Is ‘Postmodernity’ Beneficial? vol 2: Stanley Hauerwas

you can read the opening post in this series here.

For those of you new to this conversation, ‘postmodernity’, as it relates to Christianity, can best be described as the deconstructionist movement questioning the unquestionable assertions from Christianity’s history (ie. Are Inerrancy, Orthodoxy, Metanarratives, Penal-Substitutionary Atonement, Anti-homosexuality and other such cultural/ religious assertions ‘true’). The question of ‘is this a legitimate movement?’ has long passed, what Christians must decide for themselves now is whether or not this deconstruction is freeing the Christianity by removing unnecessary ‘truths’ or chipping away at its foundation by tearing Christianity up by the roots.

This leads us to Stanley Hauerwas, from his book ‘A Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy, and Postmodernity‘:

“Post-modernism is the pessimism of an obsolescent class- the official intelligentsia- who’s fate is closely bound up with that of the declining nation-state” (quoting Nicholas Boyle in ‘A Better Hope’ pg 35).

“Postmodernism… seems to call into question the Enlightenment project, and surely that is a good thing. Yet I am not convinced that postmodernism, either as an intellectual position or as a cultural style is ‘post’ anything” (pg 37).

“Modernity, drawing on the metaphysics of a transcendent god, was the attempt to be historical without Christ. Postmodernity, facing the agony of living in history with no end, is the denial of history. In the wake of such a denial, the only remaining comfort is the shopping mall, which gives us the illusion of creating histories through choice, thus hiding from us the reality that none of us can avoid having our lives determined by money. Money, in modernity, is the institutionalization of univocity of being the Scotus thought necessary to ensure the unmediated knowledge of God” (pg 39).

I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not suggesting that postmodernism is nothing but smoke an mirrors. Rather, I believe that Fredrick Jameson rightly identified postmodernism with the cultural logic of advanced capitalism in which the production of culture has been integrated into commodeity production, theus creating the urgency of producing ever fresh waveds of novelty” (pg 40).

“It is hard to imagine an intellectual alternative better suited for the elites of a global capitalism than postmodernism. Capitalism is, after all, the ultimate form of deconstruction. How better to keep the laborer under that control of capital than through the scarcity produced through innovation? Capitalism, as David Harvey observes, is necessarily innovative, not because of the myth of the innovative entrepreneur but because of the coercive laws of competition and the conditions of class struggle endemic to capitalism. Off course the effects of such innovation are to make past investments of labor skills valueless…” (pg 40)

“The believe that ther is no single truth or world but only a multiplicity of mutually untranslatable perspectives, Boyle observes, is strangely analogous to the belief that the market is a boundless medium of perfect competition among an infinite numbber of ever-expanding commercial identities. It is no wonder that , confronted with such a system, intellectuals discard the idea of totality” (pg 41).

Closing Thoughts

Summarizing Hauerwas’ view, Postmodernism is the cultural consequence of the thinking founded in the enlightenment and the societal structure created by capitalism.  I think Hauerwas’ assesment of Postmodernity is exceptional, and very correct in its assertions.  I think however I disagree with Hauerwas’ conclusion that Postmodernity belongs in a conversation outside the Church.

It appears that Hauerwas, if one were going to place him into one of Niebuhr’s cultural categories, he would fall under a ‘Christ and Culture in Paradox’ perspective.  From what I’ve read it appears that Hauerwas’ depiction of the Church and culture is the the former is responsible for being completely separate from and reforming of the latter.  Personally, I think separating Religion from culture creates and unnatural dichotomy- while religion is responsible for the reformation of culture it cannot help but also be a product of that same culture.

Questions

1) Do you think that Hauerwas’ depiction of Postmodernity as the product of Capitalism is correct?

2) Can a Christian contribute to the collapse of their societal structure and still honor God? (ie. can we, and should we, righteously be agents of social deconstructon)

Earl