The Postmodern Embrace 2
To quote one of my favorite poems:
Last week I tried to argue that some within Evangelical Christianity have embraced the very aspect of postmodernism that they claim to hate: the denial of truth. More accurately, what is denied is the ability to know truth. Most Christians still will argue that truth exists. But where they now take advantage of postmodernism’s worldview is, they will pick and choose which truths to embrace by claiming that inconvenient facts are not facts at all. Either the media, or the scientific establishment, or vast conspiracies are making things up. We don’t trust our reality, our worldview, to hold up to the scrutiny of reality, so we curate our own version.
But I also said that I can think of at least three events of the past couple decades that have led us here:
The first was The People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson in 1995.
I don’t need to recap the events surrounding the OJ case. Even 25 years later they are ubiquitous in our culture. At the time of the trail, perceptions seemed to be divided along racial lines. But in the years since, it has become fairly well believed by all the he was guilty of the murders he was accused of. And, many would argue that was true at the time as well. The issue for the minority population at the time was not OJ’s guilt, but rather the brokenness of the system. Even to this day it is simple to demonstrate that minorities get unfair treatment in the United States. So, when the jury declared OJ “not guilty,” what they were really saying was that the institutions in America had been found wanting.
There is a whole lot to unpack and debate in that previous paragraph. Even now in 2020 we are faced with yet another high-profile case appearing to expose the ever-present racism in our culture. However, for the purposes of this though experiment only one thing is relevant:
At the time of the OJ trial in America, a portion of the population declared that truth, reality, and the facts of the case were secondary to other—more important to them—issues. Did OJ kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman? It didn’t matter what the true answer to that question was. The narrative of racial inequality in America—a competing truth—was deemed more important. The reality of justice for two murders was sacrificed. It was seen as impossible for both issues to be adjudicated at the same time.
Ever since then in America, this idea of competing tribes and factions has superseded the need for objective truth. Instead of a culture grappling with issue AND facts, we have made facts secondary and it is only the competing issues and narratives that matter. Every group, tribe, and subset of our culture is protecting their own interests and ignoring inconvenient truths.
The ironic result of all that is, of course, that each and every position is weakened by the lack of an objective shared reality. Where there is no truth, there are no rights and wrongs.
“That was a way of putting it—not very
satisfactory:”
Last week I tried to argue that some within Evangelical Christianity have embraced the very aspect of postmodernism that they claim to hate: the denial of truth. More accurately, what is denied is the ability to know truth. Most Christians still will argue that truth exists. But where they now take advantage of postmodernism’s worldview is, they will pick and choose which truths to embrace by claiming that inconvenient facts are not facts at all. Either the media, or the scientific establishment, or vast conspiracies are making things up. We don’t trust our reality, our worldview, to hold up to the scrutiny of reality, so we curate our own version.
But I also said that I can think of at least three events of the past couple decades that have led us here:
The first was The People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson in 1995.
There is a whole lot to unpack and debate in that previous paragraph. Even now in 2020 we are faced with yet another high-profile case appearing to expose the ever-present racism in our culture. However, for the purposes of this though experiment only one thing is relevant:
At the time of the OJ trial in America, a portion of the population declared that truth, reality, and the facts of the case were secondary to other—more important to them—issues. Did OJ kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman? It didn’t matter what the true answer to that question was. The narrative of racial inequality in America—a competing truth—was deemed more important. The reality of justice for two murders was sacrificed. It was seen as impossible for both issues to be adjudicated at the same time.
Ever since then in America, this idea of competing tribes and factions has superseded the need for objective truth. Instead of a culture grappling with issue AND facts, we have made facts secondary and it is only the competing issues and narratives that matter. Every group, tribe, and subset of our culture is protecting their own interests and ignoring inconvenient truths.
The ironic result of all that is, of course, that each and every position is weakened by the lack of an objective shared reality. Where there is no truth, there are no rights and wrongs.
Comments
Post a Comment