Trying to Understand 5: Modernism

Summary: Protestantism untethered the anchor of truth by discarding the Holy Spirit's guidance of Christ's Church as a whole. The Enlightenment discarded God as the source and point of reference for truth. Communism cast a shadow of doubt on the truth of "ideals" - the idea that there is a truth that measures how things are supposed to be. After the World Wars, cynicism and pain gave rise to a number of philosophies that carried this line of doubt toward its logical conclusion to discard truth altogether. However, modernist philosophies did not yet carry things that far. They were a step in the direction. For the most part, modernism does not doubt the existence of objective truth. However it casts doubt on any attempt to claim that objective truth carries with it objective meaning.

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The Enlightenment promised that human reason had the ability to create an ordered society wherein everyone would have the opportunity to prosper. It promised that holding onto ideals that tell us how things should be (moral law, virtue, freedom, etc.) would eventually bring these ideals into the realm of reality. Communism shed doubt on Enlightenment idealism. The two World Wars blew the Enlightenment myth apart. Never before in history had humanity's potential for death and destruction been so clearly demonstrated. Furthermore, it could be claimed that both wars were caused by adherence to ideals. World War I was caused by the ideal of patriotism and nationalistic pride. World War II was caused by the same ideals, mixed with ideals of racial identity. Modernist thinkers decided that ideals were not only impossible to realize, they were dangerous.Modernists certainly bring up points that are worth contemplating. Ideals are difficult to realize. Some are impossible. Ideals do cause conflict, as do various interpretations of ideals. As modernism is actually a group of similar philosophies, it must also be acknowledged that each of these philosophies carries ideas and warnings that are worthy of contemplation.

Deconstructionism: Language has a powerful effect on our understanding of objective truth. Politicians are certainly aware of this fact, and often use it to great effect, despite the stereotypes that paint them as empty liars. Deconstructionism asks the question, “Can objective truth really be known at all, given our dependence on language to communicate and understand truth?” For example, what gives a "table" its identity? Isn't its identity dependant on us naming it a table? What would reality be like if we had no name for table, but instead had a specific name for the space between the table legs? The surface on top of the table would be virtually ignored, while the space underneath would take on special meaning. If language can play such a powerful role in our perception of truth, how do we really know what is objectively true? Deconstructionism gets its name from its tendency to look carefully at our perceptions of truth and "deconstruct" by unpacking how language influences them.

Structuralism: Relationships between things also strongly affect our perception of truth. Very often, we see the world through the perception of relationships of opposites. Males are opposite of females, and defined by not being females. Such a distinction ignores the incredible individuality of each human being by focusing only on the differences between the two groups and forcing each individual to be in one category or the other. This is a main tenant of modern feminism - the subject of a future blog. Take another example - this time not dealing with opposites.

What is this symbol?

Is it a letter?

Is it a music note?

Or is it something completely different?

Its identity depends on its relationship to other symbols. Don’t so many other things in our lives depend on their relationship with other factors? Don't we define ourselves in relationship to others? I am a husband in relationship to my wife, a teacher in relationship to my students, a child in relationship to my parents, a friend in relationship to my friends, and a stranger in relationship to those who do not know me. In fact, without these relationships, do I have any more meaning than the symbol above when taken out of context?

Panopticon / Power Theory: The Panopticon is actually a very relevant and fascinating concept. The “Panopticon” itself refers to a tower in the center of a prison complex wherein the guards could watch all of the prisoners in their cells, but the prisoners could not see the guards. The prisoners would never know when the guards were watching them so they would need to behave in a way pleasing to the guards at all times just in case they were being watched. Eventually, you really wouldn’t need to put guards in the tower at all, as long as the prisoners did not become aware of their absence. The prisoners would never know they weren’t being watched and would behave as was expected of them. More than a possibly effective model of prison management, the Panopticon is a metaphor.

The argument of the metaphor is that modern culture is a Panopticon. The “guards” are the cultural powers that determine what is acceptable and unacceptable in society. Cultural constructions such as media, and especially psychology, create the sense that we are always being watched and evaluated, that reward or punishment is always imminent. In this way, the powers of our culture are able to keep the populace in control.

When modernists use the word “power,” they do not necessarily mean political power. They are usually referring to cultural powers that set societal expectations. Religion is one of the primary suspects here. In a capitalistic society, the media and marketplace are also key players in the power structure. Though “freedom” is exactly the kind of ideal that modernists pride themselves in rejecting, the modernist assumption seems to be that such powers need to be resisted.

Modernism has some valid points worthy of contemplation. We do take the meaning of certain concepts for granted without realizing the effect of language on our understanding of them. Does this mean that language creates all meaning, that concepts only have the meaning given to them by our particular use of language? This conclusion seems like quite a leap. We do need to realize that some concepts gain their meaning from their relationships with other concepts. However, is this true of all concepts so that no concept has meaning in isolation? Again, that conclusion seems quite a stretch. Finally, our media-saturated, psychology-burdened culture does indeed have elements of the Panopticon. However, can we conclude that all of society is therefore evil, slavish, and enslaving? Should we resist all expectations put on us by society? Does society have no value or meaning other than to control people for the good of those in power? What a myopic view of the purpose of society! We do have to be careful about what influences get hold of us, especially in a materialistic, media-centered culture such as ours. However, are all expectations to be resisted? It is evil to conform to standards set by others just because they come from someone other than yourself? Why do I assume that expectations that I set for myself are any better? What would life be like not to strive to meet any expectations at all?

Finally, many people wonder how anyone could be foolish enough to reject objective truth. Modernists did not necessarily set out to do so – they are not insane for the most part. Rather, they became disillusioned with the overconfidence that enlightenment thinkers had in the human ability to meet ideals such as “human nature,” “freedom,” “goodness,” “loyalty,” “integrity,” “patriotism” and “human dignity.” The two World Wars showed beyond a doubt that human beings are not capable of living up to the ideals that gird human moral life. Modernists assumed that the human inability to meet the ideals indicated that the ideals themselves were nonexistent. The rejection of these ideals in turn led to a de facto rejection of the realities rooted in them.

The spread of subjectivism into the culture of the everyday citizen has been slow and for the most part unobvious. Humanistic psychology and New Age philosophy have done a lot to spread subjectivism in ways that seem wise, useful, and acceptable. Morality seems to be the man area subjectivism has been widely accepted. Moral arguments in our society do not tend to center around true moral reasoning. Rather, the “arguments” tend toward the mantra, “Who are you to force your morality on others?” The assumption here is that morality is subjective, having various meanings according to various contexts (Structuralism) or falsely created through the command of language (Deconstructionism) or for the sake of controlling others in order to maintain power (Panopticon).

One way to view morality is a response to objective reality. Morality is also our guide to living the human life well and ultimately living according to our ultimate end, union with God. The abandonment of morality is the abandonment of human life. Modernists explicitly state that they reject the idea that there is a standard for what human beings are “supposed to be.” What is the logical conclusion of this line of thinking? Post-modernism (our current social philosophy) follows it through: rejection of the belief in the human person altogether.