Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 4.1
What you will learn
- Explain why postmodernism is difficult to define and who uses the word.
- Describe the modern outlook that postmodern thinkers reacted against.
- State the main themes associated with Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida in terms they would accept.
- Separate postmodernism as a set of ideas from postmodernism as a mood in culture.
The big idea
Postmodernism is not a single doctrine, and most of the thinkers called postmodern rejected the label. The term names a mood of suspicion toward grand stories, claims to neutral reason and fixed meanings, together with a set of philosophical arguments about language, power and interpretation. Some of those arguments make serious points that Christians can accept. Others, taken to the limit, are hard to live by, and critics say they undermine themselves. A fair study asks which claim is being made before agreeing or disagreeing.
Key terms
- Modernity
- The outlook that arose from the Enlightenment, trusting reason, science and progress to give knowledge and improve life.
- Postmodernism
- A loose name for late twentieth century thought and culture that doubts the modern confidence in universal reason, progress and fixed truth.
- Metanarrative
- A large story that claims to explain all of history and give meaning to it, such as progress or Marxism. Lyotard defined postmodernism as incredulity toward such stories.
- Deconstruction
- A method of reading, associated with Jacques Derrida, that shows how a text depends on distinctions it cannot fully hold stable.
- Discourse
- In Foucault, the system of statements and practices through which a field speaks of its subject, shaping what can be said and known.
- Hermeneutics of suspicion
- A phrase of Paul Ricoeur for reading that asks what interests or hidden forces lie behind a claim.
- Social construction
- The idea that many features of social life, such as categories and roles, are made by human societies and not simply given by nature.
Background
The word postmodern was used in art and architecture before it came into philosophy. In 1979 the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard published The Postmodern Condition, a report on knowledge in advanced societies, and summarized the mood as incredulity toward metanarratives. Michel Foucault wrote about the links of knowledge and power, and Jacques Derrida wrote about language and the instability of meaning. The American philosopher Richard Rorty argued that philosophy should give up the hope of a mirror of nature. None of them wrote the same thing.
The ideas moved into universities, then into art, film, advertising and popular talk. In that spread, subtle arguments often became slogans such as there is no truth or everyone has his own truth. A Christian reader should be careful to ask whether a given writer said that, or whether the slogan came from later popularizers.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: What came before
Modernity, as it developed from Descartes and Kant, put the individual reasoner at the center. It hoped that careful method could produce certain knowledge and that science and politics could improve human life. The modern view of truth was that statements correspond to reality and that anyone using reason can in principle reach them.
The twentieth century shook this confidence. Two world wars, the Holocaust and the use of science in weapons led many to ask whether reason and progress had been oversold. Philosophers also asked how far human concepts are shaped by language and by a person’s place in history.
Step 2: Three representative thinkers
Lyotard argued that the great stories of progress and emancipation had lost credibility, and that knowledge was now justified by usefulness. Foucault argued that what counts as knowledge is bound up with power. His studies of madness, medicine and prisons showed how institutions shape what is considered normal. Derrida argued that meaning in language is never fully fixed, because words depend on other words and on contexts that cannot be closed off. He denied that he said there is nothing outside the text in the sense of denying the world, and he said the phrase meant that there is no context-free reading.
These are brief summaries of complex writers. Each has defenders who say that popular accounts distort their work, and critics who say that the work leads to relativism despite their intentions.
Step 3: The common themes
Several themes recur. Knowledge is perspectival, meaning that it is always gained from somewhere. Language does not simply mirror reality. Power shapes what is said to be true. Marginal voices have been silenced by dominant stories. Identities and categories are partly made by society. Each theme has a strong form, which is disputed, and a weaker form, which many people accept.
The weak form says that people are limited, that interests distort, and that humility is needed. The strong form says that there is no way for any claim to be better than another, or that truth is only power. The strong form is hard to hold consistently, since the claim that everything is power is itself offered as true.
Step 4: Postmodernism as mood and as argument
As a mood, postmodernism is irony, distrust of authority, playfulness and the mixing of styles. As an argument, it is a body of claims about knowledge. Many people who sound postmodern would not accept the arguments if asked, and many who accept the arguments are not playful at all.
It is useful to keep a list of claims, and to ask of each: is this a claim about psychology (people are biased), about language (meaning is unstable), about society (power shapes knowledge), or about truth itself (there is none)? The first three are often defensible. The fourth is the one that matters most to Christians, and it is the one that is most controversial.
- Which thinker is being cited, and did he say this?
- Is the claim about human limits in knowing or about truth itself?
- Does the claim apply to itself?
- What is true in the suspicion of power, and what is overdrawn?
- How would the speaker live if the claim were true?
- What would a modern rationalist reply, and what would a Christian reply?
Examples
The weak form
A historian notes that textbooks in his country were written by the victors and omit the experience of the defeated. He rewrites a chapter to include them. He still believes there is a true account to find. (A constructed example of a weak postmodern insight.)
The strong form
A student says that all history is just stories told by the powerful, so no account is better than another. When asked whether the statement itself is true, she hesitates. (A constructed example.)
Mood without argument
A television comedy mocks every institution, politicians, churches and its own plot. Viewers laugh and take away no explicit theory. The show expresses the mood. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Postmodern thinkers
Many of those called postmodern say that they do not deny reality but reject claims to a view from nowhere. They say that they seek to uncover hidden assumptions and to give voice to those who have been excluded. Derrida described deconstruction as a kind of justice. They would object to being described as nihilists.
Catholic
John Paul II in Fides et Ratio criticized a nihilistic strand in some contemporary thought, while welcoming the recognition of the limits of reason. Catholic thinkers such as Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, warned of a dictatorship of relativism. Others, such as Jean-Luc Marion, have drawn on phenomenology to speak of God as a gift beyond metaphysical categories.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology has long spoken of the limits of language about God, and the apophatic tradition says that God exceeds all concepts. For some Orthodox writers this resembles a postmodern humility, but they hold that it does not remove truth, since the truth is a person, Christ (John 14:6). Others see in postmodernism the end of a secular project that Orthodox theology never accepted.
Protestant
Protestants disagree. Some, such as Francis Schaeffer, warned that the loss of truth threatens the gospel. Others, such as James K. A. Smith in Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism, argue that Christians can use Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault to criticize the idolatry of autonomous reason, since Christian faith also depends on a story and a community. Reformed philosophers argue that Christians should be open about their starting points.
Why it matters
The student will meet postmodern ideas everywhere, from universities to social media. To answer them well, he needs to know which parts are insight and which are overreach, and he needs to avoid answering slogans as if they were arguments. Christians have both something to learn from the movement and something to correct in it.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Postmodernists deny that the physical world exists.
Correction: Most do not. Their claims concern knowledge, language, power and interpretation. Some popular summaries and some extreme statements gave the contrary impression.
Misunderstanding: Postmodernism is the same as moral relativism.
Correction: Some postmodern thinkers are relativists and others strongly press moral claims, as Foucault and Derrida did on questions of justice. The two are related and separable.
Misunderstanding: Postmodernism is a coherent movement with a creed.
Correction: It is a family of attitudes and arguments. Its main thinkers disagree, and several rejected the label.
Misunderstanding: Christians should simply reject postmodernism.
Correction: Christians are divided. Some accept its criticism of arrogant rationalism while rejecting its denial of truth.
Knowledge check
What did Lyotard mean by incredulity toward metanarratives?
In The Postmodern Condition he described the mood of the age as a loss of belief in grand stories that explain all of history and justify knowledge, such as progress or the liberation of humanity. He did not mean that no one believes anything. He meant that no single story is any longer widely accepted as legitimate.
What is the difference between a weak and a strong form of postmodern claims?
The weak form says that knowledge is limited by perspective, that language shapes thought and that power can distort what counts as truth. The strong form says that no claim can be better than another, or that truth is only power. The weak form is widely accepted. The strong form is disputed and has trouble applying to itself.
Why is postmodernism hard to define?
Because it names a mood, a set of arguments and a period at once, and the thinkers grouped under it differ widely. Many of them did not accept the label. The term also moved from art and architecture into philosophy and then into popular speech, where slogans replaced arguments.
Name one thing a Christian may learn and one thing he may question.
A Christian may learn humility about human knowledge and suspicion of how power uses religion, as the prophets also warned. He may question the claim that there is no truth beyond interpretation, since the Christian faith claims that the truth is a person, Christ, and that Christ’s resurrection is a real event.
Think it through
- Where have you heard a postmodern slogan, and what was it?
- When have you seen power shape what is called truth, in the church or outside?
- Is there a statement you hold that would be false if everything were perspective?
- What would the prophets say about the suspicion of power?
Independent assignment
Sorting claims
In your notebook, write down eight statements that you have heard that sound postmodern, such as all truth is relative or history is written by the winners. Sort them into claims about psychology, language, society and truth. Write 300 to 400 words on which you accept, which you reject and which you cannot yet judge. Do not send it.
Further study
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hermeneutics Read for the background on interpretation and meaning.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fallacies Use to test slogans such as everything is relative for self-reference.
- Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief Read selectively for the argument that everyone starts from basic beliefs.
- Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Read for the apophatic tradition on the limits of language about God.
- John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life.
- 1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see through a glass, darkly.
- Isaiah 10:1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees.