True Postmodernism
Something postmoderns forget is that they are generated by modernists. Postmoderns understood the need for relationality. Postmoderns want intimacy. Postmoderns like teams. However, and I owe this point to Alan Mann (Atonement for a Sinless Society), the postmodern, thoroughly indoctrinated with the modern notion that what matters is the self, sees relationality, intimacy, and team as what they want. "I like small groups," becomes almost self-defeating if one considers small groups from the perspective of self. It's like saying, "I like food," without considering the irrelevancy of desire when it comes to food and simple survival.
Of course, the question becomes, "Where do I stand to realize this phenomenon? What group has formed me and how have I been conditioned to overcome this perspective?" Answer: I don't know.
Of course, the question becomes, "Where do I stand to realize this phenomenon? What group has formed me and how have I been conditioned to overcome this perspective?" Answer: I don't know.
posted by Aaron Perry at
11:58 AM
2 Comments:
You stand, of course, in the community of the baptized. Your identity cannot be commodified, bought and sold. Because it has been given. "Do you not know that when you were baptized, you were baptized into Christ. . . ?"
Welcome to the true battle of the 21st century, of which gay sex is just the latest symptom: is identity a gift or a commodification rooted in the ability to consume (what the Christian tradition calls concupiscence)?
Crusty
That is a great insight, Crusty. Ironically, the self becomes that which we mistreat the most when we (literally) whore ourselves out in tireless efforts to treat ourselves the best. Why? Because there is a certain amount of autonomy (graciously) granted the self; we make victims ourselves for the (expected? supposed?) pleasure of others. But this gift, because it starts and ends with the self, is void and empty of cash value. It's like giving a gift to someone in order to get a bigger gift back, and finding that the one you've given to considers your gift worthless.
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