Victor Davis Hanson traces postmodernism into American classrooms

The Daily Signal’s Oct. 17, 2026 post presents Victor Davis Hanson’s account of how European postmodern theory reached American classrooms. The post describes a route from postwar Europe through American universities into K–12 schools. According to the post, the ideas displaced traditional standards in schools, replacing standards of truth, merit and excellence with a focus on oppressors and the oppressed¹.

The stake for families is what the post says the change has done to children. The post says Hanson believes the influence has caused lasting harm¹. Jennifer Kretchmar’s 2019 article on postmodernism shows what that means for the curriculum, citing Parker’s position that the curriculum should be eliminated. Parker argued that a national, standardized curriculum alienates children because they recognize the humiliation of living as the distant effects of others’ preferences. Kretchmar also cites Usher and Edwards on the purpose of schooling, which they describe as the realization of Enlightenment ideals². That is the purpose parents send their children to school to serve, and it is the purpose the postmodern critique challenges.

The Daily Signal names Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida as the European thinkers at the start of that route¹. Kretchmar says Foucault held that knowledge and power are intertwined, and necessarily so. She says Derrida’s deconstruction is a strategy aimed at unearthing contradiction and paradox in texts. In the classroom, Kretchmar cites Kilgore’s call for self-directed learning, which Kilgore framed as the death of the teacher². Hanson says postmodernism’s influence has caused lasting damage to generations of students.

Sources

1. @DailySignal on X, 2026-10-17: Victor Davis Hanson: How Marxist Ideology Infiltrated American Classrooms How did the ideas of European postmodernists like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida find their way into American classrooms? What began as an intellectual movement in postwar Europe e, 2026-10-17
2. Postmodernism