AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Wright On [Postmodernism]?

OK, regarding Tom Wright on postmodernity — and I hope this doesn’t become a running gig, the way I was the house reviewer for Stephen Moore’s first five or six books — I’m content with his sketch of modernity (individuality, objectivity, progress). Everyone parses these topics differently, and although I’d use different markers for what indicates “modern” culture (in my dissertation I argued for the emphasis on time as a determining constraint on human experience, novelty/progress, differentiation in kinds of knowledge with a concomitant valorization of anything scientific, and the authority of expertise), Wright’s characterization seems plausible to me. So he gets off to a good start.

His account of postmodernity would be stronger if he steered a little further from the popular but misleading tactic of equating postmodern skepticism about universal, indisputable truth-claims with the dismissal of truth simpliciter. But again, he justifiably identifies postmodernity with the demise of metanarratives, the disappearance of truth as an unproblematic point of reference, and the dis-integration of the individual. I’d cavil about the way he casts some of this, but I don’t have a big argument here.

When we get to the “consequences of postmodernism in biblical studies” section of Wright’s article, I begin to part ways with him. He ascribes a series of developments to the malign influence of postmodernism; I see the same developments as much more congruent with modernity in biblical studies, perhaps drawing strength from a rhetoric of postmodernity, but not from any coherent appropriation of postmodern thought. The notion that the Bible didn’t constitute a unified “big story” was well-established before anyone in biblical studies heard the word “postmodern.” Rudolf Bultmann famously argued that the New Testament constituted the fulfillment of the Old Testament only in the sense that the promises of the Old Testament failed, where the New Testament brought a truly authentic understanding of existence. The allegedly-postmodern advocacy of Paul’s adversaries and Deuteronomy’s victims derives much of its material from modern source-critical scholarship; about the only difference between modern and “postmodern” critics in this respect is that the pomos are willing to entertain the possibility that Paul’s and Deuteronomy’s opposite numbers were not cartoon villains with black hats and handlebar moustaches, but diligent, thoughtful interpreters of the tradition they inherited. Again, if the phenomenon Wright describes has to be defined in terms of philosophical presuppositions, it’s at least as much modern-secular as it is postmodern (the secularity of the modern mind obliges its scholars necessarily to speak up for those whom Paul or the Deuteronomist was trying to confute).

From here on, “postmodern” merely stands in for “sloppy thinking” or “ideas I don’t like” in Wright’s lecture. That’s a shame for a number of reasons: partly because Wright is insightful enough to make a real case, not just shadow-box (with a handcuffed shadow at that!); partly because Wright’s positive case would itself be wiser and deeper if he dealt more patiently with his discursive opponents; partly because casual argumentation at this point opens Wright up to a charge of demagoguery; and partly because, darn it, I agree with much of what I take him to aim at — but my position rests on premises that he thinks he as to undermine or at least trash-talk. Wright and I disagree about sexuality, but I bet we can do so politely and respectfully; we disagree on some fine points of exegesis; but we agree about mountains of other doctrinal and dogmatic points. Out of fondness and respect, I find myself again Wrighting off the bishop’s critique of postmodern reason.

Posted by AKMA at January 18, 2004 02:28 PM | TrackBack