| Ira Chernus PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER |
STUDIES AIDS FOR RLST 2400
STUDY AID:
MODERNITY
In
our study of "the American way of life" we have looked at some ways
in which mainstream
1. The
public (economic and political) sphere of life is separated from the private sphere of individual meaning
(including religion)
2. The public sphere is dominated by the
myth of objective consciousness, which
says that:
a.
All reality is divided into the rational mind (In-Here) and the material world
(Out-There)
b.
In-Here should have full prediction of, and control over, Out-There, which
is inert
c.
Machines are the ideal model for a perfectly functioning In-Here; machines should therefore have as much power as
possible
3. Society
is a technocracy run by experts who implement the myth of objective consciousness most fully
4. Technocratic
knowledge is value-free; it can be applied to any goals
5. Public
goals and values do not need to be sanctioned by religion
6. Truth
means technocratic knowledge, not the wisdom of choosing good goals
7. The
best political system, democracy, requires each citizen to function as a purely rational intellect
8.. The democratic process is subordinated
to the demands of the technocracy
9. Technocrats
can provide the highest good for society--material progress
10. The
individual's value depends on playing a bureaucratic role within the technocracy
11. By
modelling oneself on technocrats and machines, the
individual can be most productive and
achieve the fullest possible self-development
12. In
modernity some basic needs are still unmet by the production system.
13. Therefore
society still values new ideas about how to improve, how to make more progress, even if it means
major changes in the existing nomos.
14. Individual
identity and meaning arise from hopes for a better future, which requires a clear awareness of the difference
between the past and present.
STUDY AID: THE CONSUMER SOCIETY: Here are some of the key points that
distinguish the consumer society (from around the 1920s to around the 1960s)
from the modern society that preceded it, according to Marcuse:
1. Now
technology can meet everyone's basic or true needs with relatively little labor
required.
2.
Since we can produce more than we really need, the individual's main role in
society is to consume.
3. Individuals
now achieve meaning primarily by consuming rather than producing; the consuption system defines what counts as
"meaningful" in
terms of the goods & services we can buy.
5. In
order to find personal meaning and form our identities, we must internalize the
system's idea of meaning; i.e., we must work in order to be able to consume
more commodities.
6. When
we consume a commodity (a good or service) we are actually consuming the entire
system of which it is a part.
7. Each commodity is a sign of some level of
status in the society, though the link between commodity and status level is
largely arbitrary.
8. Our main task in society is to learn the
system of commodity-signs and participate in it by consuming.
9. The nomos of
the consumer society is legitimated not by some divine or cosmic reality, but
by its ability to go on producing new commodities.
10. Consuming
is the way we root ourselves in the contemporary nomos
and therefore gain a sense of security and meaning in life.
11. There
is no way to articulate alternative routes to a meaningful life; all possible
alternative ways of life are by definition meaningless.
12. Since all our needs, as the system defines them, are met by
the system, and alternatives can't be imagined, there is no room for criticism
or visions of a better future.
13. We
feel free within this system because it defines freedom in terms of making
choices between commodities (most of which are virtually identical and/or
unnecessary) and making choices between political candidates, all of whom support the
system.
14. Since
there is no way to imagine a realm of freedom outside the system, the
individual's true freedom to define his/her own needs disappears; the
individual is increasingly alienated.
15. The
production/consumption system sees itself as perfectly rational, because it
defines rationality in terms of technical reason and the myth of objective
consciousness: rational means more
efficient at getting jobs done, not wiser in knowing whether jobs need to be
done at all.
16. All
protest against the system seems irrational, since there is no way to see how
alternatives could be efficiently put into operation.
STUDY AID:
MODERNISM
The
modern nomos seems to have great confidence in its
ability to represent reality literally and accurately, so that it can control
reality. But within modernity a major
doubt grew up that undermined this confidence.
The doubt is reflected in the cultural style known as
"modernism." Here are some of its principal feature:
1. Rapid
change makes it harder to believe in a coherent unified world Out-There; this in turn casts doubt on
a firmly unified self In-Here.
2. Critics
within the modern nomos raise questions about the
myth of objective consciousness. They
ask whether reality can be rationally analyzed and controlled. They ask whether there really is a clear
difference between In-Here
and Out-There, between subject and object.
3. This
leads to doubt about how images (words, pictures, etc) can really "re-
present" external reality (Out-There)--how we can genuinely relate to
"authentic" reality.
4. Therefore
images become detached from the reality they are supposed to represent. The images become independent realities of
their own; reality
becomes even more fragmented.
5. Modern
people are ambivalent about unity or totality.
They want to get it back to preserve their sense of meaning in life, but
they fear it will limit their individual freedom.
STUDY AID:
POSTMODERNISM
Here are some of the key points of the
postmodern (PM) nomos, which is supposed to have
begun in the 1960s and developed fully during the '70s and '80s, according to Gitlin and Jameson:
1. PM
(= postmodernism) completes the tendency toward fragmentation begun within
modernism:
a.
Images become signs; they do not point or refer to any reality beyond themselves; they are self-referential.
b.
The signs are random pieces, drawn from random codes, put together in random ways; the various signs within a
cultural artifact do not unite to form
a unity.
c.
All styles and genres, from any era in the past as well as the present, can
be combined in any manner; there is no difference between "high"
and "lowbrow" or "mass"
culture.
d.
Since signs have no relationship to reality, the meaning of each sign is arbitrary,
and the meaning of each artifact containing the signs is
arbitrary.
e.
The signs may comment on each other, through a process of transcoding,
but they cannot form a new code, so they comment on anything beyond themselves or
have any meaning beyond their mere existence.
2. In
PM people no longer look for unity or the meaning of the totality; theyassume
the fragmentation and meaninglessness: "Modernism
tore up unity and postmodernism has been enjoying the shreds" (Gitlin).
3. Some
interpreters see PM as a response to the counterculture of the '60s:the nomos of modernity and consumerism, and the myth of objective
consciousness, were rejected; psychedelic
culture carried fragmentation to the extreme; but no new nomos emerged to
give new meaning to life.
4. Instead
there is "knowing indifference"; the fragmentation of PM is deliberate and self-conscious; it is like a
game in which all the players know
that it is just a game; the dominant mood is irony.
5. PM
has no sense of history: the past becomes a grab-bag of images, all of equal
value (or of no value); there is so much novelty that we aren't
shocked by anything; we feel we've "seen it all"; so we don't
look forward to anything.
6. All
change seems to lead to further fragmentation and disintegration, so itseems
safer to avoid all change.
7. The
absence of a future and the fear of change, combined with the production/consumption system's capacity to satisfy
all our wants, persuade us
that nothing can or should ever change; no criticism of the whole system seems
worthwhile or even possible.
8. PM
individuals develop schizophrenic-like personalities; our minds are filled with random images, and we don't worry
about finding any unified meaning
or "authentic" relation to external reality.
9. We
get our identities from participating in many different bureaucratic roles and in many different social groups, but
we don't try to relate them to
each other.
10. Many
advocates of PM see it as the epitome of freedom: since there is no unity there can be no single authority in society,
no need for conformity, no
need to find our "true self".
11. Critics
of PM, such as Jameson, suggest that it has an underlying totality that undermines our freedom: we are all stuck in the market & media system
(the production/consumption system)
of late capitalism.
12. Commodities
become signs, and vice versa; each time we consume a commodity or a sign we are actually consuming the entire
system of late capitalism-- we are consuming the process of consumption.
13. PM
means the global triumph of
14. PM
culture is defined by the mass media, especially television; life becomes an endless process of switching
channels and consuming commercials. 15. PM
culture has several kinds of appeal:
a.
By consuming commodities and the media we consume the entire PM nomos, which gives us whatever sense of meaning we can still gain.
b.
PM's diversity and democracy make us feel free.
c.
Consumption offers a euphoric "commodity rush."
d.
Media images and commodities have great erotic appeal.
e.
The "postmodern sublime" fills us with awe; through consumption
we gain a feeling of power, because
we can relate to what is most powerful, infinite,
and "totally other" in our world--the late capitalist system itself.
16. Fundamentalism is the characteristic form of religion in PM culture because it denies tensions: between what is and what could be, between the past and the present, between the literal and the spiritual.
17. PM's diversity brings richer options, more freedom, justice, and tolerance.
18. But
diversity also limits groups to micropolitics; all
accept the market and the media as common ground
19. Therefore
cultural diversity may make it harder to challenge the totality; it may create the illusion that once all groups
are participating freely in the
mainstream, nothing more is needed to make life better for all.