Not Up to the Job
That’s my take on postmodern philosophers. They got into philosophy knowing the job was to explain the big things, but found they were not equal to that task.
Philosophers must explain not just the present, but all eternity; not just this world but the universe, and the postmodernists knew this coming into the field. However they soon found that in a world chock full of limited personalities just saying profound sounding blather could pay the bills. A good thing for them because they aren’t capable of anything else, and they found that there was a market for profound sounding excuses for indifference. A lot of shallow people who aren’t capable of doing anything meaningful end up feeling indifferent and they need excuses for their nigh on worthlessness. The postmodernists and others gave them ones that sounded both reasonable and high-minded, so the sluggards loved the postmodernists, who are in their own way brilliant.
Then, for purposes of job security the postmodernists said philosophy wasn’t expected to answer the big questions because there weren’t any big questions to answer. Knowing that no one expects the guy who says, ‘there are no meta-narratives,’ to write one. The real job of philosophy transformed from giving the culture meaning and purpose into eloquent denials of those very things.
TJL