Several years ago a student confided in me his unbelief in the Judeo-Christian God. He was writing a paper contrasting Christianity & Islam and was alarmed with similarities between the two faiths. The more he talked, the more clearly he was able to explain that he did not disbelieve in a god—he was just not certain which one it was. "Is that all?" I asked. My concern was short-lived. "Get back to class." And I never spoke to him about it again.
Whenever I encounter conversations about religion with a POMO, I do not try to evangelize him. The Modern parent faults me for this, but I think that he is mistaken. Religion concerns questions of ultimacy, and those questions span the total of reality. The quality of one's religion is illustrated by its ethics: its evaluation of right and wrong action. In other words, there are not only right and wrong ways to to pursue justice, to punish evil, to believe, to pray. There are also right and wrong ways to vault a fence, to ride a bike, to eat a bagel, to vault a fence, to read a book, to wash a window, to make pancakes. Narrowing religion to the artificial domain of “spirituality” makes it partial like the elevation of a holiday over the other days of the year. Religion does not just look like something. Religion looks like everything.
One fifth grade student spent an entire lunch period with me describing her grandmother’s atheism. How could it be that such a loving sage did not believe in God? "Oh, but she does believe in God," I told her. I first affirmed her grandmother’s position: she says that she does not believe God exists. I believe that to be her intellectual position. But she does not live as if God does not exist. I asked my student "Your grandmother loves you, right?" She agreed. ""Then that contradicts what your grandmother thinks." Her grandmother’s Atheism did not, nor could it, change the reality of what is. You can have one thousand atheists intelligently arguing against the Christian faith, and that will not add one thing to the reality of what is. Conversely, you can have one thousand Creation scientists intelligently arguing for intelligent design, and that will not add one thing to the reality of what is.
How can I say this? Because the nexus of man is not his brain. So the initial problem with man is not with his brain. So the answer is not man's brain. The Modern Christian feared that a growing consensus of unbelief would intrinsically change the truthfulness of what is. So it concentrated its efforts by its own increased amount of data in favor pro God to defeat all atheistic opposition. Surely you have heard the following statements (or similar statements) countless times: "The science of the human eye proves that God exists" or "Ancient extra-biblical texts prove the Bible to be true" or "Current political events prove the Coming of Christ to be imminent."
When the children with whom I work express unbelief of or a dislike for Christianity, they have never meant that they do not believe in God (or a god). They do not see unbelief in God as an inescapable Atheism. Maybe they see unbelief in God as a rejection of my explanation of God. The POMO lives in the ethereal, in the theoretical, in the plausible, so he is not an Atheist in the classic Modern sense as having categorically shut out any possibility of God or deity or spirit whatsoever. To think so is to wrongly represent this generation.
What I have found to be true about the evangelical efforts of "evidences" is that the pressure of evidences has funneled both Modern and current POMO generations into a generic monotheism: not Christian monotheism, per se. The emphasis of evidentialism has largely been to move someone from an intellectual position of unbelief to an intellectual position of admitting or at least entertaining that "a" God must exist. From that point on, gravity does the rest of the work: it is statistically arguable that a person will "become" a Christian. It is a science, and that science equates monotheistic persuasion to Christianity.
The Modern monotheist will tend to be persuaded of a monotheism of evidences on the basis of science. The POMO finds the same evangelistic strategy of evidences to be an uncomfortably sinister form of coersion. You might as well put your hands down his pants. You don't need to convince a POMO of God's existence! That is not his problem! You don't need to convince him that a little "i" intelligence or big "I" Intelligence has designed the world and has a destiny for him. Save your breath. That is already the baseline of every POMO, atheist or not.
POMO
Monday, February 28, 2011
EDUCATIONAL DISORDERS
Let me illustrate the discrepancy of the Modern and POMO views with the multiplication tables. For the Modern, the multiplication tables are a system of truth. That means that the Modern does not worry about the validity of the system (the rightness of the multiplication tables), because he already subscribes to the logic of the tables (aka, the system itself). The Modern, therefore, largely concerns himself with the soundness of his answers or with correlating facts within the system itself (if 0 x 0 = 0, then 0 x 1 = 0). Such certainty is vital to the Modern, because he can make valid projections if certain answers are undoubtedly right and certain others are undoubtedly wrong. Because his generation’s problem is not with the system itself, all he has to do is merely to correlate the proper information within that system.
For the Modern, memorization aids his systematic reliability. Partly for that reason the Modern had a good education. You must understand that when prayer was officially banned from public schools, public education did not deteriorate because of the new manifestation of the atheistic world-view. That Supreme Court decision to “ban” God was only another manifestation of the Modern world-view that had existed for almost two hundred years.
In addition, the response by Christians to “get God back into public education” was equally an atheistic impulse. Why? Because the atheistic public believed that God could—through human effort—be banned from the secular world, and the Christian Church—which should have known better—believed that God could—through human effort—be put back into the secular world! Both subscribed to the Modern atheistic dichotomy that either God totally does not exist (atheism) or that He partially does not exist (sacred-secular distinction).
This Modern atheistic position amongst Christians, I would argue, is largely responsible for the POMO’s rejection of logical systems. The Modern concept of truth relies heavily upon logical systems but allows for the suspension of that system at the will of the individual. When you begin to notice that the Modern concept of truth was relativistic in this way and not objective, then you will begin to understand why logical systems are not reliable for the POMO: every “objective” system has a man behind it.
For example, the moral failures of certain public figureheads in the Christian community during the 1980s—men who publicly preached the systematic truths of Christianity while privately suspending (breaking) the systems themselves—make my point exactly. Those figureheads did not subject themselves to the tenets of the “system”, volitionally admit their faults and step down—which the Biblical system that they flouted demanded they should do. Rather, they chose to remain within the system and to preach the system while all along breaking it. Adherence to religious or “secular” logical systems for the POMO is ultimately submission to the arbitrary will of an individual. It does not matter if the secularist is the proverbial God-awful atheist humping a baboon or if the secularist is a cool, Christian youth minister who has tattoed himself to be relavant. The POMO will reject the bifurcation of the sacred from the secular. Period.
For all I have said about the POMO rejecting systems, his is a generation addicted to technological systems. Is this a discrepancy? I do no think so. POMOS do not reject Microsoft per se. They reject Bill Gates. Why? Because Bill Gates is back of Microsoft. Microsoft cannot manipulate because it is a system subject to Bill Gates. Bill Gates can manipulate because he is the intelligent designer of Microsoft. Although Bill Gates created what looks like a system, that “system” is a mechanistic expression of his own arbitrary design which is not to be taken more seriously than it should be. Microsoft, as a system made by a man, is a game. It is a frame. Understand this!
For the POMO, learning the multiplication tables is doubly difficult than it was for the Modern because the POMO concerns himself both 1) with the logical reliability (validity) of the numerical system and 2) with the rightness of the individual answers. The Modern has only to concern himself with the rightness of the individual answers (3 x 3 = 9) and not with the truthfulness or with the logical reliability of the system (Is 3 really 3, and if so, then why?). The POMO thinks, "Are the multiplication tables a game or the truth? What man came up with the multiplication tables? Why did he come up with them? Was he a good man or a bad man? Were he a good man, what did he mean by coming up with the tables? Were he a bad man, what is he trying to do to me? Can I rely upon the tables? Can a I rely upon this man?"
Modern parents look at me in disbelief when I explain that this subconscious thought process is the crux of their child’s academic dilemma. Being materialistic because of their heavy atheistic culture, Moderns tend to see academic problems as the outgrowth of nutritional deficiencies, genetic inheritance, or any physical predisposition. Rarely do they see academic problems as a moral deficiency. Because the POMO does not subscribe to a mechanistic reliability of logical systems, he fundamentally doubts the reliability of the multiplication tables. Why? Because memorizing the tables is hard? No. He does not believe in the multiplication tables because he does not believe that objective systems are infallible when he knows that every system must be flawed because it has a man behind it. If he is naturally bent to be independent, he will typically flounder in the system because he will allow no one to tinker with him. If he is not naturally bent to be independent, he will typically imbibe what he is given to his ultimate spiritual confusion and undoing.
Because he is not certain about what makes the tables true, he will have one of two broad tendencies: 1) he will be reluctant to commit the tables to memory and will suffer from short-term memory loss or related information gaps in his thinking (ADD, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, etc.) or 2) he will temporarily suspend the moral dilemma he has with the tables and will wholeheartedly commit the tables to memory.
Because of the future with which he has to live, I would argue that it is preferable that the POMO do the former by wrestling with his moral dilemma. By wrestling with the logical reliability of logical systems, he wrestles with the spiritual obstacle to faith of his own generation. The obstacle to faith for this generation is that Christian children, the children of Christian families, and children who have grown up in the Christian Western Hemisphere do not believe that the God of the Bible is the only Final Reality. And if they do, it is not in the same way that their Modern parents frame it. This is what I mean by calling these children POMOS.
Educational and medical establishments increasingly seek to address this moral faithlessness with medication because they attribute the heightened nervous activity of POMOS almost totally to physical predispositions—not to profound moral insecurities. Educational forums no longer liberate students to think about truth, because they no longer appeal to the classical flow of cause-and-effect. They cannot appeal to it because they have undermined its foundational support which is rooted in a certainty beyond artificial system.
I would argue that both private and public school forums, insofar as they subscribe to Modern ideology, tend to teach by indoctrination and imposition. As a result, education bypasses logical flow and emphasizes arbitrary contexts. Arbitrary contexts can only be memorized; they cannot be reasoned. Virtually all that a student must learn in school today he must memorize apart from proper associations because he does not have the faith and/or contingent intellectual faculties to make logical associations.
Educational forums are not designed to encourage students to think about truth. They are designed to insinuate academic proficiency. Insinuating academic proficiency is nothing but a continuation of the Modern value of a fixation upon the short-term, the artificially quantifiable. However, Modernism is no longer relevant in our world. It is a dinosaur and does not communicate to the POMO.
POMO absurdity is an intentional distortion by POMOS of Modern logical reliability. That is why anything labeled “post-modern” for its farfetchedness could also be labeled “cynical.” It does not matter if it is language, politics, economics, science or media, the POMO rages against the machine in such an unsystematic way that the Modern writes him off as completely absurd. That is a foolish move on the part of the Modern, because the nonsense of the POMO is rapidly replacing the sensibilities of the Modern. POMO absurdity is the new logic.
For the Modern, memorization aids his systematic reliability. Partly for that reason the Modern had a good education. You must understand that when prayer was officially banned from public schools, public education did not deteriorate because of the new manifestation of the atheistic world-view. That Supreme Court decision to “ban” God was only another manifestation of the Modern world-view that had existed for almost two hundred years.
In addition, the response by Christians to “get God back into public education” was equally an atheistic impulse. Why? Because the atheistic public believed that God could—through human effort—be banned from the secular world, and the Christian Church—which should have known better—believed that God could—through human effort—be put back into the secular world! Both subscribed to the Modern atheistic dichotomy that either God totally does not exist (atheism) or that He partially does not exist (sacred-secular distinction).
This Modern atheistic position amongst Christians, I would argue, is largely responsible for the POMO’s rejection of logical systems. The Modern concept of truth relies heavily upon logical systems but allows for the suspension of that system at the will of the individual. When you begin to notice that the Modern concept of truth was relativistic in this way and not objective, then you will begin to understand why logical systems are not reliable for the POMO: every “objective” system has a man behind it.
For example, the moral failures of certain public figureheads in the Christian community during the 1980s—men who publicly preached the systematic truths of Christianity while privately suspending (breaking) the systems themselves—make my point exactly. Those figureheads did not subject themselves to the tenets of the “system”, volitionally admit their faults and step down—which the Biblical system that they flouted demanded they should do. Rather, they chose to remain within the system and to preach the system while all along breaking it. Adherence to religious or “secular” logical systems for the POMO is ultimately submission to the arbitrary will of an individual. It does not matter if the secularist is the proverbial God-awful atheist humping a baboon or if the secularist is a cool, Christian youth minister who has tattoed himself to be relavant. The POMO will reject the bifurcation of the sacred from the secular. Period.
For all I have said about the POMO rejecting systems, his is a generation addicted to technological systems. Is this a discrepancy? I do no think so. POMOS do not reject Microsoft per se. They reject Bill Gates. Why? Because Bill Gates is back of Microsoft. Microsoft cannot manipulate because it is a system subject to Bill Gates. Bill Gates can manipulate because he is the intelligent designer of Microsoft. Although Bill Gates created what looks like a system, that “system” is a mechanistic expression of his own arbitrary design which is not to be taken more seriously than it should be. Microsoft, as a system made by a man, is a game. It is a frame. Understand this!
For the POMO, learning the multiplication tables is doubly difficult than it was for the Modern because the POMO concerns himself both 1) with the logical reliability (validity) of the numerical system and 2) with the rightness of the individual answers. The Modern has only to concern himself with the rightness of the individual answers (3 x 3 = 9) and not with the truthfulness or with the logical reliability of the system (Is 3 really 3, and if so, then why?). The POMO thinks, "Are the multiplication tables a game or the truth? What man came up with the multiplication tables? Why did he come up with them? Was he a good man or a bad man? Were he a good man, what did he mean by coming up with the tables? Were he a bad man, what is he trying to do to me? Can I rely upon the tables? Can a I rely upon this man?"
Modern parents look at me in disbelief when I explain that this subconscious thought process is the crux of their child’s academic dilemma. Being materialistic because of their heavy atheistic culture, Moderns tend to see academic problems as the outgrowth of nutritional deficiencies, genetic inheritance, or any physical predisposition. Rarely do they see academic problems as a moral deficiency. Because the POMO does not subscribe to a mechanistic reliability of logical systems, he fundamentally doubts the reliability of the multiplication tables. Why? Because memorizing the tables is hard? No. He does not believe in the multiplication tables because he does not believe that objective systems are infallible when he knows that every system must be flawed because it has a man behind it. If he is naturally bent to be independent, he will typically flounder in the system because he will allow no one to tinker with him. If he is not naturally bent to be independent, he will typically imbibe what he is given to his ultimate spiritual confusion and undoing.
Because he is not certain about what makes the tables true, he will have one of two broad tendencies: 1) he will be reluctant to commit the tables to memory and will suffer from short-term memory loss or related information gaps in his thinking (ADD, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, etc.) or 2) he will temporarily suspend the moral dilemma he has with the tables and will wholeheartedly commit the tables to memory.
Because of the future with which he has to live, I would argue that it is preferable that the POMO do the former by wrestling with his moral dilemma. By wrestling with the logical reliability of logical systems, he wrestles with the spiritual obstacle to faith of his own generation. The obstacle to faith for this generation is that Christian children, the children of Christian families, and children who have grown up in the Christian Western Hemisphere do not believe that the God of the Bible is the only Final Reality. And if they do, it is not in the same way that their Modern parents frame it. This is what I mean by calling these children POMOS.
Educational and medical establishments increasingly seek to address this moral faithlessness with medication because they attribute the heightened nervous activity of POMOS almost totally to physical predispositions—not to profound moral insecurities. Educational forums no longer liberate students to think about truth, because they no longer appeal to the classical flow of cause-and-effect. They cannot appeal to it because they have undermined its foundational support which is rooted in a certainty beyond artificial system.
I would argue that both private and public school forums, insofar as they subscribe to Modern ideology, tend to teach by indoctrination and imposition. As a result, education bypasses logical flow and emphasizes arbitrary contexts. Arbitrary contexts can only be memorized; they cannot be reasoned. Virtually all that a student must learn in school today he must memorize apart from proper associations because he does not have the faith and/or contingent intellectual faculties to make logical associations.
Educational forums are not designed to encourage students to think about truth. They are designed to insinuate academic proficiency. Insinuating academic proficiency is nothing but a continuation of the Modern value of a fixation upon the short-term, the artificially quantifiable. However, Modernism is no longer relevant in our world. It is a dinosaur and does not communicate to the POMO.
POMO absurdity is an intentional distortion by POMOS of Modern logical reliability. That is why anything labeled “post-modern” for its farfetchedness could also be labeled “cynical.” It does not matter if it is language, politics, economics, science or media, the POMO rages against the machine in such an unsystematic way that the Modern writes him off as completely absurd. That is a foolish move on the part of the Modern, because the nonsense of the POMO is rapidly replacing the sensibilities of the Modern. POMO absurdity is the new logic.
UNIFORMITY OF NATURAL CAUSES IN AN OPEN SYSTEM
Perhaps, it is important to now relate the POMO cultural aspiration to absurdity to the Uncertainty Principle. Heisenberg's Law (1927) says that when it comes to quantifying a minimum of two measurements, it is impossible to calculate both to high precision within the same system at the same time in the same way. It is only possible to calibrate the system to one measurement at a time. To try to calibrate both at the same time would result in inaccurate measurements.
This elastic nature no longer allows the system to be traditionally viewed as a fixed frame. The illusion of the "absolute" disturbs the Modern who has been oriented to the rigidity of systems and who frankly would be hindered from functioning if he is not allowed his categorical frames in which to operate.
Just as the Modern subscribed to the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, the POMO subscribes to the uniformity of natural causes in an open system. What that means is that the natural world (or physical portion) is not all that exists. A final reality of which we are unaware exists outside the physical universe and "interferes" with it of its own will and according to its own rules. Therefore, that final reality makes all of the difference in the world in the determination of which facts are right or wrong.
So the POMO's paradigm is bent to be antagonistic towards the mechanistic (the machine portion of the universe), because it believes there is something greater than mechanics to which all things are oriented. If you do not understand this point, then you will be lost when it comes to understanding the absurd communication forms of this generation. The POMO has an ambiguous uniformity, the illusion of a natural world, and an “openness” that cannot rightfully be called a system because so many nebulous factors play into it so that no one is ever sure to get them all right at any given time. So everyone everywhere is always theoretically right and always theoretically wrong. Anything is possible if you give it enough time and if you let interplay enough factors.
Because the POMO affirms that a final reality exists outside the natural world and that it is beyond the full comprehension of man, the POMO refrains from making absolute judgments about the nature of that final reality. He will speculate, but he will not make an absolute judgment. A variety of opinions exists as to what that final reality is. He does not rely upon one logical system but keeps many logical system options open-ended. Variety, or tolerance, is the Achilles heel of the POMO.
Steve Carell's THE OFFICE is also a brilliant illustration of POMO parody of the open system. Michael Scott is forever interrupting the effective systematic flow of the [[Dunder Mifflin Paper Company]]. Though company protocol has been established and procedure is at his dispense, Michael Scott injects his own disruptive "solutions" to problems for which the management system has already provided. What is the result of each episode after Michael Scott's meddling? Human bonding. Human connection. Something the system cannot in its best of moments achieve.
The POMO does not commit to one system because he has no certainty in the presence of other conflicting contexts that his particular system is right. By not being committed to one system, he remains open to all. In a nutshell, this quality is what I mean by “post-modern.”
This elastic nature no longer allows the system to be traditionally viewed as a fixed frame. The illusion of the "absolute" disturbs the Modern who has been oriented to the rigidity of systems and who frankly would be hindered from functioning if he is not allowed his categorical frames in which to operate.
Just as the Modern subscribed to the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, the POMO subscribes to the uniformity of natural causes in an open system. What that means is that the natural world (or physical portion) is not all that exists. A final reality of which we are unaware exists outside the physical universe and "interferes" with it of its own will and according to its own rules. Therefore, that final reality makes all of the difference in the world in the determination of which facts are right or wrong.
So the POMO's paradigm is bent to be antagonistic towards the mechanistic (the machine portion of the universe), because it believes there is something greater than mechanics to which all things are oriented. If you do not understand this point, then you will be lost when it comes to understanding the absurd communication forms of this generation. The POMO has an ambiguous uniformity, the illusion of a natural world, and an “openness” that cannot rightfully be called a system because so many nebulous factors play into it so that no one is ever sure to get them all right at any given time. So everyone everywhere is always theoretically right and always theoretically wrong. Anything is possible if you give it enough time and if you let interplay enough factors.
Because the POMO affirms that a final reality exists outside the natural world and that it is beyond the full comprehension of man, the POMO refrains from making absolute judgments about the nature of that final reality. He will speculate, but he will not make an absolute judgment. A variety of opinions exists as to what that final reality is. He does not rely upon one logical system but keeps many logical system options open-ended. Variety, or tolerance, is the Achilles heel of the POMO.
Steve Carell's THE OFFICE is also a brilliant illustration of POMO parody of the open system. Michael Scott is forever interrupting the effective systematic flow of the [[Dunder Mifflin Paper Company]]. Though company protocol has been established and procedure is at his dispense, Michael Scott injects his own disruptive "solutions" to problems for which the management system has already provided. What is the result of each episode after Michael Scott's meddling? Human bonding. Human connection. Something the system cannot in its best of moments achieve.
The POMO does not commit to one system because he has no certainty in the presence of other conflicting contexts that his particular system is right. By not being committed to one system, he remains open to all. In a nutshell, this quality is what I mean by “post-modern.”
Sunday, February 27, 2011
POST-MOD CRUMPING VS. MODERN BREAKDANCING
POMO culture parodies Modern culture. It is important to understand this if you are to read sense into POMO "absurdity." Just as POMOS are the direct offspring of Moderns, POMO culture references Modernism. It is vital, however, to understand that POMO culture is not incidental. As a cultural movement, it is unique in that it acquiesces to the gravity of Modern culture by parody: an intentional but cynical compliance in which it is "forced" into.
For example, breakdancing belongs to the Modern because it imitated the technology of Modern industrialized culture: the reduction of matter to hydraulic motion, robotic movement, and wave theory. What made the dance Modern was its emphasis upon precise mechanical imitation and the most number of rotations exploited from an efficient move. Just like the mechanistic, Modern world-view, breakdancing was a mechanistic expression of that worldview. That is not to say anything negative about the dance, per se, unless a person has bought into the mechanistic worldview. I am only trying to contextualize it. Many customary norms of the Modern can be observed in every strata of culture that link it back to its mechanistic emphases, not just breakdancing.
In the following clip, notice the predictable "orbital" motion of the floor moves. Notice the "waves" and "machining" of the popping moves. Also, notice how the breakers dance, synchronized to the music, not against it, indicating the "staged" choreography. Perhaps, the most obvious Modern convention is the fact that the dancers are spaced or "alienated" from each other at a generous distance from each other so as to be discerned from each other. Also, each dancer specializes in a particular section of the dance genre: fracture. You are watching Modern compartmentalization in action.
And what would I be saying? I would be saying that it is time to wake up to the fact that the world is no longer a Modern world! Even though Modernism has two hundred years of momentum, I am telling you that if you are a Modern you are being marginalized. You are becoming quickly redundant. And it is no fault of the encroaching post-modern world, because eras are subject to change. It is the fault of the nostalgic Modern who wishes it to be 1940 again or 1950 again or, God forbid, the 1980's again when those decades themselves embodied cultural failures we have so tried to escape. Can a man crawl back into his mother's womb and be born again? Of course not, and neither is it a solution to talk about the "good old days" when in reality they were only good because they were familiar.
The movie Beat Street (1984) which featured the East Coast New York City breakers was about breaking out of poverty. The movie ends with a death and a memorial. The plot of the movie Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo featuring West Coast Electric Boogaloo was about "breaking the system." However, the breakdancers capitulated to the system by using an aspect of Modernism to fight Modernism. In the end their promise to revolt ended up in their raising money to save a local arts hangout. Crumping is different in that it is very very personal. You can't "get crump" unless you are spiritually and emotionally motivated. It does not come any other way. Crumping has finally become commercialized to the ire of its many founder-contributers, but it will remain grassroots because of its emphasis on individual expression.
Youtube breakdancing vs. crumping. You will see that the two Hip-Hop dances have no love for each other. That is because they are two different world-view expressions. Crumping is a quantum expression of breakdancing which is what I mean by POMO culture parodying Modern culture. POMO culture, being derived of Modernism, will always use a Modern sensibility as its reference point. But the key to understanding POMO culture is a veneer of compliance plus a cynic's twist.
For example, breakdancing belongs to the Modern because it imitated the technology of Modern industrialized culture: the reduction of matter to hydraulic motion, robotic movement, and wave theory. What made the dance Modern was its emphasis upon precise mechanical imitation and the most number of rotations exploited from an efficient move. Just like the mechanistic, Modern world-view, breakdancing was a mechanistic expression of that worldview. That is not to say anything negative about the dance, per se, unless a person has bought into the mechanistic worldview. I am only trying to contextualize it. Many customary norms of the Modern can be observed in every strata of culture that link it back to its mechanistic emphases, not just breakdancing.
In the following clip, notice the predictable "orbital" motion of the floor moves. Notice the "waves" and "machining" of the popping moves. Also, notice how the breakers dance, synchronized to the music, not against it, indicating the "staged" choreography. Perhaps, the most obvious Modern convention is the fact that the dancers are spaced or "alienated" from each other at a generous distance from each other so as to be discerned from each other. Also, each dancer specializes in a particular section of the dance genre: fracture. You are watching Modern compartmentalization in action.
As the 1980’s came to a close and the world spirit shifted from a Modern, deterministic view of reality to a Post-modern, spiritual one, breakdancing lost media favor and gave way to a Hip-Hop form more compatible with POMO culture: crumping. Whereas breakdance was predictable, crumping defined itself by its impredictability and attendant absurdity. It is the quantum version of breakdance in that it sections a predictable dance move into exponentially small portions and reframes them in a stream of glitches, aesthetically imitating the uncertainty principle. In fact, properly done, no two Crump dances ought to look the same (RIZE documentary).
In the video clip first listen to the deconstruction of the classic song at the beginning, a post-mod convention. Next, watch the several selections of crumping. Notice in several of the dance selections how close in proximity the onlookers are to the main crumper: the onlookers are "feeding" the crumper energy just as they are "receiving" that energy back. Notice that they do not respond to "staged" moves but only to the novel move or the "unprogrammed" move. These dances are not staged. Also, notice in a few sections how the crumper "stutters" or "skips" very much like a scratched CD "loops" back on itself. It is as if they are breaking out of a "predetermined" act. Also, notice the definitive movements that have a "pull back" to them and the aggressively angular contortions that go no where. Do not watch to criticize. Watch to understand.
What is intriguing about this "ghetto ballet" born out of the 1996 L.A. Riots is that crumpers looked on breakdancing as bling or show because it was fashionably simplistic, pretentious, and commercial. Breakdancing was interested in the precise imitation of mechanics whereas crumping was in revolt against mechanics. Being Modern, I have been culturally partial to breakdance; that is to say, I understand it and can appreciate it.
I have told my students that with my new understanding over the past decade, I would fall on the side of crumping because it is a relevantly cultural expression of the signs of the times. In the proper spirit, it is beautifully choreographed post-modernism exhibiting no faith in truncated predictability and running with a wide-arm embrace towards the unknown or "faith in faith." And I wouldn't crump on stage or in a circle surrounded by an non-participatory audience either like breakdancing demands, being performance-oriented. I would crump outside the circle, in the crowd, on a building, in a tree. I would crump until I was exhausted. I would crump until the Modern crowd went from ridiculing me to awkwardly murmuring about my nonsense to finally giving in to a reverent silence until someone in the crowd says "I think he's trying to say something." And I would do it as a Modern full of compassion for this generation, and not as some POMO wannabe sporting tattoos I really don't want or eyebrow rings I really don't like or speaking a lingo I really don't know or listening to music I really don't understand. No, I would do it as a member of my own optimistic but narcissistic Modern generation before 1989.And what would I be saying? I would be saying that it is time to wake up to the fact that the world is no longer a Modern world! Even though Modernism has two hundred years of momentum, I am telling you that if you are a Modern you are being marginalized. You are becoming quickly redundant. And it is no fault of the encroaching post-modern world, because eras are subject to change. It is the fault of the nostalgic Modern who wishes it to be 1940 again or 1950 again or, God forbid, the 1980's again when those decades themselves embodied cultural failures we have so tried to escape. Can a man crawl back into his mother's womb and be born again? Of course not, and neither is it a solution to talk about the "good old days" when in reality they were only good because they were familiar.
The movie Beat Street (1984) which featured the East Coast New York City breakers was about breaking out of poverty. The movie ends with a death and a memorial. The plot of the movie Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo featuring West Coast Electric Boogaloo was about "breaking the system." However, the breakdancers capitulated to the system by using an aspect of Modernism to fight Modernism. In the end their promise to revolt ended up in their raising money to save a local arts hangout. Crumping is different in that it is very very personal. You can't "get crump" unless you are spiritually and emotionally motivated. It does not come any other way. Crumping has finally become commercialized to the ire of its many founder-contributers, but it will remain grassroots because of its emphasis on individual expression.
Youtube breakdancing vs. crumping. You will see that the two Hip-Hop dances have no love for each other. That is because they are two different world-view expressions. Crumping is a quantum expression of breakdancing which is what I mean by POMO culture parodying Modern culture. POMO culture, being derived of Modernism, will always use a Modern sensibility as its reference point. But the key to understanding POMO culture is a veneer of compliance plus a cynic's twist.
A WELL-MEANING, CULTURAL ATHEISM
The POMO will not compartmentalize life while his parents' chief goal in child-rearing is the creation of an automaton with formatted body, mind and spirit. The POMO cringes when expected to compartmentalize his life. I have listened to hundreds of students express as much to me, to each other, and to their parents. They write it in their essays. They talk about it at lunchtime. They etch it on their skins. They express it in their clothing. In their insomnia. In their boredom. The POMO aspires that all compartments of life be a fluid one and only one. Ultimately, this is what a POMO means when he speaks of being genuine or true or honest or authentic. How authentic is it to express truth in Newtonian terminology when Newton's simplicity denies the extraordinary complexity of the universe we now know? The POMO believes that most, if not all, of life's categories are artificially imposed, propping up a very artificial system he is told is reality. As artificial, those categories are hampering to the pursuit of an successful and enjoyable life that desires above all things to exist in harmony with itself and with the world around it.
The fundamental confusion of the Modern Christian’s logical (doctrinal) position is that God (as absolute) is to be seriously considered in one area of reality but not in another. For example, many Christian schools teach students that an object returns to the ground because of gravity, yet in a “spiritual” sense (though functionally impractical) because God wills it (if they ever get around to saying that). But that reality is not sensible. Newton argued that, because God wills it, an object will return to the ground and that, if gravity works, it works because God wills it. Natural law and supernatural law are not to be divorced if both are to make sense. Natural law exists in a practical and predictable form upon which men can project material results because God is already there willing natural law to work.
On one hand, the Modern Christian mindset demands exhaustive and logical, physical knowledge of the universe in a way that it does not expect exhaustive and logical knowledge of the “spiritual” world. The result is that blatant, logical glitches in “spiritual” truth pockmark the Christian faith and become the logical reasoning of a totalitarian subculture.
I encourage you to compare and contrast the levels of consistency you expect from scientific knowledge and church doctrine, respectively. You will find more often than not that the tendency is either to speak haphazardly about spiritual things but to speak with precision about physical things or to speak with precision about theoretically spiritual things that do not make one iota of difference in this world and to speak theoretically with precision about physical things that make no difference in this world. Either way, you have a bifurcation of spirit and matter, where it is either the world or the spirit that matters at any one time in any one place. This dual expectation is an arbitrary value shift which is as equally atheistic as a “totally” atheistic position, because God is to be barred from where it truly and effectively matters.
The POMO is different. He tends to speak haphazardly about spiritual things AND physical things because his is one world. The sincerity with which he combines both worlds into one is the absurdity against which the Modern revolts. That absurdity (which the Modern does not so easily recognize) is the POMO parodying Modern culture.
The fundamental confusion of the Modern Christian’s logical (doctrinal) position is that God (as absolute) is to be seriously considered in one area of reality but not in another. For example, many Christian schools teach students that an object returns to the ground because of gravity, yet in a “spiritual” sense (though functionally impractical) because God wills it (if they ever get around to saying that). But that reality is not sensible. Newton argued that, because God wills it, an object will return to the ground and that, if gravity works, it works because God wills it. Natural law and supernatural law are not to be divorced if both are to make sense. Natural law exists in a practical and predictable form upon which men can project material results because God is already there willing natural law to work.
On one hand, the Modern Christian mindset demands exhaustive and logical, physical knowledge of the universe in a way that it does not expect exhaustive and logical knowledge of the “spiritual” world. The result is that blatant, logical glitches in “spiritual” truth pockmark the Christian faith and become the logical reasoning of a totalitarian subculture.
I encourage you to compare and contrast the levels of consistency you expect from scientific knowledge and church doctrine, respectively. You will find more often than not that the tendency is either to speak haphazardly about spiritual things but to speak with precision about physical things or to speak with precision about theoretically spiritual things that do not make one iota of difference in this world and to speak theoretically with precision about physical things that make no difference in this world. Either way, you have a bifurcation of spirit and matter, where it is either the world or the spirit that matters at any one time in any one place. This dual expectation is an arbitrary value shift which is as equally atheistic as a “totally” atheistic position, because God is to be barred from where it truly and effectively matters.
The POMO is different. He tends to speak haphazardly about spiritual things AND physical things because his is one world. The sincerity with which he combines both worlds into one is the absurdity against which the Modern revolts. That absurdity (which the Modern does not so easily recognize) is the POMO parodying Modern culture.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
THE CULTURAL STRESS-FRACTURE
One hears the term "absolute" quite alot amongst Moderns in religious and political discussions: absolute truth, absolute values. In this sense, absolute is the antithesis to "relativistic" which I have already explained is often confused with legitimate relativity. A premodern view of "absolute" would reserve the term for God or as descriptive of God, not as a term for the entity of creation or for any material particular. Because matter is created, it is transient. Because it is transient, it is not absolute. Only God is absolute. What about ideas or culture derived of God? It does not matter: as derivative they are transient. The Modern ultimately believed scientific law to be absolute and spiritual truth derived of that scientific law to be absolute, too. So, for example, an evangelist who scientifically "proves" to an individual the existence of God is expected to necessarily convince him of the Christian faith. Material, imminently discernible, is primary. Spirituality, less discernible than matter (in this view), is derivative.
The Modern orientation acknowledges that a mechanistic system encases the total of natural law and, as a system, is independent of any other factor. For those who subscribe to deity, it is outside the system so as not to affect the integrity of the mechanistic system. James Gleick says of Modern science "A God that does not intervene is a God receding into a distant, harmless background." Modernism does not rely upon an a-material entity for a total answer to reality that embraces both physical and spiritual realms. From beginning to end, the Modern mind is formatted with the architectural blueprint, with the five-year business plan, with family planning, with the fiscal budget, with the Romans Road. Even the concept of the business core value is conceptually structured as an independent solar system affected by no more factors than the material environment in which it finds itself.
The strength of the Modern is that he can project with scientific accuracy the end of many material things. He can do that because his logical reliability projects a constant into the future, be it only a physical constant. The Egyptians did not have this kind of reliability, and to them is attributed the 24-hour day, the 365-day solar year, the decimal system. The Greeks and Romans did not have this reliability either, though to them has been attributed the foundations of mathematics and Western civilization. Each of these civilizations had a complexity of mythological deities that diluted the logical reliability unique to our Modern view.
After the advent of the Modern system, a man could do what men before the system could only hope to do: make approximate or accurate material projections with no consideration of deity whatsoever. That is what James Gleick meant when he said of the Scientific Revolution "The more competently science performed, the less it needed God." In here we have two admissions. First of all, Modernism was a transitional era where a classic Christian consideration of God was greater before the advent of Modernism. Secondly, Modern sensibilities are best understood on the basis of quantitative measurement. "The equation knows best." (Heisenberg)
The POMO mindset does not naturally embrace this framework for two critical reasons. First, the optimistic Modern worldview was crushed and finished with the end of the Cold War. Any serious view of Modernism since then has been jettisoned for the preferential consideration of shattered ideological systems. Secondly, any child born after 1989 is no true Modern, no matter how hard a parent might try to constrain him or her into faith in Newtonian predictability. The POMO hears, ingests and frames information differently.
The Modern is surprised when this generation rejects Modern sensibilities. "Why would a POMO want to forfeit the certainty of projecting a physical constant?" they ask. True, having confidence that the universe and its parts are programmed with a reasonable measure of accuracy is a strength. It is especially a strength if an entire culture is programmed to operate that way. However, what if that view of the physical world is only a truncation of total reality? What if a physical constant does not properly demonstrate the broadest possible view of accessible reality? And of what practical, cultural use is it if the culture is no longer organized that way?
The chief weakness of the Modern mindset is the tendency to subject life to an efficient scientific view of reality. The uniformity of natural causes deals only with matter. The Modern applies scientific law to spiritual reality when scientific knowledge is partial and indefinitely in flux. In other words, mechanics is not the ultimate constant or final reference point. Necessarily, the Modern is conditioned to be satisfied with the material results of material projections. The POMO, oriented to a much broader awareness of reality, refuses to organize all data on the basis of the scientific, the categorical, or the observable. The POMO is not oriented to satisfaction with material results. This is the main stress-fracture between the two generations.
The Modern orientation acknowledges that a mechanistic system encases the total of natural law and, as a system, is independent of any other factor. For those who subscribe to deity, it is outside the system so as not to affect the integrity of the mechanistic system. James Gleick says of Modern science "A God that does not intervene is a God receding into a distant, harmless background." Modernism does not rely upon an a-material entity for a total answer to reality that embraces both physical and spiritual realms. From beginning to end, the Modern mind is formatted with the architectural blueprint, with the five-year business plan, with family planning, with the fiscal budget, with the Romans Road. Even the concept of the business core value is conceptually structured as an independent solar system affected by no more factors than the material environment in which it finds itself.
The strength of the Modern is that he can project with scientific accuracy the end of many material things. He can do that because his logical reliability projects a constant into the future, be it only a physical constant. The Egyptians did not have this kind of reliability, and to them is attributed the 24-hour day, the 365-day solar year, the decimal system. The Greeks and Romans did not have this reliability either, though to them has been attributed the foundations of mathematics and Western civilization. Each of these civilizations had a complexity of mythological deities that diluted the logical reliability unique to our Modern view.
After the advent of the Modern system, a man could do what men before the system could only hope to do: make approximate or accurate material projections with no consideration of deity whatsoever. That is what James Gleick meant when he said of the Scientific Revolution "The more competently science performed, the less it needed God." In here we have two admissions. First of all, Modernism was a transitional era where a classic Christian consideration of God was greater before the advent of Modernism. Secondly, Modern sensibilities are best understood on the basis of quantitative measurement. "The equation knows best." (Heisenberg)
The POMO mindset does not naturally embrace this framework for two critical reasons. First, the optimistic Modern worldview was crushed and finished with the end of the Cold War. Any serious view of Modernism since then has been jettisoned for the preferential consideration of shattered ideological systems. Secondly, any child born after 1989 is no true Modern, no matter how hard a parent might try to constrain him or her into faith in Newtonian predictability. The POMO hears, ingests and frames information differently.
The Modern is surprised when this generation rejects Modern sensibilities. "Why would a POMO want to forfeit the certainty of projecting a physical constant?" they ask. True, having confidence that the universe and its parts are programmed with a reasonable measure of accuracy is a strength. It is especially a strength if an entire culture is programmed to operate that way. However, what if that view of the physical world is only a truncation of total reality? What if a physical constant does not properly demonstrate the broadest possible view of accessible reality? And of what practical, cultural use is it if the culture is no longer organized that way?
The chief weakness of the Modern mindset is the tendency to subject life to an efficient scientific view of reality. The uniformity of natural causes deals only with matter. The Modern applies scientific law to spiritual reality when scientific knowledge is partial and indefinitely in flux. In other words, mechanics is not the ultimate constant or final reference point. Necessarily, the Modern is conditioned to be satisfied with the material results of material projections. The POMO, oriented to a much broader awareness of reality, refuses to organize all data on the basis of the scientific, the categorical, or the observable. The POMO is not oriented to satisfaction with material results. This is the main stress-fracture between the two generations.
Friday, February 25, 2011
MODERN MECHANISTIC REALITY
The Christian Modern affirmed the existence of Deity, but argued for a dominant mechanistic reality over which God had no practical input or control. The Christian Modern would argue. However, ask a Modern Christian what causes an object to fall back down after being thrown into the air, and he will more than likely reply “gravity.” Tell him “The answer is 'God', not 'gravity,'" and he will go "ah" because you should have clarified yourself. He did not understand you to be speaking spiritually but scientifically. Why did the Modern have to speak in terms of disclaimers, clarifications, and rejoinders when speaking about spirituality? Because the largest context and overall tone of Modernism was that what can be known can be known apart from God.
How can two kinds of answers exist for the same question if the Modern Christian really believes that God created one world? How can the spiritual answer be God and the scientific answer be gravity? In this two-dimensional world, which dimension is the more practical? The overwhelming consensus would agree that the practical answer is gravity while the impractical answer is God. Why? Gravity is more practical because gravity is pervasively experienced as a natural law, and natural law has definite negative (flying a plane into the ground) and positive (flying a plane to Rome) consequences.
Gravity is "upon" us every single moment of our lives and is immediately appreciated or sensed. What of God? Well, in a more "spiritual" sense God is upon us, but that explanation is unreasonable within a mechanistic framework. That explanation is not saying anything at all. The Modern is often more conscious of the "pull" of gravity than he is of the "pull" of God. This is his scripting. Oftentimes, the answer “God” has been given as an argumentative acquiescence to Christianity and practically nothing more because it lacks the manifestation "material" things afford.
This schismatic reality is not the systematic reliability Isaac Newton had in mind when he codified the laws of motion. Newton understood that the world has a machine portion that is mechanistically integrated. However, that mechanistic portion is not all that exists. Newton never said it was all that existed. The monotheistic God as described in the Bible was Newton’s Final Reality. Newton's God is infinite, "bracketing" the finite, mechanical portion of reality. Because His God is infinite, He has of His own volition made Himself intelligibly known. Because He has made Himself understood by intelligible means, He, too, has a definite and practical relationship to the world: He created it. He is the most liberal context ever.
Newton did not have to leap from physical to spiritual worlds. Inconsistency in one did not force him to find cover in the other. He did not have to operate within a dichotomy, which is one of the reasons Newton and his generation did not manifest the anxiety disorders so rife throughout Modern and POMO cultures. Newton’s concept of causes illustrates a consistent flow and reference of material to the immaterial, of finiteness to infinity, of physics to metaphysics, of the world to God. Newton’s world is one world.
Newton did not even know the material cause of gravity, but his logical reliability did not hinge upon that specific lack of scientific information. His logic was not rooted in information or in the machine portion of reality. Newton's system was not an exhaustive system that sought to reconcile all data on the basis of matter. Finite things are subject to change, so science can be expected to develop, progress, and expand. He did not have to know everything there was to know in order to say that something was so. He did not have to pretend to stand on "absolutes" in order to validate his faith in God. Newton was free from that mindset which can be described as premodern if anything.
How can two kinds of answers exist for the same question if the Modern Christian really believes that God created one world? How can the spiritual answer be God and the scientific answer be gravity? In this two-dimensional world, which dimension is the more practical? The overwhelming consensus would agree that the practical answer is gravity while the impractical answer is God. Why? Gravity is more practical because gravity is pervasively experienced as a natural law, and natural law has definite negative (flying a plane into the ground) and positive (flying a plane to Rome) consequences.
Gravity is "upon" us every single moment of our lives and is immediately appreciated or sensed. What of God? Well, in a more "spiritual" sense God is upon us, but that explanation is unreasonable within a mechanistic framework. That explanation is not saying anything at all. The Modern is often more conscious of the "pull" of gravity than he is of the "pull" of God. This is his scripting. Oftentimes, the answer “God” has been given as an argumentative acquiescence to Christianity and practically nothing more because it lacks the manifestation "material" things afford.
This schismatic reality is not the systematic reliability Isaac Newton had in mind when he codified the laws of motion. Newton understood that the world has a machine portion that is mechanistically integrated. However, that mechanistic portion is not all that exists. Newton never said it was all that existed. The monotheistic God as described in the Bible was Newton’s Final Reality. Newton's God is infinite, "bracketing" the finite, mechanical portion of reality. Because His God is infinite, He has of His own volition made Himself intelligibly known. Because He has made Himself understood by intelligible means, He, too, has a definite and practical relationship to the world: He created it. He is the most liberal context ever.
Newton did not have to leap from physical to spiritual worlds. Inconsistency in one did not force him to find cover in the other. He did not have to operate within a dichotomy, which is one of the reasons Newton and his generation did not manifest the anxiety disorders so rife throughout Modern and POMO cultures. Newton’s concept of causes illustrates a consistent flow and reference of material to the immaterial, of finiteness to infinity, of physics to metaphysics, of the world to God. Newton’s world is one world.
Newton did not even know the material cause of gravity, but his logical reliability did not hinge upon that specific lack of scientific information. His logic was not rooted in information or in the machine portion of reality. Newton's system was not an exhaustive system that sought to reconcile all data on the basis of matter. Finite things are subject to change, so science can be expected to develop, progress, and expand. He did not have to know everything there was to know in order to say that something was so. He did not have to pretend to stand on "absolutes" in order to validate his faith in God. Newton was free from that mindset which can be described as premodern if anything.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
RELATIVITY THEORY AS AN ENVIRONMENT
I am always curious about use of the word "relativism", because it directly derived of Einstein's Realtivity Theory. Einstein never proposed that scientific law was absurd or incontinent (popular use of the term "relativism" or "relative"). He emphasized the uniqueness of relativity in respect to observation: the rules are what they are but appear to be more or less, relative to the position of the observer. Sure, Einstein appears to have undermined Newton's overtly Christian position as theoretical and highly simplistic for modern times; however, simplicity is no fault of Newton. He was an 18th century man and profound for his time. Nature and knowledge by design is transient.
However, when I talk about "funny", to another individual in a different referential frame it will translate as "totally inappropriate." When I talk about "complicated", to another individual I might mean "completely normal." Nevertheless, Relativity Theory is still contingent upon a point: the entire theory leverages a point. That is no inconsistency unless an individual coddles a fictitiously infantile perspective about context.
Around this time was borne the new “relativists” who clearly did not translate Einstein's idea well at all. They gloated over the death of Newtonian simplicity and many of them gloated over the death of Newton's God. Einstein was infuenced by the idea of time travel (the fourth dimension) which was becoming a popular discussion amongst intellectuals. H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895, and Henri Poincare wrote Science and Hypothesis in 1902, a text that discusses the measurement of time. We know, for example, that Einstein read Science and Hypothesis and that Pablo Picasso learned about Poincare's book from a Maurice Princet.
I mention Pablo Picasso because he was experimenting with relativity theory in art. Picasso, the Father of Cubism, would break up a painting and depict the various parts of the painting from various perspectives so that as one scanned the painting, one would "see" all perspectives at the same time. Of course, most people, I am sure, did not know what he was doing. It is true that Picasso was morally disreputable, habitually abandoning family after family. However, Picasso's experimentation with relativity did not cause his moral failures. Perhaps, his misunderstanding of relativity supported his infidelity, but that does not diminish the truthfulness of relativity.
Arnold Schoenberg, the 20th century composer, did a similar thing with music. The Father of Atonality, Schoenberg did not set out to create absurd music. He created music based upon the twelve tones of the chromatic scale instead of the traditionally harmonious eight-tone octave. His music had a logical relationship from one tone to the other and from each tone to the whole within the framework he developed. Did people understand what he was doing? Probably not at first. At one concert, Schoenberg's atonal composition was so misunderstood and caused so much emotional agitation amongst the audience that a fight broke out. The police had to be called in, and Schoenberg threatened to end the concert. People initially did not understand what he was doing with music. They assumed it to be both new and disruptive. In this sense, I like to tell my students that Schoenberg is the father of punk music. And that was at the beginning of the 20th century.
Einstein disliked his Relativity Theory being used to support the idea of a sinister moral relativism: the notion that no moral framework is uniquely privileged over all others. Of course, Einstein was a scientist, not a philosopher. Further, he was an exile in America where his ideas and their cultural applications became widely popularized, probably because of media. What we do know is that relativity grew to become the new social framework of the 20th century and was directly responsible for the erosion of "traditional norms" like colonialism. Colonialism could not survive in a framework of relativity (except under very special circumstances) because a political expression of relativity opposes the political subjugation of nations. Under relativity, the nations "parallel" each other: each nation is its own entity. Einstein's relativity was the impetus of the relativist cultural tendency (and of several self-consciously associated cultural movements like Ghandi and Martine Luther King) for wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western culture in the early 20th century as much as its misunderstanding provided a toehold and then an eventual foothold for many destructive changes as well.
It is no mistake that the shakers and movers of the 20th century felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life to be outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of the 20th century. Because nature is finite, it is transient and must change. Relativity, however, was the equivalent of a "quantum leap" and moved at a faster rate than the general culture and its various sub-cultures were able to monitor or regulate. So the beginning of the 20th century was not only the undoing of Newtonian Physics but ultimately the undoing of the religious axioms that underpinned Newtonian Physics. In this way relativism (and its association with relativity) is negatively viewed as a questioning of the axioms, including religious axioms, of the previous age. Relativity, however, is something very different. It is the air that both liberal and conservative Moderns breathe.
However, when I talk about "funny", to another individual in a different referential frame it will translate as "totally inappropriate." When I talk about "complicated", to another individual I might mean "completely normal." Nevertheless, Relativity Theory is still contingent upon a point: the entire theory leverages a point. That is no inconsistency unless an individual coddles a fictitiously infantile perspective about context.
Around this time was borne the new “relativists” who clearly did not translate Einstein's idea well at all. They gloated over the death of Newtonian simplicity and many of them gloated over the death of Newton's God. Einstein was infuenced by the idea of time travel (the fourth dimension) which was becoming a popular discussion amongst intellectuals. H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895, and Henri Poincare wrote Science and Hypothesis in 1902, a text that discusses the measurement of time. We know, for example, that Einstein read Science and Hypothesis and that Pablo Picasso learned about Poincare's book from a Maurice Princet.
I mention Pablo Picasso because he was experimenting with relativity theory in art. Picasso, the Father of Cubism, would break up a painting and depict the various parts of the painting from various perspectives so that as one scanned the painting, one would "see" all perspectives at the same time. Of course, most people, I am sure, did not know what he was doing. It is true that Picasso was morally disreputable, habitually abandoning family after family. However, Picasso's experimentation with relativity did not cause his moral failures. Perhaps, his misunderstanding of relativity supported his infidelity, but that does not diminish the truthfulness of relativity.
Arnold Schoenberg, the 20th century composer, did a similar thing with music. The Father of Atonality, Schoenberg did not set out to create absurd music. He created music based upon the twelve tones of the chromatic scale instead of the traditionally harmonious eight-tone octave. His music had a logical relationship from one tone to the other and from each tone to the whole within the framework he developed. Did people understand what he was doing? Probably not at first. At one concert, Schoenberg's atonal composition was so misunderstood and caused so much emotional agitation amongst the audience that a fight broke out. The police had to be called in, and Schoenberg threatened to end the concert. People initially did not understand what he was doing with music. They assumed it to be both new and disruptive. In this sense, I like to tell my students that Schoenberg is the father of punk music. And that was at the beginning of the 20th century.
Einstein disliked his Relativity Theory being used to support the idea of a sinister moral relativism: the notion that no moral framework is uniquely privileged over all others. Of course, Einstein was a scientist, not a philosopher. Further, he was an exile in America where his ideas and their cultural applications became widely popularized, probably because of media. What we do know is that relativity grew to become the new social framework of the 20th century and was directly responsible for the erosion of "traditional norms" like colonialism. Colonialism could not survive in a framework of relativity (except under very special circumstances) because a political expression of relativity opposes the political subjugation of nations. Under relativity, the nations "parallel" each other: each nation is its own entity. Einstein's relativity was the impetus of the relativist cultural tendency (and of several self-consciously associated cultural movements like Ghandi and Martine Luther King) for wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western culture in the early 20th century as much as its misunderstanding provided a toehold and then an eventual foothold for many destructive changes as well.
It is no mistake that the shakers and movers of the 20th century felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life to be outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of the 20th century. Because nature is finite, it is transient and must change. Relativity, however, was the equivalent of a "quantum leap" and moved at a faster rate than the general culture and its various sub-cultures were able to monitor or regulate. So the beginning of the 20th century was not only the undoing of Newtonian Physics but ultimately the undoing of the religious axioms that underpinned Newtonian Physics. In this way relativism (and its association with relativity) is negatively viewed as a questioning of the axioms, including religious axioms, of the previous age. Relativity, however, is something very different. It is the air that both liberal and conservative Moderns breathe.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
EINSTEIN & THE CLOSED SYSTEM
Newton's laws codified the idea of the integrated system and contributed to the normalization of the common Modern man an unwavering logical reliability in the material consistency of the universe. The idea eventually splayed into two very broad, divergent interpretations of Newton's system.
One view was the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system: the material world is all that exists. This scientific emphasis says that material laws are "high" or ultimate. If God exists, he is within the system as a material portion of that system. Because material begets material, God, in any personal sense, is necessarily the product of the material universe. This strictly scientific interpretation of reality was the dominant mindset of the Modern world and can be generally described as atheistic because, as a closed system, it claims a functionality independently of God or any deity whatsoever.
Following the popularity of Newton's discoveries, the 18th century Enlightenment galvanized the closed system position. That closed system can be described as all of natural law, including the total of natural causes and effects in the universe, is integrated (uniformity) into a reasonable way (closed system). To the Modern this goes without saying. To predecessors of Modern, scientific discovery, this was an epic revelation. So the pull of gravity on the moon relates to the pull of gravity on earth in such a way that all objects on earth weigh about one-third their earth-weight on the moon.
I can say “all” because within the Modern systematic mindset is a reasonable relationship between the pull of gravity on the earth and the pull of gravity on the moon. Materially, the entire universe is one environment. Its natural laws are self-contained and provide the Modern with a rigid form of consistency to which he can attribute his logical reliability and subsequent common sense. Consequently, the closed system perspective allowed the West to wrest from nature its mathematical formulae. The Enlightenment was committed to understanding the natural world on the basis of reason alone without the influence of religious belief. To sum it up, it can be said that the Modern worldview converges upon the focal point that what can be known can be known apart from God.
Scientists contributed to Newton's discoveries for the next two hundred years until Einstein changed physics altogether. In his Laws of Motion, Newton's “object” was an idealized particle in which he theorized an infinitesimally small “center” without consideration of the other real particles making up the object. Though eventually proven to be an oversimplification, the idealized particle was used to illustrate such complex behaviors like planetary motion and human behavior. Strict interpretation of Newton's Laws would apply to every particle of the object, resulting in exponentially erratic behavior of the object not yet understood by classical science.
Einstein published his Special Relativity in 1905. Einstein's discovery was a science of space, not objects, per se. Classical physics bifurcated position and motion, studying each separately from the other. Einstein was interested in how objects relate to the overall behavior of space. What he discovered was that space “bends.” Consider how water responds when an object is submerged. It responds totally appropriately: absorbing the object and totally integrating itself with the object's every blemish. Space is similar. An object inserted into space, “disrupts” that space, creating a uniquely complimentary environment. Further, if that object is hurtling through space, how unique is the relationship now between space and the object?
The complexity of Einstein's genius is that he created a science independent of the referential frame of any observer. The simplicity of Einstein's genius is that two observers in the same referential frame (fixed point) moving at the same velocity of earth are likely to observe a single, similar phenomena while two observers in different referential time frames (and, therefore, moving at different speeds relative to each other) may not observe the same phenomena. Though relativity here is contingent upon the referential frame of two observers, the entire theory is contingent upon a point that exists independently of each observer.
Einstein's relativity challenged the simplicity of Newton's assumption of how mass and motion interact. As it became popularized, the effect of Einstein's theory was a significant contribution to the undoing of other classical assumptions that were largely religious and naturally underpinned a multitude of then current cultural expressions. Once Einstein's Special Relativity was published (his General Relativity followed in 1917), Western culture was self-consciously experimenting with the ramifications of relativity.
One view was the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system: the material world is all that exists. This scientific emphasis says that material laws are "high" or ultimate. If God exists, he is within the system as a material portion of that system. Because material begets material, God, in any personal sense, is necessarily the product of the material universe. This strictly scientific interpretation of reality was the dominant mindset of the Modern world and can be generally described as atheistic because, as a closed system, it claims a functionality independently of God or any deity whatsoever.
Following the popularity of Newton's discoveries, the 18th century Enlightenment galvanized the closed system position. That closed system can be described as all of natural law, including the total of natural causes and effects in the universe, is integrated (uniformity) into a reasonable way (closed system). To the Modern this goes without saying. To predecessors of Modern, scientific discovery, this was an epic revelation. So the pull of gravity on the moon relates to the pull of gravity on earth in such a way that all objects on earth weigh about one-third their earth-weight on the moon.
I can say “all” because within the Modern systematic mindset is a reasonable relationship between the pull of gravity on the earth and the pull of gravity on the moon. Materially, the entire universe is one environment. Its natural laws are self-contained and provide the Modern with a rigid form of consistency to which he can attribute his logical reliability and subsequent common sense. Consequently, the closed system perspective allowed the West to wrest from nature its mathematical formulae. The Enlightenment was committed to understanding the natural world on the basis of reason alone without the influence of religious belief. To sum it up, it can be said that the Modern worldview converges upon the focal point that what can be known can be known apart from God.
Scientists contributed to Newton's discoveries for the next two hundred years until Einstein changed physics altogether. In his Laws of Motion, Newton's “object” was an idealized particle in which he theorized an infinitesimally small “center” without consideration of the other real particles making up the object. Though eventually proven to be an oversimplification, the idealized particle was used to illustrate such complex behaviors like planetary motion and human behavior. Strict interpretation of Newton's Laws would apply to every particle of the object, resulting in exponentially erratic behavior of the object not yet understood by classical science.
Einstein published his Special Relativity in 1905. Einstein's discovery was a science of space, not objects, per se. Classical physics bifurcated position and motion, studying each separately from the other. Einstein was interested in how objects relate to the overall behavior of space. What he discovered was that space “bends.” Consider how water responds when an object is submerged. It responds totally appropriately: absorbing the object and totally integrating itself with the object's every blemish. Space is similar. An object inserted into space, “disrupts” that space, creating a uniquely complimentary environment. Further, if that object is hurtling through space, how unique is the relationship now between space and the object?
The complexity of Einstein's genius is that he created a science independent of the referential frame of any observer. The simplicity of Einstein's genius is that two observers in the same referential frame (fixed point) moving at the same velocity of earth are likely to observe a single, similar phenomena while two observers in different referential time frames (and, therefore, moving at different speeds relative to each other) may not observe the same phenomena. Though relativity here is contingent upon the referential frame of two observers, the entire theory is contingent upon a point that exists independently of each observer.
Einstein's relativity challenged the simplicity of Newton's assumption of how mass and motion interact. As it became popularized, the effect of Einstein's theory was a significant contribution to the undoing of other classical assumptions that were largely religious and naturally underpinned a multitude of then current cultural expressions. Once Einstein's Special Relativity was published (his General Relativity followed in 1917), Western culture was self-consciously experimenting with the ramifications of relativity.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
THE BASELINE OF MODERN LOGICAL RELIABILITY
Modern logical reliability is no core value of the POMO. The most competent of POMOS prefers debilitating ignorance, mental anguish and copious amounts of anxiety medication to the common sense of Modern predictability, and this repulsion spans every cultural variant in his life from airbags to religion. The problem, I believe, hinges upon a proper framing of the Modern concept of truth.
For many reasons I will provide, the Modern "liberal" and "conservative" concepts of truth are both relative. I know that the especially conservative Modern argues that he has stood and continues to stand solely upon "absolute" truth, but I am going to eventually explain how every Modern, regardless of his religious or political affiliation, is a product of a relative view of truth. Then I am going to explain how the POMO's context and baseline of truth has been this relative view of truth. Then I am going to illustrate from the POMO's cultural perspective how if truth is relative, then the POMO is obligated to "play" with logic.
For many reasons I will provide, the Modern "liberal" and "conservative" concepts of truth are both relative. I know that the especially conservative Modern argues that he has stood and continues to stand solely upon "absolute" truth, but I am going to eventually explain how every Modern, regardless of his religious or political affiliation, is a product of a relative view of truth. Then I am going to explain how the POMO's context and baseline of truth has been this relative view of truth. Then I am going to illustrate from the POMO's cultural perspective how if truth is relative, then the POMO is obligated to "play" with logic.
Modern logical reliability relies upon a mechanistic system indispensable to the rational thought of the Modern, whereas the POMO navigates mechanistic systems with incessant suspicion ultimately undermining his ability to reason with Modern logic. The net result is his genuine inability to logically deduce within the constraints of Modern thought-forms. Let me be clear: Modern and POMO thought forms are not the same. Because of incompatible referential frames, Modern common sense is not the same common sense to the POMO. And I am talking about a baseline standard.
Key to understanding the matrix of POMO reasoning is analyzing contrasts between POMO and Modern cultures. Observing their differences in science is a demonstrable way to extrapolate the values of each. I will outline the development of these two views through three scientific developments: Newton's Laws of Motion (1687), Einstein's Theory of Relativity (1905) and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (1927).
Newtonian Physics is the direct ancestor of Modern logical reliability and largely responsible for the development of Modern sensibilities, aka, common sense. In his Laws of Motion Newton outlines three rules of deduction to be applied to physical objects:
Law 1: Every object remains in a state of rest unless acted upon by an equal or greater outside force. Every effect has a sufficient (strong) cause, so that it is impossible to attribute an effect to an insufficient (weak) cause. For wood to burn (effect), it must be produced by a cause strong enough to produce the burning. A series of sufficient causes and effects is called a “chain of events” and makes it possible to trace an event back to its original cause. The ability to "link" ideas in this way is a Western value and a hallmark expression of a free individual.
Law 2: Any object enacted on by an outside force will respond in the direction of a right line from the point at which it was enacted upon. An object forced upon by another object is “forced” to move in the direction of a right line from the point of impact. Notably called the law of entropy, an object at rest will move in the direction of a right line eventually to return to a state of rest once more. A fire will burn up wood until the wood is no more. A fire “wants” to extinguish itself. So the Western aspiration to satisfactory “conclusions” was codified. Perpetually inconclusive motion (like anxiety) is no original Western value.
Law 3: The effect of an action upon an object results in an equal and opposite reaction of the subject. The action-reaction law or reciprocal motion maintains that not only does fire interact with wood, but the wood reciprocates by “wanting” to be burned. The wood, assumed to be passive, is equally contributive. So the Western value of reciprocal motion (reciprocal engagement) via organically covenantal or mutually contractual relationships is an expectation unique to the Western Hemisphere.
Newton's laws codified the idea of the integrated system and contributed to the normalization of the common Modern man an unwavering logical reliability in the material consistency of the universe. The idea eventually splayed into two very broad, divergent interpretations of Newton's system.
Monday, February 21, 2011
CHILD REARING & THE APOCALYPSE
Christian activity heightened remarkably in the West during the 20th century because Christians believed that Christ would imminently return within the century. However, that strict Apocalyptic interpretation 1) has ultimately resulted in a broad but shallow Christian presence in the emerging global community and 2) has cultivated within the Modern Christian—at the impulse level—a short-term orientation for both the physical world and for his own physical existence. Nevertheless, Apocalypse has been integral to the Western psyche. Whether the religious End Times or a non-religious nuclear fallout.
With the implosion of that popular Cold War interpretation of the Last Days, the Modern parent must now actually consider that it is far more likely he will die than be raptured. And with disarmament, the non-Christian must now actually consider that it is far more likely he will die in the suburb than be the collateral damage of a Soviet attack. This poses a serious problem for the Modern Christian who has considered himself to be immune from death and for the non-Christian who lived it up in his younger years beause he saw nothing but death and destruction in the future. Both are not prepared for the kind of future that demands a long-term direction that lasts beyond his individual life.
More pertinent to our discussion is that the Modern parent has no long-term direction for his Post-modern child that lasts beyond the life of his child. Further, though the Modern has been able to sustain his view and hope in the Rapture or world war for the short-term, the political, social, and economic problems of his era have not disappeared, nor have they been suspended for his Post-modern child.
It is my understanding that the Modern parent’s unresolved cultural issues have rapidly morphed into new forms of anxiety and, therefore, customary norms for his child. These anxieties and the methods for coping with them is what distinguishes the Post-modern from the Modern. In other words, the current generation gap is not merely the stereotypical gap between parents and their children as we have been told by both Christian and non-Christian sources. It is a cultural gap accompanied with all of the expected upheaval of a cultural gap, because it is fundamentally about a view of truth.
If the cultural gap were merely generational, then little of the culture would be affected. That is because the influence of a stereotypical generation gap is relegated to the small sphere of the parent-child relationship. However, because the concept of truth has been challenged, its influence envelopes the entire culture—from how one views religion, politics, cows or a can opener. Fill in the blank. It doesn't matter.
The new cultural view is total and has been gaining momentum for two decades to the extent that the Modern world and the Modern parent are rapidly becoming marginalized. What the Modern thinks or says either does not matter at all or it does not matter much anymore. There is no nostalgic “going back” to the way that it used to be. Nostalgia might be a temporarily comforting strategy for dealing with such stress for the short-term, but it is not useful or even constructive for the long-term.
What the Modern parent often does not realize is that his children are psychologically oriented for the long-term and must be paced to deal with the long haul of life. The Post-modern child has no cultural concept of an Apocalypse, so he is not hard-wired into thinking there is anything special enough about his generation that would alleviate the normal pressures of humanity for himself. This child is psychologically oriented for the long haul. That means that he knows he will die (after living a "boring" life) and must deal with it.
In addition, he looks at the social, political and economic problems and is exponentially anxious at the global scope of stress his already very personal, stressful future holds. So he is in revolt against the Modern and everything for which the Modern stands. He despises the Modern for the "efficiency" with which the Modern can compartmentalize his life and indefinitely suspend his own anxiety.
The Modern does not see it this way. He sees the hatred with which he is treated as another proof of the decadence of culture to precede the coming of Christ or end of the world. And he is at fault for glorying in it. I knew a family about fourteen years ago. The parents were into church and did not let much of anything else concern them. One day the mother complained to me that she was nervous her nine-year-old was into boys so early. She then proclaimed "But I'm not even going to worry about it, because Jesus is coming back!" Five years later her little daughter was a slut. And the parents did not think they had anything to do with that outcome.
With the implosion of that popular Cold War interpretation of the Last Days, the Modern parent must now actually consider that it is far more likely he will die than be raptured. And with disarmament, the non-Christian must now actually consider that it is far more likely he will die in the suburb than be the collateral damage of a Soviet attack. This poses a serious problem for the Modern Christian who has considered himself to be immune from death and for the non-Christian who lived it up in his younger years beause he saw nothing but death and destruction in the future. Both are not prepared for the kind of future that demands a long-term direction that lasts beyond his individual life.
More pertinent to our discussion is that the Modern parent has no long-term direction for his Post-modern child that lasts beyond the life of his child. Further, though the Modern has been able to sustain his view and hope in the Rapture or world war for the short-term, the political, social, and economic problems of his era have not disappeared, nor have they been suspended for his Post-modern child.
It is my understanding that the Modern parent’s unresolved cultural issues have rapidly morphed into new forms of anxiety and, therefore, customary norms for his child. These anxieties and the methods for coping with them is what distinguishes the Post-modern from the Modern. In other words, the current generation gap is not merely the stereotypical gap between parents and their children as we have been told by both Christian and non-Christian sources. It is a cultural gap accompanied with all of the expected upheaval of a cultural gap, because it is fundamentally about a view of truth.
If the cultural gap were merely generational, then little of the culture would be affected. That is because the influence of a stereotypical generation gap is relegated to the small sphere of the parent-child relationship. However, because the concept of truth has been challenged, its influence envelopes the entire culture—from how one views religion, politics, cows or a can opener. Fill in the blank. It doesn't matter.
The new cultural view is total and has been gaining momentum for two decades to the extent that the Modern world and the Modern parent are rapidly becoming marginalized. What the Modern thinks or says either does not matter at all or it does not matter much anymore. There is no nostalgic “going back” to the way that it used to be. Nostalgia might be a temporarily comforting strategy for dealing with such stress for the short-term, but it is not useful or even constructive for the long-term.
What the Modern parent often does not realize is that his children are psychologically oriented for the long-term and must be paced to deal with the long haul of life. The Post-modern child has no cultural concept of an Apocalypse, so he is not hard-wired into thinking there is anything special enough about his generation that would alleviate the normal pressures of humanity for himself. This child is psychologically oriented for the long haul. That means that he knows he will die (after living a "boring" life) and must deal with it.
In addition, he looks at the social, political and economic problems and is exponentially anxious at the global scope of stress his already very personal, stressful future holds. So he is in revolt against the Modern and everything for which the Modern stands. He despises the Modern for the "efficiency" with which the Modern can compartmentalize his life and indefinitely suspend his own anxiety.
The Modern does not see it this way. He sees the hatred with which he is treated as another proof of the decadence of culture to precede the coming of Christ or end of the world. And he is at fault for glorying in it. I knew a family about fourteen years ago. The parents were into church and did not let much of anything else concern them. One day the mother complained to me that she was nervous her nine-year-old was into boys so early. She then proclaimed "But I'm not even going to worry about it, because Jesus is coming back!" Five years later her little daughter was a slut. And the parents did not think they had anything to do with that outcome.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
MODERNS & POMOS
The fundamental principle for understanding the broadest interpretation of Modern culture (and the Modern parent) is its aspiration to Atheism. Moderns (anyone born before 1989 or anyone with a substantive memory of life before1989) operate almost exclusively within the atheistic framework that what can be known can be known apart from God. For the non-Christian this means that God does not practically figure into any part of the world. For the Christian this means that, though God "figures" into the world, the world can still be understood and appreciated apart from Him. This concept, I argue throughout my entire book, is the focal point to which the Modern ignorantly seeks to orient his Post-modern child.
The Post-modern (anyone born after 1989 or anyone with no substantive memory of life before 1989) is culturally oriented to Polytheism—not Atheism. It is critical to grasp this point if one is to understand the distinction between the Modern parent and his Post-modern child. The Post-modern affirms the existence of deity so that both the non-Christian and the Christian Post-modern believe that deity theoretically and practically figures into the world. On the basis of belief in spirituality, there is no difference between the Post-modern Christian and non-Christian. In other words, religion is no longer a separate conversation from regular (read “secular”) life.
The Post-modern holds to the polytheistic aspiration that what can be known cannot be known apart from deity. This is even true for the Post-modern who calls himself an atheist. The Modern atheist said that there was no God for anyone—end of the discussion. The Post-modern atheist says that though there is no God for himself, there might be God for someone else. Herein is a culturally nuanced rift as divergent as any opposite.
I provide the year 1989 as a general marker for the generational shift from Modern to the Post-modern culture for the following reasons.
1) The tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was an indication of the beginning of the end of Communism. Communism was the political form of Atheism and the most comprehensive attempt by that revolutionary spirit to de-Christianize the Free West. Therefore, the death of Communism was the death of the dominating world spirit of Atheism. This does not mean that Atheism and its cultural expressions were dead in 1989. What it does mean is that optimism in Communism had peaked and was rapidly on the decline while being replaced by another dominant worldview.
2) The fall of Communism did not just happen because of politically democratic influences like Ronald Reagan or Gorbachev. Rather, it was attributed to the sum of the moral motives and actions of the "little" people on both sides of the Iron Curtain. History makes it clear that the common masses of non-governmental institutions behind the Iron Curtain were largely responsible for the tearing down of the Berlin Wall on the East German side in June 1989, for the overthrow of Ceaucescu in Romania on Christmas Day 1989, for the freeing of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland in 1989 & 1990, for the beginnings of revolution in Yugoslavia in 1989, and for the democratic push in the Soviet Union the same year.
Gorbachev formally disarmed the Soviet Union in 1991, but his political decision was entirely preceded by an uncharacteristically democratic revolt behind the Iron Curtain. The common people did not just happen to suddenly revolt against the political form of Communism. They were revolting against the philosophy of Atheism, the engine of the Communist political system. Communism no longer resonated with the majority of people. The revolt against Communism indicated a definite shift from the dominating world spirit of Atheism to a world spirit of faith, however ambiguous and varied that faith has expressed itself these last two decades.
3) The generic interpretation of End Times prophecy was completely wrapped up in the outcome of the Cold War (c. 1945-1991). Most Christians now reject the once popular theological consensus (or at the least they are ambivalent to it). Before the European reforms in the late 1980’s, it was largely believed (with slight variations) that the Cold War would climax with the Rapture, followed by rise of Anti-Christ within the European Common Market, seven years of Great Tribulation, the rule of Christ on earth for 1,000 years, the Battle of Armageddon and finally Heaven. Or some similar order.
Cold-War-generation Christians typically believed themselves to be the chosen generation who would experience the initial climax of Biblical prophecy via a Rapture. Though the date was altered many times in the 20th century, those prophecies were finally mathematically predicted to happen by or around 1988 (40 years after Israel became a nation). Whatever the case, the Last Days and the climax of Communism were to be intimately entangled events. Since 2000, the Christian community has been reticent to project an actual date for the end of the world.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
FOREWORD
During my last semester of college (1996) I sat in the classroom of an elementary school in Pensacola, Florida for fourteen weeks to complete an internship required of me to graduate. I was assigned to an observation post at the back of the classroom for twelve of those weeks to “learn” how to teach. Despite sincere and innovative attempts to please the teacher, I was subject to weekly, scathing criticism about my common interaction with the students and my irreverent view of discipline. Granted, I liked the students so I spoke with them outside teaching hours. This behavior, however, was viewed as delinquent. I later learned that it encouraged familiarity which we all know breeds contempt.
What was not on Teacher's radar was the wide range of dysfunction that lay behind the sweet white, brown and black faces she taught. None of that dysfunction mattered to her. Further, she did not care to see that these problems vied for the attention of their brains: students and family members embroiled in the effects of attempted murder, arson, chronic illness, emotional detachment disorder. Despite the full school days which regulated activity to the minute, no talking was allowed at lunch time, no free play allowed at recess, no unscripted talk during classes. Essentially no time lay within or outside the program to address concerns and interests fundamentally linked to the human condition. Oh, and it was a Christian school.
I spent those twelve weeks in a little, red chair writing an educational abstract called “The Structure of Non-reason" in addition to the copious observational notes I was required to take. In it I sought to describe the irony I saw before me: the perpetration of a religious ideology claiming world significance, dominance and influence, yet in no way, shape or form addressing the essential problems of moral conscience, psychology or physiology in its classrooms. The religious portion of the curriculum was relatively nonsensical, for it did not reconcile its tenets with the very problems the students were becoming. The students, I concluded, would be better off just learning information and bypassing all of the disjointed, religious parts. I was fascinated by the hubris and ignorance of the instiution and was intent to encapsulate the metamorphosis of the problem as it unfolded before my eyes.
On the left side of my open notebook I kept scrupulous observational notes such as “Children explain their answers on the board” and “Earnest is left-handed” and “The children laughed because the Midianites were killed.” On the right page I wrote “There’s this bit of non-reason that frees man up as autonomous in the created universe.” Twelve years later, I am ready to share my observations.
I originally wrote this book for parents, only to realize that the majority of parents who read my book or discussed with me the thoughts in my book thought it to be so much scholastic pontification. They could not wrap their modern brains around the nexus of what I was saying: a fundamental shift has occurred in the way people understand truth and that shift occurred as recently as 1989. Being free of their criticisms and increasingly marginalized sensibilities, I am writing my analysis of the strange amalgamation of post-Cold War youth I call POMOS.
I have specifically rewritten this book for those who have a legitimate professional interest in one of the largest sub-cultures alive in the West today, the POMO. These are children raised by Moderns (Christian or not) who raised them on a culture of science-vs-faith emphasizing traditional absolutes (like freedom) proven to be largely founded upon a relativistic concept of truth, sketchy social objectives (like freedom) supported by romantic religious platitudes, and a transient value system (like freedom) on the cusp of another cultural shift. I have worked with POMOS in my own school for ten years but have been aware of a strange, cultural transformation since 1989.
None of the illustrations I give you here are specifically attached to a parent or student of Stone Table (or its affiliates). Rather, they represent actual conversations and interactions I have had with hundreds of children and parents over the last twelve years of my educatonal career. Any actual illustrations I give do not have names attached to them and are altered enough to not be recognizable by such persons were they to read my manuscript. However, I would dare say that these Everyman examples will be uncomfortably recognizable across the wide spectrum I intend to describe.
What was not on Teacher's radar was the wide range of dysfunction that lay behind the sweet white, brown and black faces she taught. None of that dysfunction mattered to her. Further, she did not care to see that these problems vied for the attention of their brains: students and family members embroiled in the effects of attempted murder, arson, chronic illness, emotional detachment disorder. Despite the full school days which regulated activity to the minute, no talking was allowed at lunch time, no free play allowed at recess, no unscripted talk during classes. Essentially no time lay within or outside the program to address concerns and interests fundamentally linked to the human condition. Oh, and it was a Christian school.
I spent those twelve weeks in a little, red chair writing an educational abstract called “The Structure of Non-reason" in addition to the copious observational notes I was required to take. In it I sought to describe the irony I saw before me: the perpetration of a religious ideology claiming world significance, dominance and influence, yet in no way, shape or form addressing the essential problems of moral conscience, psychology or physiology in its classrooms. The religious portion of the curriculum was relatively nonsensical, for it did not reconcile its tenets with the very problems the students were becoming. The students, I concluded, would be better off just learning information and bypassing all of the disjointed, religious parts. I was fascinated by the hubris and ignorance of the instiution and was intent to encapsulate the metamorphosis of the problem as it unfolded before my eyes.
On the left side of my open notebook I kept scrupulous observational notes such as “Children explain their answers on the board” and “Earnest is left-handed” and “The children laughed because the Midianites were killed.” On the right page I wrote “There’s this bit of non-reason that frees man up as autonomous in the created universe.” Twelve years later, I am ready to share my observations.
I originally wrote this book for parents, only to realize that the majority of parents who read my book or discussed with me the thoughts in my book thought it to be so much scholastic pontification. They could not wrap their modern brains around the nexus of what I was saying: a fundamental shift has occurred in the way people understand truth and that shift occurred as recently as 1989. Being free of their criticisms and increasingly marginalized sensibilities, I am writing my analysis of the strange amalgamation of post-Cold War youth I call POMOS.
I have specifically rewritten this book for those who have a legitimate professional interest in one of the largest sub-cultures alive in the West today, the POMO. These are children raised by Moderns (Christian or not) who raised them on a culture of science-vs-faith emphasizing traditional absolutes (like freedom) proven to be largely founded upon a relativistic concept of truth, sketchy social objectives (like freedom) supported by romantic religious platitudes, and a transient value system (like freedom) on the cusp of another cultural shift. I have worked with POMOS in my own school for ten years but have been aware of a strange, cultural transformation since 1989.
None of the illustrations I give you here are specifically attached to a parent or student of Stone Table (or its affiliates). Rather, they represent actual conversations and interactions I have had with hundreds of children and parents over the last twelve years of my educatonal career. Any actual illustrations I give do not have names attached to them and are altered enough to not be recognizable by such persons were they to read my manuscript. However, I would dare say that these Everyman examples will be uncomfortably recognizable across the wide spectrum I intend to describe.
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