Postmodernism as Myth

The Evangelical Outpost has a good post on the myth of postmodernism, with a priceless intro:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten? Nigel Tufnel: Exactly. Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Marty DiBergi: I don't know. Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven. Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

-- From the movie, This is Spinal Tap (1984)

If zeitgeists were sound equipment, postmodernism would be Nigel Tufnel’s amp. While the prefix “post” implies the ushering in of an age that is after “modernism”, the fact is that postmodernism is nothing more than a form of hyper-modernism -- modernism put up to eleven.

As Talbot philosophy Professor William Lane Craig explains when asked whether his students have a tendency to react to the “rational approach” with “postmodern resistance”:

Frankly, I don’t confront many students who are postmodernists. For all the faddish talk, I think it’s a myth. Students aren’t generally relativistic and pluralistic, except when it comes to ethics and religion. But that’s not postmodernism, that’s modernism. That’s old-style verificationism, which says things that are verifiable through the five senses are factual, but everything else is just a matter of taste (including ethics and religion). I think it’s a deceit of our age to say that modernism is dead.

Craig's point reflects my own experience in the classroom, but I still disagree with the Evangelical Outpost's broader point because I believe that postmodernism has brought meaningful difference in our society's openness to personal narrative instead of an exclusive focus on universal, rational discourse (which can be a good thing for Christianity, on balance). But the brilliant invocation of Spinal Tap makes me much more sympathetic to the argument.

Rob