Fruits of Postmodernism

Take a look at this blog post I just saw on facebook. It’s a professor who has served on a jury and seen a poor black couple who don’t have a mental framework that allows them to interact successfully with the court system.

This is what post modernism does to it’s weakest. It degrades and humiliates those who can’t defend themselves against it.

This is the attitude I see demonstrated in this article:

    I have this system of civilization that uses knowable truth, and the justice of equality before the law, and respect for authority. I don’t believe in truth, or blind justice, or authority. Or at least I don’t think they are worth defending as true virtues. But the system works well enough, and we don’t have anything that might be better. So by pragmatism we keep using this system.

    I keep pushing buttons and pulling levers in this system even though they don’t have any real meaning for me. This works for me because my cultural programming tells me what buttons to push and what levers to pull, but I don’t believe in any overriding principle that distinguishes moves with an abstract value from the ones that are purely cultural. In fact it makes me feel uncomfortable and like I have to defend myself against a charge of insensitivity to even glancing mention the pattern behind which behaviors that are practically useful.

    So I’ll retreat from that uncomfortable feeling. I’ll keep promoting nihilistic epistemology and moral relativism in the name social justice and multiculturalism. I’ll let it flow down hill until it arrives, striped edifying allusions and cushioning academic detachment, among the poor and the socially disconnected.

    bounty from your champions on high: the process of taking the identity “helpless victim” labeled as empowerment; substituting faceless and undefeatable enemies for practical problems labeled as constructive action. pounding on the table without reference to either facts or law labeled as meaningful communication.

And when I see the poisoned lives and blighted hopes. I’ll recognize that all post modernism has to say is tut-tut, so sad, not my job. And I’ll recognize the inadequacy, but I won't have anything else to offer.

Pounding on the table from Hucksters

I don’t know if the professor that wrote this particular blog post is personally postmodernist or just subconsciously infected by its meme floating around academia. And yes, I’ve pounded on that table a little myself here. But I do think there is a real fact at issue here. A philosophy that denies any legitimate judgment between different “ways of knowing” or different “ways of experiencing reality” is helpless to explain, and therefore can teach, why some stories must be both internally consistent and externally congruent with reality. When someone is caught by a fact check in a legal or professional situation, all postmodernists can do is shudder as the social solecism and turn their backs on the unfortunate faux pas. They can’t put up warning signs ahead of time. So to the extent postmodernism has infected our education system under the guise of cultural sensitivity, it is making social mobility very hard and causing the currently excluded a lot of pain.     

A can’t do much by myself but I can tell friends the truth rather than the common lies that make that make them feel good so that we can all feel good about each other. And I can recommend other to do the same, because a little honesty now could save a friend a lot of pain later.

Warm Fuzzies

When I was a girl I remember a Pioneer Girl lesson. First there was a  craft where we  were given some yarn. Some we turned into little pom-pom puffs called “warm fuzzies” and some we wrapped around sweetgum seed pods to make “cold pricklies” We all agreed that “warm fuzzies” were nicer to feel than “cold pricklies.” and were were told this was a demonstration of why it was better to love than hate.

Cold Pricklies

    I think I remember this because something always struck me as slightly off about this lesson, even beyond, whether human touch preference proves anything. It’s certainly not that I disagree that it is better to love than to hate. Nor do I quarrel with the need to teach little kids to be nice to each other. It’s that I don’t think you can equate the two lessons.

    The two types of balls are good examples of positive and negative social interactions. A social interaction where you feel accepted and connected, where you experience care you are looking for or the possibility of such care in the future, feels emotionally like a warm fuzzie feels to your fingers. And an interaction where you feel rejected, held apart, or have your ideas and identity poked at does have the same affect as a cold prickly.

    Love does often manifest in the type of affection warm fuzzies indicate, softness and comfort and making the other person feel good. We all want and need that manifestation of love. But we can get in trouble if we mistake that for all of love or even the central essence of love. Even a loving critique can feel more like a cold prickly if it pops a bubble of unjustified self-satisfaction. A child may experience being taken to the doctor’s for a shot as painful even as it is in fact very loving.

    You have an emotional need to be loved. The care you get from loved ones meets physical needs. But love is much more than the emotional high you get from cuddling. It is the knowledge of the intrinsic value of the beloved in the intellect of the lover. It is the settled expectation of abstractly good results in and from the beloved. It is a committed attitude by the lover to pursue the best interest of the beloved.  When you think of love as just the warm fuzzies not only are you missing the depth and richness of love but it can lead you to pursuing love in the wrong places and by the wrong means.

Warm Fuzzies

    It gets even more problematic when we get to the idea of unconditional love. This is often held up not just a theoretical ideal but as a real expectation in a family, a church or a community. It is often unacknowledged that unconditional love is a perfection and therefore no natural human is going to practice it completely or all the time. This issue is magnified when you start equating the subjective experience of warm fuzzies with receiving love. When I have a toothache or even when I’m just having a very bad day  the nicest expressions of care can irritate me and feel like poking. In times uncertainty and doubt we’re going to want a warm fuzzy and want one “now!” to prove that we’re loved. And we usually won’t get that feeling of soft emotional glow we think means love. And that in itself will be an additional hurt and disappointment.

    If we’re thinking of love as a good feeling available on demand we won’t ever know a permanent and reliable “love.” Love is such basic need in our lives, that we are cheating ourselves of something vital if we are only chasing warm fuzzies.

Review:Noah

    Last weekend I went to see Noah, the movie, and I enjoyed it. But I’m the type of person who enjoys something that invites analysis and critique more than I would something that actually drew me in and made me care about the characters. So I wouldn’t exactly call this good entertainment but there was a lot of fun to be had in dissecting it.

    I also wouldn’t call it a biblical movie. The most biblical theology is stated by a psychotically evil character as blood drips out of his mouth because he has just bitten the head off a live lizard. The movie is more of a narrative argument against the biblical idea that  humans and humanity have a purpose and that indeed the earth was created as a place for humanity.

    If you haven't seen the movie yet, here are a few good plot summaries.

 

    What I really liked that most was that the ways the movie showed the opposite of the biblical story highlighted the wonder of God’s story and the bleakness of a world with it.

*Aloneness vs. community.

In the movie, Instead of Noah being a man who has remained righteous despite being embedded in the comminuted of Adam's descendants that have becomes decadent and sinful, Noah’s family is isolated and seems totally disconnected from the wider society who seem to be all descendants of Cain. After traveling a great distance to see his grandfather, Methuselah, and settling near him, Noah then doesn’t seem to have talked to him for years. Methuselah lives entirely alone in his old age, Ila is found alone among the dead. The characters all seem to be alone with their thoughts as they make most of the decisions.

This makes me cherish the way the bible is always showing community, designing us for community, calling for us to follow him as a community rather than as individuals. Sometimes it can feel like an imposition when you need to work with other flawed humans it worshiping God and this movie helped remind me how gracious God was in setting it up this way.

*Taboos and fetishes about creation vs. enjoying creation

In the movie, apparently it’s sinful to express appreciation for the beauty of God’s creation by picking flowers. Nature is only shown as vibrate and prospering where it is untouched by man. The earth is seen unable to sustain man.

In the bible even the fact that we have to work so hard to have the earth sustain us is talked about as a curse and a departure from the original plan. It makes me cherish all the beauty, joy, and sustenance I get from God’s creation to remember that God created us to be gardeners of his garden.

*purposeless humanity vs. cherished humanity.

In the move, instead of God’s first communication being a clear command to build an ark Noah first has a dream that the effect of men is evil and God is going to destroy the world with a flood. Only after a harrowing journey to his grandfather, Methuselah, is Noah shown the possibility of an ark. There is a sense that saving Noah’s family is more a result of special pleading and Methuselah’s magic then a central part of God’s plan.

But in the Bible it shows God’s first thought in destroying sin was to save a righteous remnant. It creates a beautiful reminder of the picture of baptism and how God wants to save us by the blood of his son.

*confusion vs. covenant

    In the movie God communicates in vague dreams and Noah is never quite sure what God wants. At the end of the movie there is a spectacular rainbow shown so soring music. It has an emotional feeling of magic, but there is no actual content conveyed at all.

    In the Bible Noah understand what God is saying, and the story ends with God giving a specific covenant, affirming God’s ongoing relationship and promising never to destroy the world with water again.And this reminds me how precious the Bible itself is. We may wish the communication was in a form that took less study or that the promises were more extensive, but we when God does make a covenant He keeps it and it’s remarkable that He chooses to at all.

*nihilism vs. vision

    There are other contrasts I could make, violence vs. life, condemnation vs. salvation, but overall this is a film about nihilism. Noah is a failed nihilist. He sees humans as having no purpose and being a drain on the world. The only reason he doesn’t end the race is that he wimps out at the very end. At least one sign seems to indicate that God approves of Noah’s resolution to end humanity. And it’s not clear at the end whether God really wanted humanity to continue or if He has just relented temporarily.

All this is of course very different from the picture in the the Bible where God has a plan for mankind.God has a vision for mankind’s future, where they can be sons and daughters of God. And he knows how He will redeem them, not by sacrificing humanity’s daughters but His own So, who will go to the cross willingly that we all might live.

Which is the tail and which is the Dog?

Last night I saw a link posted by my sister on facebook and it brought up something that has been percolating for some time. I was talking to my sister about our very different experiences of conservative Evangelism and how to bridge that gap, and also about our differing epistemological worldview, me more modernist and her more post-modernist. She asked me about the setting for starting constructive conversations about doctrinal disagreements. As I looked back, I realized my initial response didn’t cover this likely pitfall in the language used to start a discussion:

If I was to go to my pastor and say, "I'm really struggling with my feelings about doctrine X and I'd like to talk to you about this," I would mean:

1) I am totally convinced of the truth of doctrine X.

2) I have concluded that Y is the right attitude to take in response to the fact of X.

3) My actual feelings do not match Y and I would like you to help me change my feelings so they do.

Allegory of Reason, photo by Vitod Muratov

So the correct reaction of the pastor to me would be to help me work out ways I could modify my emotional reaction. But I suspect my sister might use the same phrasing to mean something totally different, that it didn't make advance that X could possibly be true based on it being so to the way things should be as demonstrated by her feelings. She would be expecting a discussion of whether X was really true and might feel horrified and insulted if instead she got advice on how she could change her feelings.

We have these differing meaning to the same words because we reason about things in different ways. For my my own emotions are a tertiary, almost epiphenomenal concern, so I wouldn't be addressing them unless I considered the relevant facts on metaphysics and morals to be settled.

Reading Rachel Held Evans’ Blog about the reversal of World Vision’s decision what struck me was the word “disdain.” People on the liberal side of this discussion are perceiving the reaction as as being driven by emotion and are are experiencing this situation as all the more hurtful because of that. When I was reading the initial reactions on Tuesday I perceived logical reasoning about facts doctrine and moral implications, with a little sorrow and disappointment at where the logic was going trailing along behind. Going back today to a few posts I missed that were pointed out as inflammatory that’s still what I see.

Fragile Emotion, photo by Don

Its a huge gap to communicate across, difference between starting with emotion and assuming it’s the basis for action and seeing emotions as coincidental side effect. But for a long time the gap was almost invisible to me. It’s still hard for me really get my head around such a different way of thinking. But I think the start of clear communication is going to be understanding and considering that difference.

As for World Vision, the fact that they reversed themselves so quick indicates that they did not understand the predictable reaction that they would get. This indicates that they are deeply, deeply clueless about how the broadly conservative strain of Evangelicalism thinks. But then that’s common view and a misunderstanding that’s easy to make.

Why can’t we just all get along?

    There’s a natural desire to get along with everybody. To not have constant fights going on around you. In today's diverse and connected public sphere, I that natural desire can lead to a wish that there weren’t so many things that some people passionately believe in. A wish that people wouldn’t be so certain of things.

    I like Marc Cortez’s blog post I saw this week about one problem with this. That there are practical reasons for taking a stand on some issues. Our ideas are the foundations of our actions so we have to have decided opinions to act consistently.

    But I also think that being passionate about things is part of being human. You’re not really enjoying the benefits of knowing different people if you’re not ready to confront and deal with their passionately held convictions. Even when they are very different or even directly opposed to your own passionately held convictions. Being ready look at their arguments, dig down to their roots and really understanding what the differences are is part of really seeing and knowing others.

There was a verse in my Bible study lesson this morning I really liked:

John 18:23 (NLT)
Jesus replied, “If I said anything wrong, you must prove it. But if I’m speaking the truth, why are you beating me?”

Enjoying being Offended - Part 2

We were driving along when my mom apologized to me. She was apologizing for having sounded disrespectful of my religious beliefs in a conversation that had occurred over the holidays. I couldn't think what comment she was referring to. (Having thought about it now there was maybe one comment she made that was a little sarcastic, but that was nothing to the full debating tool box that my sister and I were using. It by far the best time I had that holiday visit.)

She say she didn't want me to think that she disapproved of my spiritual path. I say I had not been offended. We had mutually incompatible ideas about proper spiritual paths and as obviously she would disagree with my choices, and I was perfectly fine with her expressing that.

She said no, she really thought how I was pursuing my spiritual life was fine. I didn't think that could be the case and we want back and forth on that with restocking to her thesis that she really thought my religious pursuits were fine and good as long as I was happy with them.

We went on and had a fun meal at The Counter where I had fun ordering just what I wanted and nothing else. (The Counter specializes in letting you build your own burger rather than offering a limited number of pre chooses combination that I always need them to hold something on.)

But the apology stayed with me. Before the apology I had not been offended at all. But now I found I was. I did feel hurt and disrespected that my ideas were not being taken seriously and that my mother didn’t care whether I was basing my life on the truth or a lie.

Later a practical matter came up where my opinion on the subject was related to the consequences of my religious beliefs. My mother was quite dismissive about my opinion. And I found myself quite hurt by it, not because of the dismissing of my opinion but because it showed how thoroughly she dismissed my beliefs as real beliefs that would have real consequences in all other areas of my life.

This is part of engaging with people and really relating to them on a deep level. being ready for their beliefs to be so different that you are hurt by how they see you, and being ready to deal with that.

 

 

Enjoying being Offended - part 1

I remember my grandmother as a warm comforting presence on those summer vacations. My grandfather and her would come out to California in the summer in their RV. We would do fun things and everyone would get along and then she would make hot chocolate for everyone.

photo by Herrick

I think I must have been a difficult grandchild for her, with inexplicable and occasionally unpredictable dislikes. But I liked how she would like around that. Once she had given up on me going along with something or what would work for me to do, the matter would be dropped and I could just move on from there. It would be like the disagreement had never happened. She was really good at getting us the act like we were in natural harmony with each h other.

She died of breast cancer when I was still a teenager. At a gathering connected with her funeral I was talking to her namesake and in the course of the conversation saying that my grandmother hadn't been perfect. When I was asked how, I pointed out that, while she would create an appearance of agreement and perfect sympathy, it wasn't a reality.

It was based on pretending. If someone said something you disagreed with you couldn't contradict them directly. You had to phrases it as a nuanced agreement so everyone could act like there wasn't a conflict. You could be scolded for being impolite but it was always the form of your expression and not the content of your ideas that was criticized.

Grandma would firmly squelch any topics of real disagreement except ones that were so distant and abstract that no one president was really affected by them. It made for a very comfortable, restful atmosphere. But it was possible because our little family mostly agreed on our general perspective. We were willing to conform our views to a conventional average without really debating anything.

It was a comfortable, safe place for me to retreat. But out want we're I really formed my mind and sharper my ideas. It was a place for recovery rather than growth. But from the outside it presented such a feeling of safety and acceptance that it might.

I think one of the things wrong with public debate today is that there’s an illusion that the whole of life can be like that for everyone. I hear calls for protests over something a public figure said in some magazine. I here whole groups given the identity of “haters” because their tastes or ideas don’t match that of some other group. I see people genuinely upset and hurt because they read on the internet where someone discussed something they identify with in a way my Grandmother would not have allowed one of her grandchildren to be discussed in her living room.

But here’s the thing, my grandmother could only achieve that because she was working with a very small group of people already very alike in tastes and culture. Moreover  the atmosphere was limited in time and space. We could go other places to discuss how we really felt and develop our own opinions.

Expecting to encounter a sampling of people from the real world and not find some dislike your art, disapprove of your choices, or don’t respect the identity you’ve cultivated is setting yourself up for heartbreak. Even just America is too big to be one homogenized culture where there’s a list of values you can endorse and expect everyone to nod their heads in approval. People are really going to disagree with you even on things that are emotionally important to you or that are part of how you identify your place in the world.

The 50s sitcom family where everyone could always be sure that if there would be an apology by the end of an episode was mostly an illusion. And to the extent it wasn’t it is impossible to expand to embrace a group of diverse backgrounds and world view. Instead we need to embrace that fact that we will offend other people and that other people will offend us.