I am not here to attack or defend the work of thinkers who are commonly classified as "postmodernists".

I am only sharing an observation--something that occurred to me tonight. The latter happens sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) when you work two excruciatingly boring minimum-wage jobs and to keep your sanity you apply your brain to something else.

Anyway, just an analogy here: it is sometimes said that atheists know/understand religions better than the theists who practice / subscribe to those religions.

Well, it occurred to me tonight that maybe something similar could be said about postmodern theorists: they know and understand the Enlightenment and modernity better than the people who have been disciples of the Enlightenment and modernity.

Almost nobody on the intellectual landscape has anything good to say about anything that is classified by anybody as "postmodernism". But maybe Foucault (who, it is my understanding, never embraced the "postmodernism" label) and others continue to be widely read and quoted because even though nobody likes or agrees with their thoughts those thoughts are the most accurate available accounts of and the most comprehensive surveys of the intellectual heritage that dominates the contemporary world. I certainly feel like I better understand our intellectual heritage after studying the work of Foucault than after studying, say, the work of Steven Pinker.