Society & Culture

Posted with permission from Sunesis.

There are several characteristics of postmodernism that lie at the foundation of this worldview. Just as in the previous two meta-worldviews (premodernism and modernism), not everyone accepts all of these. Nevertheless, we can see some similarities among the postmoderns and draw at least some general conclusions.

Gene Veith has identified five key steps that have been taken in the movement toward postmodernism. First is Abandonment; this is antinomianism, a rejection of morality and objectivity of any kind. This is predicated on relativism. Truth is not fixed and objective, but variable and relative. Truth is personal—something can be true for one person but not true for another. This “personal” aspect of truth has to be limited, however, for the individual is not important in postmodernism. It takes a village to raise a child; so it takes a community to establish truth. Thus truth is societal—truth is determined by society, not by individuals. As one put it, “Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.” Second is Truancy. The best means of avoiding problems is to retreat from them. Our government has become adept at refusing to actually deal with a problem, but rather simply allow the problem to continue to an indefinite future point when “we will take care of it then.” Individuals become dependent on someone else to solve their problems, for they have lost the ability or the will to fend for themselves.