FROM MODERNISM TO POST-MODERNISM
History seems to be understood at its easiest juncture when it is divided into smaller segments for examinational purposes. In theology, the dispensationalist view seems to dissect the actions of God as seen through the space/time continuum paradox of infinite divinity interacting with finite humanity. The conflicting sub-stratification of quantifiable analysis becomes apparent when it appears as a discernable entity that the segments of time appear to overlap.
The development of postmodernism focuses in on this discrepancy, as postmodernisms chief proponents have capitalized upon this deficiency. If there is a main point of difference between postmodernism and most previous philosophies, it would be that this newly emerging philosophy has not created a symbiotic relationship with theology, nor was it begun from a theological vantage point. History directs the focus on the philosophical divisions of cultural increments. The currents of human deliberation identifying the pre-modern era as the primitive, Neolithic variations of social networks may prove to be an aberition. Culture in this paradigm is perceived as simplistic in organization, religion and knowledge. Taking this vantage point of superiority may prove to be a fatal assumption in the end.
The next era of significance as far as human culture is concerned from a western point of view subsists within a narrower field of understanding. When the shackles of the dark ages were thrown off, a newly emerging strata of configuration began to take center stage. This social appearance can be defined as the age of modernism, or the Enlightenment. In this sociological configuration, humanity has been assumed to subsist as an agent of opportunity, taking advantage of developing pathways into the understanding of natural realms of existence and geo political allegiances that were previously misplaced. Emergent philosophies cast man into the role of caretaker and advancer into the realms of sensate experience and epistemological transients. In this vein, man had been viewed as assuming a position that is understood as being complex in organization, understanding, and religion.
The need for connections and alliances have become a necessity in this emerging world. One of the Enlightenments progeny has been the reliance on capitalism as a methodology of trade and balance. As trade routs opened, the exchange of goods was augmented with the trade of ideas, thus making allowance for an ever expanding network of referent ideas and thoughts. These connections of an ideological variation led to the development of the growing assessment of information and exchange. As knowledge of the environment, finances and politics grew, the need for religion began to take a back seat in the arena of importance. Out of simplistic concepts of tribalism, governments evolved. Pluralistic expressions came into being in religious thought. The sciences and man’s ability to comprehend natural phenomena appeared to know no boundaries.
Then, something akin to a devaluation of currency, or a crashing of economic systems, occurred in the field of philosophy, and the hope of mankind’s advancement along humanistic lines of thought. Cultural conflict brought about a narcissistic implosion, causing many to loose faith in humanities ability to self-improve. The net result has been a new philosophical base of understanding that has been identified as postmodernism.
This new mode of thinking has proved to be problematic at best. With the loss of hope in existence outside of that which is experienced in a tangible format manifested in the rejection of a theocentric baseline in modernism coupled with the abandonment of personal achievement, little is left to formulate conceptual data in the fields of morality and ethics. This is the quandary of 21st century living. How does society survive and continue when the foundational postulations for its existence are deemed to be no longer valid?
Some have attempted to incorporate primitivism as the basic assumption for stabilizing society. The collapse of science and humanities goodness has led to a dangerous, cathartic, experiential based reassessment of values. A new heretical imperative has been entered into as pluralism has flourished. Any religious expression becomes a heresy to those other faiths around it. Language itself has lost meaning in this time of nihilistic absurdity. The confluent forces at play in society are demanding that reassessments to be made. Culture is in transition, with the stabilizers loosing their relevance in a time of philosophical overlap.
