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Welcome back to our series, Wisdom and Love vs. Postmodern Power. We’ve been talking about why we have so much conflict in our society and unhappiness in our lives.
In this session, we’ll discuss postmodern ideas about relationships, power, rules, freedom and how we develop the young.
Remember the three keys to understanding the Postmodern Paradigm:
- There is no Truth or Morality or facts. Everything in life is In-the-Eye-of-the-Beholder.
- There is no purpose or meaning in Life.
- All that matters is Power. All relationships are power relationships.
Communities, Leaders and Power
In postmodern thinking, since there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, the only thing that matters is power.
Some people have power.
Other people don’t have power.
Those with more power prevail over those with less power.
There are lots of ways to gain and use power.
Power can be something as obvious and crude as threatening or killing someone.
Power can be something as nuanced as using schools to program toddlers the way you want them to think.
Power gets exercised through the government, justice system, financial system, the education system, the media, churches, advertising, fashion and internet search results.
Power gets exercised by what questions are asked and not asked, and how those questions are structured to emphasize certain viewpoints and de-emphasize others.
The deepest power is in the hands of those who control the social construct programming.
Marriage and family may appear to be about love, but they are nothing more than a social construct that controls power in a relationship.
The husband has power over the wife. Parents have power over their children.
The Wisdom Paradigm says that all relationships are fundamentally covenant relationships where the good of the individual and team are the same.
The Modern Paradigm says all relationships are fundamentally contract relationships. What is good for the worker is bad for the company—and vice-versa.
In the Postmodern Paradigm, all relationships—no matter how they appear on the surface—are nothing more than power relationships.
Imagine that a person goes into a school and massacres 50 children.
In the Wisdom Paradigm, it is a fact that the massacre is evil.
In postmodern thinking, while people might really dislike the massacre, there is nothing objectively wrong with the massacre.
Society values security from massacres. The killer values killing people. One value isn’t factually better than the other. They’re just different values.
When the police capture the killer and the state puts him on trial, the state doesn’t do it because they are objectively right and the killer wrong.
The state does it because they are exercising power over the killer just as the killer exercised power over the children he murdered.
In the Postmodern Paradigm, the police may say that the massacre was “unjust” or “evil”, but that is just using the power of rhetoric to publish a narrative to program people to think their way.
If you are a cunning leader, you get control of the schools, the media, the churches and other influential aspects of life, and use them to program the social constructs of the rest of society.
If you can achieve that, then you don’t need to use much violence to keep control.
You keep the people under control by convincing them, perhaps through religious beliefs, education and media campaigns, that it is a fact that (insert desired belief or behavior) is “right” and it’s a fact that (insert undesired belief or behavior) is wrong.
As a postmodern leader, you understand that people really don’t want to know the nature of reality. They don’t want to know that there is no purpose or meaning. It is too terrible and depressing. They would rather live under the illusion that life has meaning and will embrace the leader that gives them that illusion.
The bottom line about relationships in the Postmodern Paradigm: It is all about power.
The Postmodern Paradigm calls us to understand life in terms of who has power, who doesn’t have power, and how power is exercised by the powerful over the weak.
This is where the concept of empowerment comes from.
Some people and groups have power. They are oppressors.
Others do not have power. They are the oppressed.
So, we empower the oppressed to challenge the power structures that oppress them and we call it social justice and that’s a narrative that sounds nice and makes us feel good.
And in the Postmodern Paradigm, making people feel good or “just” about what they’re doing is a great way to use your power to get them to do what you want.
Of course, in the Postmodern Paradigm, there’s nothing actually better about empowering people rather than oppressing them.
Oppression is when others have power over you.
Justice is when you have power over others.
Life is About Choosing Your Own Destination for Your Own Reasons
In the Postmodern Paradigm, we’re so deeply programmed with social constructs that it’s impossible to fully escape that programming.
Nevertheless, if we can become aware of the programming and social constructs, maybe we can “deconstruct” them and gain some freedom to make our own choices about life.
Postmodern thinkers try to deconstruct every aspect of life—especially art, law, literature, sociology, psychology, theology and criminal justice.
Since postmodern thinkers believe that human nature is programmable, there is no deep or transcendent meaning or purpose in life.
You get to define whatever meaning or purpose you want. You might choose saving the world or maximizing pleasure or killing people for fun as your purpose.
All are morally equivalent.
No choice is better or worse than any others.
Except, perhaps, that the purpose you choose is better than the others because it is your choice.
Rules and Freedom
How does the Postmodern Paradigm treat the concepts of rules and freedom?
Remember that in the Wisdom and Modern Paradigms, rules guide us and help us get better at things faster than we could trying to figure them out on our own.
In the Postmodern Paradigm, rules play a very different role. Rules are a very powerful social construct that others use to get you to do what they want.
Those in power program you with their rules for music so you play music their way.
They program you with their rules for raising a family so that you raise your family their way.
They program you with their rules for etiquette and social interaction and sex and [insert any human behavior] so that you do each of those things their way.
In the postmodern way of understanding life, rules are one of the most powerful ways that they can program and control you.
Let’s look at freedom.
In the Wisdom Paradigm, as we all travel the road to Happiness, we need freedom to pursue the Truth.
In the Postmodern Paradigm, the word freedom has a very different meaning. There is no Truth, so freedom to pursue the Truth doesn’t make any sense.
Freedom means freedom from the social constructs that the powerful have used to program you. If you can deconstruct those constructs, you might gain some freedom from the programming and make your own choices.
Freedom from the programmed social constructs can take many forms.
In postmodern art, beauty is in-the-eye-of-the-beholder, so art is about showing others that you are freely choosing your own way for your own reasons.
Putting a Christian crucifix in a jar of urine is meant to shock people and demonstrate that the “artist” is free from the social constructs of Christianity and the community.
That tells us a lot about rules in the Postmodern Paradigm.
Your rules are good because they express your power over other people.
Other people’s rules are bad because they give others power over you.
That is why rules are made to be broken.
The best way to demonstrate your own freedom and purpose is by breaking the rules.
In the Postmodern Paradigm, freedom is a radical freedom to choose your own purpose, your own meaning, for your own reasons.
It is freedom to reject becoming good as just another social construct programmed into you by others.
Freedom to choose to become whatever you want.
Freedom to pursue whatever you desire in whatever way you desire.
Developing Young People
In the Wisdom Paradigm, formation is the process used to develop knowledge, character and wisdom in young people so they can be successful in life.
In the Modern Paradigm, education is the process used to emphasize academic development in young people.
In both formation and education, pursuit of the Truth is an important goal.
Postmodern thinking, however, rejects the idea of objective Truth, so the formation or education of young people doesn’t make sense.
In contrast, the Postmodern Paradigm develops young people through indoctrination. Those in power use indoctrination to program the social constructs in whatever way they desire.
Postmodern Wrap Up
Those who understand and embrace postmodern thinking understand it simply as recognition and acceptance of the way reality really is.
There is no objective Truth, only personal truth.
No moral facts, just personal morality.
No transcendent Beauty or Justice.
No logic or reason or facts. Just narrative.
No meaning or purpose in life.
Everything is in the eye-of-the-beholder.
The only thing that matters is Power.
Everything we have been taught about life is nothing more than social constructs we have been programmed to believe by those in power—those who control the schools and churches and government and media and….
If you can deconstruct your social programming, perhaps you can gain a bit of freedom to choose your own meaning and purpose for yourself.
But no purpose that you choose is any better or worse than any other purpose, except that you chose that purpose.
Postmodern thinkers don’t form or educate young people to understand objective Truth. Instead, they indoctrinate—program—young people with the social constructs and narratives needed to control them.
Rules are made to be broken because breaking the rules shows that you are free of social constructs and programming.
There are very few people who fully, consciously embrace the Postmodern Paradigm. It is simply too dark, too horrible and meaningless.
Think Heart of Darkness. Apocalypse Now. Any of dozens of dystopian novels and movies created in the last 20 years.
But elements of postmodern thinking are very attractive—especially to young people. And it’s the dominant way of thinking among college professors in the humanities.
You can feel good about yourself, seeking social justice by overthrowing those in power.
Break rules because they are made to be broken.
Seek freedom and do whatever you want.
So many people—especially younger people—embrace elements of postmodern thinking without being conscious of what it truly means and where it leads.
It’s a deadly path. Not just for the people who embrace it, but for our society as well.
Stay tuned for the next session. Now that we know what the paradigms are, we can discuss why the Wisdom Paradigm is correct, why the Postmodern Paradigm is so dangerous, and how this conflict is playing out in our society.
I’m Pete Bowen.
