In graduate school, “postmodernism” provided the heuristic foundations to launch our research. This philosophical way of looking at things provides a handy way to deconstruct certitudes whose foundations were created more by social consensus that objective reality. Once-upon-a-time, post-modern thinking was the sole purview of graduate school conversations. Like the way that clothing fashions begin in Milan, Italy, then years later, wind up on American streets, post-modernism migrated from graduate schools into the American mainstream. The political language of, “alternative facts,” and “narratives,” are artifacts of post-modern thought.
Post-modernity is an important corrective to over-confidence. For example, in the medical community, diagnostic manuals can have the unintended consequence of reducing patients to disorders. A post-modern perspective provides a kind of humility when stepping into a patient’s life. It makes a counselor like me pause and admit, “There is much more to this person’s life than the pathology I have diagnosed!” It provides a kind of humility that “maybe this diagnosis doesn’t encompass the whole problem or the whole solution.” Post-modernism holds the promise of humbling ideological emperors, (i.e. physicians, politicians, philosophers, psychologists, bishops) assisting them in acknowledging their nudity…at least to some extent.
I suspect that the reason my studies in counseling psychology and marriage and family therapy spent so much time in such seemingly rarefied epistemological air has to do with the structure of problems that show up in a counselor’s office. Human beings, among other things, are meaning making creatures. When an event occurs in the midst of any collection of people (E.G. a marriage, a family, a work group, etc….), each person within that handful of people immediately begins developing their own personalized understanding of what just happened. And those understandings are shaped, in turn, by a whole host of interrelated factors including previous experiences, education, intergenerational family narratives, cultural influences, significant relationships and more. What appears to be objectively true to one person may not seem that way at all to another. The bread and butter for a counseling psychologist or a marriage and family therapist is to get people questioning their own assumptions to make room for more life-giving meanings, which in turn, could make room for more life-giving decisions. Some acceptance of a post-modern frame is essential in the practice of counseling.
As I see it, the problem with post-modernity is its inability to provide a secure foundation for a comprehensive philosophical structure that can hold a society, or a belief system. Lest I be accused of mixing up babies and bathwater, let me just say that holding onto a healthy dose of self-doubt is important for every system of thought including politics, religion, science and medicine too. But what I have been noticing lately in our social-media driven echo chambers is the loss of something that is necessary for a resilient society: a baseline acceptance of objective reality.
Politicians have always bent their narratives around facts to highlight what they want their constituents to see. Politicians have always skirted around questions, or flat out not answered the question before them. From where I sit, what is brand new in our culture, is a willingness on the part of some politicians to willingly make things up ex nihilo. Aided and abetted by a media-driven culture, echo chambers repeat a politician’s mendacity until it seems like it could be true, or maybe is true.
For healthy family functioning, the energy of the system is always honest communication in all its forms. For a healthy body-politic, accurate information is the energy of the system. A representative democracy like ours cannot function resiliently without a baseline of accurate information any more than a marriage or family can survive without trust.
Questions for Reflection
Where do you go to get your information regarding civic, state, and national affairs?
Have you ever known your primary sources of information to publish retractions when they get something wrong? An occasional apology for a failure is suggestive of a news source you can trust!
Do you ever watch or read news sources that are not ideologically aligned with yours and really listen for understanding of that point of view?
Do your favorite pundits speak about those with whom they disagree with respect? Do they represent their opponent’s arguments accurately?
Do you demand of your leaders what you demand of your friends (eg. Truth, Love, Moral Beauty, and Goodness). Isaiah has plenty to say about making pragmatic alliances with false prophets. You may get what you want in the short-run, but will regret where it takes you and your nation in the long-run.
Do you ever do the messy work of disagreeing with a friend or relative with an eye toward staying centered and keeping the relationship intact?