POMO'S & SPIRITUAL REALITY

Though he believes in the Judeo-Christian God and believes that He created the world, the Modern Christian, nonetheless, divided that world into regions of sacred and secular: a realm where God allegedly was and a realm where God allegedly was not. The Christian would consider the reading of the Bible to be a sacred exercise in which God existed. However, the Christian did not consider, say, the reading of Beowulf or of Newsweek to be a sacred exercise, but a secular one in which God was—at the very least—absent.

The typical Modern Christian was not committed to either realm of reality as exclusively governed by God, though he maintained that the two worlds existed, nonetheless. The problem—as you can see—is that if much of an individual’s life is lived within the “secular’ world, then God does not exist where it matters. After all, how do you Christianize air or earth or water, three very essential things to human existence?

This truncated position created within the Modern Christian a schizophrenia, for he operated differently in both worlds. When he ate a candybar, he had no thoughts of God. When he took Communion, he suddenly had thoughts of God. Because he was not committed to either world as totally comprehensive of reality, he capitulated to the atheistic argument that God was not Lord (over everything).

This is a fundamental religious difference between the Modern and his POMO: the Modern is frustrated that the POMO will not compartmentalize life as easily as the Modern can. The POMO sees compartmentalization as artificial, because it does not transcend the matter with which it deals. The POMO is not familiar with the atheistic orientation of Modernism save that it stands for everything against which he is in revolt. That is one of the reasons why the POMO revises everything Modern from music to movies to history, tainting it all with a mystical tinge.

The POMO cannot tolerate the idea that mechanics is the final word on reality. He prefers a world in which mechanics is diminished, which is why he shuns serious systems of thought. The POMO does not mind acquiescing to a system so long as he is allowed to view it as a game (artificial), but he begins to feel claustrophobic around Moderns who take any ideology seriously (artificial system). Fundamental to the POMO's revolt against mechanics is his rejection of the Modern concept of determinism: the idea that a man is the sum of his DNA.

The POMO also rejects the Modern toleration of two views of reality: sacred and secular. To the POMO, the secular view denies those items of the world with which the sacred deals—like God, the soul, meaning, revelation, etc. That is why the POMO is always remaking Modern music, Modern art, Modern fashion, and Modern movies by recasting them within a spiritual light. Spirituality is the air he breathes.

In short the POMO rejects the exclusively sacred and the exclusively secular realms and vies for only one realm. As a result, the POMO has retrieved the concept of deity. That concept, however, is one that champions not a particular deity but only the concept of deity. The POMO affirms a multitude of deities and does not necessarily prefer one over another.

The POMO does not champion a particular god but only the concept of a nebulous god who provides a nebulous context. The Modern, atheistic alternative either 1) acknowledged that an infinite God existed, yet apportioned Him only the sacred realm of reality, making Him impotent in the secular realm or 2) did not acknowledge that God existed yet talked and talked as if a god existed. Either position does not embrace all of reality.

My point is that one can converse with a POMO if one acknowledges the existence of a god. That is one reason I do not believe in "evangelizing" the POMO. I know that sounds counter-cultural to most church ideology, particularly the conservative strain, but I am telling you there is merit in my position which I will explain in detail a few blog posts from now.

POST-MODERN "GAMING" TRUTH

When asked a question such as “Have you finished your homework?” the typical POMO child gives various ambiguous answers: 1) he will evade (I did not bring any homework home), 2) he will imply ignorance of the question by stalling (I normally don’t have homework on Tuesday nights), 3) he will answer in the interrogative (Did I tell you I had homework?), or 4) he will deny any knowledge of the answer (I don’t know), etc.

Modern parents—especially those who strongly want to relate to their children—tend to tolerate inconsistent statements from their children for stretches at a time. However, they usually have a breaking point for the sake of their own sanity. What is often difficult to explain to the frustrated, Modern parent is that his child is not merely lying, being ignorant, or playing dumb. Rather, the POMO views himself as humble, open-minded, and honest next to his absolutist Modern parent who thinks on the basis of authoritative statements. POMOS see themselves as making far fewer mistakes in judgment than Moderns who accuse intolerantly and assert narrow-mindedly.

The POMO tends to feel castigated by the attempts of his parents to "get" the truth out of him which is one of the reasons physical punishments have had and have deliterious affects on the POMO. The Modern could survive physical punishment and categorically get over it. The POMO endures punishment with a martyr's psychology or with psychological breakdown.

The Modern parent will insist to his POMO that the truth is simple! But we no longer live in a culture dominated by the simplicity of Newtonian physics. Space and time are elastic and truth is just as elastic to the POMO! What the Modern does not understand (or even care to understand in some instances) is that the Modern generation is the last in a long line of generations in which confidence in antithesis has deteriorated and given way to the kind of cultural absurdity that alienates him from his child.

Because he does not understand his child’s view of truth, the Modern parent does not realize how far removed he is from his Post-modern child. The Modern knows that a tree is a tree—not a non-tree—and he can say something affirmatively about the tree. In one sense, that logical reliability is a great privilege.

The POMO is too humble to agree that a tree is a tree, because for him it is arrogance to affirm as true any statement over which a variety of persons, peoples and faiths disagree. POMOS preface every statement with an unspoken sentiment of uncertainty: If anything can be known for certain, then I feel well today, If anything can be known for certain, then I am happy to see you, or, As far as we know, World War I began in 1913.

The POMO affirms nothing save that we do not know for certain anything we think that we think we know. Right about this time the Modern parent begins to be nostalgic about his own inferior era. What the Modern does not understand is that, though he thinks on the basis of antithesis, his cultural view of truth is “relative” truth which is not the “absolute” concept of truth he is always hailing!

Relative truth is truth suspended: truth that is right at certain times and wrong or irrelevant at other times. The most acute example I can give of Christian “relative” truth is the sacred-secular distinction, the elevation of spirit over matter, which I will address at length later.

Let me illustrate POMO communication with the popularity of reality TV. Reality TV attracts the POMO for five reasons in particular. There is 1) a defined world or reality (Survivor’s island, Trump’s business world, American Idol’s stage, etc.), 2) a defined hierarchy of authority (the host, judges, and an order amongst team players), 3) defined ethics (rules governing the rounds), 4) defined allegiances (standards to which both the judges and players agree), and 5) defined consequences (being voted off the island, being fired, not moving to the next stage, etc).

The POMO likes this context and he is certain about this reality because for him the context for the reality has been defined. He understands the breadth of the game’s universe. He has his bearings. He might personally disagree with a player’s action, but he understands that the game rules define the moral “right” and “wrong” within that reality. He might personally disagree with a judge’s call, but he understands that the consequences are essential to the reality and he will only employ those tactics (including the various forms of immunity) for which the rules provide. The context for the reality makes all of the difference in the world for the POMO, and he can maintain this kind of respect, this kind of equilibrium in gaming situations that he cannot in "real" life.

Moderns must understand that it is the bent of POMO culture to assume that nothing can be known for certain but to speak as if something can be known for certain. The truth of our greater reality is a context that has yet to be established for the POMO. It does no good to roll ones eyes or to snicker at the absurdity of this generation’s logic, for the POMO is clearly communicating himself all the same. The POMO does have a logical form, it is the insistence of the Modern to impose an artificial grid upon the POMO's reality that has exacerbated the relationship of the two generations. The problem chiefly lies in that the Modern wants the communication on terms with which he is familiar: relative truth!

Moderns want to speak with POMOS. POMOS do not necessarily want to speak with Moderns. They want to speculate with them. The Modern does not know what to do with this except 1) to demand that the POMO communicate with him in the Modern way at the expense of real communication or 2) to play along with his POMO logic while still not understanding it at the risk of becoming absurd himself.

The Modern parent assumes that he is really communicating to his child when his child speaks affirmatively about anything. However, those affirmations are usually personal and not universal affirmations or convictions. The truth of the matter is that the POMO is fundamentally more honest than the Modern, for the Modern takes relative truth too seriously when relative truth in reality is arbitrary. Though the Modern thinks on the basis of antithesis, he applies antithesis when he wants to apply it and he does not apply it when he does not want to apply it.

The POMO does the same, except that antithesis is a game to him in the first place! The Modern observes this disregard for antithesis, and he is incensed—even though he himself demonstrates a lifestyle that truth is relative! It is the POMO who should be incensed, because the POMO is told by the Modern that relative truth is back of everything. The POMO goes, "Well if truth is relative, then let's play with logic!"