Maybe this is just me, but here is how I feel about the days we live in;
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Society shifts, culture evolves, and style cycles, but maybe most of all man stays the same. We are a selfish creature.
Our twist on selfishness in the postmodern age is to be very polite about it:
Selfishness:
My thoughts are important - therefore I am right
My feelings are true - therefore I must act
My voice should be heard - therefore I must speak (or blog)
My way is right - therefore I must be tolerated
Politeness:
This is all true about me, you should allow me my space to live out these truths but you have different thoughts, feelings, voice, and direction so I must allow you your space to live out your truths. So please, go ahead.
Then we end up with a mass of selfishness, hidden in politeness, that creates a society with many differing truths that all can and can't be true.
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2 comments:
Wasn't it Calvin (among others!) who wrote the root of all sin is pride? Every time I am reminded of that, it resonates with me. This post does.
What really strikes me is that the way you wrote it prompted the following thought: the only way post-modern is different from modern in this is that post-modern has new media that allow for the minority to be heard at the same volume as the majority.
The majority (typically the white man with the microphone) has always been doing what you write as "selfish" and "polite." But since there were so few voices -or- they were the voice of so many, the quieter, smaller voices were fully silenced. Now that most anyone has a full-volume voice, they are using it! They are entering the "politness of the majority." Now the majority are crying "relativity!" when the actual practice of selfishness is no different.
This really begs me to consider: if the barrier between me and someone's heart is their selfishness (as often expressed in their "relativity"), how can I go AROUND it? That is, rather than take it head-on, how can I/we approach from the side?
Hmmm. Got me thinking already (it's early for me today).
I'd like to push back on this one a little bit by asking that you read one of my blog posts on the subject (URL below).
http://emergingstory.blogspot.com/2005/06/decoding-our-context-postmodernity.html
Smarter people than I (i.e. Robert Webber, Carl Raschke, etc.) suggest postmodernity is a radical change in the Western & even global worldview that is changing our planet's culture & the Church to a degree that will rival the Reformation of the 16th century.
I'd be particularly interested in What you guys think about the relationship between Postmodernity & "the institution?"
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