The Emergence of Postmodernism

Introduction

We are much more familiar with postmodernism (at least as a problem) than we are with modernism.

But I think we are much more affected by modernism than postmodernism.

Nevertheless, we are often more affected by postmodernism than we realize.

The History

Postmodernism began to arise from the ashes of WW1 and then WW2.

These two wars smashed the optimism many had of continual human progress.

This has been hilariously overlooked in recent years by neo-modernist social scientists like Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind) and Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined).

Nevertheless, people saw that we weren’t moving towards utopia, we were just finding new things to divide over and that technology was providing more devastating ways to destroy each other.

So what do we do now that Eden is no longer in view.

To be sure, many continued apace with unhindered belief in all of the modernist assumptions (conservatives).

Nietzsche saw the failure coming.

His proclamation that “God is dead” is not said in triumph but in lament.

He is proclaiming that society has untethered itself from the central claim that God is the maker and authority for all and that we have nothing to put in its place but the ultimately empty “will to power.”

The “will to power” is the will to grow and become something greater. But without the purpose and meaning that God supplies, what is the point of growth.

Now, Nietzsche doesn’t believe in God, be he does see the consequences of rejecting Him.

He knew you couldn’t keep what western society had without that belief.

His hope (feeble as it was) was in the evolution of an “Übermensch.”

One day, a man or men would come along who would be able to use his or their will to power to lead us all to a place of renewed purpose and meaning (this is reversion back to modernism).

But in the meantime, everybody is really just doing what they want to do and making up stories about why it is right or best.

Postmodernism began to emerge as a distinct philosophy in the 1950s and took a more defined shape by the 1980s.

Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty were some of the key academics who developed the ideas in universities.

Because of the discontentment with the state of the world, these philosophies found quick acceptance among university professors and students.

The ideas of postmodernism spilled quickly into popular culture especially where they melded well with previous modernist assumptions (more on that later).

Often, it is represented in the shallowest possible terms. “Nothing is absolute…are you absolutely sure about that.”

There is certainly plenty of absurdity in these theories but they are saying some true things, and what’s worse, they are saying untrue things that we have swallowed along the way.

So let’s check up on the mockery until we are sure we aren’t also being absurd.

Core Tenets

Postmodernism is built on and often extends the foundations of modernism.

Modernism posits universal truth and points to human reason as the way to find it. Postmodernism says all truth is contextual and doubts the ability of human reason to truly know things. We are clouded by layers and layers of environmental factors that can never be unwound. The best we can do is discover “our own truth.”

Language for instance is arbitrary and confusion and therefore can never communicate absolute truth.

Professor and dog illustration.

Modernism believes in grand narratives. That the world is “moving toward”…something. Postmodernism says, it’s all chaos and we have just made up stories about the chaos to make ourselves feel better. The best we can do is find a narrative that helps us cope.

Modernism believes in the ever increasing ability of human reason and progress to discover new and better truths. Postmodernism rejects the notion that we even know what progress is. All we can discover is more emptiness. The best progress we can accomplish is to allow individual human actualization of his/her/or zyr’s self.

Self is detached from reality and is itself a construct.

Masks all the way down.

Modernism measures human progress by technology and human comfort. Postmodernism measures progress by self-fulfillment.

Modernism exalted the ability and right of the individual to seek out truth for himself. Post-modernism amplifies this to the total sovereignty of the individual.

Not only can the individual seek truth for himself, he can invent it as he goes.

It is his truth.

Modernism believed in the human control over nature for the betterment of man. Postmodernism says nature itself is a malleable illusion and is thus subject to both individual interpretation and control.

Modernism began to question received wisdom and to study it with skepticism. Postmodernism rejected all wisdom as mere individual perspective and thus rejected even the study of ancient wisdom (natural conclusion of modernism).

Postmodern America

Postmodernism has caused the collapse of humanities education.

If it all individual perspective, then only study what comports with your own individual perspective.

You can reject with a flick of the wrist all of the wisdom of the ages without even investigating.

This has exacerbated the state of the modern university.

When ancient wisdom is studied it is from the perspective of identifying hidden power dynamics. How does this “wisdom” support then men in power.

This is the hermeneutic of suspicion. Everyone has an angle.

At best, they are trade schools (engineering, medical, lawyers).

Then, anything that falls outside of that realm has become completely useless, but costs the same money.

Identity politics and social fragmentation are the result of postmodernism.

No longer do we have a “competition of ideas” or narratives, but rather we have the affirmation of all narratives.

Competition is, nevertheless, inevitable. We have simply shifted the means of determining the measuring of narratives from revelation or empiricism to grievance. Whoever is the most aggrieved deserves the most attention.

There are no narratives to which we can all subscribe.

The best we can hope for is to make room for as many narratives as possible.

Which means only the most malleable an indistinct narratives will survive.

The narratives that say something solid have to go first.

Postmodernism has combined with technology to create an illusion of total control over one’s own narrative.

Social media allows you to have your “own platform.”

The algorithm presses you into a sheltered place where you don’t have to considered alternate ideas that would challenge your thinking.

Gaming allows infinite customization of your “reality.”

Ultimately it promotes less and less notion of conforming yourself to reality and more and more conforming reality to yourself.

Popular culture is rife with postmodernism.

Stories are made more open for individual interpretation.

The more confused you are, the better.

Everything is about subversion and skepticism of traditional narratives.

Wicked is a perfect example of postmodern entertainment (and our reaction to it is a great example of our own indoctrination).

Support for Postmodernism

Ecclesiastes points out the emptiness and meaninglessness of most narratives in life (Ecc. 1:2-3).

Job questions the Proverbial view of life while his friends unquestioningly maintain it (Job 9:22-24).

Jesus often subverts traditional narratives (Matt. 12:1-8).

It is even possible to interpret something differently than the original intent (Matt. 27:37; Jn. 11:49-51).

Conclusion