{"id":48155,"date":"2020-03-16T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T10:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=48155"},"modified":"2020-03-13T09:28:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T13:28:43","slug":"the-postmodern-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2020\/03\/the-postmodern-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Postmodern Epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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This week, both my wife and I each had two<\/em> trips on an airplane scheduled.\u00a0 At the last minute, my conference in Minnesota and my meeting in the Washington, D.C., area were cancelled.\u00a0 Then, cutting it even closer, my wife\u2019s trips to Montana and Wyoming were cancelled.<\/p>\n

I was relieved.\u00a0 Not that I feared us getting the coronavirus, which is still a matter of small numbers.\u00a0 I dreaded going out into the fear of the coronavirus, which is a reality no one can dispute.\u00a0 I dreaded traveling in this climate.\u00a0 Would my flights get canceled?\u00a0 Would my allergies kick in, leading a TSA worker to shunt me into a quarantine, just in case?\u00a0 I dreaded coming back to our small rural community\u2013whose isolation naturally creates a state of protective quarantine\u2013from the outside world.\u00a0 Would people worry that I might be bringing back infection from our nation\u2019s capital?\u00a0 Might I actually<\/em> bring back the infection, one that in its special danger to the elderly could wipe out much of the membership of our church?<\/p>\n

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With the cancellations of our trips, we now have a week at home that we had not anticipated, which is wonderful.\u00a0 Not so wonderful has been trying to get our tickets refunded, taking advantage of the waiver airlines are commendably offering, though I am right now waiting for a callback in 14 hours and 20 minutes.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t watch sports.\u00a0 The NBA suspended its season\u2013with our Oklahoma City being the epicenter of that decision\u2013which was soon emulated by other sports organizations.\u00a0 Even March Madness has been cancelled, though as nearly everything that involves big gatherings is being shut down\u2013schools, colleges, conferences, meetings, workplaces, concerts, sporting events, social gatherings, churches (the only way to slow an epidemic)\u2013I think we are all experiencing a different kind of madness in March.<\/p>\n

The coronavirus outbreak has been called \u201cthe first postmodern pandemic\u201d<\/a>, though the author didn\u2019t say, other than chronologically, what is particularly postmodern about it.\u00a0 But I think he is right.<\/p>\n

The panic that this disease has created demonstrates that it is affecting people on an existential level.\u00a0 It is unsettling our worldview.<\/p>\n

We have been thinking that there is no such thing as an objective truth, that we create our own truths, or the culture or those in power create truth for us.\u00a0 We have been putting quotation marks around \u201creality,\u201d assuming that it is infinitely pliable to our will, whether through technology or through our self-identifications and mental constructions. But the coronavirus is an objective reality breaking in on us that is not a social or personal \u201cconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have been used to feeling in control.\u00a0 We have felt secure.\u00a0 We have felt free to do whatever we want.\u00a0 Not any more.<\/p>\n

Our technology we depend on so much is not helping.\u00a0 We can hope that our medical technology will eventually defeat this disease, but right now there is no cure.\u00a0 And our health care system is getting overwhelmed.\u00a0 Our travel technology lets us go anywhere in the world, but that is precisely what has been spreading the infection. As for the internet, whose \u201cvirtual reality\u201d reinforces our constructivism, we are deluged by constructed information\u2013\u201cfake news\u201d\u2013that is only adding to the panic.\u00a0 We have been playing around with information that \u201cgoes viral.\u201d\u00a0 Now we have an actual virus from the realm of actual, not virtual, reality going viral.\u00a0 We have been using biological metaphors for our technology, so that \u201cvirus\u201d is a program that can harm our computers.\u00a0 Now we are facing a virus that can harm our lives.<\/p>\n

How we \u201cchoose\u201d doesn\u2019t make the coronavirus go away.\u00a0\u00a0Our bodies apparently matter after all.<\/p>\n

Our postmodernism has led to \u201ccancel culture,\u201d in which we interpret those who disagree with \u201cour truth\u201d as exercising power against us.\u00a0 Since postmodernists no longer believe in reason, argument is replaced by resisting<\/em> our opponents and, when possible, silencing, punishing, and cancelling them.\u00a0 The coronavirus is cancelling everything<\/em>, including the college classes, pop culture venues, and interest group gatherings that have been the breeding ground for these ideas.<\/p>\n

Postmodernism has stressed how we are all different and that we are defined by the groups we belong to.\u00a0 There is no \u201cuniversal\u00a0 humanity.\u201d\u00a0 But the coronavirus threatens everyone alike, no matter their culture, sexual identity, level of privilege, or intersectional status.\u00a0 Striking down celebrities and professional athletes, wealthy executives and powerful politicians, the virus is blind to social distinctions.\u00a0 And though it is especially cruel to those over 80, it seems strangely merciful to children.\u00a0 But the current epidemic makes\u00a0it looks like there is a universal humanity after all, one that can get sick.\u00a0 And die.\u00a0 And possibly pull together.<\/p>\n

What is happening with the coronavirus fits strangely into the secular climate that I discuss in my new book Post-Christian<\/a>.\u00a0 That book describes the current intellectual and cultural scene, but it also shows how that scene is coming apart, how it is running into dead ends, contradictions, and new problems that it cannot deal with.\u00a0 Some scholars are already heralding the beginning of something new, which they are calling \u201cpost-secular.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Black Plague, which killed half the population of Europe, is said to have been a catalyst for the end of the Middle Ages, destroying the economic foundation and social hierarchies of the feudal system, paving the way for the Renaissance and Reformation.\u00a0 Might the coronavirus plague\u2013which is much less severe and yet perhaps similarly unsettling\u2013mark the end of postmodernism?\u00a0 And might it herald a Renaissance and Reformation, the beginning of the \u201cpost-secular\u201d?<\/p>\n

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