Trying to Understand 6: Post-Modernism

Summary: Post-modernism follows the degeneration of thought to its logical conclusion. Protestantism forsook the anchor of truth that Truth Himself gave to us in the Church. The Enlightenment went a step further and forsook God as the source and end of truth. Modernism took the next logical step and concluded that if objective truth had no First Cause, then it must all be relative. There is not basis for transcendent truth without God. Finally, post-modernism brings us to the logical end. If all truth is relative, then there is no reason to believe in objective truth at all. In fact, we have no basis for even believing that we objectively exist as persons. If we don’t exist as persons, then subjective truth cannot exist either. Therefore, post-modernism makes the claim that no truth exists at all. The “person” must let go of the restrictions of personal identity that can be used for control in order to become free.

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Many Catholics assume that anyone who believes in modernism or post-modernism must be insane, lacking basic logic, or politically driven to ignore the obvious truth. However, I have found that the “Fathers of Post-Modernism” are actually quite intelligent. Neither do I believe that they are consciously ignoring reality. Post-modernists are intelligent and aware enough not to try to define reality in a vacuum. In fact, the theories/models that they developed to support their viewpoint are wondrously complex and deep. They could only have been developed by very intelligent thinkers. The problem with modernism and post-modernism is that they begin with a faulty premise (actually, a number of them, as we have seen). If your premise is faulty, your theory is faulty. Modernism’s main battle cry was the dissolution of the ideals of transcendent truth. Modernists blamed these ideals for all of the ills of the 20th century world – world war, poverty, exploitation of the poor, urbanization, pollution, and intolerance. Eradicate these ideals and you avoid these problems. As the 21st century approached, the intellectual world pretty much considered the ideals of transcendent truth dead. Literature, art, architecture, and politics had all embraced the idea that truth is relative and situational. Tolerance had become the new Golden Rule. Victory was theirs, right? There is only one problem. The very nature of modernism meant that intellectuals could not rest. The goal of the intellectual life was no longer to discover truth – that would be to admit that there was such a thing as objective truth. In fact, for Foucault and others, the goal was to never cease moving. The moment you stopped changing your thought system, the cultural powers would catch up to you and try to make your thought process “normative” of their power structure. So once the goals of modernism were fulfilled, new ideas needed to be created. New thoughts needed to be generated. New theories needed to define who we were. Despite their desire to think up something utterly new and unexpected, these new ideas followed a logical progression.

The “fathers” of post-modernism have constructed thought systems to explain the logical conclusion of what has been handed down to them by their intellectual predecessors.

Tree of Knowledge vs. Rhizome of Ideas
For the sake of simplicity, I’m only going to describe one post-modernist theory, the one I consider central to understanding post-modernism as a whole. The model for knowing truth that stems from Catholic and even enlightenment understanding is often represented by a tree. The root of the tree is the Principle that tells us what is fundamentally real. The trunk of the tree is the route through which truth becomes known to us (I would consider the trunk to consist of philosophy, science, and divine revelation). The branches of the tree represent the many areas of study that lead us to the truth. The leaves of the tree represent our many ideas about what the truth is. Therefore, according to this model every idea is ultimately rooted in the fundamental Truth.

A rhizome is a plant system with a network of roots. There is no beginning and no end. A rhizome spreads randomly, flowing here and there at whim. Most grasses are rhizomes. Post-modernism uses the rhizome as their model of “truth.” Truth is a collection of ideas that spread randomly, flow here and there at whim, and are not rooted to any transcendent standards of truth.

The key is that all ideas are rhizomes, including our very sense of self. Post-modernists do not believe that our sense of self is real. In order for it to be real, it would have to be rooted in a transcendent principle of personhood. Since there are no transcendent principles, even the self must be up for interpretation and re-interpretation.

So, let’s say you’re walking through the woods and you see a tree. You put your hand on the tree and an ant walks onto your hand. According to post-modernism, the idea of “you” walking through a “forest,” putting your “hand” on a “tree” and having an “ant” crawl on it is only one way of organizing the constituent ideas. We could conceivably rearrange these ideas in such a way that completely disassembles the idea of the “self.” For example, we could regroup “hand,” “bark” and “ant” in to a single unit. The self is no longer relevant. The experience becomes simply “hand-ant-bark.” I’ll explore ideas about the “self” in a later post. The main point here is that the idea of “self” is not necessary according to post-modernists. In fact, it can be an impediment, or even dangerous. The “self” is used by the cultural powers to track and control ideas and not allow new organizations.

To me, the logical problems with this argument are obvious. If we get rid of the self, then who is the agent doing the rearranging of ideas? In fact, post-modernists go to great lengths to prove that there is not such thing as a moral or intellectual agent. Then who decides how packets of ideas are arranged? What makes up the power that tries to control the ideas? Without a “person” to analyze and arrange ideas, their theory makes no sense. Unfortunately, such appeals to logic fall on deaf ears when it comes to post-modernists. After all, they have thrown away the very basis for logic. Logic doesn’t matter to a post-modernist.

I’m guessing that most Catholics have never heard the complete post-modernist theory, even though they may have heard the terms “modernism” and “post-modernism” berated in Catholic media. However, the effects of modernism and post-modernism are everywhere. Why has modern feminism rejected the idea of gender roles? Gender roles assume that the ideas of “male” and “female” are rooted in transcendent principles that tell us what it really means to be a man and a woman. Why do reconstructionist historians think that they have the right and duty to reinterpret history even if the reinterpretation ignores or distorts certain facts? Historical “truth” is not rooted on any transcendent truth that allows us to interpret historical facts in any “real” way. Therefore, historical facts should be interpreted in a way that denies the cultural powers the ability to manipulate facts in their favor. Morality, art, and literature have also been greatly affected by these thought systems. At some time in the future, I’ll explore each of these areas. We’ll look at the development of thought in each area and explore how the issue came to its current thought.

My next post will be the last in this first string of “trying to understand” posts. In it, I will explain how the descent to subjectivism could have been avoided, and how we might reclaim our grasp on truth.