Postmodern Theory –

A Broad and Ambiguous View of Reality

Postmodern theory is a broad and somewhat ambiguous belief system tied to the philosophical and cultural reaction to the convictions of Modernism (sometimes equated with Humanism). Postmodernism is the philosophical proposal that reality is ultimately inaccessible by human investigation, that knowledge is a social construction, that truth-claims are political power plays, and that the meaning of words is to be determined by readers not authors. In brief, Postmodern theory sees reality as what individuals or social groups make it to be.

Postmodern Theory – The Individual Elements
Our friends at Summit Ministries have helped us explain the basics of Postmodern theory across ten major categories. For comprehensive coverage of each concept, please click on READ MORE at the end of each paragraph.


Postmodern Theology– Atheism Postmodernists are not atheists in the same sense that Secular Humanists and Marxist-Leninists are. They may look the same superficially, but the motivation for denying the existence of God has nothing to do with the lack of scientific evidence. Rather, they would assert that, as Nietzsche said, “God is dead” because He’s unbelievable, not because He’s unprovable. READ MORE

Postmodern Philosophy – Anti-Realism The belief in an objective reality is rejected by Postmodernists. Rather, they assert that reality is the subjective construction of human thought. As a consequence, they also deny universal truth, rejecting anything that smacks of a metanarrative, which is an explanation that purports to unify the world in a broad, over-arching story. READ MORE 

  Postmodern Ethics – Cultural Relativism If philosophical truth (what we can know about reality) resides in the local community, it follows that moral truth (how we should behave) resides in the same community. Since, as the Postmodernist suggests, there is no “grand narrative” telling us what is real and how to behave, each community develops its own “little narratives” to fulfill those needs. READ MORE

Postmodern Science – Punctuated Evolution The Postmodernists are not comfortable with the traditional theory of evolution because of the metanarrative aspect of it, they feel the most comfortable with punctuated evolutionary theory because of the aspects of chance and discontinuity. READ MORE 

  Postmodern Psychology – Socially-Constructed Selves Within Postmodern theory, there’s neither a clear-cut nor a single answer to the question “Who am I?” According to Postmodern psychologists, there is no single, separate, unified self. Rather, we are made up of many selves. The way that we come to this multiplicity is through the collective influences of various social factors, including language, geography, family, education, government, etc. Therefore, rather than having a static nature, we are a social construction. READ MORE 

  Postmodern Sociology – Sexual Egalitarianism The Postmodern sociology seeks to even the playing field by emphasizing the value of those typically considered on the cultural fringe, such as the poor and oppressed. Unfortunately this emphasis often turns into a demonization of those who have traditionally enjoyed positions of power, such as white males.READ MORE 

Postmodern Law – Critical Legal Studies From a Postmodern theoretical perspective, the source of knowledge and justice within the Western paradigm is the root of the problem. Postmodernists insist that Western law, which grew out of Christianity and the Enlightenment, reflects white male bias. For this reason, Postmodernists are intent on eliminating religious roots and transcendent qualities from Western law, desiring more fragmentation and subjectivity, and less objective morality than the Judeo-Christian tradition demands. In the end, Postmodernists are intent on creating and using their own brand of social justice merely for their own political purposes. Critical legal studies, then, becomes the means to discover the subjective and biased intent of the law. READ MORE

  Postmodern Politics – Leftism Many Postmodernists believe that white males from Western culture have been the only ones to enjoy power in the past few centuries. As such, many Postmodernists seek to empower the powerless, that is, women, minorities, and homosexuals, through methods of social justice and identity politics. READ MORE

Postmodern Economics – Interventionism Postmodern theory sees economics as the way to alleviate human suffering. Postmodernists seek this goal through some form of government intervention within a free market environment. READ MORE 

  Postmodern History – Historicism Because Postmoderns believe that historical facts are inaccessible, they believe that historians are simply left to their own imagination and ideological bent to reconstruct what happened in the past. Thus, history is closer to what we think of as fiction rather than conclusions reached as a result of an objective, scientific process. Because of their emphasis on the subjective, Postmodernists have adopted historicism as their approach to history, which is to say that all historical questions must be settled within the cultural and social context in which they are raised.READ MORE

Postmodern Theory – Conclusion
The impact of Postmodern theory is clearly seen in cultural perceptions regarding truth and morality. According to George Barna, 72% of Americans agree, "There is no such thing as absolute truth; two people could define truth in totally conflicting ways, but both could still be correct."¹ 71% of Americans agree, "There are no absolute standards that apply to everybody in all situations."² 53% of those who claim there is no such thing as absolute truth identify themselves as born-again Christians.³42% of those who identify themselves as evangelical Christians agree, "There is no such thing as absolute truth; two people could define truth in totally conflicting ways but both could still be correct."⁴ Indeed, Postmodern theory has saturated the mainstream and religious culture of the 21st century.
Learn More!

Cultural Materialism - Marvin Harris

Cultural Materialism is an anthropological paradigm founded upon, but not constrained by, Marxist Materialistic thought. The term Cultural Materialism, first coined by Marvin Harris in his The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968), is derived from two English words: "Culture" (social structure, language, law, religion, politics, art, science, superstition, etc.) and "Materialism" (materiality, rather than intellect or spirituality, is fundamental to reality). Harris developed Cultural Materialism by borrowing from existing anthropological doctrines, especially Marxist Materialism.

Cultural Materialism - Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure
Cultural Materialism retains and expands upon the Marxist Three Levels of Culture Model: Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure.

• Infrastructure -- population, basic biological need, and resources (labor, equipment, technology, etc.).
• Structure -- pattern of organization (government, education, production regulation, etc.).
• Superstructure -- social institutions (law, religion, politics, art, science, superstition, values, emotions, traditions, etc.).

Marxist Dialectical Materialism (concepts and ideas are the result of material condition) and Marxist Historical Materialism (influential members of society hold sway on material condition, while society's social institutions are founded upon material condition) differ from Cultural Materialism in a few key aspects. Cultural Materialism holds that Infrastructure has influence on Structure, while Structure exerts little influence upon Infrastructure. Marxist Materialism, on the other hand, maintains that Infrastructure and Structure are influential to each other. Another distinction between Marxist and Cultural Materialism is Class Theory. Marxist Materialism believes social change is beneficial to the ruling (Bourgeoisie) class only, while Cultural Materialists believe social change is beneficial to the working (Proletariat) class as well.

Cultural Materialism - Organization, Ideology and Symbolism
Cultural Materialism seeks to explain cultural organization, ideology and symbolism within a materialistic (Infrastructure/structure/superstructure) framework. Cultural Materialists believe society develops on a trial and error basis. If something is not beneficial to a society's ability to produce and/or reproduce, or causes production and/or reproduction to exceed acceptable limits, it will disappear from society altogether. Therefore, law, government, religion, family values, etc. must be beneficial to society or they will cease to exist within society. Cultural Materialists ignore "Emic" (society's opinion) in favor of "Etic" (observation of phenomenon via scientific method).

Cultural Materialism - Criticisms
Proponents of alternative anthropological doctrines criticize Cultural Materialism for various reasons. Marxists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring Structure's influence upon Infrastructure. Postmodernists believe that reliance upon "Etic" in studying culture is not appropriate, as science is merely a function of culture. Idealists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring variables such as genetics, and believe "Emic" is more significant than Cultural Materialists allow. Finally, it seems that Materialism is too simplistic. We must consider intellectual and spiritual influences upon society as well. We are intelligent creatures who tend to have spiritual inclinations that cannot be accounted for by material means alone.

THE FRUITS OF DEMOCRACY OR CAPITALISM?

The scandal of child labour in US farming

The false representation of immigrants 'stealing' farm jobs paints out the reality that children are being exploited to do the work

• 
• 
  
  • Susana Adame
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 May 2010 15.04 BST
  • Article history

Earlier in the month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced thebeginning of its campaign to end child labour in US agriculture. The campaign, among other things, calls for the "same age and hour requirements to children working in agriculture that already apply to all other working children" and for the government to "strengthen provisions regarding children's exposure to pesticides".

HRW's campaign begins just as anti-immigrant action in the US hasheated up. Arizona recently passed the draconian SB 1070 legislation that requires local police to check the immigration status of anybody they have a "reasonable" suspicion of being undocumented. Arizona also outlawed ethnic studies classes shortly thereafter and is forbiddingteachers with heavy accents from teaching English.

Most of these actions (and subsequent actions in other states) are being justified based on the state of labour in the US. That is, undocumented workers are "stealing" the jobs of citizens and as such, we need to come down particularly hard on any who might be undocumented. The Southern Poverty Law Centre (an organisation that monitors hate groups), has done an excellent job in documenting how labour gets centred in the immigration debate:

"[The Coalition for the Future American Worker] ran an ad featuring a couple sitting at a kitchen table with a baby crying in the background. The husband tells his wife that he failed to get a job because 'they hired all foreign workers'. During a 2004 Texas congressional race, it ran television ads that included images of dark-skinned men loitering on street corners and running from police cars."

But the HRW campaign exposes a conflict between how immigration and labour is represented – and what it is in reality. HRW estimates that at least 9% of farm workers are children, and this number may be significantly higher. What this means is that a very big percentage of the actual people doing the "stealing" are kids rather than grown men, and those kids, more often than not, may actually be citizens, having been born in the US after their parents immigrated.

Unfortunately, the false representation of adult male labourers "stealing" jobs of citizens is becoming more mainstream, with the result being that consumers are largely ignorant of the immensity of the problem, or oddly, they even regard child labour as a good thing. Drawing on a mythical past where youth spent their summers on family farms working for a little spending money, the argument is that what was good for grandparents then is good for children today. It "builds strength of character" and teaches good lessons.

The problem here is that there is a significant difference between anagricultural industrial farm and a family owned farm. Most farms in the US today are owned by massive corporations that use tools, heavy machinery and engage in extensive pesticide spraying. Child labourers (who are often as young as seven or eight) working on these industrial farms can expect to work 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week. Lunch breaks are often only a half hour and as with most farm workers, bathrooms and even clean water to drink are rarely supplied by the growers. Federal minimum wage is $7.50 an hour, but because farm workers are paid by the bucket rather than by the hour, their wages often average out to as low as $2.38 an hour.

For children, payment for labour presents a unique problem. Because children are often too young to collect their own pay, parents are paid instead. While it may not necessarily be a bad thing for kids to give their earnings to parents to help with bills, it does seem ironic at best that children are working full-time jobs but because they are not officially on the books, they are not eligible for worker's compensation should they get sick or hurt, unemployment benefits during any period they aren't working, nor are they even getting credit for paying into social security. If we have no problem "teaching" kids the benefits of working full time, then shouldn't we also be teaching them what rights they have as workers?

When I first read HRW's stance against child labour violations, I did not feel that the campaign went far enough to protect children. But given the context of the US political atmosphere in which the campaign was announced, I think it's a beneficial campaign if only for the education and worker testimony it provides to consumers who are being bombarded by messages that simply don't reflect reality. Whether this campaign will gain any meaningful momentum towards achieving the goals it calls for, however, remains to be seen.