Friday 23 May 2008

Chn Mind 1.27 Making Sense of the World

The Myths and Realities of the New World Order

The great majority of people in our world regard the events recorded in the Book of Genesis as mere imaginary stories. They are respectively seen as quaint, primitive, simplistic, naïve, folksy or apodeictic devices to “explain” things. Nevertheless, we are told, they are still relevant and beneficial, because contained in them are motifs and concepts which can be usefully translated into our modern world and can still be relevant today—in the same way that inherited nursery rhymes can still be relevant in a technological world.

There is no doubt that social myths can be powerful, shaping constructs. Superstitions, when dominant, can deeply affect all of life. Consider, for example, the Maori concepts of tapu or makutu which can comprehensively bind the lives of people—and do so to this day. Consider, also, feng sui and how its superstitions to this day effect building and construction practices in China. Broken mirrors, black cats, Friday 13th, and ladders are prosaic western examples. More pervasive in the western world, these days, are powerful social myths regarding the universal efficacy and competence of the state; the redemptive power of education; or the transformative power of democratic systems of government.

These superstitions or myths provide an organising framework for life. They “put things in their place.” They make “sense of the world” for those that believe them. They provide explanations for events and circumstances. But are they true? Aye—there's the rub. Post-modern rationalist philosophical constructs would argue that it does not matter whether they are true or not. What matters is that they have influence. The verification of the myth is that people believe it, that it makes sense to them; and that it “works” for them. On the other hand, pre-modern rationalists (that is, those who still maintain the naïve rationalism of the Enlightenment, believing that it can find truth objectively by an impartial, neutral, scientific investigation of the “facts”) maintain that it matters a great deal as to whether such myths are true—that is, whether they are congruent with the real world—or the world as it really is.

But post-modern rationalists just smile and point out that “truth as congruence with the real world” is just another framing myth—in this case the myth of pre-moderns.

What is apparent in all these manifestations is that framing concepts are inevitable. You cannot think or exist without them. In order to investigate anything, in order to commence and maintain any human work or enterprise, every human being draws upon some framework or other which defines the world for that person. The post-modernist rationalists are quite right in their debates with the Enlightenment pre-modern rationalists. While the pre-modernists insist upon the objectivity of knowledge they can do so only they have already drawn upon and drawn down a framework in which such “objectivity” is seen as possible.

On the other hand, the pre-modern rationalists have a vital point to make. Any framing concept which does not accord with the world as it really is will, in the end, be harmful and destructive. Feng sui, makutu, and education-as-redeemer are untruths which have a mere semblance of coherence with reality—only insofar as people in general adhere to them. But in the end, either the emperor has clothes on or he does not. Sooner or later the nakedness of the emperor will be exposed.

An irony is that many modern framing concepts are just as superstitious and imaginary as what we now regard as primitive myths. There is little doubt that successive generations will look back on our own day and view the presence of such widespread powerful myths as manifestation of a spirit of crass ignorance and wilful stupidity. Future generations will no doubt shake their heads in disbelief—even as we shake our heads at the medieval notion of a flat earth—at the belief in the omni-competence of the state to remove all sociopathic behviour, at the redemptive power of education, or at the now almost universally believed superstition of demand-rights, or entitlement-rights. They will no doubt view these things as proof of a second Dark Age.

The events recorded in Genesis are not myths in the sense of powerful, shaping, but imaginary stories. They are real-time, powerful, historical events. Nevertheless they also are shaping constructs. They both construct and govern the world as it really is and will be. How can we be confident of this? Surely modern man understands a good deal more about natural laws, the patterns of the creation, and about human beings than the human beings of Noah's age. We (that is, those who have had their eyes opened) can be very confident because this world is an exhaustively and comprehensively governed world.

The God Who brought to pass the historical events of Noah's Flood, and Who instituted the covenant with Noah and his descendants, is also the God Who continues to command and control every movement of the smallest sub-atomic particles through to the behaviour of the greatest masses in the universe. All reality conforms to His will and command at all times, in every instance, in every place. He numbers the hairs on every human head. Every sparrow that falls does at His command. The decision of every cast lot is from the Lord.

He superintends and governs human history to ensure that it conforms to the constructs and institutions He set down in the very beginning. Thus the framing concepts for human existence and history revealed in Genesis both stipulate and describe the world as it really has been, is, and will be.

The pre-modern rationalist asserts that pattern and order objectively exist in the world, and that it can be objectively analysed by human reason. He insists on there being a one-to-one correspondence between the rational mind of the human subject and the rational order of the natural object. But he does so superstitiously, without foundation. In fact, worse than that, the pre-modern rationalist also asserts—at the same time—that matter and the universe is ultimately random.

The post-modern rationalist, on the other hand, denies that the world is objectively framed in any sense. He has taken the purported randomness of the world much more seriously. Therefore, truth is simply that which one finds subjectively useful. The discovery of truth is merely a matter of documenting frames of belief and how they function—that is, documenting where their utility lies. But he does so superstitiously, without foundation. In fact, worse than that, in his analysis, description, and documenting of frames he is asserting and drawing upon a wider, deeper frame that pre-supposes that such description and documentation can be universally understood.

If the post-modernist can describe frames of belief in a meaningful way, post-modern rationalism cannot possibly be true. If the pre-modern rationalist actually establishes and proves successfully that pattern and order objectively exist in the world, pre-modern rationalism has to be a load of old cobblers.

Bel bows down. Nebo is stooping. Athens is a wretchedly stupid city.

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