Sartre's second century

Sartre's Legacy in an Era of Obscurantism 205
Roman Catholicism, and elsewhere especially the Hindu culture, notably
its fundamentalist versions. New Ageism also parallels, much more
seriously, faith-driven versions of identity politics that repudiate rational
secular interpretations of the world in the name of ancient traditions, or
even of newly invented ones, such as those of Afrocentrism.
Religious belief has been and is a frequent marker of "identity
politics", though the latter also has much broader dimensions and is not
always necessarily obscurantist in character. Nationalism, originating in
reaction to the obscurantisms of dynastic traditionalism, is after all a form
of identity politics, but is not in any sense incompatible with a universalist,
scientifically orientated cultural outlook; 8 and there are, of course,
innumerable forms of harmless cultural self-identification. However, the
proclivities towards irrationalist forms of ethnic nationalism became all
too evident during the twentieth century, producing not merely
exterminatory fantasies but exterminatory projects. In the late twentieth
century, forms of identity politics, ethnically based and otherwise, have
combined readily with explicit and virulent versions of obscurantist
religion or even unapologetic superstition, demanding "respect" on the
basis of particular and peculiar versions of their own "truth". Sartre would
certainly have had no time for the notion that it is proper to "respect"
fantasies, no matter how bizarre and preposterous, because to call them
into question might "offend" their adherents. He would certainly have
agreed with the phrase from Marx that Edward Thompson was fond of
quoting: "To leave error unrefiited is intellectual immorality."
The collation of literary and ideological concepts termed
"postmodernism", though it could not be regarded as a superstition in the
strong sense, nevertheless fits well into the definition of obscurantism,
above all in the repudiation, explicit or implicit, of rationalism (or even
rationality) that is characteristic of the tendencies identified by this term. It
has served as the basis for the denunciation of reason on the grounds that it
is oppressive, male, Western, imperialist, or whatever. Although efforts
have been made to detect affinities between Sartre's writings and the
postmodern trend, 9 they carry little conviction. Sartre's positions are
always rationalist through and through, no less in his Marxist than in his
phenomenological phase.
A major theme of postmodernist endeavour has been to attack, or even
try to pervert, the scientific tradition. 10 What is known as the "strong
Tom Nairn distinguishes in this context between ethnic nationalism and civic
nationalism: see his "Breakwaters of 2000: From Ethnic to Civic Nationalism".
9 See, for example, Dominik La Carpa, A Preface to Sartre, 1979.
10 See Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures, 1998.