![]()
1
POSTMODERNISM: IT’S EVERYWHERE YOU WANT TO BE
The Visa credit card company has developed a catchy and effective slogan: “Visa—it’s everywhere you want to be.” The ads show various situations in which a competitor’s credit card is not accepted, but Visa is. In a sense, the phenomenon of postmodernism is like Visa. It’s also everywhere, but the difference is that it also is in some places where you don’t want to be. That it is ubiquitous is quite clear. But because it is so common and so present, we may not really be conscious of it. It is like the air we breathe. We are fully unaware of it. Perhaps when we move to a new area where there is a distinctive odor in the air (such as fumes from a paper plant), we initially notice the change in our environment. Yet we soon become accustomed to it and fail to be aware of it any longer. Likewise, because of the spreading influence of postmodernism, we may hardly notice it. It is therefore all the more important that we take special pains to identify what we are talking about.
When I say this, I am aware that I should not speak of postmodernism only in the third person, as “he, she, it, they.” Because we live in a world increasingly characterized by postmodernism, and because some of us may have had our major educational experience in a culture of postmodernism, this is not some external hypothetical factor. I am reminded of what one of my students said about a chapel experience he had as an undergraduate. A noted evangelical leader had come to his school, and described and criticized the evils of postmodernism. “But,” said the student, “he was like a Ku Klux Klan leader trying to enlist members at a meeting of the NAACP.” Postmodernism—it’s everywhere you want to be—including, perhaps, even within your own thinking.
Postmodernism by its very nature is not easy to define in simple terms. It is both a broad cultural and sociological phenomenon and an ideology, a set of ideas. Instead of beginning with a standard definition, stating certain qualities of the movement and then distinguishing it from other members of its class, we do well first to identify some instances of it, and then draw out a description. Let’s look at three sketches, taken from real life.
Scene one. A young woman listens regularly to a radio station that has a talk show format. The radio host poses a different controversial issue each day, and listeners call in, offering their opinions on that topic. When asked why she listens to this type of program, the young woman responds, “These are important questions.” Then, when asked why she doesn’t read what experts on that subject have to say, she replies, “I like to hear different people’s opinions.”
Scene two. The Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate is conducting confirmation hearings on a presidential nominee for associate justice of the Supreme Court. The nominee, an African-American male, is a conservative. After extensive questioning about alleged sexual harassment, the committee turns to his educational experience. Because he attended Roman Catholic parochial schools, some more liberal members of the committee are afraid that he may believe in natural law—the idea that right and wrong are grounded in the very nature of the universe. Finally, the chairman instructs the nominee: “Right and wrong are what the United States Congress decides.”
Scene three. A young man is on trial as an accessory to murder. His best friend murdered a young girl while this man stood by. When asked by the prosecutor why he did nothing to stop his friend, not even verbally, and why he did not notify anyone, the young man replies, “I didn’t know the girl. I knew my friend.”
Now let’s go back and examine each of these sketches, noting the distinctive character of the incident, and how it exemplifies a facet of postmodernism. The first (the radio talk show) illustrates a familiar trend in our society. There was a time when the opinion of an expert, who had devoted much time to studying a given subject, was highly valued. Now, however, such expert opinion, which claims a special knowledge of the subject, is often considered irrelevant. Truth is not something objective, to be understood more and more completely. Truth is what is truth for me, and that may be different than it is for you or others. A friend of mine who is a New Testament professor says that he comes to class and offers an interpretation of a passage, on which he has spent much time and labor, building upon the years of study that he spent acquiring a doctorate in the field. When he gives his interpretation, however, a student may object, suggesting that the passage says something different to him, even though he may not have invested any time studying the passage. If the professor does not grant equal validity to the student’s interpretation, he is regarded as closed-minded and authoritarian.
The second incident (the Senate hearing) is an interesting one. It also relates to truth. There are no universal values, which apply everywhere and for everyone. Nor are right and wrong different for each individual. Rather, each group sets its own standards, which are valid and normative for the group, but not beyond it. An example would be rules of the road. Is it inherently proper to drive on the right-hand side of the road, or on the left-hand side? The answer is, neither the right nor the left is intrinsically good or bad, right or wrong. In the United States, however, the laws dictate that you drive on the right, and that is what is correct. To do otherwise on a two-way road is wrong, illegal, and even immoral, under certain circumstances, should a human life be lost as a result. But what about driving in Great Britain? Here it is right to drive on the left, and wrong to drive on the right. What is the difference between these two situations? It is simply that the legislative bodies in one country have set the rules one way, while those in the other have established different laws. There is nothing inherently proper about driving on the right, so that it would be right everywhere and always.
The third case, a tragic one, illustrates a slightly different facet of postmodernism. Here, the basis for moral conviction and action is not the rights of all humans, or their value as human beings, but whether there is a communal relationship between me and the other person. Because the young man was a friend to the murderer, and there was a certain relationship between them, there was an obligation and an esteeming of value that held for his friend but not for the victim.
Now that we have considered these three instances of postmodernism, let’s try a few more, four this time. Scene four is still painfully familiar to residents of the United States. The president of the United States is being tried in impeachment proceedings in the United States Senate, the House of Representatives having passed articles of impeachment. He is being tried, not for his sexual improprieties with a White House intern, but for lying to cover up his behavior. The specific charge is that he lied under oath, and thus is guilty of perjury. His attorney, however, begins his defense, not by rebutting the charges of lying under oath, but by charging that the special prosecutor was biased against the president and has been maliciously attempting to “get” him.
Scene five. Here we will take two incidents together. A large evangelical denomination in the United States announces at the time of the Jewish holy days that they are praying for the conversion of Jewish people to faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Jewish leaders and the media raise a strong protest against this practice as intolerant, and even as encouraging hate crimes against Jews. In the second incident, the pope, as the earthly head of the Roman Catholic Church, plans a trip to India. He is told, however, by officials of the Hindu religion in India that if he is to do so, he must declare that Christianity is not the only true religion or the only means of salvation. Failure to do so, they say, will promote hatred between the two groups.
Scene six. The Phoenix Suns National Basketball Association team has just finished a game against the Portland Trailblazers. On the team bus, the Suns’ all-star power forward calls his wife on his cellular phone. During the conversation, the player passes out and collapses. He is rushed to a local hospital where, after several days, the condition is diagnosed as resulting from the player’s self-medication with herbs. Armed with this knowledge, the medical personnel manage to get him out of danger and eventually restore him to health.
Scene seven. The United States Senate is debating a particular bill. Some, of a more conservative bent, who hold a “strict constructionist” view, object that this proposed bill is unconstitutional, because it is opposed to the intention that the authors of the Constitution expressed in that document. Others, who believe in a “living Constitution,” contend that the authorial intent is irrelevant, that the meaning of the Constitution is what it means to us today.
Now let’s revisit each of the incidents in this list and see how it exemplifies postmodernism. In scene four, the view of truth is not a question of an idea’s correspondence to an objective state of affairs. Rather, the defensibility of one’s actions depends upon the motivation of the person bringing the accusation. The ethical question (did he lie?) becomes subsidiary to the question of etiquette (is the prosecutor treating him politely?).
In the fifth scene, the question of religious beliefs is introduced for the first time. No coercion or threat of any kind is involved. It is simply a question of contending that if one view is correct, its contradictory cannot also be correct, and that is not allowable. In a postmodern scheme, each person’s truth is truth for him or her, and to suggest that one is attempting to persuade another person of one’s own truth is a rejection of that person, or a mark of disrespect. From disrespect, says this view, comes hatred. Almost every view is to be tolerated, the only exception being a view that insists upon its own absoluteness.
Now consider scene six. Traditional medicine has been strongly tied to a conventional understanding of the scientific method. Treatments were based upon an understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the human body and the chemical analysis of medications, whose effectiveness was assessed by scientific testing. Alternative medicine, however, is not bound by such restrictions. Evidence for the effectiveness of certain treatments is anecdotal, and is not accompanied by scientifically controlled assessments of the after-effects or negative results that may also have occurred. In some cases, the advocates of alternative medicine speak of traditional medicine as corrupt and narrow.
In scene seven (differing views of the U.S. Constitution) we see the redefinition of the very idea of meaning. Here, instead of meaning residing in some fixed, static content of the text, placed there intentionally by the author(s), meaning is dynamic and fluid. It depends upon the situation in which the text is being read. Indeed, the meaning of a text is a product of its content and of the meaning brought to it by the reader. As such, it cannot be locked into some past interpretation, which is then thought to be its intrinsic meaning.
These brief sketches should be sufficient to enable us to recognize the presence, indeed, virtually the omnipresence, of postmodernism. Even in places where it is most sternly resisted, evidences of its presence and influence can often be found. Let us now, however, examine in somewhat greater detail the contrast between the postmodern period and the earlier premodern and modern periods.
One of the clearest indications of our culture’s outlook is television, since it has such wide exposure. Here we can also see juxtaposed the values of the current generation and the previous one by simply switching between the prime time programs of the major broadcast networks and the “retro” cable networks, such as Nickelodeon and TV Land. Some examples may help us see this.
Gunsmoke was a popular television series for approximately ten years, first as a half-hour and then as a full-hour program on Saturday nights. The program was set in nineteenth-century Dodge City, Kansas, and the hero of the program was Marshal Matt Dillon. A strong supporting cast included Doc, Kitty (the owner of the Long Branch Saloon and Matt’s undeclared girlfriend), and a sequence of deputies, of which the longest-running was Festus Haggin. Crime was usually at the center of each episode’s plot, although other issues, particularly family and economic, were sometimes highlighted. In spite of all the violence and even killing that took place, there was a moral quality to the program. Honesty, loyalty, and courage were all highly prized and regularly displayed. Right and wrong were objective. Good and evil were clearly contrasted. Perhaps it was true, as a University of Chicago theologian once said, that “Gunsmoke has a more profound doctrine of humanity than do most Christian pulpits.”
In one episode, Marshal Dillon was bringing in a prisoner. This prisoner was a former lawman with whom Matt had worked in the past. As they sat by the campfire on a night’s stop during their trip to Dodge City, they reminisced about the old days and the good times they had had together. Then the prisoner said, “Matt, we’ve gone through a lot together. Can’t you just let me escape?” “No,” replied Matt, “I can’t do that. It’s true that we’ve been good friends, but that has nothing to do with it. It’s my duty to bring you in.” In another episode, “The Victim,” a simple-minded man is in jail, charged with murder as the result of a fight over a girl. The man he killed is the son of a powerful man who controls the town and who has done much for the girl. This father has a large number of men, against whom Matt stands alone, and he wants to simply string up the accused, who he asserts does not deserve a trial. He threatens Matt, who, outnumbered, is prepared to sacrifice his life rather than agree to this short-circuiting of justice. When Matt insists that any accused deserves his day in court, the father of the dead man says, “Circumstances alter the law.” “No,” Matt says, “they don’t.” Finally, the girl testifies to what really happened, and the man is released.
A transitional program, in terms of modernism and postmodernism, is L. A. Law. Here we have the usual flexibility of moral standards, especially as exercised by Arnie Becker. Yet genuine moral issues are raised, generally in the context of legal cases the firm is asked to handle. Set in a court context, the issue is debated by the two opposing attorneys. Although there is a legal resolution, that does not necessarily constitute a moral resolution. There seems to be an underlying assumption that there is a moral right and a moral wrong, and yet the determination or the interpretation of that right or wrong is based on a given community’s standards, termed “laws.” It is not, however, beyond the program’s reach to challenge some of those standards, to question whether a given law is really moral in light of some higher basis for morality, which is not really specified.
Another mediating program is Frasier. Here conventional sexual morality is not maintained, especially by Roz and Bulldog but also by Frasier. There is, however, an underlying moral tone, especially displayed by Frasier. He often agonizes over decisions and actions, going to great lengths to rectify them. His father, Martin, a retired police officer, frequently encourages Frasier to lighten up on some of these concerns, trying to keep peace and smooth social functioning. The underlying basis for these values is not discussed, although one is left to surmise that the two psychiatrists, Frasier and his brother Niles, see something inviolable about human nature and human rights.
Contrast these programs with Seinfeld, perhaps the paradigmatic postmodern program of the 1990s. Not only do the characters not display moral fiber, they do not even think in terms of moral issues. Their concerns are, from a moral standpoint, trivial. They are interested in pleasure, amusement, curiosity. Such issues as sexual morality do not really arise in connection with sex outside marriage. Sex becomes a matter of pleasure, even diversion. Extremely seldom, if ever, are questions of the moral rightness or wrongness of an action considered. Rather, personal convenience becomes a major factor. Consider, for example, the episode entitled “The Rye.” Jerry, wanting a particular kind of bread, finds that an elderly lady has bought the last loaf and refuses to part with it. He then mugs her to get that loaf. The moral issue of stealing does not seem to be a factor. Similarly, deceit is frequently used (especially by George) when it serves the needed purpose.
One interesting feature of the series is the way what is generally termed essentialism (which we will explore in chapter 2) is rejected. This extends even to the rejection of the fixed personality. Kramer in particular is always remaking himself and his reality using the latest gadget or contrivance. In one episode he vows to get rid of all of the furniture in his apartment, replacing it with levels of pillows. In another, he decides never to leave the bathroom. He purchases a waterproof television set, and installs a disposal in the drain so that he can cook in the bathroom. At other times, the characters recreate to such an extent that they actually become another character entirely. Kramer, finding an old set for a television program, takes on the persona of Merv Griffin and conducts a talk show in his living room. J. Peterman, Elaine’s boss, likes to create wild stories about his exploits. He buys Kramer’s biographical information, which is itself a fiction, in order to publish it as his own. George particularly pretends to be someone or something other than he is. He masquerades as an executive in the import/export business, and also pretends to be a handicapped person. The morality of such behavior is not really an issue in the program, only the problematic consequences of being discovered.
Another interesting feature of the Seinfeld show is the relationship of reality to art. Programs begin and end with Jerry doing his standup comedy routine; the material that intervenes illustrates what he is talking about. Yet here, Jerry the comedian is part of the drama that he is talking about. In other words, we are introduced to two levels of reality with Jerry, the comedian and the actor. In the episode “The Pilot,” George and Jerry work on a new show for NBC. It resembles the show Seinfeld, with characters representing George, Elaine, and Kramer. When asked by network executives what the show is about, George responds, “Nothing! It’s a show about nothing!” which also reveals its resemblance to the Seinfeld show. This is a show fictionalizing the fiction of the show—a show within a show, as it were.
This is a technique sometimes used in film as well. For example, The French Lieutenant’s Woman is the story of the making of a movie that involves a romance between the two characters in the plot, but also a romance between the actor and actress who are playing those two characters. Here is reality on two levels, and yet, both levels are still within the film, a film about a film. We are still on the outside, looking into a room, and through the window looking out on the reality being observed by the people in the room. This same feature can be seen in newscasts. In the past, the newspersons were seen on the set. They still are throughout the program, but now, at the end of the newscast, the director switches to a camera farther from the set than the others, and one sees not only the set, but the cameras, camera persons, and so on. Similarly, note the practice of appending at the end of a program the gaffs that took place in earlier recordings, a practice especially common on Home Improvement. While the interpretation of these practices is debated, it appears that one effect is to blur the line between reality and construct, or to suggest that one cannot be sure what reality actually is. What is being done, of course, in the case of newscasts, is to undermine confidence in the reality of the report of the news, whether the producers realize it or not.
Sometimes words or symbols are seen as referring not to something outside the interplay of such symbols, but as referring only to other symbols. This appears in an interesting episode of Seinfeld. Kramer has written a coffee-table book about coffee tables, and appears on Regis and Kathie Lee Live to discuss it. He then reveals that the book has folding legs, so that the coffee-table book about coffee tables can itself become a coffee table.
Seinfeld, then, is a program about nothing. Yet actually, by not being about any subject, having no moral, it is itself telling a story about the world. There is no objective right and wrong, only what forwards one’s own cause, or helps or hurts one’s own community. The truth is also blurred, not only by the techniques we have described but also by the way the truth is manipulated. George, for example, convinces his parents to move to Florida, which he wants, by persuading them that the senior Seinfelds, their rivals of sorts, don’t want them to move there. Even when there is a concern to discover the truth, the truth sought is all part of the value system of the characters, as when Jerry goes to great lengths to determine whether his girlfriend’s figure is genuine or fake. Convictions are means of utility, particularly for George. In “The Conversion,” he considers converting to the Latvian Orthodox Church, because a girl he is interested in will not date anyone from a different background. On another occasion, he cheats on an IQ t...
