The current dissatisfaction with modernity, intellectually, has appeared in a wide variety of disciplines. One of the first was architecture, where modernism had attempted to develop a homogenized style that broke with the past and its indigenized designs by attempting to universalize, to belong everywhere because it did not belong anywhere in particular. Postmodern architecture broke with this by having many styles, reflecting interests of both the past and the present. It is one expression of our multiculturalism. But because it is not driven by any hard ideology, as was modernism, in its eclecticism it really does not have any definite purpose at all.
In the old Enlightenment belief, there was confidence in the possibility of rational, objective scholarship. This has been rejected by postmodernism, intellectually. In the absence of any assent to a body of universal truth, even those conclusions that are presumably objectively discovered by scholars are seen to be only results of these scholars' interests and dispositions. Given the belief in relativism, there is great difficulty in insisting on the universal validity of one's findings. Even science, thought of as the paragon of objectivity and rationality by the modernists, is seen not to be exempt from this relativizing influence. Thomas Kuhn has shown that what scientists observe is very much affected by their anticipation of what they are looking for and what they consider possible. In literature, deconstruction holds that words do not have any meaning in themselves. They mean only what we want them to mean. These same phenomena can also be seen in postmodern theology.
Wells asserts, however, that the relationship between the modern and the postmodern is more complex than we sometimes recognize and acknowledge. The very fact that we insist on being postmodern, rather than merely antimodern, indicates a desire to transcend the recent past, which in turn reflects belief in progress. And this in itself is a clearly modern conception. Thus, even postmodernism has not fully freed itself from modernism.
In the old Enlightenment belief, there was confidence in the possibility of rational, objective scholarship. This has been rejected by postmodernism, intellectually. In the absence of any assent to a body of universal truth, even those conclusions that are presumably objectively discovered by scholars are seen to be only results of these scholars' interests and dispositions. Given the belief in relativism, there is great difficulty in insisting on the universal validity of one's findings. Even science, thought of as the paragon of objectivity and rationality by the modernists, is seen not to be exempt from this relativizing influence. Thomas Kuhn has shown that what scientists observe is very much affected by their anticipation of what they are looking for and what they consider possible. In literature, deconstruction holds that words do not have any meaning in themselves. They mean only what we want them to mean. These same phenomena can also be seen in postmodern theology.
Wells asserts, however, that the relationship between the modern and the postmodern is more complex than we sometimes recognize and acknowledge. The very fact that we insist on being postmodern, rather than merely antimodern, indicates a desire to transcend the recent past, which in turn reflects belief in progress. And this in itself is a clearly modern conception. Thus, even postmodernism has not fully freed itself from modernism.
- Millard J. Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith:
Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism, 1998.
No comments:
Post a Comment