Wow. What a lot of content. I'll admit I only skimmed and honed in on the post-modern stuff. And my inclination is to say that it and what the modern mutation of conservatism have in common is the result of a kind of convergent evolution. Saying "I'm right coz I know God says so" is different, and much older, than saying "all knowledge is culturally constructed so you're wrong, nya nya nya, and yet somehow I still get to be right..."

In that sense I feel that the Tea Party sorts are reviving a very old way of thinking, and that pre-modern and post-modern thinking function similarly but are not very close on any family tree. That what we call the right and left of today are influenced by one or the other is a worry.