Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

That Half Pint Nietzsche

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Modern secular academics are like the benign nihilists back in the early sixties who taught the next generation all sorts of cool stuff, which the younger radicals then went on to apply, much to the consternation of their mentors. Some postmodernists are like those radicals, being actual anarchists who want to burn the place down. But most pomos are just sunshine radicals, who want to participate in the general merriment of something like the Berkeley free speech movement, but don't want anyone to actually get hurt. Let's call them the powder puff radicals.

And since the establishment they criticize really is suspended from nothing, many of their observations are telling. But of course, since their criticisms are also suspended from nothing, it will not be long before a telling retort comes from somebody. They are both suspended from nothing, pummeling one another with nerf bats. Not surprisingly, it is an edifying spectacle.

Hunter Baker puts one half of it this way: "One need not purchase the entire package of postmodern theory in order to see the wisdom of the new scrutiny, the secularization of the secular" (The End of Secularism, p. 108). By this Baker means that the pomos have landed a good one with their nerf bat, having pointed out that the liberal secular academy is not this neutral ref, as it pretends to be, but is rather an active player, as engaged in the action as anybody suspended from air cables can be.

So I can recognize that men like Stanley Fish have written devastating critiques of a pretentious liberal secularism. But as those who have read my thoughts on postmodernism elsewhere know, I cannot bring myself to applaud. The pomo dwarves can help us out by shooting the modernist Calormenes, but my enthusiasm is dampened because professing Christian pomos keep shooting the horses of orthodoxy. I am sometimes tempted to dance in place and speak as Eustace did, but then I remember the words of Tirian, and I forbear.

And this is why we need to just cut through all the words, and proclaim Jesus Christ. We are Christians, and refuse to choose between that half pint Nietzsche and that wizard Descartes. We need the cornerstone. We need a true foundation. We need everlasting arms below. We need the eternal rock. Did you really think we needed a philosopher?