Review: Solomon Among the Postmoderns

SAP is Peter Leithart's attempt to see Solomonic wisdom among postmodern philosophers, but also to take a Solomonic "stance" against their conclusions. The outcome is a bit of a challenging read, but one worth the effort. I say challenging because Leithart is one of those writers who expects you to jump into the conversation he wants to have, rather than introducing you to one already taking place.

He begins by offering a different translation of Ecclesiastes 1:2 than with which most of us are familiar. Solomon didn't say that everything is meaningless and he didn't say it about everything that exists. Instead, 'under the sun' is a phrase of time (the present) and what is translated meaningless should be translated mist or vapor. Leithart says that Solomon believed that everything is fleeting at this present time. You can't shape the wind; you can't shepherd vapor. This, he says, is directly in opposition to the modern project of controlling everything.

Leithart begins with the Renaissance. The Renaissance, a return to classical art and literature, replaced God with humans at the center of creation and appreciated all the diversity of humanity. However, in the wake of the Reformation, the Renaissance helps set the stage for modernity: the human project to control the world, to shepherd the wind, Solomon might say. "We" became different from "They." Freedom, control, and progress became the new trinity. And yet the promise of modernity never materialized. Quantam physics. Violence. Death. Leithart says that postmodernism had three movements against modernity: unmasking, inverting, and instensifying.

Leithart gives three contexts for these movements. First, the elusive word. Postmodernism says that the boundaries modernity sets up between private/public, us/them, religion/politics all fade away. All is vapor. It's not so much that postmoderns are relativists, but that they are perspectivalists. Everyone has a perspective and there are no foundations to stand on. We all have limited, partial knowledge. There is always a way to frame history; never a grand story that is told from the grand perspective; always an element of persuasion in speech; never something outside the text. And Solomon agrees: We don't know the future; we all die. And yet, Solomon believes in God and points to the future where God will reign.

Second, the decentered self. Humans change and as a result identity changes. Descartes, however, wanted to find something that wouldn't, that couldn't, change. And so was born the human as a thinking thing. The human as the soul. The human as immaterial. But doesn't this make identity even more unstable? The human being--who is undoubtedly flesh--is now schizoid. Separate. Along comes John Locke who believes consciousness constitutes identity, but, as Joseph Butler points out, this becomes a constant dying and reforming of the self. Consciousness is never the same; it's always changing. Finally, David Hume believes that all identity is simply perception. This also fleshes out sociologically where people become disconnected from their families, cities, relations. They lose their story. Postmodernity intensifies this problem with urban developments, immigration, and reinvented celebrities. Who are we? Who we're told to be by the myriad of people who live around us. The changing self. Fat people now thin. Redesigned bodies and faces. If modernity said the self was changing, postmodernity through plastic surgery and liquid communities ramps the change up to hyperspeed. We're always playing roles. (I wonder, has anyone heard from Paris Hilton? And, if yes, from which one?) And Solomon agrees: All is vapor and that includes the self. We pass away. We fail bodily. The postmodern emerges with the hope of narrative identity! A helpful and valuable idea, but the postmodern is obsessed with death. And stories too often die with people. Never fear, Augustine (a Solomonic thinker) is here! For Christian identity is not in oneself, but in God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Finally, Leithart turns to power. Oppressors always have power and in spite of modernity's promise for freedom, it only controlled all the more: There is always a threat to be seen; markets are always manipulated. And yet...economics are complex. Too complex for people. People are complex. Even Foucault, who sought to free forms of knowledge from science, is making a modern move even in his critique of it. Karl Marx, who saw economics in everything, never saw, and never will see, his utopia realized. Even those who see postmodernism as emerging as an unstoppable force are the intellectually elite of Europe and America. Religious fanaticism marches on. Responsible religion marches on. Postmodernity inverts the power of modernism and finds it just as caught up in its tracks. The desire to listen to the voiceless is enacted by cries of shut-up! (Did anyone else see the Gay Marriage episode on Dr Phil?) In other words, there is always, always, always power at play. Does Solomon agree? Yes. The poor are beaten down. The oppressed are silenced. A man who saves his city against foreign powers is forgotten (Ecclesiastes 9:14-16). And yet Solomon does not despair. There is always power, yes. But there is a Power greater, fairer, and better than all.

So, if SAP is Leithart's stance, formed by Solomon, among the postmoderns, then what is it? Simply this: Eat, drink, and be merry. But don't forget that Solomon built the temple and that eating, drinking, and being merry is connected with the promise of the temple (Deut 14:26). Eat, drink, be merry; be of faith, joy, and worship. Work hard and enjoy your work because your days are given by God. Enjoy being a human, even though humans are vapor, because...well, because God.