Encapsulating the spirit of postmodern liberalism

Robert provides the perfect segue...

I would not hesitate to do whatever it took to feed my family. Even those with the TV sets and VCRs under their arms have to be seen in context, I think. In a vaccuum, when one might sense society as a whole has failed you, deserted you, it is hard to say what thoughts might go through one's mind. I find it hard to judge anyone in that position.

... to this link provided by Gerard Vanderleun:

"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," said a certain Mike Franklin, glibly explaining the scene before the cameras to the Associated Press.

How wonderfully that sentence encapsulates the spirit of postmodern liberalism. In complete ignorance of his intellectual ancestry, this simple clod repeats an idea that has descended from arcane roots in Descartes, to Rousseau, and through Marx, to Frantz Fanon, and through the sociology departments of the universities, to daytime television, and out into popular cliché, till it has finally settled in the sewers of New Orleans. It is the idea of "victimhood"; the idea that a man is not responsible for his acts; that he is instead a victim of the oppression of some abstraction called "society" -- because he is black, or on welfare, or whatever. And everyone who isn't can be held guilty, regardless of how they have actually behaved.

And now on to more of that spirit of postmodern liberalism, only of the religious left persuasion.

It's good that Nick's post of the Steve Blow column aptly reminds us that we are not to judge an entire race based solely on what we might be seeing on TV of late.  And it's good that Mike agrees wholeheartedly.  After all, sweeping generalizations or taking things out of context to make points is... well... simply wrong.  Right?

I just wonder why Mike thinks it's ok to link to a post by a Mr. Icthus that smears the Bush administration using sweeping generalizations and why Mike would dare to call the post comprehensive when it does nothing more than merely float the latest diatribes put out for the MSM and other shills of the left to have orgasms over? 

I wonder if Mike or Mr. Icthus (who is now opining that he's apolitical) would care to go read some of Matt's musings over at BlackFive about this blame game they seem so ripe to want to play:

Via Instapundit, here's the City of New Orleans Hurricane Plan.  You can see for yourself what was supposed to happen.  Also, here's the link to who persuaded an evacuation to happen at all.

Next, go read MilBlogger Jason Van Steenwyk's Counter-Column - he's got plenty about the logistics around getting military relief columns into New Orleans.  More on the politics of evacuations.  Keep scrolling.

I'm posting these for you to keep in the back of your mind as some are trying to turn this disaster into political hay already.  I'd like to see an official non-partisan evaluation of the planning and response around Katrina after we get everyone out of New Orleans and begin getting the Big Easy back on it's feet.

Update:  Be sure to check in at Mudville for more on this.

Update 2:  Teniace sends Ben Stein's column about the Katrina Blame Game and how it's bull$#!&.  Ben Stein has been a big supporter of our troops in the War on Terror and Deuce Four in particular.

I find it sad enough when moonbats do their level best to smear decent people who have tough jobs to do in a tough world during tough circumstances.  I think it abhorrent when religious people, who dare to speak and act for God, who dare to seek truth and defend it, who dare to convince us that they are in it for the good of the poor, join in that smearing.

But this is what Mike has done indirectly, and this is what Mr. Icthus has done directly.  When, under the guise of being motivated to do that which pleases God, you make references to Kanye West, when you post out of context photos, when you link to partisans about the Red Cross while not linking to the Red Cross themselves and when you make the cliched and inevitable references to Haliburton, then it's clear that the god that's being served here is not the God we all seek or the God that the victims are looking for.

It's clear to me and to anyone with eyes to see that the religious left are merely doing that which MoveOn.Org, the DemocraticUnderground and other vehicles of political expression are doing.

Pure political posturing.

MORE: Bill Whittle has a must read up, and he encapsulates what the spirit of postmodern liberalism is NOT:

So, on one hand, we have a very blue city – New York – confronted, out of the clear morning of a perfect fall day, with no warning – with a terror attack, and they march toward the sounds of screams and falling bodies and die by the hundreds. One the other hand, we have New Orleans law enforcement – also blue – whining about wet shoes and helping themselves to the happy period of lawlessness that followed an event that had been expected for no less than seventy-two hours.

In New York, we had a governor who got every available resource on the ground as fast as it could get there, and in Louisiana we have a governor who...cried. Governor, your job is to not cry. Your job is to be strong. We have plenty of civilians crying. You want to cry, cry in the car on the way home like everybody else did four years ago. Crying Governors, race-baiting mayors and looting police do not a Finest Hour make.

In New Orleans we have a mayor who left some 400-500 buses sitting fueled and underwater in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool saying that evil white conservative America was selling out his people within 24 hours of the catastrophe, from a safe and dry and adequately toileted location, while four years ago we had a Mayor who ran to the site of the disaster so quickly it is a full-blown miracle he was not killed when a building collapsed literally on top of his magnificent, combed-over head.

Now, much has been made of the fact that Ray Nagin is an incompetent, race-baiting black man, and Rudy Giuliani, who was neither, is white. Also, feminists are upset that people dare attack Governor Blanco because she is incompetent, weak, indecisive, and also a woman. And no doubt there are salivating long-haired, short-cortexed idiots just waiting for this to be over so they can sail into the comments section and tell me what a racist and misogynist I am.

Well, here’s the news flash: Nagin isn’t incompetent because he’s black. He’s incompetent because he’s incompetent. Condoleeza Rice is black. Colin Powell is black. Ted Kennedy, a man well-acquainted with rising water crises is as white as they come. Kennedy is incompetent; Rice and Powell are two of the most competent people on the planet.

This is about tribes, all right: not black and white tribes, but rather a battle between the capable and the culpable.

Same holds for Governor Blanco. She’s not weak because she’s a woman, or because she’s a Democrat. Truman was a democrat. The Buck stopped there. She’s weak and indecisive because that is the individual she is. I wish history could work with variables: I’d love to see what Margaret Thatcher would have done in such a case. It would not only have been better, it would have been good. That woman was tough. She could be Grey as granite. And, for this, the Pink Tribe despises her.

Now it may come as a shock to those foreign luminaries who come to lecture us on how an American city leveled by forces roughly equivelent to a nuclear explosion reduce it to something "like a third world country."

This difference being lost on them seems to be this: in an American city there is garbage on the streets and people wander around looking for food and water, AFTER BEING LEVELED BY A CAT 5 HURRICANE, which is the storm swell of the Dec. 2004 tsunami, plus winds, extending inland not for two or three miles but for two or three HUNDRED MILES. In a third world country, people living in stacks of garbage, searching for food and water happens EVERY STINKING DAY. That is the NORM.

It may come as a bit of a shock to these worldly sophisticates, who are so quick to point out how parochial and ignorant we simple folk are, that the United States of America has local, state and federal governments! And that this is the order in which crises are dealt with!

I beg you to go and read all of Whittle's post.  Take a cup of java, an adult beverage or whatever will help you sit down and digest the entire thing at one sitting.  Then head back over to Mr. Icthus and note the differences between the "tribes".  Telling.

So. Damned. Telling.

Wouldn't you say?

ONE MORE: Gary is poignant and relevant I think:

Liberals continue their descent into incoherence. They claim to embrace reason and science. But when scientific facts suggest life on Earth couldn’t have been an accident, they recoil in horror and cover the ears of children.

Yet many of these same people would be thrilled to see Sesame Street teaching the fantasy that Republican environmental policies caused hurricane Katrina.

In the end, what can you say about people who think it’s scandalous to suggest an Intelligence created the universe, but that it’s just peachy to insist George W. Bush created a hurricane?

Comments

[Zossima]

I'm going to ignore the rest of this post, in which the quotations about postmodernism reveal that the authors know very little about it. Instead of dealing with the postmodern search for truth, the very incorrect generalization that postmodernism has decided there is no truth is employed to demonize liberals. In this usage, the term "postmodern" and "liberal" are used interchangeably in the lexicon of conservatives to demonize a whole group of people as literally claiming there is no truth.

The fact is that most liberals do believe in absolute truths, they are just different from the truths held by conservatives. Yes, there are academics who believe in absolute relativism, and unfortunately that filters down into culture. Been to a TV megachurch lately? It filters down just as much there as anywhere else.

But what I want to address is this:
"Liberals continue their descent into incoherence. They claim to embrace reason and science. But when scientific facts suggest life on Earth couldn’t have been an accident, they recoil in horror and cover the ears of children."

#1 Stop demonizing a whole group of people. Please tell me where this is happening on a large scale with liberals. The liberals I know read their children the biblical account of creation---and I'm talking flaming pinko liberals whom I know who do this. It is very few people who absolutely don't want their kids hearing the creation account.

#2 Biblical creationists are the equivalent of the flat-earth idiots of the 15th century. It's one thing to say that evidence points to a deity who created earth. Again, I don't see too many liberals who disagree with that. But to claim a literal 7-day creation is insipid given the scientific record. And honestly, to throw barbs at liberals for their position (the few liberals who actually are atheist) while maintaining a literal 7-day creation just proves that an equally lunatic fringe on the right exists.

Rick, I'm really not trying to stir anything up here. I hope that my response has been polite. But I continue to be frustrated by overgeneralizations of people who hold differing positions. That said, I know I do it, too. Other than those things, I agree with the post---well, except that Condi Rice is competent ; )

[Leslie]

>>#1 Stop demonizing a whole group of people. Please tell me where this is happening on a large scale with liberals. The liberals I know read their children the biblical account of creation---and I'm talking flaming pinko liberals whom I know who do this. It is very few people who absolutely don't want their kids hearing the creation account.

Come to Canada my friend! The universities are full of flaming pinkos who take great delight in spitting in the eye of a young student who dares mention the creation account. Full. And, hostile. Carl Sagan is bedtime reading up here.

>>#2 Biblical creationists are the equivalent of the flat-earth idiots of the 15th century.

This sentiment too is plentiful in Canadian universities, Zossima. But the relativist aspect of postmodernism suggests that truth is more of a personal construct. I'm not a strict 7-dayer, but very much a biblical creationist. I stand back and watch the experts in academia uphold a double standard that suggests you can believe what you want, unless it's 7 day creationism and then you're just stupid. I paid them big money to teach me this -- come to think of it, perhaps that was idiotic. :)

It's hard for me to imagine these dynamics completely evaporate at the border...

[Zossima]

I've got to agree with them: If it's 7-day creationism, it's just stupid. It's not what the Hebrew text said. It's an English interpretation that just doesn't hold water given what is known about cosmology, geology, biology, etc.

There's something very humorous going on here with respect to the creationism thing: We have people who pretty much are pulling 7-day creationism out of their behind accusing scientists who quite literally adhere to the scientific method and want nothing to do with postmodernism/relativism of being relativists. The scientists aren't relativists. It just doesn't exist in the sciences. (Other disciplines, yes. Sciences, no.) The true relativists in this case are the people demanding that their version of the "truth", which has little basis in fact, get equal billing, because they believe in some unprovable metaphysical proposition, such as Genesis 1 is "literally" true. (That in spite of the fact that Genesis 1 literally *does not* say "day" in the Hebrew.)

Many (most?) conservative christians have wrapped christianity up so tightly in the Englightenment language of propositional truth that if Genesis isn't literally true, then Jesus Christ's deity and work are at risk. But that's their fault, not the fault of those scary "liberals". The truth of Jesus Christ is not logical. And the proof of Jesus' person and work does not rest in being able to prove that the Bible is literally true. The proof of Jesus person and work is supposed to be in the lives of his followers. "They will know you by your love". I know I've linked to this on my site before, but Bonhoeffer addressed this.

>>But the relativist aspect of postmodernism suggests that truth is more of a personal construct.

This gets back to our discussion on the nature of truth. It seems to me that christians have fallen right into this. While on the one hand upholding the Bible as absolute objective truth, which is a bit humorous given the literally thousands of denominations each with their own differing interpretations of common passages of scripture, the church in America treats spirituality as a wholly individual pursuit: Have *personal* devotions. Develop a *personal* relationship with Jesus. Find your own *personal* purpose. All of these, of course, are to be undertaken with the help of books by popular authors.

So, while in general, across these denominations, people agree "not to smoke or chew or go with girls who do", the rest of your christian journey is pretty darn much up to your choosing, though we of course frame it with talk of "discerning God's will". What could be more relativist than this?

What is really going on, in my opinion, is that christians are just as much relativists as anyone else, they just choose to demonize people with different sexual mores with the language of relativism. The hypocrisy is rank and every intelligent nonbeliever I know sees it plain as day.

I know that the idea of truth as a personal construct is taught in academia. I will say for certain that it is not taught in the sciences. The scientific method and objective truth are taught. At the same time, there are a lot of dominant theories about the construction of truth that do not focus on the individual. Some that make a lot of sense focus on the construction of truth by linguistic communities.

Personally, I see postmodernism as the logical outcome of the Englightenment. The Englightenment enthroned reason and individual liberty. Well, when individuals reason individually, what else can come of it but differing versions of truth? Hence, postmodernism. The funny thing is to hear the same Church that has so warmly embraced the Englightenment and its ways of representing truth and knowledge which Jesus would surely have not understood, disown its child, postmodernism.

I see a tremendous opportunity for the Church in postmodernism, if the Church will quit whining about things like 'intelligent design' and hear the cry for connectedness that is present in the generation of postmodern Western people under 40.

[Gary]

Zossima,

Rick quoted from my post which was a letter of mine to the local newspaper. Letters have a 150-word limit so you can't go into too much detail to make your point. "Liberal" is a label that describes certain tendencies, and liberals, by and large, trust secularism and distrust theism to a fault.

I suppose I could have referred more specifically to "those liberals who are threatened by the very compelling science of Intelligent Design and swallow hook, line and sinker the psuedo-science of global warming," but I think the rest of the letter makes it clear those are the people I'm talking about.

Your #2 misses the point. The point is not whether the earth was created in seven days. The point is that some very compelling SCIENCE (anthropic science if you want to read about it) points to the conclusion that the odds of our universe accidently forming in the way it did with its capability of supporting life are so extremely remote as to be almost impossible. That's not speculation, that's pure math. The point is this knowledge should not be withheld from children in our schools.

Global warming, on the other hand, is largely speculation. First it assumes that the warming of the Earth (only a one degree increase in the last hundred years, by the way) is (1) not occuring naturally and (2) is being caused by fossil fuel emissions. Scientists are still very divided on this issue.

Yet, in the name of enlightenment, some are foursquare against teaching anthropic science (so-called Intelligent Design) in public schools. But anthropic science need not even mention God! Its conclusion is simply, and scientifically, this universe we live in could not have been an accident. That points to Something as a first cause, but IE doesn't have to speculate on what that is. Yet, the left, liberals, the progressive secularists, the annointed, or whatever you want to call them, still say it is teaching religion and thus try to suppress its being taught in public schools. While very questionable sciences, such as global warming, they treat like gospel.

So who is backward?

Gary

[Zossima]

Gary, I agree that mathematically the universe was not formed by accident. I've got the equivalent of a masters in math to back that up. But those most pushing 'intelligent design' are not pushing the agenda to teach it without God. They are pushing it coupled with creationism. You tell Dobson that he can only teach intelligent design without mentioning Genesis 1, and he'll go nuts. So, I think my #2 is still valid.

Now, I agree that there are some extreme liberals who would fight anything mentioning God tooth and nail. That's wrong. But at the end of the day it just doesn't matter to me, because the cause of Jesus Christ is not hindered by the liberals, it's hindered by christians who won't act like Jesus. I'd rather expend my energy seeing that christians (including me) act like Jesus than seeing that nonbelievers teach my science.

I'm not going to touch global warming because I honestly don't know enough about it to have an intelligent conversation. My personal take is that if we christians would steward the land according to the stewardship model we see throughout the Word and not consume it, we wouldn't have a need for this debate.

[Leslie]

Hey Zossima,

>>I’ve got to agree with them: If it’s 7-day creationism, it’s just stupid.

It's still important to address the double standard. I’ve sat in so many forums where different tribal aboriginal creation stories, or the Indian creation idea that Shiva danced the world into being were applauded & in the same breath...7-day creationism is stupid.

7-day creationists, along with their aboriginal and Indian theorists, have come to their conclusion based on various family & cultural teachings. What is it about the 7-day creationist that makes it OK to berate & belittle their views? I don’t think Shiva danced the world into being, but I would never call it stupid...nobody would these days and their views don’t line up any more closely with the scientific method. Make no mistake, if people want to think 7-day creationism is stupid that’s their business, but it’s a huge double standard to talk about love and embracing everyone’s views and then single out one of them to be stupid or 15th century flat-earth idiocy.

>>The scientists aren’t relativists.

The scientific method presents facts, but incredible philosophical action takes place in the interpretation of those facts. I remember reading in Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot how he detected various harmonious sounds emitting from the centre of the universe. He suspected it was aliens, while I wondered if I’d been remiss in interpreting a passage in Colossians metaphorically – where it says Christ holds the universe together with vibrant harmonies. 2 different worldviews interpret 1 irrefutable fact veeerrrry differently.

>>The hypocrisy is rank and every intelligent nonbeliever I know sees it plain as day.

I know, Zossima. But hypocrisy is rank on both sides. Hypocrisy is a pretty basic condition of fallen man. Everyone struggles with it.

>>I know that the idea of truth as a personal construct is taught in academia. I will say for certain that it is not taught in the sciences.

I completely agree that it is not taught in the sciences. Instead, the sciences assume a humanist-atheist perspective. Teaching only from that perspective implies it to be the correct one and by default implicates the others as false. Subtlety like that shapes people’s views without them even noticing. In the educational arena where children’s views are shaped, the line between teaching and brainwashing is often fuzzy. It is vital for the nation to discuss what it believes and teach accordingly. And, if the nation is divided teach both sides.

>>Well, when individuals reason individually, what else can com of it but differing versions of truth? . . . The funny thing is to hear the same Church. . .disown its child, postmodernism.

At the heart of constructing one’s own truth, is the tantalizing power and authority that comes with being able to create it. We are all constantly trying to dethrone God. The seeds of this are in every one of us, and it places us all at the Tree of Knowledge and then drives us to gluttony. It is not strange that the Church has embraced postmodernism, it is a sign of the humanity of each person in the church.

You are right that we as a church often miss people’s “cry for connectedness” with knee-jerk negativity towards postmodernism. We need to love people where they’re at. I just think on one end of the knee-jerk negativity pendulum is embracing postmodernism to the point where we never dethrone ourselves. Both extremes fail people grievously.

>>the cause of Jesus Christ is not hindered by the liberals, it's hindered by christians who won't act like Jesus

I hear this a lot from all over. To me, Jesus seems weak if his purposes are thwarted by the actions of humans. For the success or failure of his cause to rest on human shoulders puts Christians on the throne. At least that's what it seems like to me. :)

[rick]

"I think it abhorrent when religious people, who dare to speak and act for God, who dare to seek truth and defend it, who dare to convince us that they are in it for the good of the poor..."

Funny, some "religious" folks have used that very argument to defend and support the war in Iraq.

It just seems that folks use their religion to support their beliefs.

BTW, it was six days as the story was told. God chilled on the 7th.

[Gary]

Zossima,

I just wrote a long reply which got lost and I don't have the time to rewrite it, so I'll give you the short version.

I appreciate your instinct to "start at the house of God." It's the correct one.

At the same time I think it's naive to believe that if Christians were just a whole lot better then we wouldn't need to directly address the opposition to the truth in the world. Opponents of the gospel would still be using every trick in the book and the power of government to oppose the truth. They did it to Jesus and they'll do it to us no matter how perfect we are.

It's every Christian's duty to be a good citizen. I think in a democratic society that means being engaged in the political debate--at least by staying informed and voting. Some feel more called to be involved in the arena than others. We should respect that. Though certainly we all should display good Christian virtues as we fulfill our duty as members of a self-governing society. But none of us should feel shy about fulfilling that duty and to vote and speak as our deepest convictions lead us.

Believe it or not, that's the short version.

Gary