Standing Problems 259sceptical and affirmative, conservative and radical, positive and negative, or hard and
soft sceptical postmodernisms.^32 There is some truth to this issue concerning types
of postmodern theory. My own view is to also distinguish two basic responses that
tend to overlap. One way of thinking about these responses is to associate them with
more specific political considerations.
The first response involves a vigorous prosecution of the conventionalist argu-
ment, and Nietzsche is undoubtedly the key influence. However, in many ways
it also provides a thin (unwitting) foundation for some postmodern argument—
that Nietzsche’s individual subject, exercising a will to power, provides for admirers
and critics alike a new veiled form of metaphysical foundation. In this sense, many
postmodern readers of Nietzsche have (despite appearances) read some positive polit-
ical and ethical components into his arguments. This, to a large extent, forms the
somewhat loose subtext to difference and some recent multicultural theories use of
postmodern argument, that is, where the conventionalist critique is seen inevitably
to terminate in either fragmented postmodern individuals, cultures, or new social
movements. In other words, there is stillsomebasis on which humans can make
moral and political judgements. The difference between more orthodox exponents of
liberal or libertarian individualism, culture, social movements (encountered in pre-
vious chapters), and postmodern and difference-based renditions is on the one hand
that the former attach some ‘truth status’ and ‘ontological character’ to their commit-
ments. The postmodern exponents of this position have on the other hand usually
abandoned any such commitments. The convention becomes a more ephemeral,
strategic, if still important, dimension of argument.
The second response (which also bears upon a reading of Nietzsche) takes the
conventionalist claim a step further, that is, it suggestnothingexists unless we con-
stitute it—our whole notion of reality becomes a game between conventions, none
of which has any ontological primacy or status. This position tries to overcome every
taint of humanism, metaphysics, and ontology. It is a position most closely akin to
the popular image of nihilism, although it is important to be circumspect here in
relation to the Nietzschean reading of nihilism. Nietzsche unlike Schopenhauer was
not pessimistic about the role of the will. He describes the experience of the will to
power as one of both risk but also joy. This position does not envisage any possibility
of consensus or foundation. It rather suggests a radical form of ‘gaming’ between
irreconcilable differences. It involves a ‘total acceptance of the emphemerality, frag-
mentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic’ (Harvey 1989: 44). It swims in the chaotic.
This is a position that I have associated with the later work of Lyotard, although Jean
Baudrillard would be another possible example.
The key issues with regards to politics (and political theory) can be viewed through
the aforementioned two lenses. In the case of Connolly and Rorty the political stance
presents no immediate problems. Both theorists are moderately clear on their beliefs
and fit easily within the first category. However, it is not so straightforward in the case
of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Foucault. Even Lyotard has some altruistic souls
who wish to democratize him. In the case of Nietzsche, for example, Connolly sees
a need for a Nietzschean political theory lending support to a radical reconstituted