A Rant Against a Rant Against Postmodernism

Bill,
I don't fully understand your critique of Keith DeRose. Now, to put some cards on the table, I know Keith personally. He was my epistemology professor at Yale, and we go to the same church. Keith is one of the most down-to-earth guys I know on the entire planet.

Now, I sympathize with your worry that all we've got is an ivory tower discussion removed from ordinary contexts of living. In fact, I would tell you that Keith would also sympathize with that too, since much of his own philosophical work has put pressure on philosophers to return philosophical work to ordinary life. So your disagreement with Keith can't be about a contrast between academic and ordinary life.

First, I understand you don't have much patience for the postmodern drivel which Keith is criticizing as opaque. Second, I understand you disagree with Keith's quick assertion that technology is the cause of societal change. I do think Keith's claim has to be understood in terms of what parts of the university are making the most difference to our society. It is highly likely that you were not home-schooled as an engineer but college educated. So you enjoyed the fruits of the scientific-technological portions of the university. The humanities curriculum of the university, I think, is what we should all be worried about. It is out of step with society and science. Insofar as we want the best education for our children in all areas of academic endeavor, we should be worried. Keith's critique of postmodernismi is aimed at this.

Is Keith's critique of Brian McLaren the problem? I leave that to you to speak for yourself. Keith (like you) admired McLaren's graciousness. The worry I would have about the Emergent church (and I'm certainly no expert) is that if it is premised on responding to postmodern cultural change, is it embracing a Trojan horse? Building a ministry based on false premises (notice I didn't say 'certain') is problematic. Critique of the Emergent church will only be good for Christianity in the long run.

Yours,
Alan

Welcome to faithCommons, Alan.

Thanks for your thoughtful post. Your questions are well stated, useful for discussion and I want to give proper thought and time to my response. So, please allow me to respond tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'll just say that I have no argument with Keith DeRose other than the broad brush he painted with and his assumption that nothing has changed of significance in our society.

My main gripe is with the line of thought through much of the thread. In it I sense the same sort of elitism that seems to pervade much of academia, business executive management, church leadership and government. It is an elitism that assumes to know all about those of whom it is unaware.

Thanks again for your comment and I'll write a better response tomorrow.

bill

Sorry for taking two days to respond. But when I made that pledge, I didn't know that I'd spend the entire night (until 6am) trying to resuscitate a crashed server for a financial services firm that was a little bit more than anxious about month end processing.

Just how best to respond to Alan's thoughtful questions took up quite a bit of my own thoughts, these past three days. At first I thought that I would explain my own past experiences with failed epistemology. Like the truisms that my generation was brought up to believe. One of them is: work hard, stay out of trouble and you'll attain the American dream and retire at 65 years of age with health care and a nice pension. Another declares that all church leaders are up standing men, chosen by God, and have only the best interests of their flock in mind. After these I thought I'd launch into some stories about failed metanarratives like: economies progress ever upwards so that each generation earns more than the one before. But then I realized that, short of making a strong analytical argument, few supporters of Professor DeRose's position would accept my point as valid, anyway.

So, I decided that it really doesn't matter much what I say. Because those who've convinced themselves that the phenomenon popularly called postmodernismi only exists in fad university departments, surely won't listen to a stupid, unqualified-to-question-analytic-epistemology-professors engineer, anyway.

Alan starts out with his premise that “Keith is one of the most down-to-earth guys I know on the entire planet.” Then he concludes that: “So your disagreement with Keith can't be about a contrast between academic and ordinary life.” Next he surmises that because: “[I] don't have much patience for the postmodern drivel which Keith is criticizing as opaque. . .” and because “It is highly likely that [I was] not home-schooled as an engineer but college educated. So [I] enjoyed the fruits of the scientific-technological portions of the university.” that I should agree with this: “The humanities curriculum of the university, [he thinks], is what we should all be worried about. It is out of step with society and science. Insofar as we want the best education for our children in all areas of academic endeavor, we should be worried.” And the ultimate conclusion is that I must be happy that: “Keith's critique of postmodernism is aimed at this.”

Unwilling to leave his argument incomplete, Alan decides, for him and for me, what it is that I really am uptight about: “Is Keith's critique of Brian McLaren the problem? I leave that to you to speak for yourself.” And he then adds that: “Building a ministry based on false premises (notice I didn't say 'certain') is problematic. Critique of the Emergent church will only be good for Christianity in the long run.”

Well Alan, thanks again for visiting us at faithCommons. But let me add just this to your structured argument telling me what my motivation is. Your philosophical arguments have no effect on me. While I'm very interested in your opinion, I already know what mine is and won't be second guessing myself. Your perspective is valuable but fancy word twisting has no meaning here. A properly constructed argument may be considered “correct” in analytic philosophy, but it won't hold steam in mechanical engineering or get the system back up in systems administration. In engineering, we don't get paid or we get fired if we're wrong. No matter how well the argument is constructed nor how well the paper is written, when an engineer is wrong, somebody loses money or even their life. So I think we have a little different perspective on argument and truth.

As far as Emergent Church goes; if they're helping people then it's ok. Jesus said you will know them by their fruit. So, a better analysis would be of fruit and not of their orchard layout.

Nevertheless, life goes on. People make decisions. They vote in elections. They choose universities. They buy books or leave them on the shelf. They choose to go to a church or to give up on Christianity. And they make these decisions within their own world view. It's their world view, after all.

So, give us your perspective and your opinion and your experiences, but don't bother trying to convince me that I said something different than what I said. You can construct perfect arguments and debate the correct categorization of philosophies, but in the end, when it comes down to choice, where the rubber meets the road, people choose for themselves no matter whether you agree with their choice or not.

Thanks again for stopping by.

bill

Reido,

You said it better than I: “No longer content with the higher courts of opinion, the everyday man lives and thrives.” This is what it is—isn't it? I love that phrase that you taught me.

What I question is why no one, that I no of, has questioned whether postmodernismi is merely something else instead. Are these categories of philosophies and world views set in stone?

Is there something afoot? You betcha. What we call it and how we catalog it or what other categories it overlaps, or even what the impact may be, is up for discussion. But to claim that nothing has changed over the past few centuries or so, is to misunderstand history. But of course, that's a hallmark of modernism to assume that all change is linear and that it progresses according to plan.

Thanks for the feedback,

bill

Bill

What you said...

"What I question is why no one, that I no of, has questioned whether postmodernismi is merely something else instead. Are these categories of philosophies and world views set in stone?"

One of the biggest changes that I have been thru has been the transformation to a different "kind" of thinking. I think it was Barth who started me on the road of Subjectivism, then I began to understand how other thinkers, especially theologians have gotten away from the mindset of correspondence and definition being part of some universal rational objectivism. By that, I mean the notion that everything, including God, can be explained and categorized into the "right" stuff.

"Change" was a scary word; "evolution" was near damnable. PMi impresses me as being very Subjective. So much so, that it really doesn't define well because it is immersed in what is going on instead of what has already occured. Also, in my experience, I have found it futile to attempt to play the Objectivist's game of logic and construction. We know the game well. "If this is true, and this is true, then this also must be true." Instead of asking right out and taking one's word for the answer, there has to be this crockology of predication.

And, as you recognised, those who dislike PM really do not understand it. Beat my head against the wall, I have tried to ask questions like, "What is sin, really?" It is disheartening to ask such a question in the bastions of Christian education and then listen to the assumptions that are made about the "rest" of humanity as they are categorized into whatever definition the "teacher" has chosen to place us in. I say, "us", because it is really humanity in general that we are discussing when we talk about "them".

"Is there something afoot?" Well, I believe people like McLaren are trying to explain it in terms that the keepers of the castle can understand and relate to. The reason I say that is because those who have already chosen to vote with their feet did so by virtue of their own thinking...they do not need evangelizing. Why then, would the keepers of the castle need to be educated? As I see it, the castles are becoming uninhabited because humanity no longer wants to be in serfdom. It is freedom they seek.

The downside (and I believe their always is one), is that the young may enjoy the freedom without ever knowing they are in and of God. Because unless God can be redefined to include their lives, God will be only a relic dimly associated with church buildings and little popes. Now that concerns me, because I do not see the organized church realizing it.

reido

Reido,

I'm almost finished with a post on truth and the pursuit of it. It's mostly my own rambling but it's interesting that you've just touched some of the points that I want to bring up.

It's the insistence on the analytic approach to something that we doen't even understand that frustrates me. However, I am coming to understand that much of this problem oozes out of old habits and feudalism.

Rene' Descartes and the Enlightenment wrested truth from the high priests of the church and it is now controlled, in the same head-in-sand way, by "the Academy." They are not incapable of moving on, but they have too much invested in the old system. The Protestant church is the old guard now, in the same way that Catholicism was. Systematic science, theology, philosophy, truth and being have made all of us into objects and drain us of our being. That is, we have escaped the Bastille only to build ourselves another prison.

I like your point that Brian McLaren is preaching to the preachers. The attacks on him by analytic philosophers gives us a glimpse into the unlikely alliance between Protestant Theology and Science (or analytic philosophy). They fight between themselves but come together against a common threat.

Just last night, after a small group meeting that included an argument between old thinkers and new ones, I started thinking about what the ultimate goal of developing a new approach to thinking about all things God should be. What you wrote in your last paragraph is pretty similar to my concerns.

God was rescued from the high priests only to be locked away once more by theologians and philosophers. Neither of these steps were part of Jesus' plan. Jesus wanted people to meet God where they are which is where he is. He wanted to free God from the Temple. But God was then locked away in the cathedral. Martin Luther and friends freed God from the cathedral only to lock him away in theology and preaching schools.

So I'm with you. And I'm convinced that God must get defined within each individual.

bill

Bill

I think you are onto something with the matrix of control. Ultimately, power always seems to come out being self-serving -- after all, like preachers, professors would be out of money and life's comforts if they had no power core to protect and preserve.

That sounds incriminating, but only if they take it that way. If someone were to suggest that I tend to have a teleological mind because of working in engineering design, I can see that. If they looked deeper, they would see that sometimes we "go along" with company power cells just to keep our jobs. It is a form of control derived from the God most of us worship -- money.

I'll give your ideas more thought.

reido

Bill

When we look at what really has changed in recent years...say the last 100...Technology has to rank way up there...and all know that. However, cultural change has come too. Pluralism, sexual equality, racial equality, deconstruction of ancient beliefs in order to search for new meaning, in general...a better life in the here and now for all. Are these possibly the result of technological advance?

Well, If we take Karen Armstrong's view that the face of religion has transformed from the interest of the preservation of the group and its fundamentalist power core, to the individual and his/her rights; then perhaps the Industrial Age has granted us freedom from that bondage of serfdom that existed under the ancient rites. But I am lingering on the idea of Technology as the root. Was it free thinkers who gave us technology in the first place. Take ancient Thomism, for instance. Acquinas was not well liked by RCC when he originated his thought. It was taboo to consider the design of the universe...those things were not for the common man. He needed to be thinking about plowing the field, etc. Of course, Thomas could not have known that this simple beginning would develop into a science. But the technology had its cause, didn't it?

reido

Reido,

I suppose that in my charge to discredit what I saw as another modernistic view of change as linear with technology ever as it's cause, I made the same mistake of simplifying my rejection to a mere reversal of cause and effect.

Significant societal change will always be beyond our grasp to explain in detail. And of course, insignificant change we don't bother to explain. Certainly, major directional change in society is more than linear progression, more than direct and more than the cumulative progression shown by the now-trite fish diagram.

Any change that affects significant numbers of people will find that a significant number of people have need of it. And, as Robert Fulton noted, no idea is completely new or stands alone with no inspiration from prior ideas.

So I see major changes more like nodes in a multi dimensional web of effect continua. The change occurs because the right continua cross at the point where it appears in history. If the slope of one of the lines changed, then the timing of the change as well as its affect and effect would be different.

Since most normal people have no idea what I just wrote or, if they do, they don't really care, it's probably just as well that we say: technology drives societal change and societal change draws technological change. And we're done.

Bill

Yes, and guess what!...Whether driven by, resulting from, or developed (as in "it just growed"), it makes no difference whatsoever.

reido