Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tt00007)

Hi Jerry:

Sorry about delay in replying to your email of Dec 4--I was very
busy.

I like your reading of postmodernism, and I think it's quite OK
to approach it that way. Of course, it raises some questions,
and I would like to take those one by one.

Ideally postmodernism, if consistent, should tolerate--and maybe
even celebrate--all perspectives. IMO, the ultimately consistent
postmodernist stance is to advance a point of view (we cannnot
avoid making statements discussing certain things if it's not
poetry or something like that) AND immediately uncover, in your
own words, "the values and inner structure that underlie" it,
and, in doing so, lay the groundwork for the next step. (IMO,
this uncompromising fluidity of thought was achieved by
Krishnamurti.)

If this self-deconstruction is missing, the postmodernist thinker
may, getting out of one trap, get into another one. However,
golden chains are no good substitute for iron ones.

Now let's look from this point of view at just one paragraph of
your interview.

You wrote:

> I think the misuse of the idea of an absolute Truth lies at the
> core of HPB's criticism of the Church.

I skip this.

> She never attacked the teachings of the Biblical Jesus, only
> the organizations which claimed to represent these teachings.

No problem. Agree.

> It is not spiritual ideas, but the hierarchy of politically
> powerful hierophants that creates human misery.

What??? Why so general a statement? Is this a new social law? How
do you know it?

> For instance, it is currently in the news that politically
> powerful groups of representatives of Christianity declare that
> God is against abortion, homosexuals and prostitution.

A distortion of the real situation. How about the grass-roots
Christian fundamentalist movement? Are the guys who shoot
abortion doctors and set the clinics on fire members of the
politically powerful groups or the rank and file fundamentalists?

> But their assertions only serve to create guilt and destroy
> human solidarity.

This is a remarkable statement. First, it's of a very general
nature, especially taking into account the qualifier "only"; just
another postulate, or a synthetic a priori judgment.

Second, it pressuposes that it's bad to (a) create guilt, and (b)
destroy human solidarity, isn't it? How do you know it? Is it a
part of your belief system? Isn't your fear of guilt based on
your early experiences as a child? Isn't your love of human
solidarity a residue of the horde instinct? etc. ad libitum.

> A more constructive and postmodern approach would be to put
> aside for a moment what their alleged God is for or against and
> encourage people to use their own mental and spiritual resources
> to explore the causes and social issues that underlie abortion,
> homosexuality and prostitution.

For starters, if you cannot read other people's minds, you do not
know anything what is their "alleged God." Obviously, we do not
have at our disposal precise means to describe our spiritual
experiences, so even if someone tries to honestly convey his/her
spiritual realization you cannot be sure you got it.

Next, you encourage people to use their own mental and spiritual
resources, etc. In theory it sounds wonderful. The problem
which you do not address is that different people, exercising
their mental and spiritual abilities may arrive--and usually do
(cf. Theos-l)--at different conclusions. Let's suppose that a
Christian fundamentalist comes to you and assures you that, as a
result of his in-depth thinking, he came to believe that, to
reach true human solidarity, we need to kill a few black sheep
like abortion doctors and liberal intellectuals. Will you
dismiss his views as silly and dangerous and send him away to
think harder? Will you willing to consider his theories of human
misery as another perspective as legitimate as yours? Will you
celebrate his perspective with him?

This reminds us the issue of the Holocaust; however, while the
Holocaust is far away in the past and, for most people, is an
academic problem,--some other issues like crimes, illegal
immigration, etc., ARE existential problems to us living in this
country, and generate a lot of friction. And this is where the
postmodern phraseology is employed to support very specific
political views. Posttmodern thinkers rarely apply the rigorous
techniques of modern literary criticism to their own political
agendas.

> I think that past experience has shown that effective social
> change occurs when people operate from understanding--not from
> notions based upon hatred, fear, prejudice and blind faith to an
> authority.

It's not clear what you here exactly mean. For cooperative
action, people may (or may not) need to shape their understanding
in the form of some ideas to share, compare, and discuss them.
If so, I am afraid that you here are trying to replace hatred,
fear, etc. with their opposites--freedom from hatred, etc. Or,
in other words, you substitute new notions for old ones.

For you new ideas may be better than old ones, but what if some
people think otherwise? What shall we do with it--ignore such
people? coerce them via some kind of social engineering, e.g. by
sending them to a Gulag (if we happen to reach the position of
power)? try to persuade them?

You see, your discussion of postmodernism began with a talk about
"an approach to address the complexity of viewpoints, values and
needs in our world without creating an authoritative dogma of its
own," but ended with uttering a number of universal truths and
assigning positive or negative values to various views. It is
noteworthy that later you talk about such a thing as "universal
morality"--a very good starting point for deconstruction of your
interview.

Also, your relying on "understanding" takes you dangerously close
to the Enlightenment project of building the better future. Same
applies to your later discussion of the opposition "closed
systems/possibilities of change"; smells too Eurocentric.

OK, enough for now.

I hope you will not mistake my arguments for my own views.

Max