Beliefs and Values of Postmodernism
In this environment the worldview of postmodernism has taken shape. Existentialism is its philosophy. Multiculturalism and pluralism are its societal values. An individualistic spirituality is its legitimization. Societal fragmentation is its result.
Existentialism
Existentialism as a philosophy has been around for several hundred years, but has taken on a new gravity and popularity since the 1960’s. “Today existentialism is no longer merely the province of avant garde novelists or French intellectuals in cafes. Existentialism has entered the popular culture. It has become the philosophy of soap operas and television talk shows. Its tenets shape political discourse and are transforming the legal system. Existentialism is the philosophical basis for postmodernism” (Veith 38). So what are the tenets of existentialism? It can be summed up in the famous quote, “I think, therefore I am.” Existentialism simplified says that because I exist, and because I view reality within my own brain, I can create my own reality, my own existence. “According to existentialism, there is no inherent meaning or purpose in life. The blind automatic order of nature and the logical conclusions of rationalism may be orderly, but they are inhuman…meaning is a purely human phenomenon. While there is no ready-made meaning in life, individuals can create meaning for themselves. By their own free choices…human beings can create their own order…” (Veith 37).
We Must Make Our Own Meaning
Postmoderns would not reject the idea of truth, but only the idea of absolute truth. They believe that a person can experience truth, but under their existentialist parameters he can only experience it if he creates it for himself. And just because a person has created truth doesn’t mean the next person will create the same kind of truth; he may create a completely different kind of truth. Hence the Christian can find perfect fulfillment in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and the atheist can find perfect fulfillment in his humanistic morality, and both be right…for themselves. They both have found truth; they have just found different truths…within themselves. “According to the post modernist, all reality is virtual reality. We are all wearing helmets that project our own
separate little worlds. We can experience these worlds and lose ourselves in them, but they are not real, nor is one person’s world exactly the same as someone else’s” (Veith 61).
Deconstructing Language
In the realm of spiritual things existentialism might strike us as patently false, but when applied to earthly things it takes on a rather bizarre quality. Since absolute truth doesn’t exist, language cannot really communicate it. And if language cannot communicate things that are absolutely true, than it cannot communicate any really hard, objective facts. Language, then, becomes a series of symbols that carry meaning, but meaning that is always susceptible to an individual’s own interpretation. What I understand someone else to mean in my own view of reality is never completely what they meant in theirs. “Postmodernist theories begin with the assumption that language cannot render truths about the world in an objective way” (Veith 51).
This approach to language is called “deconstructionism” because it attempts to “deconstruct” the meaning of a “text” into the components of original meaning in the mind of the message’s sender. “Deconstructionists cultivate what they call ‘subversive reading.’ Language does not reveal meaning; rather, language constructs meaning…they (the language constructs) are actually a cover for the power relationships that constitute the culture” (Veith 54). A deconstructionist might look at the opening line of the Declaration of Independence like this. Instead of understanding, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” he might understand, “We hold our own preferences to be unquestioned, that all men (not women) are created equal (though some are obviously more equal than others), and that they are guaranteed by our own creating of this statement to have certain unalienable (that is, as long as we can stay in power) rights…” Deconstructionists try to read between the lines of language to discover what the speaker “really meant,” or more accurately, what the reader thought the speaker really meant…for his is really the true reality…for him.” (I told you this sounded bizarre!)
Deconstructing History
When applied to history, deconstructionism gets really scary. Since reality is always subjective, always interpreted from each individuals own “virtual reality,” and since language cannot communicate any truth apart from this subjective reality, history ceases to be an objective record of verifiable facts and events and becomes instead a biased, personal interpretation of what we want to believe about objective events, the truth about which is no longer (or really never was) able to be known. “Postmodernists also seek to dissolve history. They no longer see it as a record of objective facts, but as a ‘series of metaphors which cannot be detached from the institutionally produced languages which we bring to bear upon it.’ As a result, Patricia Waugh says, we can make no distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘fiction.’ ‘History is a network of agonistic
language games where the criterion for success is performance, not truth’” (Veith 50). In other words, the “truest” history is not the most accurate one, but the most persuasive one.
Utilitarianism
If all reality is virtual reality, if language can’t communicate any kind of truth or fact, and if history is a huge collection of personal understandings, how does one navigate his own day-to-day life? Postmoderns are very much left on their own concerning the evaluation of decisions and actions, and must try to act according to the values that exist in their own virtual reality. Utilitarianism is the name given to this idea, that different actions can be evaluated as to the amount of happiness or benefit they would give both to oneself and to others. Then the course of action that gives the most benefit can be pursued. Many would call this “situational ethics.” In any given situation, objective ideas of right or wrong are not consulted, as they are not really objective, nor right, nor wrong. Rather, different courses of action are considered, and the one that seems to accomplish the most desirable result is followed.
Absolute values, such as the right to life, telling the truth, and sexual purity are considered not as absolutes, but as one factor among many others, such as quality of life, economic hardship, psychological impact, and personal freedom. The result is obvious. “The devaluation of life is complete for the bridger generation. On both ends of the spectrum of life, the taking of life is decided by a subjective ‘quality of life’ argument, based on the whims and prejudices of a person or persons who become judge, executioner, and god. The bridger generation has largely responded to abortion, infanticide, and assisted suicide with indifference. They are numb to the taking of lives” (Rainer 48). “Utilitarianism is the view that justified slavery, exploitive child labor, and the starvation of the poor, all in the name of economic efficiency. Today this Enlightenment ethic is the view that favors abortion because it reduces the welfare rolls and sanctions euthanasia because it reduces hospital bills” (Veith 34).
Pluralism & Multiculturalism
With all of these different, even conflicting belief systems and truths and realities floating around out there, how do postmodernists expect people to live together in civilized society? Two key values, key social structures are pluralism and multiculturalism. When different belief systems come into contact, one of two things must happen. Either people will adopt the one most effective at handling the reality of the world around us, or people will agree to live together with differing belief systems. Since postmoderns expressly reject the idea that one belief system can ultimately be better or truer or more real than another, they must agree to live together peacefully. This is pluralism, the idea that people of differing but equally valid belief systems can live together agreeably. Multiculturalism is very similar, being the idea that different but equally real or valuable cultures and ethnicities should live together without trying to change or “convert” one another.
Walter Truett Anderson has noted that postmodernists “…say that we do not have a ‘God’s eye’ view of non human reality, never had, never will have. They say we live in a symbolic world, a social reality that many people construct together and yet experience as the objective ‘real world.’ And they also tell us the earth is not a single symbolic world, but rather a vast universe of ‘multiple realities,’ because different groups of people construct different stories, and because different languages embody different ways of experiencing life” (Veith 47). With no objective standard, no God from whom they can see a “God’s eye view,” they have no moral or ethical basis for judging which of the symbolic worlds might be truer or better or more real, so postmodernists must accept them all.
Or must they accept them all? The problem arises when postmoderns encounter adherents to any of the modern belief systems who claim to know ultimate truth or reality. To accept their symbolic world into their postmodern one is to allow a system that doesn’t accept theirs, and ultimately to invite conflict instead of eliminating it. To overcome this obstacle, postmodernism has embraced (probably unconsciously) three large processes (Veith 47). First postmodernists mush break down the belief in universals. They must convince true believers that “no universal consensus about what is true” exists. They seek to do this by trying to create the global cultures of pluralism and multiculturalism. They try to expose all belief systems to all other belief systems in an effort to convince all that there are no absolutes. My friend in college was doing this when he tried to convince me that my faith was more a function of where I was born than of any sense of truth. The result is a polarization within each faith system between the “intolerant fanatics” and the intelligent, wise moderates, which ultimately results in a world wide proliferation of “culture wars,” or conflicts over the nature of a society’s definition of truth. We see such wars in our country between the “religious right” and the liberals. The muslim world is in tremendous conflict between the “Islamic fundamentalists” and a more secular Islam. Hinduism in India has taken on a more militant stance than it has perhaps ever had in the face of “de-Hinduizing” influences. Buddhist nationalism in Bali, Thailand and Myanmar has reacted to western secularizing ideas as well.
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