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September 28, 2005

Speaking Truth to Power

The Doctor is In deconstructs deconstruction, with a well-reasoned look at what "speaking truth to power" actually means. Just a small extract, to give you the flavor:

The Quakers used the term "truth" to speak of absolute, transcendent principles, given by God; the postmodernist view rejects all such absolutes, replacing them with "narratives" which are predicated and derived solely from language and culture, rather than any deity or transcendent supernatural being.

For the postmodernist, institutions such as religion, or the influences of law, morality or ethics, are merely expressions of the group in power exerting their control. Such vehicles serve as a means of enslavement, oppression, and victimization. The "narrative" — or story — of the powerful uses the tool of language to imprison thought. Hence, the postmodernist's task is to "deconstruct" — to uncover in the words and actions of such centers of authority their underlying oppression and will to power–which to their mind is always present. Postmoderinism is also group-oriented rather than individual-oriented. Groups define their own narrative, their own meanings for language, their own truths.

And so, when the postmodernist talks about speaking "truth", they are not speaking of transcendent absolutes, but rather about their particular narrative, their worldview, their convictions derived from social consensus among the peers of their group. It is "truth' in a sense that is emminently self-referential — something is True because I, and others of my group, accept it as True.

If we can teach our sons to reason and express themselves this well, the effort of homeschooling will have been richly repaid.

Posted by jeff at September 28, 2005 4:34 PM

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