A Brief Defense of the Postmodern, Part One

Let me preface this by noting that I do understand that there is no set definition of "postmodern" or "postmodernity" -- though, for the uninitiated, it important to note that the former usually refers to a system of knowing and/or scholarship, etc, while the latter refers to a distinct historical period that may or may not have already come and gone. My intent, however, is not to offer any solid definition upon which my communication is grounded. Instead, I wish to expound on some vague principles. But if the reader must be grounded in some sense, a suitably unrestricting clarification would be that I approach the postmodern as a general way of thinking that is a distinct reaction to the claims of the modern. The tension between the postmodern and the modern must not be forgotten or ignored, as this nebulous tension is the very Archimedean point from which the postmodern is oriented.

I was raised in moderately conservative evangelical Christian circles, and as such I am very familiar with many standard arguments decrying the evil of postmodernity. Chief among these complaints was that the postmodern supposedly claims that there is no absolute truth -- which, as gleeful thinkers pointed out, is an absolute statement within itself, and therefore self-contradicting and a fallacy. They are, of course, completely correct in their reasoning. However, such a standard refutation unfortunately falls victim to the utilization of a straw man argument, and as such fails to look at the true nature of postmodern claims.

The postmodern does not deny absolute truth. Such a denial is clearly folly. What the postmodern does deny is the idea that truth is always the most influential aspect of human existence. The postmodern realizes that there is absolute, immutable truth, but it also realizes that truth is always interpreted. It therefore looks not to absolutes as the origins of human thought and action, but to the systems of interpretation. In other words, the postmodern recognizes that a mountain is not just important because it is a mountain, but because you interpret the actual physical mass to be a mountain.

Consider this example: Gravity is inescapable. It affects nearly every aspect of human life. The very fact that we are held down to the earth has dramatically influenced human history -- humanity has certainly not built cities floating in the sky! And yet, one man, Sir Isaac Newton, is credited with the "discovery" of gravity. Newton did not invent gravity, nor did he fully explain it. He did not grasp it in its entirety, but still he set his incomplete understanding of this force, this immutable truth, into words. This one man's "discovery" -- interpretation -- opened the way for innumerable scientific advances, and in a very tangible sense helped define technological advances up to the present.

The postmodern does not deny absolute truth any more than it denies gravity. But it posits that truth alone is the not a complete explanation; interpretation of truth must always be considered.