1.2 Our Cultural Context: Two Paradigm Shifts
In order to be relevant to the world we live in presently, any discussion of the health of faith and politics and their interrelationships must take account of the fact that we no longer live within the so-called Industrial Age, on the one hand, and the Modern Age, on the other.
Most everyone recognizes that there was a paradigm shift in the 19th century from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age and another in the late 20th century from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Yet we are still struggling to deal with how the significant changes in how we transmit information affects the quality of what we know.
Most everyone recognizes that there was a paradigm shift in the 17th century from the Pre-modern to the Modern Age and that the Modern Age has been crumbling around us since the 20th century. However, in this case there has been significant resistance to acknowledging what many are calling a paradigm shift to the Postmodern Age, especially that aspect of it that claims our understanding of the very nature of knowledge itself has changed.
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Most everyone recognizes that there was a paradigm shift in the 19th century from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age and another in the late 20th century from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Yet we are still struggling to deal with how the significant changes in how we transmit information affects the quality of what we know.
Most everyone recognizes that there was a paradigm shift in the 17th century from the Pre-modern to the Modern Age and that the Modern Age has been crumbling around us since the 20th century. However, in this case there has been significant resistance to acknowledging what many are calling a paradigm shift to the Postmodern Age, especially that aspect of it that claims our understanding of the very nature of knowledge itself has changed.
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1. Living in the Information Age has its advantages and its disadvantages.
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First, we’re experiencing in spades that living in the Information Age has its advantages and disadvantages. The sources of information available to us have exploded; we can learn more things about more subjects faster than any other time in history. However, the flip side of this is that the overwhelming amount of information is paralyzing, because unless you already have some expertise in a field, it’s hard to tell what’s high quality from low quality information.
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My experiment in method on this website is to provide you with Quick Look webpages for a brief description and review of the top flight resources--books, articles and electronic media--on faith and politics that I’ve found (with a link to the original source when possible). For some resources, I also provide a more complete interpretation in either a Highlights Review PDF or a Detailed Review PDF. That means you’ll be able to (1) have a quick glance at many resources of which you were either unaware or haven’t had time to explore, (2) learn more about some that particularly interest you and/or (3) link to the original sources themselves or a site where you can purchase them.
But, of course, these are just one person’s interpretive reviews of what is “best” or “important” or “healthy.” So, like many websites, I’m inviting you to contact me by email with your feedback (see the form in Section 10. What I'm Learning from You.). I’ll share the essential content of the ones I think advance the purpose of this website with my responses in that same section. In this way, we’ll be going on a mutual journey of discovery together. |
Second, this website operates with the assumption that the time being ripe for more of the general public to accept that we’re also living in the Postmodern Age and what that means for faith and politics and their interrelationships. The immediate cause of new openness to take a look at this historic paradigm shift is the growing public awareness of the incapacitating political gridlock since the 2008 election, which came to a head after the 2010 midterms and the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabby Giffords.
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2. Living in the Postmodern Age --promoting wider acceptance of it.
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However, a word of caution is necessary. As Mike Keefe’s cartoon (above) helps make us aware, superficial centrisms of just being a little nicer to each other and grudgingly compromising deeply-held polarized principles that one “knows” are exclusively true, are not likely to be able to overcome the anger--even hatred--that separates all too many Americans from each other now. This kind of centrism is the kind that fits Jim Hightower’s famous maxim: the only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos!
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Warning: superficial centrisms are not the solution.
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Deeper Causes: Our extremist fundamentalisms are generated by the fear of the postmodern pluralistic view of truth and power. |
The misunderstanding and fear of one of the emerging realities of our time--the postmodern pluralist view of truth and power--is one of the primary sources of the incivility and polarization with which we are presently plagued. This fear has led to various kinds of fundamentalisms (religious and secular) springing up to defend their form of absolutist truth to the exclusion of all others. It justifies their demonization of the enemy through any means available, including the deliberate misinformation and disinformation polluting today’s media. |
In contrast, this website points to resources that show us deeper, more authentic principled centrisms. The key to grasping the difference is understanding and accepting the new realities of our current Postmodern Age.
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The people who created these resources promoted on this website model another view of truth. They recognize that no human being or group possesses THE Truth. This leads them to accept a deep pluralism, listen respectfully to others who disagree with them, make every effort to characterize those views fairly (especially when they consider them dangerously wrong) and understand and promote uses of power in their various fields that are quite different from those who seek absolute domination as their goal.
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Authentic postmodern centrisms are grounded in acceptance of pluralism, dealing respectfully and fairly with diversity, and promoting non-dominating kinds of power. |
As just one quick example of the “principled centrist” spirit this website seeks to promote, here is a quote by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Senator from New York, 1976-2000), prominently displayed on the back cover of a new book that collects many of his letters: “In some forty years of government work I have learned one thing for certain. As I have put it, the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. Thanks to this interaction, we’re a better society in nearly all respects than we were.” (my emphases) (Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary, ed. Steven R. Weisman, 2010) (The quote is from Moynihan’s Family and Nation [1986] based on the 1985 Godkin Lectures at Harvard.)
(Click this button to go to the next page, where I explain more about
some of the key terms and symbols of this website.) |