When postmodernists deconstruct great historical authors like Shakespeare, they do not engage in balanced critique acknowledging both merits and flaws; instead, they gleefully dismiss the entire corpus of work because of identified problematic elements like sexism.

The psychological compulsion to attack the West allows postmodernists to hold contradictions without discomfort: they can assert absolutism while also asserting relativism, because as long as the assertions harm their enemy, truth and consistency don't matter.

Nietzsche is a hero of postmodernism cited for his perspectivalism in epistemology, his use of enigmatic and loosely-structured aphoristic form instead of scientific treatise form, and his psychological acuteness in unmasking various guises—which is core to deconstruction methodology.

In older socialist writing, there are clear signs of resentment, envy, anger, and exultation in the destruction that the Socialist Revolution will bring, including the fantasy that capitalists will 'finally get what's coming to them.'

Hate as a chronic condition leads to the urge to destroy. The postmodernist impulse to deconstruct emerges from this need to use words to destroy what one cannot construct or overcome directly.

Shakespeare, in the character of Iago from Othello, demonstrates this psychology of rhetorical destruction centuries before postmodernism: Iago hates Othello, cannot defeat him in open confrontation, and instead destroys him by poisoning his most precious relationship through hints, subtle lies, and innuendo about Desdemona.

The deployment of ad hominem arguments in postmodern discourse (such as Stanley Fish calling all opponents of affirmative action bigots and lumping them with the Klan, or Andrea Dworkin calling all heterosexual males rapists) represents unprecedented harshness in Western intellectual tradition.

The same harsh vituperation found in postmodern debates over current issues like racism and sexism is also leveled against historical figures ('dead white European males'), even though historical context might mitigate the expectations of present-day values.

The psychological component of postmodern criticism—the emotional motivations behind deconstruction—can be illuminated using Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment, which is more curdled, bitter, seething, and poisoned than the English word 'resentment' captures.

Master morality, according to Nietzsche, is the morality of the vigorous, life-loving, strong—those who love adventure, delight in creativity, and assert their own purposefulness and independence.

Slave morality, according to Nietzsche, is the morality of the weak, the humble, and the victimized—those who feel afraid to venture into the world and who become chronically passive largely because they fear the strong.

According to Nietzsche, the weak become frustrated because they cannot get what they want out of life, become envious of the strong, and also secretly start to hate themselves for being cowardly and weak.

The weak cannot live while believing themselves to be deeply hateful, so they invent a rationalization that tells them they are good and moral because they are weak, humble, and passive—transforming their greatest liabilities into virtues.

In the slave morality rationalization, virtues include patience, obedience, humility, and siding with the weak and downtrodden, while the opposites—aggressiveness, pride, independence, and material success—are condemned as evil.

Seeing that the strong continue to get stronger and richer while enjoying life causes additional psychological damage to the weak, eventually generating such a combination of self-loathing and envy that the weak feel compelled to lash out and hurt their hated enemy.

In the contemporary era, capitalists are the strong and exuberant, while socialists were briefly able to maintain hope that the Revolution was coming. However, that hope has been dashed because crude capitalism now seems inevitable, like 'twice two makes four.'

The most intelligent socialists will hate the fact that socialism is the loser. If socialists know they are on the losing side, they will hate that fact, will hate the winners for having won, and will hate themselves for having picked the losing side.

Postmodernism is populated by large numbers of people who like the idea of deconstructing other people's work rather than constructing something of their own, suggesting that destruction is the goal rather than creation.

When an artist cannot create a masterpiece equal to a great work like Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the impulse is to destroy it through mockery and ridicule—making a statement of contempt rather than appreciation or substantive critique.

If words are your weapons and you want to destroy the achievements of Western Civilization, especially the Enlightenment, the strategic approach is to identify what your target values most and attack that directly—metaphorically 'hitting them where it counts.'