We are living through a communications revolution. Maybe: While submarine fiber-optic cable is being laid under the world’s oceans (according to Anderson, it will be “the largest man-made structure in the world”), about 70% of the people in the world have never made a phone call. Read more
As an example of “cultural hybridization,” Walter Truett Anderson describes the residents of the German village of Roderau, where a number of Germans are fascinated with American Indian culture: “the chief Indian in Roderaui is Gerhard Fischer, who prefers to go by the name of Old Bull. Fischer is the spokesman and leader of a band of villagers . . . . who spend a good part of their time dressed in buckskin and moccasins, doing snake dances in front... Read more
Walter Truett Anderson says, “The postmodern condition is not an artistic movement or a cultural fad or an intellectual theory – although it produces all of those and is in some ways defined by them. It is what inevitably happens as people everywhere begin to see that there are many beliefs, many kinds of belief, many ways of believing. Postmodernism is globalism; it is the half-discovered shape of the one unity that transcends our differences.” Read more
Walter Truett Anderson suggests that postmoderns may be distinguished from others by the fact that they not only have a culture, but know that they have it. Or, put differently: “You do not choose to be premodern. If you choose, you are at least modern. If you know you are choosing, you are postmodern.” Far from overcoming the Cartesian detachment of self from world, this feature of postmodernism seems to exaggerate it. You are not only detached from the cultural... Read more
Christopher Lasch pointed to the therapeutic dimensions of 1960s radicalism: “Acting out fantasies does not end repressions . . . it merely dramatizes the permissible limits of antisocial behavior. In the sixties and early seventies, radicals who transgressed these limits, under the illusion they were fomenting insurrection or ‘doing gestalt therapy for the nation,’ in Rubin’s words . . . had so few practical results to show for their sacrifices that we are driven to conclude that they embraced radical... Read more
Clem Whittaker, a pioneer in the political use of media during the 1930s and 40s, candidly explained his theory of campaigning in a speech to the PUblic Relations Society of America: “There are thousands of experts bidding for every man’s attention – and every man has a limited amount of leisure. Then we must recognize, too, that in almost every human being there is a great craving just to be lazy, at least part of the time, and a wall... Read more
Walter Truett Anderson points to the US invasion of Grenada (1983) as an example of a postmodern public-relations war: “its primary purpose was to give the American public a ‘win,’ to flex the muscles of the Reagan administration, to allow Americans to (in the phrase current at the time) ‘feel good about themselves.’ It was political therapy, and real theater.” It allowed Reagan to proclaim “America is back – standing tall.” Let’s say that’s all true, and that there was... Read more
A reader, Dan Glover, sent the following response to my hints about the Christian as “poem.” “Christ, the eternal Word, indwells his people and his people corporate. He is the Word which controls us with his words (‘go, make disciples . . . baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you . . . .’). And the body is formed by... Read more
Walter Truett Anderson suggests that postmodernism takes is rise from the recognition of the social construction of reality. This means: The institutions, practices, and habits that make up the contents of social life are made by human beings; and even natural reality is known and experienced through a linguistic and intellectual framework that is a social product. Some react to the discovery that the social world is a matter of artifice with anger. Anderson cites an account of Johnny Rotten... Read more
In his Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things , George Lakoff tells about the Australian aboriginal tribe of the Dyirbal, who speak a language that classifies everything into four categories. One of these, “balan,” includes “women, bandicoots, dogs, platypuses, echidnas, some fish, birds, fireflies, scorpions, crickets, the hairy mary grub, anything connected with water or fire, sun and stars, shields, some spears, some trees” (the summary is from Walter Truett Anderson). The classification is based on analogies between women and each... Read more
Leithart
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