The Post-Postmodern World

Modernism is a philosophical position that argues that all of life's questions can be answered by Science and Reason. It started in the late 19th century at the advent of the modern Industrial Age with the belief that we no longer needed no stinkin' religion to explain our world. We've got Science now and with a bit more knowledge, some careful reasoning, and some new technology we could solve any problem. Of course, this brave beginning was followed by World War I and World War II which featured new and improved technology for killing the masses. It took Science and Reason to produce mustard gas and modern warfare and the atomic bomb. So modernism started its decline.

Enter the answer: postmodernism. Postmodernism, by its name, tells you the notion. It is everything that modernism was not. Oh, it rejects religion, sure enough, but also Science and Reason as gods and supplants them with nothing more than "Me." Words mean what I think they mean. Reality is what I define it to be. Morality is whatever I decided it is. Truth is whatever I think. A complete rejection of modernism. Postmodernism, however, has died off, at least in academia. You can imagine why. To argue logically that logic is irrelevant is nonsense. To use words to explain that words mean whatever you want is hard (and foolish) work. It was unsustainable. So postmodernism is not in vogue as much as it once was.

I suppose, then, that this leaves us in the post-postmodern era. We're not entirely sure what's next (pseudo-modernism? metamodernism?) But we are surely living in the wretched remains of postmodernism. Why do I say that? Look at where we stand.

Words don't mean anything anymore. Our society is quite comfortable arguing for "tolerance" that does not include "ideas or actions with which I disagree." They mean "embracing all ideas and/or actions except for those with which I disagree." Or the exact inverse of "tolerance." Actual people use actual language to extol the virtue of being "inclusive" by excluding those who are different. And so it goes. Hardly a word these days can stand alone with a meaning on which we can agree because, after all, postmodernism did us the favor of cutting "meaning" out of our vocabulary.

Science is in serious disarray. Lots of people see it as "God" of some sort, but only as far as they will allow it. You think that X and Y chromosomes mean something when it comes to gender? You're a kook. Everyone knows we are the gender we feel like we are. The world has never known anything but "binary gender" -- only two -- but we know much, much better today. So we will actually medicate and mutilate people in order to help them to be more like they feel they really are (and you, dear reader, will need to pay for it) and only haters say otherwise. In enlightened circles it is actually immoral to refer to a child as a "boy" or a "girl" until they've determined what they actually are. God Science is dead; long live God ME!

Reason is useless. For all time human beings have been able to think carefully, logically, step by step to the wrong conclusion. Now we encourage it. Now we embrace it. "Socialism has never, ever worked for any nation ... so let's do that." "Just because marriage has always meant the union of a man and a woman is no reason to think that it is so." "There is no evidence for your beliefs and we'll reject any evidence you offer to the contrary." "We want to vote on what God says is true and ensure He (sorry, "He" is no longer acceptable) conforms to our views." Is there any wonder we're floundering about here politically, academically, in religion and science and culture and everything else? There is no place to stand.

Welcome to the next bad thing. No, not the next big thing. Cultural insanity. Humans are, by definition, sinners suffering from deceitful hearts without knowing it, blinded by the god of this world, without light and without reason -- sin-twisted. We just keep proving that God was right and we're not. Welcome to the debris of postmodernism.