Thought for Today

Philosophical postmodernism. On the one hand it is passe. It has been replaced by a variety of concepts: meta modernism which oscillates between the optimism of modernism and the cynicism of postmodernism; alter modernism which is based on cultural exchange and transformation; digi modernism, which emphasizes digital technologies and the changes they bring about, including both participation and fragmentation; and auto modernism that focuses on technological automation and how that may impact and even change human identity.

None of those concern us here. Rather, we will ultimately be looking at ideas such as woke and DEI ideologies, both of which are deeply rooted in postmodernism.

Postmodernism boldly declares, “There is no truth!” The fact that that is in and of itself a truth statement and demonstrates the philosophy’s inconsistency is besides the point. Two hallmarks of postmodernism were deconstruction and the claim that real knowledge also does not exist. We will examine each of those core concepts briefly. What is seldom mentioned is that the French postmodernists who had primacy of place were, for the most part, communists.

Deconstruction. Championed by Jacques Derrida, what started as a tool for literary analysis, quickly spread like wildfire to the culture at large. The key: no word has any real meaning. Each word is just a symbol or sign of another word which is a symbol or sign of another word, ad infinitum. The particular meaning of any sentence was found in the white, or blank, spaces between the words. By deconstructing a sentence one could reinterpret it to mean whatever one wanted it to say. The one thing it could not mean was what it literally said.

Within the segment of church that favored postmodern philosophy, one infamous view was that of Peter Rollins. As he put it, the charismatic idea of the Holy Spirit’s arrival, that “God is now here,” really meant, “God is nowhere.”

Ironically, one dare not subject Derrida’s own books to the same treatment he insisted on using upon others. When one philosopher dared criticize him, he wrote about a ninety page book in response, “Limited Inc.,” deriding said philosopher. For Derrida’s own books, the actual words determined the meaning, not the white spaces between them.

There is no real knowledge. It used to be understood that knowledge is power. For example, if one needs heart surgery, the heart surgeon has power because he has the knowledge and skill to perform the necessary surgery. One is placed under his care for that surgery. On the other hand, if one has a major plumbing problem, a plumber would have power due to his plumbing knowledge, not a heart surgeon.

Michael Foucault reversed that. He insisted that power is knowledge, that those in power determine what knowledge is. Thus, by extension, there is no real knowledge. Since those in power determine knowledge, if one rejects those in power, one can reject any corresponding supposed claims about knowledge. The intent was to undermine everything from science to existing culture, to religious—especially biblical—morality. Once more however, one must not treat Foucault’s own writings in that fashion.

What was the result? There is no real meaning and there is no real knowledge. Since there can be no real meaning or knowledge, there is no truth.

For postmodernism, what was left? We will examine that question in the next post.