A Question of Style
Steve.Cu...@neighbor.com
Bruce and Denise Wozny
religion, steve.cu...@neighbor.com wrote:
>Bruce,
>What do you mean by post-modern? Strain me
>some relevance.
OK, you hold, I'll pour! <g>
Steve, I have only a rough idea what "post-
modern" means, and it seems that many
scholarly writers feel that way as well.
Here are some quotes from:
http://helios.augustana.edu/~gmb/postmodern/faq4.html
to sketch out what people mean when they use the
term "post-modern." It would probably be best
for anyone interested in this thread to do
a bit of reading up on the subject :-)
"Post-modernism[:] The break away from 19th-century
values is often classified as modernism and carries the
connotations of transgression and rebellion...Rather
than challenging and destroying cultural definitions,
as does modernism, post-modernism resists the very
idea of boundaries."
*Here is another angle on it:
"post-modernity is seen as involving an end of the
dominance of an overarching belief in scientific
rationality and a unitary theory of PROGRESS, the
replacement of empiricist theories of representation
and TRUTH, and increased emphasis on the importance
of the unconscious, on free-floating signs and images,
and a plurality of viewpoints..." (David Jary and Julia Jary. eds
THE HARPER COLLINS DICTIONARY OF SOCIOLOGY. New York:
HarperCollins, 1991. 375-6).
(13) "Postmodernity does not imply a *change* in the values of
Enlightenment modernity but rather a particular weakening of their
absolutist character...(Ernesto Laclau, "Politics and the Limits of
Modernity," in Docherty, op cit.
..
Bruce here again. In the arts, the post modern approach is often
characterised by the combining of intact, undigested elements from
existing works -- along with the associations they invoke -- into
a synthetic whole. Post-modernist architecture, for example, takes
complete elements from classical, modernist, gothic, etc. buildings
(e.g. columns, exposed beams, spires) and combines them whole and
unassimilated into the postmodern building.
Post-modernism does not make artistic distinctions between high and
popular culture; there is (good) art and (bad) trash in high and in
low culture. J.S. Bach, Charlie Parker, Mozart, and Jimi Hendrix,
for example, might all be given equal value in the post-modern
pantheon.
For another example of post-modern technique, rap artists and dance
remixers use samples from classic funk or jazz records, cutting and
pasting whole chunks of well-known works (along with their
historical and emotional associations) into the new piece whole and
undigested. This is a post-modern approach.
Paul Twitchell's approach to writing, and to religion, can be
described as post-modern.
For example, the Shariyat affects an Old Testament and prophetic
style. Stranger by the River is an idyll. He wrote pulp novels in
the realm of fantasy (East of Danger), adventure (The Way of
Dharma) and the western (Drums of Eck). Although he is more
formally modern than Paulji was, Sri Harold occasionally uses the
parable form and adopts a New Testament style narrative form in
some of his writing.
In appropriating text wholesale to create new works, Paulji was not
being furtively plagiaristic -- "furtive" was not in Pauji's
vocabulary; he was being boldly and deliberately postmodern.
Many critics of Eckankar are so from a modernist point of view. So
it is no surprise that they fail to appreciate Eckankar on its own
(post-modern) terms.
Eckankar, a post-modern religion; now *there's* a doctoral thesis
worth doing. David Lane, where are you?!
Bruce W.
Rainald Lampl
: Many critics of Eckankar are so from a modernist point of view. So
: it is no surprise that they fail to appreciate Eckankar on its own
: (post-modern) terms.
: Eckankar, a post-modern religion; now *there's* a doctoral thesis
: worth doing. David Lane, where are you?!
I appreciate this statement, Bruce. Eckankar is a post-modern religion as
Scientology Church or Unification Church or or or ...
Indeed, there are many of new religious foundations especially in the last
fifty years.
There is a lot of post-modern lifestyle in our daily life. So let us
put a TV-spot of Eckankar right between McDonalds and CocaCola.
Fast-food, fast-drink embedded in fast-sprirituality...
(see: http:/www.eckankar.org)
Everything is easy, we just had to eat (take,drink, contemplate) it ..
Egoism is very post-modern, too. Just whatch little bit of TV.
Hm, but when the drums of Eck are beating, I can't hear the sound of
silence...
And what's about the claim of being an "ancient science of soul travelling"?
still catching flies in the sun ...
thefrog
Spark
(Rainald Lampl) wrote:
-> still catching flies in the sun ...
Try under the rock... <g>.
-> thefrog
Talk about paradoxes, a German frog!
kentstyle
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SAMOREZ
>Everything is easy, we just had to eat (take,drink, contemplate) it ..
>Egoism is very post-modern, too. Just whatch little bit of TV.
>
>Hm, but when the drums of Eck are beating, I can't hear the sound of
>silence...
What he said.
Sam
"Between being lost and being found, there is the consciousness of being
lost: the only true agony, as when a foot that was asleep begins to wake
up." ------ Franz Kafka
Bruce and Denise Wozny
>Bruce and Denise Wozny (w...@achilles.net) wrote:
>: Eckankar, a post-modern religion; now *there's* a doctoral
>: thesis worth doing. David Lane, where are you?!
>I appreciate this statement, Bruce. Eckankar is a post-modern
>religion as Scientology Church or Unification Church or or or ...
Hi, Rainald!
I would probably describe Scientology more as a modernist religion,
because of it's strongly (pseudo?) scientific and rational cachet.
I have less knowledge of the Unification Church, but suspect that
its roots are from an earlier, romanticist era where the self is
said to be a childlike and obedient entity ;-/ I am sure that
they both contain post-modern elements, since they came into being
only recently. But being able to classify a religion is only one
aspect of how to deal with them.
An earmark of the postmodern identity is the mutability of the
self; the ability to shift from one state to another. This is
called "soul travel" or "spiritual freedom."
Eckankar contains many elements. It was known for a while as "the
Ancient *Science* of Soul Travel." It also contains chunks of
romanticism, shabd yoga, the Old and New Testaments, and on and on
(not to mention the obvious Radhasoami elements). But the only
characteristics of the self which are firmly and consistently
stressed by Paul Twitchell is that it is eternal and free.
>Indeed, there are many of new religious foundations especially in
>the last fifty years. There is a lot of post-modern lifestyle in
>our daily life. So let us put a TV-spot of Eckankar right between
>McDonalds and CocaCola <snip> Fast-food, fast-drink embedded in
>fast-sprirituality...(see: http:/www.eckankar.org)
The fact is, Rainald, that we are seeing just that. Eckankar has
purchased advertising time on national U.S. television. Moreover,
they have had a positive response from those ads.
Like it or not, the post-modern world is with us. To put it in
your own terms, in these times you do not have to eat at McDonalds,
drink Coca-Cola, or join Eckankar; yet you are free to do neither
or any or all of these things :-)
To embrace the post-modern world is to embrace diversity,
multiplicity, and mutability. Notions of one immutable romantic
self, or one immutable rational one are artifacts. In the
postmodern age, "true identity" is to be found no more in emotion
or intellect than in any of the the series of selves that one
adopts during the course of the day.
>Everything is easy, we just had to eat (take, drink,
>contemplate) it...Egoism is very post-modern, too. Just
>whatch little bit of TV.
Yes. It is up to us what we eat or drink or watch on TV; the
rationalist structures (including the moral ones) are no longer
there to make our decisions for us. We must now make our own.
Some find that prospect a little frightening. "How to decide?"
BTW, There were egoists before the post-modern age, but since
egoism was somewhat suppressed in a rationalist (modern) world
which valued "objective truth," egoism now stands out like a sore
thumb as the modern world crumbles. Indeed, the end of the modern
era seems to be releasing all manner of irrational "bogeymen" which
had been previously repressed. Witness the unfolding political
situations in the wake of the death of Communism, one of the latest
great modern systems to collapse.
>Hm, but when the drums of Eck are beating, I can't hear the
>sound of silence...
Perhaps the drums of Eck *is* one of the sounds of silence. Or
maybe you are just listening too hard ;-)
>And what's about the claim of being an "ancient science of soul
>travelling"?
As I said before, this element is one aspect of that post-modern
matrix known as Eckankar.
>still catching flies in the sun ...
I can hardly wait 'til summer...
Bruce (no thanks, I just ate)
"In the postmodern world, purpose is replaced with
pastiche." (Kenneth J. Gergen, "The Saturated Self")