> the major complaint around these authors is that they seem to just tear down the “grand narratives” of the past without showing the way to a better future.

> the major complaint around these authors is that they seem to just tear down the “grand narratives” of the past without showing the way to a better future. IME the main complaint is that they seemingly operate from a standpoint that the work of "tearing down the grand narratives" can itself be a "grand narrative", a "theory" of its own. We shouldn't be surprised when this doesn't work very well! The fact that they aren't "showing the way to a better future" (unlike, e.g., pragmatists who can be just as skeptical as postmodernists when it comes to all-encompassing grand stories!) is really a symptom, not the main issue.