In my studies of Postmodernism (and I capitalize the word for emphasis), I come across all sorts of arguments for and against it. Well, the truth is most are against, and I understand that completely. Postmodernism is a modern-day bogeyman for tradition, and that’s threatening. It is the ultimate counterculture, when the culture is hierarchy and reason.
But intellectual Postmodernism is absurd, and it is this that gets most of the attention. In my view, one culture doesn’t supplant the next; it builds upon the foundation set before it. However, that’s not the way those who argue against Postmodernism see things. Apparently their view sells more books than reality.
Here’s the nut of it. Intellectual Postmodernism rejects any truth as absolute. Tolerance is, therefore, the ultimate virtue. Common sense guru G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Tolerance is the virtue of people who don’t believe anything.” This is what he was talking about.
Along the way, the concept deconstructs — and therefore devalues — any “grand narrative” of history or tradition. But as I’ve noted before, this form of Postmodernism is itself a grand narrative, an assumption of truth, a moral judgment. Hence, the whole notion is poppycock, and we ought not to be spending a lot of time worrying about it.
It is, in my judgment, a red herring that shifts attention away from what’s really happening — that the fruits of Modernism are feeding the growth of people, and that people are increasingly wrestling control of their lives away from the institutions and hierarchies of man. Along with that comes the essential destruction of certain beliefs and, yes, even values. So be it.
Many of the arguments against Postmodernism come from those most threatened by this, and high up the list is evangelical Christianity. In a column in WorldNetDaily, Brannon Howse narrates the interesting theme of people judging people and the dangers of blind tolerance. He writes that Americans misuse the Biblical quotation “Judge not and ye shall not be judged” to justify looking the other way in the face of evil.
If Americans don’t start to judge and punish evil instead of accepting all ideas and beliefs as equal, we will become a nation that welcomes same-sex marriage, polygamy, pedophilia, incest, euthanasia and likely a host of moral aberrations so bizarre they’re still hidden in the darkest reaches of the Internet.
Howse is the president and founder of
Worldview Weekend and author of “One Nation Under Man: The Worldview War Between Christians and the Secular Left,” Worldview Weekend is an organization that teaches a “Biblical world view,” evangelical church-speak for a mostly literal interpretation of how to view current events through the lens of the Bible (Let’s not go into the subjective nature of that lens). As grand narratives go, this is a biggie. Hence, Howse’s disdain for the straw man of Postmodernism.
The question to me isn’t about judging, something necessary in everyday encounters with other people. No, it’s about the black and white framework from which the judgment is made. The older I get and the longer I’m exposed to the various beliefs of humankind, the farther away I drift from absolutism, because my own experiences challenge what otherwise were just beliefs. In this sense, I am very much the Postmodernist.
Rather than continuing to insult the genuine growth of people, “the church” would be better served listening to what they’re saying. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” That means everybody, not just those further up the religious food chain. It was this revolution that exploded the Protestant Reformation, and it’s doing the same thing all over again.
Church as a conversation. What a concept! The problem is that religions, like other institutions, don’t exist by listening; they exist by telling. This is at the heart of the cultural war that the institutions are fighting (the other side isn’t — it doesn’t have to). The notion that some everyday slob could actually be the oracle instead of someone in front of the lectern is foolish to those learned and exalted ones.
“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” (link)
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The original notion of an International bloggers’ conference in Nashville came from the fact that previous “BloggerCon” conferences had all been held in traditionally liberal, blue state locations. Why not a red state, the organizers thought? Many of the blogosphere’s “stars” are hard core liberals. Would they come? If not, why should conservatives be left out of the discussions and sessions?