On Post-Modern Conservatism, Merit, and Expansive Equality of Opportunity

Conservative authors from Jordan Peterson and Gaad Saad are well known for their denunciation of post-modern philosophers and critical theorists. So much so that a small cottage industry has emerged around promoting this minor literature. This shouldn’t distract from the fact that may contemporary right movements are very much stamped by the features of the post-modern cultural condition. This chapter unpacks the nature of post-modern conservatism and the way it works and reworks well-known arguments about meritocracy and inequality. It argues that Trumpism and its offshoots can be understood as a distinctly post-modern phenomena, albeit one with deep roots in the history of the political right. The chapter concludes with a defense of equality of opportunity and the notion of moral egalitarianism more generally.