Every action has an equal opposite reaction.
I spent my formative teenage and young adult years in 1980’s/90’s Los Angeles, which seemed to be a ground zero for postmodernism in the United States at the time. In fact, I remember in college hearing a lecture on emerging postmodernity and thinking “that’s not emerging, it’s what I grew up with” (now I would say it’s the water I’ve always been swimming in).
Postmodern ideology influenced “my” Los Angeles in many ways, but where it intersected my life most was in the art I was exposed to: From literature (Joan Didion) to fine art (David Hockney) to architecture (Frank Gehry) to film (David Lynch) to all kinds of music (from punk and post-punk to new wave to gangster rap to the bands being platformed up and down the Sunset strip), the flexible and foundationless suggestions of postmodernism were on display all over the place.
The generations before me often valued structure, and certainty, and “easy” answers. Even the authority-questioning Baby Boomers, who famously said, “never trust anyone over 30”, seemed to wield authority comfortably and confidently and draw hard and fast rules once they crossed that age Rubicon themselves. My generation (or at least the ones I was hanging out with in LA) didn’t buy it. This is just my opinion, but where the Baby Boomers often played around at the edges of postmodernity, Gen X Los Angelenos were postmodern natives.
This week we read Steven Hicks’ Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. This book serves as both a primer on what postmodernism is, as well as a full-throated and well-reasoned critique of it. It’s clear that Hicks has a strong antagonism to postmodern philosophy, and a just-as-strong embrace of the enlightenment project.
I want to lay my cards on the table here and confess that I agree with many of his concerns about postmodernism. I may have grown up swimming in these concepts, but I never could swallow them hook, line, and sinker. For instance, as a Christian, I believe there is such a thing as absolute truth, and that history is the metanarrative of God’s story of redemption. I regularly argue that words carry important meanings, and that there are universal moral laws that cannot be deconstructed.
However, I also want to address something that I didn’t notice in my inspectional reading of this book. To have a post-modernism there needs to be a modernism. A post-something is usually a reaction to whatever that something is. And that is true of post-modernism. Hicks does write about this reaction, but as a fact of history, without explaining why some push-back to modernism may have been justified.
And I believe one of the reasons that postmodernism emerged was to counter parts of modernism that neededto be questioned.
Newton’s third law doesn’t just apply to motion, but to ideologies, too.
And while I would argue that not all parts of modernism needed to be deconstructed, I’d also contend that some did. For all its advances in reason and truth and beauty, modernity was a human-centered endeavor that seemed to squeeze out the mystery and transcendence of an unseen spiritual and supernatural order that is, according to Scripture, very real, and eternal.
Hick’s own description of Modernism is telling: “Modern thinkers start from nature—instead of starting with some form of the supernatural… Modern thinkers stress that perception and reason are the human means of knowing nature—in contrast to the pre-modern reliance upon tradition, faith, and mysticism. Modern thinkers stress human autonomy and the human capacity for forming one’s own character—in contrast to the pre-modern emphasis upon dependence and original sin. Modern thinkers emphasize the individual as the unity of reality, in contrast to the pre-modernist subordination of the individual to religious realities…” (7).
As much as I believe there is universal absolute truth, I also believe that “God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). And I believe that the individualism modernism encourages has been the source of societal problems. I could never fully buy into all aspects of the enlightenment project, so there were (and are) parts of postmodernism that have provided a helpful framework (or enjoyable art) for me.
It would have been helpful if Hicks had given some credit to where postmodernism may have rightly countered parts of the far-swing of the pendulum of modernity. Because he doesn’t, the book reads like a polemic, which may be what it was intended to be, but I think that makes it less useful as an argument that anyone who doesn’t fully subscribe to modernity can engage with.
But just as modernity swung the pendulum one way, postmodernity swung it another way. Ever since I learned about postmodernism, I’ve wondered what the “equal and opposite” cultural reaction to IT is going to be.
I question whether the “postmodern project” is a full movement or if it is a liminal moment between modernity and something else that is yet to be defined. I’ve dipped my toes into conversations surrounding post-postmodernism and transhumanism (only enough to know that the conversations exist not enough to know anything useful about them), and I get the sense that we are on the verge of an emerging movement that hasn’t yet been understood or described, but that will influence the future.
About the Author
Tim Clark
I'm on a lifelong journey of discovering the person God has created me to be and aligning that with the purpose God has created me for. I've been pressing hard after Jesus for 40 years, and I currently serve Him as the lead pastor of vision and voice at The Church On The Way in Los Angeles. I live with my wife and 3 kids in Burbank California.17 responses to “Every action has an equal opposite reaction.”
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Hmmmm…I THINK I am a premodernist without the Spanish Inquisition tendencies. Anyway I am neither a modernist or post modernist. (I am also a baby boomer! – Identity Crisis?)
In the book, truth becomes irrelevant. The authors write, “Post modernism, “seeks not to find the foundation and the conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change.”
Why am I reminded of Judges 21:25, which reads: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes?
I totally see your pendulum/action and reaction thoughts. A response to SOMETHING has brought us here. What next?
Hopefully, IT will have a chance to emerge. Because Conflict is once again becoming the new normal. Prayerfully, we won’t have to relearn the tragedies of war on a global level (oops slipped into glass half empty).
Selah…
Russel, whenever you speak of the possibility of war I pay attention. Your military history and evident deep love for people make me believe you are an expert in this field.
I’m with you brother on the Judges reference. It certainly seems we live in such a world now. Let’s keep giving people an alternative in Jesus.
Tim…after being diametrically opposed to you on my experience of RARE leadership, you will be happy to know that I have ‘seen the light’ and have totally aligned myself with you on Hicks’ book! 🙂
Actually…so much so, that it might look like plagiarism! (I promise it wasn’t). I too felt like Hicks’ set out to not simply ‘explain postmodernism’ but to tear it down, show it as wanting, and recommend his modern ideal instead. That’s totally fine to do, but it does compel me to read him ‘with a grain of salt.’ As the title to my own blog reveals, I believe there is likely things for the church to celebrate and things to challenge in every philosophical world view–modernism and postmodernism included. What sort of good things do you think post-modernity afforded the church, that perhaps modernity did not?
Scott, SO GLAD you’ve seen the light. HAHA.
No plagiarism.. I find me and John often are writing about similar things without knowing it, so I get it.
What a GREAT question: What have been some benefits of postmodernism? I think among other things, a return to uncertainty has allowed for some recognition that there is more than we know out there…mystery is possible again. Also, humility that we might have some things to learn from people who don’t share our starting point.
Tim, based on your questions I did some quick google searching and stumbled upon a thread discussing object-oriented ontology as a possible next step beyond postmodernism. Then I nerded out and went down a rabbit hole. That was yesterday. I finally emerged from the rabbit hole and am here to ask you a slightly different question. Do you see more promotion of individualism in modernism or postmodernism? Or if it is deeply embedded in both, can you nuance the different manifestations for me?
Kim, that’s a really good question. I think individualism was a key progression of modernism, but I don’t think postmodernism reacted to that part as much as progressed it. I think both ideologies embrace it but it would be worth doing a deeper dive into that particular question.
Oh, and did you catch my Hamilton reference in the post title?? 🙂
Aghh, can’t believe I missed the reference! Well done!
Your statement “As much as I believe there is universal absolute truth, I also believe that ‘God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts,’ gave me the excuse to bring in another West Wing quote to this blog. Do you remember the quote from the Episode entitled Faith Based Initiative (s6, ep 10)? It went:
Sen. Wilkinson: “Toby, do you believe the Bible to be literally true?”
Toby: “Yes, sir. But I don’t think either of us is smart enough to understand it.”
For some reason, your reflections on this week’s read brought that into my head. It seems like with all of these ideologies, we are going back and forth between building a house of cards with our own intellect, and then, when it falls apart (as it always does) we throw our hands up and give up on trying altogether.
Totally remember that episode. It’s a great line.
As a pastor I’m in an interesting spot. I have to have enough grasp of the Word to teach it with authority, yet remain humble enough to know that I don’t understand it all.
I feel like that tension is at least partly due to the postmodern ethos I grew up with. Many older generation pastors are incredibly black and white about everything like they have it all figured out. Somewhere I think there is a balanced approached between the certainty of modernism and the uber-flexibility of postmodernism…which is why I’m interested in what might come next.
Tim,
You wrote, “As much as I believe there is universal absolute truth, I also believe that “God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).”
Do you ever wonder how God uses all the movements, theories, philosophies, and eras to make himself more known and draw all people to him?
I love the part in Acts when Paul is preaching in Athens and essentially says something like “God set up history and uses philosophy so that people would end up seeking and finding Him…though He’s right there running after you the whole time”.
So yes, I do wonder how God does it….but I am confident that He does.
By golly…you and I DID attack this blog post nearly the same way. Obviously, great differences exist, and yet we both ask the question of what might be next.
Interestingly, even before clicking on your post or looking at your title, I used the phrase “Every action has an equal opposite reaction” in a blog reply to another peer’s post.
We have to stop sharing a brain!
By golly…you and I DID attack this blog post nearly the same way. Obviously, great differences exist, and yet we both ask the question of what might be next.
Interestingly, even before clicking on your post or looking at your title, I used the phrase “Every action has an equal opposite reaction” in a blog reply to another peer’s post.
We have to stop sharing a brain!
NOTE: FOR SOME REASON I CAN’T POST THIS BECAUSE IT SAYS THAT I HAVE ALREADY POSTED A SIMILAR COMMENT, WHICH I HAVE NOT, BUT THIS DUMB COMPUTER SOFTWARE SAYS I HAVE…SO WILL WRITE SOMETHING LONG AND IN ALL CAPS AND SEE IF THIS IS ACCEPTABLE….HITTING “SEND” AGAIN…
FOR SOME REASON I GOT YOUR COMMENT TWICE.
That’s fine…it get’s my comment count up! That’s what we’re all hoping for, right?? 🙂
I think one of the reasons we so often come up with the same stuff isn’t just because we’re friends, but we share so much of the same leadership and life context and we see things from a pastoral perspective that lends to overlap like this.
What a great response and examination of the book man. Hicks has great points, but fails to acknowledge any type of value or reason my postmodernism emerged. Does it go to far at times (just like all movements) absolutely, but can it help balance out some of the unhealthy and overreactive bits of the Enlightenment, for sure. A lot of wisdom in your post.
Thanks Adam… a lot of wisdom in yours, too.
In fact, I commented on your post that I was essentially trying to say what you said, you just said it better.
I didn’t have space to add this in my post but a huge Frank Gehry designed building was built within eyesight of my backyard (it’s the Warner Bros offices). The building looks like it’s “in motion” and falling down even though it’s standing still. It’s actually super cool artistically. But the building is built SUPER solidly.
I wonder if some parts of postmodernism that look to some like it’s just falling apart actually has more sound archetecture supporting it than some imagine? (just some musing…)