The Ultimate Failure of Postmodern Progressivism

We see postmodernism drawing its tentacles around everything in our lives; it is the ultimate social parasite. We see progressives trying to take control of the government and our culture. The election of Donald Trump, as incomprehensible as that may have been to some, is a reflection of the reaction of enough people against both postmodernism and progressivism, to give us at least four more years.

The battle with postmodern progressivism, however, will not be won at the ballot box because this philosophy has corrupted so much more than can be affected by government leaders.

Let’s shed some light. First, postmodernism is a philosophy – and now a worldview – coming out of the 19^th Century and overtaking the 20^th, that is based in the skepticism of our meta-narratives, those pieces of our culture that make it what it is. Faith is one meta-narrative, truth is another. The elements of postmodernism are as follows:

1. Relativism – if all truths and values are relative, then there are no real truths and values.
2. Secularization – as religious belief is a purveyor of absolute truth (God exists, He’s the boss, etc.), it is necessary to scourge it from the public arena.
3. Deliberate irrationality – our culture is based on Enlightenment rationality (even our religion has been given its rational basis). It is important to be irrational, deliberately, to undo meta-narratives by conflagration and obfuscation.
4. Subject emotionalism as the arbiter of truth – objective truth must be ousted and replaced with “truths” that assuage our feelings. It’s the only way around meta-narratives based in objective truth.
5. Reductionism – a whole truth must be reduced to pieces, even if they are not actual pieces, in order to find fault with one of them thereby finding fault with all of it.
6. Narcissism – it takes an extraordinary narrow view to ignore the Other and the various bases for our meta-narratives.

As we can see, these elements provide nothing whatsoever for human flourishing or the human good.

Now, let’s look at progressivism. This political approach goes back to Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) who believed, positively, that government could help change society. In this postmodern era, progressivism has developed with the following elements:

1. Human beings are pliable and therefore their behavior is perfectible.
2. Government is the only agency powerful enough to perfect human behavior and, by extension, all of society.
3. The process of perfecting must come in the form of regulations, legislation, and eventually outright totalitarianism.

If we combine the two, the human being is seen as a commodity and can therefore be used merely as statistics to further the progressive political agenda. One thing we can be certain of: God is out and with Him the idea that human beings are the imago Dei, creatures created in His image, holding their own particular dignity derived from God. Other than simple myopic egalitarianism, no sense of the sanctity of the human being can exist. Abortions are merely a solution, welfare, a right, unequal taxation of the successful somehow necessary. The sanctity of human work is ignored.

Without goals and structures – the social contract – society cannot exist in any substantive way nor can it progress. Social order is the basis of a stable society. With no values sustainable or defendable, with no common set of principles, without the sense of our relationship to the Creator of the universe, we literally have nothing.

Historically, this kind of society has always failed. Mao tried it at the cost of 40 million Chinese. Fortunately, for themselves, they have adapted some capitalist economic ideas that keeps them afloat and allows them to prosper somewhat. Stalin tried it, at the cost of 60 million Russians, and eventually that too failed. Personally, I can think of no reason whatsoever that our society, tyrannized by postmodern progressivism, can survive any more than those other totalitarian systems.

We need God. We need something other than the example of the human being to tell us what is right, to tell us of our worth, to inspire us to love one another. This is not in human nature, this is well beyond it. Ultimately, we need to restore the idea of the imago Dei, we need to elevate it to the level of our individual relationships, so that we can progress as a society of human beings. That means we have to teach God. That means we have to push back against postmodern progressivism which seeks to reduce the human being to chance genetics, in a universe of inexplicable chances.

This is a social crisis. This is a cultural crisis. This is a crisis of the human spirit and our need for our religious beliefs and the understanding of our relationship to our Creator are never more necessary than they are today.