Postmodernism and the Death of Truth

Postmodernism is a term which describes a way that many people think today. There has been a revolution in popular values over the last several decades. No longer are people so ready to think in absolute terms. Postmodernism arms us with a method of calling everything into question and promoting a new cultural agenda. For some, this path promises great liberation while for others it seems to lead to despair and nihilism. Something has been happening in our culture. We should understand it.

Basic Ideas

We have all met people who believed that they knew the truth, that their opinions were right and everyone else was wrong. They have great confidence in their own powers of observation and rational thought, or perhaps their own spiritual experiences. This has led them to claim that they know a truth which applies generally to mankind as a whole, or at least to many other people. Of course there are many such contradictory claims from different people. How can we assess these claims?

One example of such a truth claim would be the Christian claim that Jesus is the only way to God and that the Bible is absolutely the message of God to us. Another would be the claim of modernist thinkers that through science and technology humanity is on a path of upward progress which should be pursued for its own sake. Another truth claim of some modernists would be that science has disproved the existence of God or spirits and that all such talk is nonsense.

In my view, we should acknowledge that our view of reality comes at least in part through the influences of what we have perceived and heard. Our senses and our reasoning alone do not give us a solid basis for declaring that we know something to be true. We see this all the time in the area of human relationships. Misunderstandings occur. What we thought someone meant was not always what they understood that they were communicating. Even in the realm of natural observation illusions can be created and the mind fooled. How much more then in the complex fields of politics and religion can errors of human judgment and cultural bias come in and influence the perceptions of people!

Postmodernism, however, goes further than this. Postmodernism denies the existence of an objective reality. Postmodernism postulates that reality is in the mind of the beholder. To postmodernists, we create our own truth. Every culture has its precepts and ways of looking at things. "Who are we to judge another culture as wrong?", say the postmodernists, "for are we not conditioned by our own culture and language towards certain assumptions and conclusions?" Postmodernists assume that the majority of people are conditioned by the dominant western paradigm or way of looking at things - which has served some groups well at the expense of others. In particular, white heterosexual males have profited at the expense of women, homosexuals, blacks, the disabled and other disadvantaged and minority groups. Postmodernists often challenge views of the world which they consider as sexist, racist, imperialist, fundamentalist or exploitative for whatever reasons, seeking to show the equal validity of minority perceptions and cultures.

Postmodernist thinkers see all 'concepts' as a product of society. To them, we invent concepts and coin words to further our own political agendas - i.e. to get others to accept and ultimately bow to what we want. These concepts and values are therefore merely 'constructions' of certain self-interested groupings within society. But why should we accept someone else imposing their views on us, we are asked? Surely there are equally valid viewpoints coming from oppressed minority groups which should be getting equal time! Why should the cultural paradigms of white males be dominant, after all? The time has come for others to cast off their cultural shackles and make their presence felt in the marketplace of ideas. We can no longer put up with intolerance! The ideas of those who think that they have some kind of objective truth or reality now need to be firmly suppressed!

Postmodernists believe that we create our own truth, and that society creates us. Postmodernists do not believe that there is an objective truth which is "out there" whether anyone believes in it or not. "../bible-studies/truth claims" are viewed with suspicion - as tools with which one sub-culture seeks to impose its values and morality on another.  This is seen as a very bad thing. To question or denigrate in any way the viewpoint of another is seen as intolerance, arrogance and a bad thing.

Postmodern thought which began in the philosophy and literary departments of our universities, has now spread its influence into the media, the legal system, the education system, health care, religion, the entertainment industry,  the world of psychotherapy and the government. Things we were taught to value, like 'scientific progress' and 'economic development', have now been called into question. Such phrases are seen as social constructions of those whose activities may be very oppressive to certain minority subcultures. There is now the distinct possibility that our respective Constitutions may be subjected to postmodern interpretation, allowing lawmakers to make of them whatever they want! This could lead to some interesting possibilities.

Postmodernists believe that we are in a way imprisoned by our own language, which has been determined outside of ourselves. It is believed that meaning is a function of language, that without the word to express it, the concept isn't there. This helps to explain why a whole new politically correct way of talking has been invented. By creating new words or assigning new meanings to existing words, postmodernists hope to shape society in a way more pleasing unto themselves.

Science itself has been a target of postmodernistic thinking. Modernistic philosophies - those which reject the existence of God and express great confidence in the reasoning powers of mankind, and the empirical scientific method - have been undermined in recent times by postmodernistic deconstructionist arguments. It does no good to expose logical contradictions in the postmodern assumptions. For now, in our postmodern world, logic itself is seen as a mere social construct! Reason, logic and the scientific method, it is argued, are all merely constructs of certain philosophers - just one way of looking at the world. And who is to say that their way is any more valid than the way of, let's say, a native American shaman or medicine man? Who are we to pompously declare that the Zen Buddhist's penchant for the illogical as a path to enlightment is somehow wrong? Indeed, if there is no God to lay down absolutes, as modernists would affirm, then who defines for society what is right or wrong? Should we even try to change things in other cultures that we don't agree with?

Let's face facts. As postmodernists point out, our perceptions do not necessarily correspond to objective reality. The mind can be fooled. How could we know that our thinking patterns are reliable? Why this confidence in the activity of our own brains - if indeed the brain is just a complicated product of mindless evolutionary forces? What reason do we have to suppose that our perceptions - our ways of thinking, are better than those of anyone else? These questions are difficult to answer unless we somehow can believe that a faithful God has given us some kind of access to reality itself.

The rise of postmodernism explains why it is now intellectually and culturally fashionable to defend groupings of people who were previously regarded by society as aberrant, perverted, weird or part of the lunatic fringe. Only a few decades ago homosexuality was regarded by the majority as dirty and disgusting. But now a new morality has been established - and to question the validity of such behaviour is regarded as politically incorrect, narrow-minded, repressive, hateful, abusive, hypocritical ... the list could go on and on. There are now pressure groups seeking to mold public opinion on many issues.
In the postmodern mind, any kind of propaganda that can be constructed to advocate 'politically correct' positions is seen as OK. This is because the postmodernist no longer believes in the existence of objective truth. History can be re-written and remodelled according to the desires of the postmodern social activist. This new perspective of history thus created cannot, by the rules of postmodernism, be judged to be inferior to another perspective. Who are we to judge the viewpoint of another?

The 'Evil' of Fundamentalism

Of course, not everyone is willing to go along with the postmodernist agenda. Perhaps the most stubborn and recalcitrant of these are fundamentalist Christians - those who believe in the existence of a God who dares to tell others what to do and believe! Postmodernists can accept any god or God (or goddess) as long as this being takes his place obediently within the grid that postmodernist philosophers would assign to it. That is to say, this god may not be intolerant of other viewpoints, may not be politically incorrect and must recognise that it is just one of the many variants that may figure in the private world of humanity today. Any claims to supreme authority are unacceptable, and woe betide any god or goddess who dares to question this axiom of postmodern philosophers!

Post-modernists decry cultural imperialism and Eurocentric points of view. For this reason, the activity of Christian missionaries is seen as particularly bad. Christian missionaries come along with the full intention of persuading people of other cultures to accept their ways and believe as they do. They 'arrogantly' push their views onto others. Any resulting conflict is therefore seen as chiefly the responsibilty of the missionaries, who have invaded the culture of another.

Postmodernists feel they have the right to deconstruct the Bible and make it say whatever they want it to say. After all, everyone is entitled to their own interpretation, are they not? For postmodernists, any text, including the Bible, is simply a cultural construction of a bygone era. It can therefore be changed to support whatever the analyst wants it to support.

Thawing the Dogmatism of Postmodernism
 
Postmodernism says that all truth claims can be deconstructed. Is postmodernism itself subject to deconstruction?

Postmodernism says we should tolerate everything. Even intolerance?

Postmodernism says we should not impose our viewpoints on others. Should fundamentalists be corrected to see things from a more postmodern perspective? Is this an imposition? Is this arrogant?

Postmodernism says that objective reality does not exist, that reality is created. Is this aboslutely true or only relatively true?

Postmodernism says we must not exploit women. We must also respect black cultures. Should we respect African cultures that mistreat women, or should we seek to persuade them to treat women better?

Postmodernism argues for academic freedom. Are we free in academic circles to reject postmodern ideas and come up with other ones that exclude them. Or is this not allowed?

Postmodernism says it is arrogant to judge another religion as wrong or inferior. Are religions that do this kind of thing wrong or inferior in any way?

Many situations and questions can be imagined in which it is impossible to be 'politically correct'.

Ultimately, if postmodernism is to be accepted, any kind of nonsense has to be given equal time. We are going to end up with a bunch of militant activists making up stories to justify their agendas, hating each other and fighting one another. Having been 'freed' from the concept of truth and a loving personal God to whom we are accountable, we become enslaved to the totalistic dogmas of postmodernism itself. Instead of feeling acceptance we will feel more isolated from one another, and we will have no real way of knowing if we are hearing others or truly being heard.

Michael Fackerell