Postmodern Times by Gene Edward Veith, 1994
This is an important book that demystifies Postmodernism. The book is thirty years old but still accurate for today’s world. When the book was written, the postmodernist project was a small seedling which made it hard to see all the parts. Today, the postmodernist project has grown up into a forest and all the parts are clearly visible right in front of us. This book is like a user’s manual for the world we live in today.
Here are three key reasons this book is important to read.
First, this book offers helpful definitions on many of the key terms that are around us all the time: postmodernism, social construct, queer theory, and intertextuality.
Here are some of the most important terms and definitions from the book.
Objectivist: those who believe that truth is objective and can be known (pg. 47)
Constructivist: those who believe that human beings make up their own realities (pg. 47)
Queer Theory: culture as suppression of homosexuals (pg. 53)
Intertextuality: culture is texts interacting with other texts (pg. 52)
Deconstruction: dismantle the paradigms of the past and bring the marginal to the center (pg. 57)
Social Construct: these paradigms are useful fictions, a matter of “telling stories” (pg. 57)
The second reason this book is important is that it clearly shows how the postmodernist project is ultimately aimed at destroying the individual self. That can seem like a strange claim to make given that our culture is so obsessed with identity. Let me explain.
The progression of postmodernism goes like this. Step One, there is no objective standard to judge reality. The standard is my experience and feelings. Step Two, I choose what makes me feel good. Step Three, I pick the truths that I like the best. Step Four, the ability for me to choose what I like becomes hard for me when everyone else is doing the same thing. Step Five, I find a group of people who have similar likes that I do. Step Six, this group guides me to pick things I like. Step Seven, all reality is determined by the group and the self no longer matters. The group is all that matters.
Veith quotes Arthur Kroker, a postmodernist, who writes “‘The disappearing ego is the victory sign of postmodernism.’”(pg. 82)
Given that our culture is so obsessed with personal identity, it can seem hard to understand how postmodernism is at work destroying the individual self. After all, our cultural catechism tells us “believe in yourself” and “who you are is all that matters.” This message is thrown at us ad nauseam. So how is it possible that postmodernism is actually bent on destroying the self?
I think that is part of the play being run on us right now. A key tactic in warfare is to project what you want the enemy to believe. That is, if you are strong project weakness. If you are going left, pretend to go right. Postmodernism is just following good war tactics: if the destruction of the self is the goal, make a big deal about people finding themselves and being true to themselves. Make people think you care about the individual.
The other reason postmodernism is doing this is because they have elevated the self above everything else. When we worship the self as god, it does not stay that way. The self becomes a demon. It turns the self into a black hole sucking everything into its orbit, even the light.
Veith explains the deception this way: “Postmodernism encourages selfishness without individuality; subjectivity without identity; license without freedom.”(pg. 86)
Two other books that unpack the destructive nature of the postmodernist self are Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of Modern Self and R.J. Rushdoony’s The One and the Many.
Rushdoony’s book sets forth the clear, biblical alternative in the Triune God: the only place we can find true harmony between individual freedom and an ordered society. Communities shaped by the triune God can hold on to both true individuality and a good social order. Everything else veers off into the ditch.
The third reason this book is important is that Veith rightly marks the rise of the Informational Elites. This new class of elites has been on the rise for the last thirty years so it is pretty easy to see them now. This is what we would call the influencers: Youtube stars, Tiktok celebs, and Instagram queens. These are the ones that people look to for help and advice on life: anything from dating and politics, to music and video games, to religion and health.
Thirty years ago, Veith saw these coming. He says that the factory symbolized the modern economy a century ago. Now “the computer symbolizes the postmodern economy.”(pg. 177) The computer is everything for business and work. We see this clearly with the internet. No business will survive without some presence online. With the rise of the internet and computers, data and information have gained an elevated status. Big data companies are vital right now.
Veith says, “The premodern and the modern value knowledge; the postmodern is obsessed with data.” (pg. 178)
The key work to be done with data is collecting it and organizing it in a way that people can use. In the postmodern world, there is too much data for any one person to process. Hop over to Google and search for anything. How do you decide which link to click? Is that one right or wrong? Google cannot answer that question.
People do not have the time/ability to organize the vast quantities of data on the internet so they look to a few key informational elites who can show them how to use the data. While Google and other computer resources can help with some of this issue, most people instinctively realize that they need a real-life person to help them think through the data. This need gives us the Informational Elites.
Veith says, “The New Class includes educators, communicators, planners, and those in the ‘helping professions.’ The important role of information in the contemporary economy means that the New Class has great influence and social status.” (pg. 179)
Get a copy of Postmodern Times and read it. In this book, Veith offers a helpful walking tour through all the parts of the Postmodernist project. Veith points out and labels all the pieces at play in our postmodern culture. In this way, he pulls back the curtain and shows us the little postmodern man screaming his ideology at us all day every day. Reading this book is essential for understanding our times.
Gene Edward Veith, Informational Elite, Intertextuality, Postmodern Times, Postmodernism, Queer Theory
