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
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