I recently wrote for a module post, reflecting on the academic behemoth that is post-structuralist theory. While intellectually fascinating, this branch of thought – with its deep dive into language, discourse, and the fluidity of identity – feels increasingly less accessible, and perhaps even detrimental, to the urgent battles of the real world. In fact, it’s becoming alarmingly clear how the Left’s embrace of post-structuralist ideas is, ironically, providing endless ammunition for the New Right’s culture wars.
The Genesis Gap: From Stomachs to Semantics
Post-structuralism offers a powerful lens for understanding how power isn’t just a top-down command, but a diffuse, pervasive web of ideas and language. This is a vital insight. Yet, my major contention, echoing the concerns of scholars like Terry Eagleton, is that it often downplays or even ignores the material genesis of power.
You can’t deconstruct a hungry stomach. Deep-seated inequalities – the vast polarization of global wealth, the systemic disadvantages faced by people of colour, or the economic exploitation of women – aren’t just “discourses.” They are rooted in concrete, material conditions. As Lauder et al. (2006) succinctly put it, the post-structuralist “cultural turn” meant “aspects of inequality related to economic conditions have been downplayed or ignored.”
If we reduce all power to mere language, we risk forgetting how the rich got rich, or how white men came to dominate global systems of power in the first place. It wasn’t just good storytelling; it was often violent conquest, economic exploitation, and the deliberate construction of social hierarchies that then solidified into dominant narratives.
The Culture War Trap: A Distraction from Dispossession
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. The Left’s intense focus on identity, language, and micro-aggressions – all hallmarks of post-structuralist influence – is becoming a double-edged sword.
Firstly, it’s a unifying rallying cry for the masses. Debates over the nuanced terminology of identity, while crucial in academic spaces, are too complex to become popular demands. They fragment the Left into niche interest groups, weakening its ability to form broad coalitions against systemic injustice.
Secondly, and more dangerously, this focus plays directly into the New Right’s hands. As Hugh Lauder (2024) highlights, contemporary right-wing authoritarianism thrives precisely on initiating “culture wars.” By painting opponents as “radical left lunatics” obsessed with niche identity terminology, the Right cleverly deflects attention away from the massive material issues at hand: soaring inflation, healthcare crises, climate change, and obscene wealth inequality.
They don’t care if you deconstruct gender binaries in a university seminar. They care if you threaten their tax cuts or their corporate power. The linguistic focus of post-structuralism provides the perfect, easily attacked distraction.
“Doing the Document” vs. Doing the Doing
This leads to the ultimate practical weakness: the co-option of radical language by institutions. As Sara Ahmed (2007)’s research on diversity work reveals, organizations often end up “doing the document rather than doing the doing.” They meticulously craft inclusive policy language, perform diversity audits, and hold workshops – all of which feel like progress. Yet, this can create a “marshmallow feeling” that the problem is solved, while underlying inequalities remain untouched. The performance of equality becomes a substitute for actual equality.
Similarly, Norman Fairclough (1993) warned of the “marketization of public discourse,” where institutions appropriate progressive language for purely “instrumental effect.” Universities brand themselves as “diverse,” corporations run rainbow-themed ads, and governments issue statements on “inclusion” – all without conceding any material substance. The Left’s powerful language, born from radical theory, is diluted and used as a shield by the very systems it sought to critique.
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Material Fight
Real people need tangible victories: accessible healthcare, equal pay, concrete anti-racist policies, and legally protected LGBT rights. These are practical, accessible issues that directly improve lives. As Blackmore (cited in Lauder et al., 2006) observed, progress for marginalized groups has largely been secured through state intervention and material policy changes, not solely through discursive shifts.
If we reduce all knowledge to just a fiction of the powerful, we risk, as Lauder et al. (2006) caution, “placing in jeopardy those theories of oppression upon which the oppressed might draw in seeking to explain their position.” Our effort to “deconstruct” the world must not strip us of the practical ability to actually change it. The Left needs to reclaim its materialist roots, focusing on structural inequalities while using the best insights of discourse analysis to expose the very real power plays behind the New Right’s culture war smokescreen.