Wednesday, September 19, 2007
"It used to be that tolerance was the virtue of the person who held strong views about something or other, but who insisted that those who disagreed had an equal right to defend their views – the sort of stance picked up in the slogan, 'I may detest your opinions, but I shall defend to the death your right to speak them.' Today, however, tolerance is the virtue of the person who holds no strong views, except for the strongly held view that it is wrong to hold strong views, or to indicate that someone else might be wrong."
- D.A. Carson, Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World
Labels: culture, philosophy, postmodernism, quotes, society
mmm yes, postmododernismerismerghhh
however, i like this postmodernism business, its a gem. it reeally is. too many people pay it out, when really, its great...
anywho, i concur with said fellows comment. to-ler-ance
Hmm, I'm not set on it. It definitely has some really good points, though:
- Debunking Modernism's dreams of a "glorious secular future";
- Refuting the idea that every Truth can be measured and verified by objective, indisputable "proof";
- Deconstructing the outdated Modernist idea of an "objective observer" as the "arbiter of Truth"
It does, however, bring a whole new set of philosophical problems to the table, namely:
- Relativism, where no ones' subjective intepretation matches up with reality, and we lose the ability to say anything for "real";
- Pluralism (which is the logical outworking of relativism), where instead of celebrating that diversity leads to a greater understanding of overarching Truth, we celebrate diversity and vagueness for its own sake.
- The bleak, skeptical view of *all* institutions, Truth claims, authorities and basically the whole future of the human race, which is just another logical outworking of believing that we can't know *anything* for sure, there's no overarching meaning to life, except what we individually manufacture for ourselves... It's really isolating, I've found.
It is interesting, though, and important, because it is growing more and more and seeping into mainstream consciousness a lot more. In some ways it helps us to preach and live out the Gospel, and in some ways it adds new challenges. :)
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