In college, I remember the anxiety surrounding two semesters of philosophy and how many times I wanted to drop out of the course with the quickness. The problem, what I labored intently to retain, fell to the ground with expediency shortly after grasping the content. Despite my endless excavation into the subject matter and a willingness to press on and persevere at the height of my lowest point, I can recall my professor calling me into his office and slowly delivering me a sober line, relax, Daren, you are just peering into someone else\u2019s way of thinking. This week, I pressed rewind and recalled my professor’s timeless tip. I am just peering into someone else\u2019s thinking. Enter Stephen R.C. Hicks and his book explaining Postmodernism.<\/p>\n
Hicks’s thesis centers on the notion The failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible. [1]\u00a0<\/i>Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge.<\/span>\u00a0Hicks asserts modernism did not carry through on its promise of providing an epistemological justification for science and reason.<\/i><\/b>[2]<\/p>\n As Postmodernism is his focus, Hicks highlights two significant periods, modernism and enlightenment, claiming a departure occurred from modernist thinking, which he believes ended in and about the 17th Century. Modernism emphasizes experience and reason as our fundamental cognitive capacities, as opposed to the medieval emphasis on faith and authority. You also began to see a much more optimistic view of human nature, of human potential, and of our core capacities for self-realization. [3]<\/p>\n The Enlightenment era took hold in the eighteenth century. Enlightenment refers to the eighteenth century when all those modernistic trends\u2014naturalism, optimism about human progress, the institutionalization of science, free markets, and so forth\u2014came to dominate intellectual and cultural life. <\/i><\/b>[4] In Hicks\u2019s view, \u201cThe battle between modernism and the philosophies that led to postmodernism was joined at the height of the Enlightenment\u201d\u2014with its innovation and progress in science and technology, its liberal politics, and its free markets, which were all made possible by a confidence in the power of reason.[5]<\/p>\n Hicks believes postmodernism arrived through the rejection of reason. <\/i>As I think about the rejection of reason, a question arose in my mind for Hicks, can a Methodist be a postmodernist? The Methodist Doctrine is formed under the banner of John Wesley and The Wesleyan Quadrilateral. This framework for theological understanding uses Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience as its four sources of authority to inform and ground a Christian\u2019s beliefs and subsequent practices. If Methodists believe in reason, how does one fit in the postmodern conversation? I am also reminded of another tremendous theological reformer who comes to mind from weeks past Bebbington, and his writing, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. <\/em>Bebbington introduces us to another quadrilateral of conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism. He cites Evangelicalism\u2019s evolution into the 18th and 19th century being shaped admittedly by the influences of John Wesley and George Whitefield. Bebbington also credited evangelicalism\u2019s role in social causes but also put a mirror up against modernity and how Evangelicalism diversified in its approach to social and cultural change.<\/p>\n A point of conflict I took note of was when Hicks, a liberal arts professor at Rockford College, made a correlation between Postmodernists and those in the political sphere. He observes that postmodernists are monolithically Left-wing in their politics [6] Hicks’s position is not without skepticism or scrutiny. One person taking exception to this is Scott Sumner, a professor at Bentley College and a noted blogger. In a blog titled Postmodernism is not an inherently left-wing ideology, Sumner rebuffs, This is also my view; the postmoderns are philosophically right about truth and they are wrong about politics. [7]<\/p>\n Sumner later concluded that what happened was the result of cultural wars. Giving a closer look, he goes on to say, The second cultural war is . . . between those who see modern liberal society as vitally flawed (the people handily lumped together as \u2018postmodernists\u2019) and typical left-wing Democrat professors like myself, people who see ours as a society in which technology and democratic institutions can, with luck, collaborate to increase equality and decrease suffering. [8]<\/p>\n As Sumner speaks of collaboration, I gave thought to a few questions:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1] Stephen R.C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism, Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. <\/em>Orlando, FL: Ockham\u2019s Razor Publishing, 2014<\/p>\n [2] The Atlas Society, The Postmodern Assault on Reason. Accessed March 18,2025. https:\/\/www.atlassociety.org\/post\/the-postmodern-assault-on-reason<\/em><\/p>\n [3] Ibid.<\/p>\n [4] Ibid.<\/p>\n [5] Hicks, 22-23.<\/p>\n [6] Hicks, 84.<\/p>\n [7] Sumner, Scott, Postmodernism Is Not An Inherently Left Wing Ideology. <\/em>Accessed March 18, 2025, https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/postmodernism-is-not-an-inherently-left-wing-ideology\/<\/p>\n [8] Sumner, Scott, Postmodernism Is Not An Inherently Left Wing Ideology. Accessed March 18, 2025, https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/postmodernism-is-not-an-inherently-left-wing-ideology\/<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In college, I remember the anxiety surrounding two semesters of philosophy and how many times I wanted to drop out of the course with the quickness. The problem, what I labored intently to retain, fell to the ground with expediency shortly after grasping the content. Despite my endless excavation into the subject matter and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3437],"class_list":["post-41303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hicks-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41314,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41303\/revisions\/41314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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