Postmodernism and Truth

Excerpt from "On Truth" by Harry G. Frankfurt:

“We live at a time when, strange to say, many quite cultivated individuals consider truth to be unworthy of any particular respect. It is well known of course, that a cavalier attitude toward truth is more or less endemic within the ranks of publicists and politicians, breeds whose exemplars characteristically luxuriate in the production of BS, of lies, and of whatever other modes of fraudulence and fakery they are able to devise. That is old news, and we are accustomed to it.

Recently though, a similar version of this attitude – or indeed, a more extreme version of it – has become disturbingly widespread even within what might naively have been thought to be a more reliable class of people. Numerous unabashed skeptics and cynics about the importance of truth (or about the related importance of long-established strictures against plagiarism) have been found among best-selling and prize-winning authors, among writers for leading newspapers, and among hitherto respected historians, biographers, memoirists, theorists of literature, novelists – and even among philosophers, who of all people might reasonably have been counted upon to know better.

These shameless antagonists of common sense – members of a certain emblematic subgroup of them call themselves “postmodernists” – rebelliously and self-righteously deny that truth has any genuine objective reality at all. They therefore go on to deny that truth is worthy of any obligatory deference or respect. Indeed, they emphatically dismiss a presumption that is not only utterly fundamental to responsible inquiry and thought, but that would seem to be – on the face of it – entirely innocuous: the presumption that “what the facts are” is a useful notion, or that it is, at the very least, a notion with intelligible meaning. As for the entitlements to deference or to respect that we ordinarily assign to fact and to truth, the postmodernists’ view is that in the end the assignment of those entitlements is just up for grabs. It is simply a matter, they insist at how you look at things.”

COMMENTS:

Cindy said...
How pathetic is it to comment on one's own blog????I love this quote, but it does not make a distinction between the value of opinions and/or unique perspective. I'd like to comment.I often defend opinions that I do not embrace as valuable if they demonstrate internal consistency and the purveyor of the opinion shows respect for my own different one. I believe that not one man has a corner on absolute truth, so in the spirit of respect, I seek to find the value in perspectives of others. (We may all be looking at the same object and describing what we see objectively but with different language.) I believe that we become arrogant and ignorant when we fail to listen to others out of prejudice or fear of differing worldview presuppostions.Acknoledgement and respect of differing viewpoints gives one the wisdom of greater understanding when carried out with due credulity. Many people, uncomfortable or easily intimidated by diversity, wrongly perceive my respect as a totalistic condoning of perspectives that may be untrue and unreliable. This practice does not in any way negate or cheapen one's own perspective or anything that represents objective truth. I believe if we are all seeking the best possible understanding of truth, that truth will make itself evident and will refute all falsehoodAugust 4, 2007 8:27 PM

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My Eyes So Full of Light

Until I get something more substantial to put here, I decided to post this poem that I wrote in November 2006. I was still suffering from a sluggish thyroid and had just experienced some new healing of some very old wounds.

A musician friend of mine charged me to write a song around my new epiphany, as I kept repeating that my eyes were so full of light that I could barely see. Within a few days, I awakened in the wee hours of the morning, scribbling the words down on cardboard (the first thing that I could grab to write on). I still hear no music dancing behind or above these words, but they're not going anywhere.

My Eyes So Full of Light

As I wrestle with this old, familiar problem
From this place I always flee but never leave
Overwhelmed and strangled by the growing chaos
Where I know futility
And I feel strength leaving me
Come now, Lord, and be glorified in me

Outside of You, my heart is cold and stony
Per the prophet, it is wicked desperately
It is if my heart of hope is dead already
Yet it somehow feels this pain
And knows that all is not in vain
So, COME NOW, LORD, and be glorified in me

If your strength is truly perfect through our weakness
And your power glorified through human need
As your eyes look to and fro, gaze now and see me
I groan with the very earth
For You to show YOUR MIGHTY WORTH
Oh, COME NOW, LORD, and be glorified in me

My heart knows well that death's my only answer
But as your power overshadows me
My death to selfish gain is what You called for
Never to cover up in shame
Hiding the glory of your Name
Oh, Transform me and be glorified in me

This heart, once dark, now beams with understanding
My eyes so full of light I barely see
The path before me, and where all my steps You've ordered
As your whisper says "This way"
As your right hand holds my sway
I rejoice as you are glorified in me

So ALL glory be unto my Heavenly Father, my Creator, Savior, Lover of my Soul,
Be ever by me with your Spirit Breath within me
As Your Spirit sanctifies and makes me whole
As I ever dwell within this love renewal
And within Your very hands I dance and sing
May my life be nothing but a place of worship
Unto honor and all glory to my King

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Cognitive Dissonance

According to Hassan, our gift of logic can deceive us into believing that we are absolutely rational, and invulnerable as a result. This naive assumption of environmental autonomy denies the strong effect of emotional and physical factors on the clarity of our logic. Likewise, the assumption of our invulnerability allows much room for vulnerability to shame-based relationships.When under pressure, we have fewer resources to help us maintain critical thought and vigilance, so we depend on stereotypes to decrease psychological stress.

When presented with dilemmas that create discontinuity between and among the elements of an individual’s psychological, emotional and physical concepts of self, especially under conditions when our energies are depleted, the stress produced by the dilemma cannot be easily resolved.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

It is the creation of two ideas or motives in conflict, and the natural response it to suspend critical thought to alleviate the psychological stress that it creates. If I tell you to get into the pool, but I insist that you won't get wet, when you try to process the dissonant ideas, your critical thinking shuts down for a moment. If I tell you something that seems to be right but is still troubling, and I don't give you adequate time to process and think about it, this creates cognitive dissonance. Ah, you have just become very easy to manipulate. If I continue to bombard you with more ideas that do not really make sense (If a tree falls in the woods, does it make any noise?), you will get even further into a critical thought numbing, altered state of consciousness. I've created a foothold into your sense of self through confusing thoughts.

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