The shortcomings of post-modernity are pretty much self-evident and have been highly publicized by modern Christian apologists for quite some time now. I am not going to deny them, I just would like to make note of the fact that every worldview has its own strengths and weaknesses. The moment you critique a perspective you need to realize that you are doing so from your own perspective along with its strengths and weaknesses.
Objectivity is Impossible.
This is something that the modern worldview completely missed the boat on. Modernity focused so much on calm, cool, collected logic and "objectivity" but didn't stop long enough to realize that, logically, that doesn't make any sense.
One of the strengths of post-modernity is that it recognizes "Social Location." Your social location is made up of the social aspects of your life that define the way you view the world.
For example, what is your:
Gender – Race – Age – Religion – Education – Nationality – Economic Status – etc?
So, I am a Caucasian male, 27, Christian, with post secondary education, Canadian, middle class, ...
Compare this with, for an extreme example, an Asian female, 72, Buddhist, completely uneducated, Chinese (Tibetan), unbelievably poor, ...
Now, this old woman and I live in the same world. However, if we were to reflect on the world around us and about events that we were both aware of do you think that we would be able to reach a common, 'objective' perspective? NOT A CHANCE!
Our racial, generational, religious, educational, ... differences have shaped us so much that it is virtually impossible that we would view things from the same 'objective' perspective.
Objectivity is a modern ideal, not a reality.
Even if our old Tibetan woman were converted to Christianity do you think that we would interpret the scriptures in the same way? I doubt it.
This is what Daniel Taylor has to say: "... in the broil of wider human enterprise, in deciding what is good and true and beautiful and worth living for in this world, there is so much sheer humanness at work (and their should be), that the claim of cool, rational objectivity is almost laughable. Only objects are truly objective." [The Myth of Certainty, pg. 51]
What do you have to say?
What are the weaknesses in this idea of 'Social Location?'What are its strengths?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of modern 'objectivity?'
How might people of differing social locations view Christ and scripture differently?
5 comments:
Hey Tim,
This post makes me think you should go through Why the Rest Hates the West and just do some cool chapter summaries and questions.
Now that you have a sweet following on your blog, it'd be a good time...considering no one came to the group last summer!
---Mikul
Wow, this was a seriously serious rant! So serious that I'm going to keep my nose out.
Does that mean you agree or disagree?
Maybe I need to balance out my own argument. One of the weaknesses of Social Location is that it can lead towards reletivism (assuming that relativism is bad).
One of the stregths of Objectivity is that it assumes the existance of absolute truth (assuming that it is true that there is such a thing as objectivity...).
There. I tried.
Um, if you were asking me about the agree/disagree thing, my comment pretty much just meant, I'm lost. I don't know what you're talking about anymore without thinking past headache stage. At this point I'll just let the rant go on without me.
This was an excellent rant and now let me do a little ranting in response... I completely agree that from our human perspectives objectivity is impossible. Even as i read this blog i take it in through my personal filter and the information becomes coloured with my emotions and experience. So nothing that enters or exits our conciousness is "colour-free" (objective).
I think that modern scientists and philosophers would do good to recognise this as well. I would ask them not to condemn me because I am Christian and therefore my opinions and perspectives are subjective. And somehow theirs are not? And what if they did get ahold of this "no such thing as pure objectivity" principle? Well it makes science serve a different purpose than it has in the past, i.e. science can't give us purely objective answers because humans are interpreting the data.
I could keep going but I think I will put an end to this before anyone reading this is loosing the will to live.
Oh, and also I think that the good part of this objectivity buisness is that there are essential truths that exsist if only we could get at them. I don't know if i believe in absolute truth just because I like to think its true or if i really have a reason.
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