Friday, December 15, 2006

A WEEK WITH... RADICAL ORTHODOXY day 5


"Isms", in my opinion
are not good. A person should not
believe in an "ism". He should
believe in himself. John Lennon
said it on his first solo album.
"I don't believe in Beatles, I
just believe in me." A good point
there. Afterall, he was the Walrus...

I could be the Walrus and I'd still
have to bum rides off people.... Ferris Bueller

RADICAL ORTHODOXY speaks about "isms"

click here to listen. (about 3:45 minutes, it will cut out for about 30 seconds and then come back on, keep listening)


Listen to: day 1; day 2; day 3; or day 4


Coming Up:

Sat: Cultural Transformation and the Christian moral imagination

Sun: Faith, Reason, Scripture and Negotiation


shalom,

stPhransus

4 comments:

rocksalive777 said...

First off, I really like the Baudrillard reference. We read some of his works in my Composition class this semester and I cannot wait to get into more of his works.

Second, despite my limited knowledge of philosophy (I'm taking an intro course starting in January), it seems to me that even though we live in this post-secular world, where people still claim a faith in God, they are very nihilistic. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die," is the rallying cry sent out every night on UGA's campus. It's almost a neo-nihilism in that it is combined with escapism.

Shalom,
Drew

Jonathon said...

absolutely. what i can appreciate about what the radox folks are doing is that they are saying "hey, christians have an alternative narrative out of which we see the world and nihilism is not a part of it." this is very different from a lot of other postmodern thoughts out there.

drew i was a philosophy major in my undergrad days. it all started with me taking an intro to philosophy, it rocked my world and i was smitten after that.

happy christian new year,

jonathon

Anonymous said...

ok, i am going down a rabbit trail here...

i don't believe there is genuinely such a thing as "post"modernity yet. and nihilism is the reason why. nihilism is the logical conclusion of modernity, the post-enlightment train of thought that has shaped and continues to dominate western culture. what we are currently experiencing is a kind of "ultra"modernity, modernism reduced down to a more concentrated form, if you like. where i think RO is important is that it is attempting to push us past the radical nihilism into a genuine "post"modernity, where we can shake off the destructive accretions of modernity by enlarging the scope of our thinking beyond the hyperatomism that nihilism produces.

unfortunately, RO is not the only approach being taken, some approaches are more destructive--radical islam being an obvious case in point. there is a genuine discontent with nihilism that is propelling the culture to reach out for something beyond modernity, but there is a real war as to what shape postmodernity is going to take (sorry to my pacifist brethren and sisteren for the analogy, but it fits). so there are multiple possibilities to what a postmodern future is going to look like (sticking a fork into any nice neat hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis view of things). but it is going to be messy getting there.

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