Part 4: Symbolism & Absolutes
Metamodern thinking cannot traffic in “absolutes” out of humility. “Absolute” is not a functioning word for a generation who is willing to admit that they don’t know everything. In modernism we thought we knew everything, or could know everything, but we’ve come full circle and the result is that no one wants to be so brazen as to make that claim anymore.
It was a notion of modernism that absolutes were discoverable and held authority. However, the affects of modernism on the globe have been catastrophic. History has proven that what we thought to be “absolute” birthed evil. The following is the personified voice of postmodernism mocking modernism – revealing its core flaws. While it is a bit crass, it drives home the point, and will eventuate in a positive conversation:
“If your truth is so universal…how come your modern, universal worldview has oppressed so many people and animals?
YOU CALL THAT ENLIGHTENMENT?
Let’s start with indigenous cultures. So when modern civilization showed up at Greenland and “civilized” the Inuits (by the hand of those pesky Danes), their culture crumbled like a house of cards. Unbelievable misery ensued and many of them became alcoholics at the very bottom of Danish “modern” society. If you go a little farther back in time, the Europeans consciously and deliberately conquered and exploited others in the name of civilization and modernity, claiming that this was the scientifically supported order of things. But even if you don’t go back to colonialism, today most indigenous and traditional cultures around the world are taking heavy hits as they face an endless onslaught of commercialization, instrumentalization, bureaucratization and social degradation. Are those just road kill on the path to the universal truth you say you found in a high school physics class?
Or how about the process of modernization itself. You said there are no science wars. But did you ever notice there are other wars going on, stemming directly from the vanity of the modern project? Look at how China and the Soviet Union modernized – millions and millions of people died. Oh, that wasn’t realmodernization? Only Western modernization is real? They did become modern countries, you know. And what about the US, if it’s so enlightened, how come its black book of human rights abuses is so thick? Those victims don’t get a say in the universal truth found in chemistry 101? Speaking of chemistry, did you know that the British Empire started using chemical dyes and then instantly collapsed the Indian indigo cloth dye market – that the Empire had created – and let millions starve to death? Oh, that wasn’t real modernity either, was it? How about the Indian traditional society, they don’t get a say on this? Do you know that the biggest and bloodiest war going on right now is in the Congo? A long-term result of some of the worst atrocities in recorded history, committed by enlightened, modern Westerners who used their oh-so-hailed rationality to force native Africans to produce cocoa and rubber instead of food so that you can enjoy that delicious fine Belgian chocolate. Have you thought about that? Oh, and where do the minerals in your Smartphone come from?
….Or how about the patients? Modern medicine is powerful, you’re right. Vaccines are good, most of the time. But the history of modern medicine is a marathon of abuses by doctors who were convinced they had objective science on their side. How much power have they not misused to lobotomize and lock up and castrate people – until political, not scientific, currents in society changed? Oh, those patients were weak and crazy. They don’t get a perspective on universal truth, of course.” – Hanzi Freinacht
Until the late 1990s, scientists thought that gravity must be slowing down the expansion of the universe. “Recent discoveries told us that the universe is flying apart—faster and faster,” It changed everything we ever knew about the cosmos. (article here).
Thus, axioms are true until proven wrong, and replaced with new axioms. This proves their imperfect relationship to reality.
When it comes to theological axiom & moral absolutes we are faced with a similar cultural response. In essence, do doctrines merely prescribe morals on the basis of right and wrong, or can morals be derived from a deeper (multi-faceted) relationship to reality?
At first pass it might sound like I’m being wishy-washy, or dismissing the notion that truth needs to be taught and adhered to. However, I’m actually pointing to our hypocrisy as Christians where we preach but don’t walk. Its easy to talk about love, but in this generation, if the church does not incarnate love, it has already passed out of the minds and hearts of the people.
The idea of “truth” being understood as a person rather than a teaching, means we require a more direct connection to our Teacher. It doesn’t change who Jesus is, it just swipes the baggage of church tradition off the table so we can begin again to radically follow Him.
In the end, the world has been rightly humbled by modernism. We meet them by being humbled by the same thing and stripping ourselves of an authority that Jesus did not sanction. Do we know Truth? Yes, in part (I Cor. 13:9-12). Do we speak Truth? Yes, according to the revelation of the Scriptures. Do we have the corner on Absolutes? Only God does. We’re the followers. Let’s slow down our pace and keep in step with those whom we are seeking to share Jesus with.