 supremacy, 20, 33, 93, 193, 196, 204, 221, 237, 270, 276, 284, 295 surrogates, 24 swirling horror, 54, 61, 266 symbols, 225, 239 systematic racism, 22, 34, 264 systems of inequality, 24, 35, 265

318

INDEX

systems of power, 94, 100, 165, 181, 210, 215, 220, 226, 234, 236, 240, 245 T Tabula Rasa, 17 tautology, 179 technological innovation, 47 teleological, 3, 11, 262, 275 terms of art, 225, 239 testimonial injustice, 230 Testing, 71, 78, 267 theology, 73, 287, 297 theory, vii, 1–6, 10–12, 16, 18–21, 24, 31–35, 50, 71, 78, 83–85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95–100, 103, 107, 111–116, 124, 128, 129, 155, 165–169, 179–183, 187, 195–198, 204, 205, 210, 212, 213, 215, 216, 219, 220, 223–226, 229, 231–234, 236, 238–242, 245, 249, 250, 253, 255, 257, 258, 262, 264, 267, 268, 275, 281–285, 287, 288, 291, 293–295, 297, 301, 302, 304 Theory of everything, 223, 239 The Truth, 10, 286–288, 297, 301, 302 tidal wave, 19, 33, 221, 237 tidy things up, 54, 61, 266 timing, 44, 98, 104, 108, 110, 123, 124, 127, 272, 277, 281, 293 toxic masculinity, 171, 184 true believers, 192, 203, 220, 223, 225, 229, 236, 239, 241, 283, 294 trust, 27, 93, 100, 119, 120, 122, 198, 228, 241 truth, 2–4, 7, 11, 17, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 46, 52, 58, 60, 69–73, 78, 84, 85, 89, 94, 98, 100, 138,

155, 167, 180, 183, 192, 202, 203, 220, 225–230, 235, 236, 239–242, 245, 252, 254, 258, 264, 267, 283–287, 294–296, 301, 302

U uncertainty, 5, 105, 106, 120, 125, 214, 217, 273, 274, 283, 284, 294, 295 unintended consequences, 19, 33 unjust power dynamics, 90, 98

V Value, 112, 113, 128 victims, 25, 106, 125, 138, 148, 156, 178, 186, 193, 196, 200, 203, 205, 206, 233 violence, 10, 27, 171, 222, 238, 283, 294, 302 violent, 1, 10, 29, 37, 209, 214, 286, 302 VIRO, 112 virtue signaling, 1, 3, 11, 12, 20, 43, 270, 276 vision, vii, 3, 11, 16, 20, 32, 33, 44, 49, 57, 87, 92, 97, 99, 173, 185, 220, 221, 236, 262, 264, 268, 275

W wealth, vii, 8, 18, 19, 21–23, 25–27, 30, 32, 34, 36, 43, 44, 57, 84, 103, 106–108, 111–114, 121–126, 128, 131, 172, 173, 184, 191, 194, 198, 202, 204, 221, 233, 237, 254, 264, 270, 272, 273, 276–278, 282, 283, 289, 291–295, 299, 302

INDEX

Western, 5–9, 12, 16, 19, 28–30, 33, 37, 42, 68, 69, 77, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 94, 95, 97, 98, 143, 144, 158, 170, 171, 198, 219, 221, 227, 228, 237, 245, 247, 248, 250–255, 257, 258, 261, 263, 268, 302, 303 white, 1, 4, 5, 10, 12, 18, 20, 22, 23, 27, 30, 33, 37, 42, 43, 56, 91, 93, 99, 138, 150, 152, 153, 156, 167, 171, 195–198, 204, 205, 221, 222, 227, 228, 230, 233, 237, 238, 240, 251–253, 257, 258, 263, 264, 269, 270, 276, 303 white fragility, 18, 20, 33, 43, 264 white males, 138, 156, 196, 198, 205, 227, 230, 240 whiteness, 196, 204, 253 white privilege, 4 window of opportunity, 107, 114–116, 118, 121, 126, 129

319

winning, 191, 202 witchcraft, 73 woke, 1, 10, 17, 22–25, 32, 35, 83, 95, 109, 122, 127, 167, 192, 198, 225, 269, 276, 283, 294 woke heresy, 283, 294 Wokeism, 2, 7, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 50, 220, 221, 237, 263 wokeness, 11, 24, 170, 225, 239, 287 womanists, 166, 182 women’s or gender studies, 91 work ethic, 29, 36, 281, 293

Y your lying eyes, 209, 214

Z zero-sum game, 4, 12, 263, 275