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THE POSTMODERN OPIATE OF THE PEOPLE
Edward T. Oliver
A new concept is surfacing in the worlds of philosophy and literature—and of religion,
science, and politics. A concept so recent that few dictionaries list it! The common man is not
familiar with it. Yet not surprisingly, many academics are embracing the concept of
postmodernism to describe the present age—and are infecting the minds of our sons and
daughters.
When and What Is Postmodernism
The whole concept of postmodernism suggests that the world has moved from an age
known for its modernistic perspective to an altogether new way of looking at life in the latter part
of the 20th Century. This change did not happen overnight nor was it the work of a particular
philosopher. Instead, philosophers are simply acknowledging that a change has occurred and are
inventing terminology to describe the characteristics of the phenomenon.
Postmnodernism is more than a new philosophical concept. Herbert Kohl defines it as
“An ironic, self-mocking and somewhat detached attitude toward culture and progress,” while
Edward Veith contends that “Postmodernism is a worldview that denies all worldviews.” And
the prevailing view of its proponents is that postmodernism encompasses changes which have
occurred in all areas of human life, including new approaches being made in the fields of
architecture, art, music, theater, entertainment, religion, morality, and education.
Among postmodernism’s conclusions is the conviction that nothing can be affirmed that
is in any sense final. In other words, there are no basic absolutes nor is it possible to speak of
“the truth.” There are no eternal verities nor conclusive axioms that can guide mankind through
the current maze into the future. All truth (if the word can be used at all!) is relative. Though
this thinking is not new—it was held to some degree by the Greek sophists such as Gorgias who
claimed nothing could be known—yet today this negative conclusion has come to identify
almost an entire generation and culture. Even some Christians from time to time get caught up in
the non-absolutist idea of the hour.
While no one philosopher is the father of postmodernism, certain contemporary names
are attached to the school as prime definers: Derrida, Rorty, Lyotard, and Foucault are leading
spokesmen and are today the most prolific writers of postmodernist works.
What Postmodernism Has Replaced
Modernism, the major movement which immediately preceded postmodernism, has its
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roots in the thinking of René Descartes and the Enlightenment philosophy which flowed from the
Cartesian worldview, in particular the Cartesian Method. Descartes believed that he had arrived
at an essential, undoubtable starting point for knowing: “I think, therefore I am.” On this
axiomatic plank Descartes established his philosophy of reason. From him came the movement
that places confidence in human reason to determine all needful truth. A by-product of this
school of thought, confidence in human progress, became a critical part of Hegel’s philosophy
that nothing could stand in the way of the progress of mankind. Of course, the God of the Bible
was not a factor in the development of the race to its high, attainable end.
For 200 years rationalistic modernism dominated the thought factories of the western
world. Out of universities and schools came movers and shakers of nations and historic trends.
Leaders of art, religion, industry, politics, literature, and science embraced a belief in human
progress and the perfectibility of man. World peace and the kingdom of God were allegedly at
the fingertips of human accomplishment.
But, it was not to last. Perhaps the seeds of modernism’s fall were in its vaunted claims
and hopes. For it promised more than it could possibly deliver as was apparent in the bloodshed
and destruction of two World Wars in the first half of the 20th Century. Ironically, even after the
collapse of its influence, many still follow the modernist dream of a loving and peaceful world.
The Christian need not weep over the demise of modernism. It was no friend of the
Faith. Philosophical modernism spawned the anti-supernatural higher critical attack on the
trustworthiness of the Scriptures. Graf and Wellhausen and a host of other higher critics were
children of the Rationalistic Movement. The attempt to tear the Bible from the warp and woof of
Western Civilization by higher criticism created a spiritual vacuum into which the nihilistic ideas
of postmodernism have entered.
The End of Modernism
The beginning of the end for modernism could have occurred as early as the end of the
l9th Century through the influence of Frederick Nietzsche. Concerning the prevailing thought of
the day, Nietzsche noted that the “...mind of the West was going mad.” Later, he condemned
rationalistic thinking in no uncertain terms: “This is the final truth: there is no truth, there is only
the dying spirit hanging in agony on the Cross.” His scathing denunciations of the claims of
moderns are ironically the very sentiments of the postmoderns. Nietzsche’s words were in fact
the first drop of poison infused into the life blood of the movement of self-assured rationalism.
Some feel that the influences of modernism extended throughout most of the 20th
Century. Jean-Francois Lyotard has suggested that “Auschwitz ended modernity” and was
“...the crime opening postmodernity, a crime of... populicide.” Others suggest that modernism as
a defining movement breathed its last in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1972 at 3:32 p.m. on July 15,
with the implosion of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development, a fruit of the architecture of
modernism. As Veith has pointed out, the housing development was “... a prize-winning
exemplar of high technology, modernistic aesthetics, and functional design.” But the
architecture was impersonal, unappealing; the buildings were infested with crime—its
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destruction was inevitable. In other words, with the collapse of the project the modernist hope
for a technological kingdom of progress symbolically expired as well.
The Roots of Postmodernism
Although there is no single source of postmodernism, Nietzsche, with his pronouncement
of the death of God, is one of the leading sources of the new philosophy. However, Richard
Rorty credits three other men with leading the world to abandon the old rationalist theories of
knowledge: Martin Heidegger, the atheistic existentialist; Ludwig Wittgenstein, the prominent
linguistic philosopher; and John Dewey.
Modernistic rationalism was largely established on the predictable certainties of
Newtonian physics. However, some Quantum Mechanics interpreters suggest that the world at
its most elemental level functions in an uncertain and arbitrary manner. For the postmodernist,
the Newtonian idea of a universe of mechanical cause and effect has been superceded by a new
worldview whose only constant is uncertainty. And the lack of certainty in science has led to a
postmodern rejection of belief in a rational universe. In its place is only the irrational and the
uncertain.
Another source of the postmodern school of thought is Immanuel Kant. Though he was
himself a rationalist, he taught the subjective nature of knowledge, i.e., all knowledge is relative
to the mind of the knower. According to Kant it is impossible to know the “thing in itself,” i.e.,
the object of perception, sometimes referred to as the noumenal world. Nietzsche followed
Kant’s thinking and concluded that the existence of God was beyond human knowledge.
Postmodernism appears to have taken its cue from Kant’s conclusion in the most extreme sense:
There does not, and cannot, exist anything that could be described as objective truth. Whatever
an individual considers to be true may be true for himself only.
The Method of Postmodernism
A central defining feature of postmodernism is its attitude toward literary texts and works
of art. This approach is known as deconstructionism, which Kohl points out is “a theory in the
field of criticism in which all texts and works of art have a multiplicity of meanings.” Since the
idea of deconstruction is rooted in the concept that universal or eternal truth does not exist, or
cannot be attained, it is impossible for a writer or artist to have a grasp of anything approaching
absolute truth. Thus, no text can convey finality of meaning. In this light, all texts must of
necessity be continually reinterpreted by subsequent readers.
In deconstructing a text, a reader gives it new meaning, meaning that arises from his own
condition and linguistic framework. Hence, the Declaration of Independence may be given a
meaning antithetical to the intent of the original writers whom the postmodernists view as
writing only for their own time and power interests and using language in a circumscribed
context. Postmodernists justify subjective responses to any and all texts: Indeed the Scriptures
fare no better than the Declaration of Independence in their hands.
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Within postmodern thinking there exist no metanarratives, that is, no texts which are
applicable to all societies and all times, but only narratives that derive from local cultures. Also,
there are no universal ideals, no absolutes, only changing values. Ron Grossman recently wrote:
“Adherents to the literary theory of deconstruction, our academics now proclaim that terms like
‘truth,’ ‘justice,’ ‘democracy’ are only words, devoid of any ultimate meaning, unlike what
earlier generations thought.” Furthermore, there are no totalities or unifying ideas around which
peoples and nations may unite. The Christian gospel is rejected along with all other unifying
ideas or “totalities.” With all of these denials of meaning, the contemporary world has become
for many a postmodern stage in which life, in the words of Shakespeare, has indeed become “a
tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”
The End of Postmodernism
Patricia Waugh notes that Toynbee “... predicts the advent of postmodernism, not only
using the term but describing what it will mean.” In a chilling portend of the modem world,
Waugh summarizes Toynbee’s view that “...the postmodern age would be the fourth and final
phase of Western history and one dominated by anxiety, irrationalism and helplessness.” It is
small wonder that Toynbee pointed out that a religious awakening alone might reverse these
conditions.
To the Bible believer convinced of the reality of absolute truth, postmodernism represents
a demonic movement that denies Biblical revelation. While some Christian scholars are looking
toward a new reformation to save the world from postmodern anarchy, others believe
postmodernism is the final phase of the world’s philosophical resistance to the rule of Christ.
The moral and cultural chaos of the day could be the ground out of which the Antichrist will
arise. That being the case, the Man of Sin, the world’s last great dictator, could tie up all the
deconstructed loose ends created by the postmodern philosophy into a rebellious new-world
order.
Leading the charge against any ideas which unify mankind around a single ideology,
Postmodernist Lyotard exclaimed: “... let us wage a war on totality!” To him, totalities are on
the one hand illusions and on the other the cause of the great terrors of the last two centuries.
Nonetheless, the Bible states that there is one final manmade, Satan-inspired totality yet to come.
As the postmodernist fears, it will produce an age of terror to which the horrors of the 19th and
20th Centuries cannot compare. After the short reign of the Man of Sin, postmnodernism will be
reduced to ashes in the ultimate totality of Christ’s triumph and millennial reign.
A Final Word
In postmodernism there is no “good news,” no “amazing grace,” no justification by faith,
no resurrection, no assurance, no hope of everlasting life—only the negation of all positive
claims. Perhaps Nietzsche spoke for all later postmoderns when he denied the fundamental truths
of the Bible. In his work, The Antichrist, written the year before he went insane. Neitzsche
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declared of Christ: “all ground is lacking for the assertion, however often it is made, that he died
for the guilt of others.” What then is left for postmoderns who follow this line of thinking? “A
certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation,” exclaims the writer of Hebrews.
_____________________
Sources
Herbert Kohl, Archetype to Zeilgist: Powerful Ideas for Powerful Thinking
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
_______________, Postmodernism Explained
Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon, editors, A Postmodern Reader
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
_______________, My Sister and I
_______________, Twilight of the Idols
Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Edward Veith, Postmodern Times
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