How Postmodernism Got It Wrong



What is Postmodernism


After the Second World War of 1939 to 1945, western culture took off from modernism to postmodernism, it was an emerge in western culture from art, literature, natural science, music, social sciences, communication to garments and seem to have taken off during the cold war by the 1950s and spread rapidly and known the 1970s and 1980s (Ke.J.,2007). The Second World War, was the most devastating, this led to the question of the values which had been held and human ration thought, now the society moved from the idea of self-control, now people began to be less confident on their judgments, as they had anxiety and much loss (Ke.J.,2007).

Postmodernism took off as a philosophy which holds no absolute neither objective truth on moral codes, ideologies, beliefs, norms and so forth (Anon., n.d). According to Hicks. Stephen, R.C (2004.p.02-04) Postmodernism adheres to reason and power and it is militant against such collaboration of them. The problem with postmodernist, have done away with the idea of reality, truth, reason. Dr Arno van Niekerk (2016.p.11) says "Postmodernism can be described as a point of view that questions any objective truth, since all are relative. In this view, there is no truth, all truth is supposedly subjective and determined by the preconceived ideas and ideology of the individual and or a group

Man Being the Centre of Reality


What postmodernism has done has placed man to be the centre of reality, it means after modernity this philosophy could be traced back to the Renaissance. It holds basic assumption of emancipation and progress through reason and science (Kvale, S. 1992.p 32). But the Renaissance, which was Christian Humanism movement did have absolutes, certainty and truth, and not postmodern wat of thinking which does not. Wooding, L (2010.p.01) states that: “It hovers in the background of all our discussions of Renaissance and Reformation; it is applied to many great figures, from Erasmus and Luther to such ill-assorted individuals as Thomas More, Huldrych Zwingli, Reginald Pole or even Elizabeth I”. The Christian Humanism of the 14th to the 17th century was an intellectual crusade of humanism, defined as intellectualism aspect of the Renaissance, it drove extraordinary richness, inventiveness, ideological commitment, liberty liberalism and its intellectualism legacy (Wooding, L., 2010.p.01).  The Renaissance Christian Humanism, placed a recognition of the uniqueness of the individual, it valued science and earthly experiences, gained through sense on religious authority (Anon, n.d).

Now Postmodernism took some qualities of modernism which was influenced by the enlightenment, the movement from the 18th century in Western Europe which challenged Judeo-Christian absolutes and ethics but placed truth, rationalism and authority on man (Hurd, W., 1998).The problem the precede of Postmodernism, it placed science as universal truth to answer everything, not just science but physical science of which it cannot answer the societal patterns (Hurd, W., 1998). It made a huge mistake that science would be the basis for social and sociological truths and morality.


 According to Wesley Hurd (1998), there was an anticipation that: “Modern man could find a new, rational foundation for universal truth; science, particularly, would reveal new truth, which, when applied to modern society and institutions, would literally remake the world. Modernism "... held the extravagant expectation that the arts and sciences would further not only the control of the forces of nature but also the understanding of self and world, moral progress, justice in social institutions, and even human happiness." 


So this secular humanism fled completely away from Christian Humanism-the Renaissance which was placing a reorganisation within uniqueness of the individual, valuing science and earthly experiences gained through sense on religious authority (Anon, n.d).  During modernism, the way of thought shifted, made prepositions that a man is autonomous, that is  one’s own  law, each mad dictates his moral code, it placed a man capable of rational perception, knowing and be the world conquer ( Hurd, W., 1998). This meant that science was to be the answer to all that man seek and long which lead to materialism.    
    

No Truth 


Postmodernism came with the philosophy of no truth, what is true for one man is not true for another man. Wesley Hurd (1998) says that: “Postmodernists argue that objective, universal, knowable truth is mythical; all we have ever found in our agonized search for truth are "truths" that were compelling only in their own time and culture, but true truth has never been ours. Furthermore, if we make the mistake of claiming to know the Truth, we are deluded at best and dangerous at worst”. Now the West is being brainwashed by Postmodernism via education system, which holds preposition that what people think to be knowledgeable, has to do with constructivism, the way of seeing the world, not objective truth. 

Some Postmodernists such as Geoffrey Dobson (2014) state that: “in a world of reason there is no absolute language, no absolute certainty, no absolute truth, no absolute law, no absolute perfection, and no absolute ethical good”. Postmodernism debunks truth on the bases of relativistic ethic, that all truths are culturally framed, that is they are based on that particular ethnicity. This is on the argument that the   reasons for mankind to modify their perceptions not is inadequate understanding of power of provisional basis for epistemology and wider problem of certainty, and mankind seek to be always right, although when taking into account that certainty, truth and absolute are cultural conditioned they are therefore not true-that is all is relative (Dobson, G., 2014). This philosophy is wrong, since it could lead or one cannot judge horrific human practices such as child sacrifice, rape and murder for a man cannot be relativistic only when it suits him (Anon., n.d). This philosophy contradicts itself, since if a nation has no moral barometer of truth on the grounds of what is right or wrong shall lose its judgements on bad or evil deeds or to have a sound judiciary mind-set (Anon., n.d). 
  

Places no Intrinsic Value


Intrinsic value is something that has value in itself. The value or worth that it has is inherent in its very existence. Intrinsic value of mankind is that each man is valuable or worth regardless of his social or economic status. He is valuable himself-without any item associated with him (Brahm, J., n.d.p.03).  In the current time, mankind have shifted from seeing all man with intrinsic worth to instrumental worth, that is holding instrumental value of a man (Brham,J.,n,d. p.). Something that has instrumental value is only valuable in that it leads to something else that has intrinsic value.


In our postmodern world, natural, intrinsic and internal values do not exist but values are taken into account through social, discussions and cultural factors-in other words; the philosophy of postmodernism does not uphold belief in common nature, since mankind are not recognised as source of values but postmodernists sees values as constructivism, that is the modesty of each man and fully human is socially and culturally based (Forghani, N, Keshtiaray, N and Yousefy, A., 2015.p.102). What it does, it places the worthiness of a man based on what he can offer or contribute to society nor his experiences nor his meaningful life -that’s how quality of life is viewed (Brahm, J., 01).

Rejection of Epistemological Fundamentalism 


In simple definition, firstly epistemology is the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. It distinguishes what has been searched, scrutinised and validated to a justified belief from opinion. “Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief” (Steup, M., 2005). What postmodernism does, is to deny philosophical fundamentals though it does not implement its own, emphasising knowledge on socialism instead of epistemology in epistemological conversations and the main drive ‘tween knowledge and power (Forghani, N, Keshtiaray, N and Yousefy, A., 2015.p.100). What happens, is shifting away from epistemology or to a certain extent the collapse of dogmatic and traditional spiritual systems. Postmodernists pay attention to concrete matters and reject objectivism.

 Objectivity is one of fundamental preferable which every researcher, whether it be social or physical scientist and that each should flee from presumptions, beliefs and values but observe reality through objectivism (Forghani, N, Keshtiaray, N and Yousefy, A., 2015.p.100). Postmodernism has brought the view that each human is a social creature, brought up in a culture or society with its own special cultures, goals and values, therefore he will have prepositions and goals at any work.

Pluralism is much upheld more than epistemology since postmodernists believe in the sociology of knowledge due to not believing in higher reasonableness of a belief and knowledge as compared to another belief and uphold that all beliefs and knowledge are formed through special conditions and hold true under those conditions (Forghani, N, Keshtiaray, N and Yousefy, A., 2015.p.101). Postmodernism brings babies such as pluralism, since  it does not hold definite truth and that all research should have reasonableness, that is the one who is doing a theoretical research should convince the other side that there is crucial and concrete evidence to support reasonable research (Forghani, N, Keshtiaray, N and Yousefy, A., 2015.p.101).

Pluralism becomes an ideology that power should be dispersed among variety of economic and ideological groups and not a single elite, and that diversity is essential to a society (Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica., 2002). The danger of a pluralistic society is to have no absolute truth and it is improbable to make a sound differentiation between what is wrong and what is right, and that all beliefs should be treated the same and equally, the terminology of tis ideology in the philosophy of postmodernism is philosophical pluralism (Anon., n.d).


No Certainty


Some of Rene Descartes' philosophical arguments, during the rationalism-gave some philosophical rejections against absolute truth, he gave five senses which are sight, smell, touch, taste and sound; that a  man  can not give absolute knowledge about the world on the ground of these five senses (Oord,T.J.,2009).

This might lead to moral relativism-which makes preposition that all moral codes are socially and culturally based-there aren't universal ones, since each society is treated in its own historical context. According to Arno Van Niekerk (2016.p.169) this liberal secular humanists agenda is to eradicate all forms of truth religious or otherwise when it comes to moral code, so this postmodern way of thinking equates all truths as relative, none is superior to another.   


What people need to do, is to to hold traditionalism of absolute, truth and certainty so that postmodern mindset can not deceive them for a postmodernist culture does not flourish but decay since of moral relativism, political correctness, pluralism and so forth. In the west there has been such a moral decay on grounds of sex, divorce, high crime and decay numerically, cultural and socially and even economic to a certain degree ( Gilchrist,g.,2010).   



Reference List



Anon.n.d. Cultural Relativism. All about… Online Available at:< http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/cultural-relativism.htm> [Accessed 15 Feb. 17].

Anon.n.d. What are the dangers of postmodernism? Got Questions.Org. [Online] Available at:< https://www.gotquestions.org/postmodernism-dangers.html> [Accessed 15 February 2017].

Anon.n.d. What do Christian Humanists believe? Reference. [Online] Available at:< https://www.reference.com/world-view/christian-humanists-believe-cbce9fc084e302f6> [Accessed 14 January 2017 ].

Anon.n.d. Moral Relativism. The Basics of Philosophy.N.d, Available at:<http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_moral_relativism.html> [Accessed 15 February 2017].  

Brahm, J.n.d. The Value of Human Life: Intrinsic, or Instrumental?  [e-Book]. Georgia Right to Life. Available [Online]:<http://www.grtl.org/docs/intrinsicorinstrumental.pdf>[Accessed 15-02-2017].

Dobson, G., 2014. A Chaos of Delight: Science, Religion and Myth and the Shaping of Western. Ch 12-Tradition at the Cross Roads-Seeking Unity In Diversity. Routledge.

Forghani, N, Keshtiaray, N and Yousefy, A., 2015. A Critical Examination of Postmodernism Based on Religious and Moral Values Education. [Pdf] Canadian Centre of Science and Education. Available at<http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1074075.pdf> [Accessed 
15th February 2017]. h

Gilchrist,G.2010. Western Civilisation in Moral Decay? Tomorrow's World. [Online] Available at:<http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/commentary/western-civilization-in-moral-decay-0> [Accessed 15 February 2016].

Ke,J.2007.The emergence, characteristics and influences of Postmodernism. Keep It Simple. [Blog]. March 26th 2010. Available at: <http://avantgarde-jing.blogspot.co.za/2010/03/emergence-characteristics-and.html> [Accessd 26 Jnauary 2017].

Mashau, T.D 2011.Cohabitation and premarital sex amongst Christian youth in South Africa today: A missional reflection. HTS Theological Studies. [ONLINE] Available at<http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/view/899/1760> [Accessed 15 February 2017]. 

Matthias Steup, M.2005. Epistemology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [Online] Available at :< https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/> [Accessed 15 February 2017].

Oord,T.J.,2009.Truth and Postmodernism. Thomas Jay Oord. [Blog]. November 19th, 2009. Available at:< http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/test_entry> [Accessed 15 February 2017].

Stephen, R.C.Hicks.2004. Explaining Postmodernism. [Pdf].Tempe New Berlin/Milwaukee. Available at:< http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/hicks-ep-full.pdf> [Accessed 26 January 2017].

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica.2002. Pluralism. Encyclopaedia Britannica. [Online] Available at :< https://global.britannica.com/topic/pluralism-politics> [Accessed 15 February 2017]. 

Van Niekerk.2016. Enough. Hope Overcome.

Wooding, L., 2010. Christian Humanism: from Renaissance to Reformation. [e-Book].History-Today. Available 













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