Ming the Mechanic:
Post-Modernism

The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Post-Modernism2002-01-06 22:18
8 comments
pictureby Flemming Funch

The term "post-modernism" has always confused me. Or, rather, I must admit that I never got a good definition. Now, researching it some more, the best explanation I can find is in these pages. Modernism was characterized by a belief that rational, orderly progress of one well-identified central metaphor, such as Science or Capitalism or Communism, was going to solve things. Post-modernism is the end of belief in any such absolute truths; replaced with a sense that everything is relative; there are no universal answers or agreements; culture just fragments into a playful celebration of chaos. We're surfing across multiple paradigms, without any of them being the obvious RIGHT one. Mostly it means that Science and your local Political Paradigm have been deposed as gods of your world. You can make up the truth as well as they can.

Now, that is both depressing and refreshing, and it should definitely have some bearing on how we think about creating a new civilization. I means that it is no longer practical to come up with one better ideology, which everybody can adopt, and which ensures progress and harmony for all of us. That's a Modernist way of looking at it: that instead of Communism or Capitalism, we define the NewCivilizationism, and everybody lines up behind it, and we build a more rational world with it. That also would involve a struggle, where we convince enough people to switch to this way of looking at it, and we gather support, etc. So, now, post-modernism says that such approaches are dead. It is all just a different perspective, so somehow there needs to be room for all of them.

So, maybe the best approach to a new civilization is to fully embrace post-modernism. I.e. it is the place where all different paradigms can coexist. It is a place that will work well with rich diversity, where everybody don't agree on the underlying big story. And the idea would probably be that a New Civilization works *better* when built of a fundamentally complex diversity of cultures than if it were attempted to be based on one generally agreed-upon ideology.

Now, I would argue that there are certainly still recognizable rules and self-organizing principles in such a different world. If we assumed that there really is some sense in this switch to a post-modern world, then it is the sense that we drop phoney universal stories that claim to have the answer to everything, and instead we adopt a vocabulary that allows us to play with different world-views. We adopt the understanding that humans can choose different world-views, believing things between them that are mutually exclusive. Instead of struggling to defend any one picture of the world as the right one, we learn the principles of how people make pictures of the world, and we become fluid and flexible in switching around between different channels as necessary.

A problem is that powerful agencies are still holding on to a Modern approach of pushing one ideology through to a universal status. Most governments still try to make the same rules apply to everybody. The Central Banking economies still try to push the idea that we're all doing well or not-well at the same time. The Multi-National World Trade Globalization movement tries to create the same market everywhere, with the same rules, squelching diversity. Those things will naturally have to go, as they belong to a system that no longer exists, so their batteries will eventually run out.


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8 comments

7 Jan 2002 @ 06:00 by istvan : ++++++++++++++++++++++
After reading your post i tried to compose a comment that would describe my syncronicity with it. It would take volumes of words to even attemt to describe the feelings.Your observations are brilliant and maybe the cornerstone of our "research" into creating something new.
I think the human mind is finally able to handle realities of the cosmos and the dreams of our minds equally. Implying that whatever we do is just a process of maintainig our sanity by trying to impose order upon an apparently chaotic existance.
I think a whole new website could be created for discussion and building upon these ideas.  



7 Jan 2002 @ 12:32 by sharie : Chaos - Theory or Truth?
Our human existance seems chaotic only because we don't embrace the truth that we ourselves are the ones creating our experience.

No one else is creating our experience, but us.

No one else is inside our mind... perceiving, interpretting, assessing and responding.

No one else, but us.

When we embrace our power to create and manifest the world of our dreams, when we respect our brilliance and insight, when we respect one another as being infinitely valuable, then we will begin to create to the world of my dreams... a world where peace and happiness, truth and love are valued above all things material and physical, a world where every baby, child, adult and animal is loved and appreciated by everyone, a world where our inherent genius is acknowleged and respected.

We have chaos only because we have failed to embrace our courage, our heart, our inner truth.

with love,
sharie  



7 Jan 2002 @ 21:17 by maxtobin : ism's
Sharie has hit the mark! There is only ONE reality ONE uni-verse (with many singer's), there are many ways of seeing this, clarity in the moment is unconditional love! Enthusiasm (En-theo / God within)is a key attribute to cultivate in embracing the way we seek. Respect for ALL, no hidden agenda and an ability to see through the shadows of fear. Watch out for the Kiss-singer and his band of deceptive shadow dwellers, theirs is a unique and rather pain-filled song. I feel we will find that beyond all the ism's in just being and doing we will identify a process of allowing and sharing, this is the NEW CIVILIZATION. (I don't believe that civilization is a word applicable to any culture in present recorded his-story, perhaps when we grow past her-story to embrace our-story then it will be a word worthy of using to describe our shared worldly activities)  


8 Jan 2002 @ 11:24 by ming : Unified Chaos
Indeed, we need to have respect for all, and recognize that we live in one underlying shared reality, and when we embrace the inner truth, what seems like chaos will turn into just a diverse, joyous dance of life, continously unfolding into new wonders. I do think that what seems like a fragmentation into meaninglessness of post-modernism, is really something quite different when one looks upon it differently. All the fixed beliefs of "my way is the right way", "no, MY way is proper and correct" must fall down before one can see the unifying fabric. There's a fabric that all stories, all realities can live within, and that is fundamentally a unified, shared fabric. It is not a place where everybody agrees on the details, or where everybody is doing the same thing. No, it is a space where one realizes that it is all made of the same stuff, and all expressions of it are alright, and all stories are worth listening to.  


9 Jan 2002 @ 02:41 by maxtobin : I'mmm
Yes indeed, the unity of diversity. Resolution of the paradox through being ONE! Check out www.svpvril.com and the theory of sympathetic vibratory physics as espoused therein, it takes some time and reflection but there is a simple beauty to it and there fore I find it incredibly compelling. "the mark of genius is simplicity:"  


23 Nov 2005 @ 13:38 by jonah @203.206.115.209 : not one god
the trinity implies 3 god heads,look i dont believe that but lets pretend im the
fool holding the what if,so we have 3 "gods" add jesus who many chistrians
believe to be god(jesus weeps ,he came to reveal the true father)..add krsna..mahamoud what budda no ..no enough there is one god ,many suns of men
sent as john to bear witness of the light ,,not the light,but to the light of men to see ,no to know ,their god one to one ,to know that all created call god
father (life giver) ...that this one giver of all life is the only creator is the tatum idam sarvan,me in my unmanifested form...man i..fested,this entire creation is pervaded ...all life is in me..but i am not alone in any one..
any manifested form but..6ooo years== for god but as 6 days ,soon god goes unto
his sabbath ,see moses law. could be 2012 .though our fearfilled leaders plan to make it when we revolt ,even these words could be deemed so, but we shant ,and they shant ,we shall prove they mewarly exposed the means for us to survive gods regular jugment day science calls a pole shift its comming and then men shall pay gods sabath due respect,,even eagerly obey but man if war went into preperation we could enter the bust blooming the fruit we harvest to morrow of the seeds we yet plant today  



28 Apr 2016 @ 21:02 by Lyndall @188.143.232.32 : zZQmDueaRmYDLiOwBgx
Que ha ofrecido Carmen Doblas y Juan Doblas al puehol?Mucbos abracitos falsos y palmaditas en las espaldas y al final acabarán todos peleados, el tiempo lo dirá.La infanta Doblas no sirve en servicios operativos, se le escaquean trabajadores andando por los chalets cuando no tienen vehículo propio para desplazarse y fumigan a las 6 de la tarde fastidiando a todos los comerciantes de C/San Juan, cafeteria el Teide, etc.No teneis preparacion para llevar un pueblo adelante.  


29 Apr 2016 @ 04:56 by Debra @188.143.232.32 : EpFesqXuljF
estoy de acuerdo en un 99% con el casamiento gay lo uuunico que no me cierra del todo es el tema de la adopción, pero al mismo tiempo pienso que si tienen mucho amor para dar y hay muchos chicos que lo necesitan no es una mala com³bnaciÃin.Conclusión: Si se le explica al chico que fue adoptado por amor y NO que tiene dos papás o dos mamás´(como dice algun ignorante) solucionado mi problema…  


Other stories in
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2011-11-07 17:22: Notice the incidental
2010-07-14 13:35: Consciousness of Pattern
2010-06-28 00:03: Pump up the synchronicity
2009-10-29 14:03: Convergent or Divergent
2007-08-05 23:45: Perverse incentives
2007-06-22 22:18: Elementary magic
2007-03-21 14:20: Cymatics and group formation
2007-03-15 01:06: Structural holes
2007-02-27 23:50: Leverage



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