Government is Worldview Part 3: Post-Modernism

 Xf uif qfpqmf pg uif vojufe tubuft jo psefs up gpsn b npsf qfgedu vojpo…

What in the world is that gobbledegook? Well, according to postmodernism, it can mean anything you want it to mean. I, as the author, have a method to my madness in writing that gibberish, but postmodernism is less concerned with the author’s intent and more concerned with the reader’s interpretation. Thus my collection of letters above may mean nothing to you, but it may mean “Love is a many splendored thing” to someone else, and it may simultaneously mean “Apple Jacks are snappy!” to another.

In case you’re interested, the gibberish is my goofy way of writing the first line of the Preamble of the US Constitution, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” I simply moved one letter over in the alphabet, so A became B, B became C, etc. So “Xf” is “We”, uif is “the”, and so on.

But who cares what I meant?

And for the postmodernist, that’s exactly the point; it’s not what I (the author) mean when I write something, but what you (the reader) interpret it to mean. This is known as deconstruction, and deconstruction applies not only to the written word, but also to reality itself. “In other words, there is no ‘real world’ out there – only six billion constructions of the world…” (David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times, Summit Press, 2006, p. 121). Thus, in postmodernism, reality is no longer objective, but what a person, culture, or community perceives reality (truth) to be.

Now my friend, apply that philosophy to politics and what do you think you’ll get? You’re exactly right: balkanization. How’d you know?

Balkanization is the “division of a place or country into several small political units, often unfriendly to one another.” But why would postmodernism result in balkanization? Because if reality is only based on what people, cultures or communities believe, it’s apparant that different people, cultures and communities (even within the same country) are going to have different views on reality and what is truth. What happens politically is that we wind up in the same place as the naturalist/secularist: a morally relativistic ethic except without the badge of scientific rationale to justify it. This means we’re back to that fine philosophy of moral equality – the philosophy that believes that keeping the poor and downtrodden miserable so you can be comfortable and live a life a pleasure is as morally justified as helping them out of their poverty, subjugation, and misery.

So what justifies postmodernism? The denial of a universal, objective truth. But do you see the inherent problem with postmodernism’s justification? If they claim, “There are no universal, objective truths” then what have they just declared? You got it: a universal, objective truth. Ooops.

Not having objective truth is the common denominator-problem all of these worldviews –naturalism/secularism, Marxism/Leninism, and postmodernism– have. This is clearly illustrated by speaker Ravi Zacharias in his address to a United Nations’ Prayer Breakfast:

You see, postmodernism plays word games with us. Postmodernism tells us there’s no such thing as truth; no such thing as meaning; no such thing as certainty. I remember lecturing at Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in this country. I was minutes away from beginning my lecture, and my host was driving me past a new building called the Wexner Center for the Performing Arts. He said, “This is America’s first postmodern building.” I was startled for a moment and I said, “What is a postmodern building?” He said, “Well, the architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He has a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.” I said, “So his argument was that if life has no purpose and design, why should the building have any design?” He said, “That is correct.” I said, “Did he do the same with the foundation?” All of a sudden there was silence. You see, you and I can fool with the infrastructure as much as we would like, but we dare not fool with the foundation because it will call our bluff in a hurry.

This is the fundamental flaw with postmodernism (and the political philosophy that flows out from it):

1. Postmodernism is based on relativism – the philosophy that there is no absolute truth (which, as we’ve seen, is an absolute truth in itself, and therefore self-contradictory).
   A relativistic government is going to have a difficult time being true to everyone it governs; so does that mean that those who don’t agree with their government don’t have to follow it, since what the government stands for or does isn’t their truth?
2. Postmodernism is opposed to rationalism. Rationalism says that reason is the supreme authority in all matters of opinion, belief, and conduct. We’ve seen that naturalism/secularism bows to rationalism (though the Humanist Manifesto has softened its stance by including compassion and empathy); and we’ve already seen where this leads. The thing is, the postmodernist also sees where rationalism leads, but instead of determining that there must be a foundation (see Ravi Zacharias above) for reason and compassion, he rejects rationalism altogether and simply embraces relativism. But we’ve already seen, that relativism approves of both Mother Theresa and Jeffrey Dahmer, so again, we have a bit of a dilemma here with postmodernism.
3. Postmodernism believes that culture creates realities, therefore whatever the culture believes is true or false is true or false for them. Sounds good until you ask yourself,
   “Is Hijab (a Muslim woman’s dress code) good?” 
   “Is forced female circumcision good?”
   “Is genocide good?”
   “Is cannibalism good?”
   “Headhunting?”
   “Sati (burning alive a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre)?”
   “Slavery?”
   “Infanticide?”
   “Polygamy?”
   “Bestiality?”
   “Pedophilia?”
   “Animal sacrifice?”
   “Human sacrifice?”
   All of these were or are acceptable to different cultures, so do we have any right to restrict any of them? If so, on what grounds? There’s nothing postmodernism can say that can halt any of these customs without violating its own principle of culture defining truth.
   If the postmodernist is going to govern, he’s either going to have a really easy time of it because it’s not the government, but the culture that creates what’s good and bad for themselves; or he’s going to have a bear of a time governing because he’ll have to deal with dozens and hundreds of different and even conflicting behaviors and customs. Balkanization, here we come!

So postmodernism as well fails as a foundation for a legitimate government. Government can’t simply let people do whatever they want in the name of culture because pretty soon you won’t have a government anymore – just a bunch of people living for themselves without much regard for anyone else. Nice.

So if naturalism/secularism doesn’t work, if Marxism/Leninism doesn’t work, and if the goobledegook of postmodernism doesn’t work, what does?

Gjoe pvu jo nz ofyu cmph

(Find out in my next blog).