Wow. This is stunningly good, Huw--I think I'll print this out and keep it in hard copy form.

Thank you! I hope it makes sense! When I wrote it last night I kept falling asleep at the keyboard and, upon waking up, having to delete things like "aannnnnnnnnnnnn! @2222222222222"

Even this AM, I'm not sure if it all works. Thank you again for your compliments.

this post only makes sense if you strictly reduce post-modern themes into one category... that of a strict politic of equality, and then critique the reduction itself based on the very reasons why you created the reduction in the first place.

which is to say, i think
"postmodernism" is too broad a category to reduce it in the way that you have. i mean, you CAN make that reduction, its just important to note that you are using the same process and methods as those who reduce postmodernism to a type of cure-all. ie, the christians (mostly evangelical) who champion postmodernism as the cure for what ails the 'church' travel the same reductionist route as you have. just different conclusion. in both cases, the reduction itself is i think problematic.

there are themes that are addressed in the writings of many "postmodern" writers (ie, levinas, gadamer, the russian orthodox bakhtin, etc...) that are beautiful, timely, and i think are even in harmony with certain basic categories of Orthodox faith.

i actually think that for the Orthodox christian, there is significant overlap and intriguing connections between some of these themes and our faith.

further, this is not true for all, but there ARE those in the evangelical traditions who have actually come to Orthodox faith via wrestling with some of these themes.

at any rate, i entirely agree with you however on one significant point. that of recognizing difference and letting the differences stand. .. juxtaposing difference and letting the tension remain.

(side note: fr schmemann has some great words on the politics of equality in his journals... particularly how it relates to gender. it applies here, i think.)

lastly, one can agree with your critique on the politic of equality and the homogenization of the culture and still find immense value in certain 'postmodern' themes. i just dont understand the tendancy to either wholeheartedly accept OR reject in its entirety a topic as immense and, indeed, increasingly vague as "postmodernism".

seraphim o:

I agree with much that you say. I think my take on pomo thought would tend to emphasize not sameness/equality--that seems to early to middle modern--but rather particularity. In other words, it seems to me that pomo thought tends to "correct" the universalizing tendencies of modernism by emphasizing the particularity. Think in terms of multi-culturalism, diversity/inclusivity, and other current mantras.

However, what pomo-ism does is to at once emphasize the differences, then negate any real meaning in the differences. However, pomo-ism cannot escape, in a backhanded way, the universalizing it aims to undermine. For all the differences are levelled into either meaninglinessness (for more radical forms of pomo-ism) or sincerity (for more hopeful kinds).

I agree that there are certain themes that do resonate with Orthodoxy. But I'm suspicious of their utility. One must be careful of the tools one uses, and be aware of the consequences attendant with the toolbox.

yeah but i'm not sure it's a san francisco whitewash on stng ... there all real differences between charaters - tasha yar, the b'joran ensign, and some of the characters met along the way. but exploring difference isn't the theme of stng, rather, the point of stng is can we see ourselves in the other. in many ways this is more modern than post modern ... clifton is right about this if not his characterization of pomo thought which in general is more anti-universalizing than he allows for. so even when they confront the crystal entity the point is to try and communicate - to bridge particularity and establish a point of conversation. i don't think that stng is an empty ecumenicity rather it is a habermasian paradise. picard's modern answer to q's deconstructive questioning follows the same logic. i'd love it if churches could engage in that kind of dialogue.

First, I ask your forgiveness. I had a lot of pseudo reponses to post to this conversation and most of them kind of made me feel angry: and I'm not even clear why I wanted to feel that way.

I guess I need to say that for me PoMo is a catch all for most of the things I don't like about the gender-neuter, everyone-is-equal, PC society in which we seem to sojourn. I have no other shorthand for it.

It may not be Postmodernism as a scholarly field: it may just be my very unscholarly mind's attempt to picture what all those odd sounding words must mean. But to my increasingly pre-modern world view, it's anathema.

I see that my blockage may prevent me from engaging in dialogue on this: but I confess I see no reason at all to engage.

The Church's Truth increasingly can not be said to people who deny not only the reality of Truth but the very meaning of the word. Again, those people may not be postmodernists in the philosophical sense of the word, but their world view rises from thence, as surely as Facsicm drew from certain nilistic philosophers. I no longer speak their languge of Babel.

At my office we have a huge banner naming "integrity" as one of our values. But we are asked to tell lies to the Customers all the time. Integrity, in that context, seems to mean "telling the same lies and being able to trust your coworkers to back you up." The server is undergoing a planned outage for repair. We're sorry this has disrupted your evening. To me this kind of double speak is postmodernism: not in a philosophical sense, perhaps, but rather "where the rubber meets the road."

For a truly chilling illustration of postmodernism in action (and the horrible things it leads to), read "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. It's the third book in the Space Trilogy, but it stands alone as a warning of the dangers our society faces today.

Plus it's just a ripping good read.

Welcome, Joanna! and INDEED! CSL certainly! Another good commentary is "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future" by the blessed Father Serpahim (Rose). If CSL is prefiguring in THS, Fr. Seraphim is a "you are there" commentary through the new age and ecumenical silliness of the 70s.

We had a long discussion here this summer about CSL's trilogy. He was most prophetic in that material: I've worked in that school.

There were a few readers: here's my material, if anyone is interested, but others may wish to identify themsleves as members of the CSL Summer reading group...

http://www.doxos.com/weblog.php?id=C0_12_1

to the comment "postmodernism in action"... i am quite confused. i don't know what that phrase could possibly mean.

again, the word 'postmodern' is used to mean so many different competing and divergent things that it really has very little meaning left in it. i don't think its a a helpful word to use when talking 'about' the culture 'out there'.

a lie to a customer at work is a lie, no? i suppose it *could* be a post-modern lie, but it could just as well be a modern or a pre-modern lie. i suppose 'postmodernism' could be the cause of the lie... but people have been telling lies ever since cain and able.

and i'm not trying to be sarcastic... i'm simply questioning the continued reduction.

A lie is a lie. Yes. But the twisted way in which it is called "integrity" seems to me postmodern. It is a reduction, although, as I noted I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I will keep on using the term, but please don't confuse it with any academic field. It seems to me a useable lay shorthand.

NOW. Having said that - your question confuses me. To you mean to say that you do not know of a place in post-modern thought where "the rubber meets the road"? Is there no such thing as "post-modernism (as the academic field) *is* in action?"

huw, i wrote this extremely long detailed response, and my computer crashed as i hit preview, and i lost it all. don't have the energy to re-write it all!

from one of my morning prayers:
"in unforseen events, let me not forget that they are all sent by You..."

i'll simply leave it with what i've already stated... postmodernism is a word used by so many people (and not merely in academia) in so many contradictory and different ways that it really doesn't mean very much.

a merely blanket critique or affirmation of "postmodernism" seems to me like an oceanographer saying "water is the problem with all of the worlds oceans".

OK, now I understand the objection: although, I'll (slightly) disagree one more time (hehehe) and ask your opinion of the disagreement:

Is there a useable and blogable word that encompasses what, I think, is a world view that rather likes seekers, but not finders, rather likes to redefine words into meaninglessness, rather likes to insist that all turth is relative and rather likes to say that the only real good is what feels good (so do it)? It includes gender-neuterists, the "gay agenda," the "conservative-for-the-sake of the-way-daddy-did-it" agenda (rather than a religious, truth-based moral agenda), the revolution for the sake of revolution agenda, as well as the general big brother agenda found on both the left and the right.

For me, that is the PoMo thing we're discussing. It is a near-meaningless reduction, I admit, but I'd welcome a shorthand. It's all evil. It's the "Current World-View" or "(post)Modern culture" or.... ???

Is there a useable and blogable word that encompasses... all the things you listed?

well, your list assumes a very specific politic and a very intentional agenda. the list is actually less a true list, and more of a critique in-and-of-itself. while i may share elements of that critique, i just can't, with any kind of intellectual integrity, see the word 'postmodernism' as fitting your list.

there are just so many things that aren't entirely clear to me. ie, when you talk about the importance of "truth"... can you clarify? these days, the 'truth about the truth' just isn't what it used to be.

people are increasingly making distinctions between truth as concept and idea VS trust as personal or communal encounter and experience.

in looking at your list... i wonder if perhaps the phrase is something like neo-liberalism social agendas. but the trouble with that phrase is once you reduce issues to right/left or liberal/conservative... the conversation is immediately polarized and most often a dead end.

so... i honsetly don't have a good catch-all phrase for you. perhaps in part because i don't think catch-all phrases are very helpful, nor are blanket-critiques of entire swaths of society. specificity and clarity seems more powerful than generalizations.

but that's just me. yet even in reading your blog... when you are specific and/or personal, you are brilliant. you have tremendous insight, passion, sensitivity in the things you write and care about. yet there seems to be an underlying anger beneath the surface of your more general political critiques. ie, that you have been impacted quite personally by these issues. and when you write about THAT...the personal impact and your struggles in the midst... you often do it with an amazingly articulate grace.

but what do i know? and who am i to say such things?

mainly tho, while we can disagree about the use of the terms postmodern, i love your blog and am very grateful for it and you. honored to call you brother.

Yup, I think we can disagree then. Indeed, most "wide-swath fitting" words come after the fact: hindsight sees a pattern and notes the ironic connection between the Facists of Germany and the facists of Stalin's Russia... and recently the ties, too, with the ubernationalism that developed in the US and the UK. But in the midst of the war, I'd have been out fighting for the "right side" and have freely used my propaganda skills for the "right" nationalism. So, ok: I think I'm trying to paint a picture of something (a culture) we can only *really* see from the historical future.

I do ask your forgiveness if I offended you. I know I'm prone to do that - especially on things that touch me personally. At times I forget to seek the Peace that Passeth Understanding as a place from which to reach out to others and rather reach out from my anger.

Thank you for your very kind words about me - a ranter rather than a pray-er - and my blog!

I am equally honored to call you brother. Maybe the ESOB can meet in Dixie next year.