PostModernism: Bridge between
Social Gospel and Social Justice movements
In our previous blog, Roots of Social Justice: Social Gospel Progressivism, I discussed how the various movements between 1880-1920 coincided with and supported the Social Gospel movement to destroy the true Gospel and the Bible. Since the Bible is the only source of absolute truth, and values, many denominations were cast adrift on the seas of secular humanism and relative values. The abandonment of biblical absolute values segued into the search for relative meaning such as in the Beat movement of the 1950s and the Hippie movement of the 1960s. The result was the birth of Postmodernism which was the abandonment of God in favor of anything but God and its attendant increase in societal violence.
The roots of Postmodernism could be traced by to the philosophers David Hume, 18th century, and Immanuel Kant, 18th-19th century. Hume believed that all ideas are derived from experience (Dykes, N. Debunking Popper: A. Critique of Karl Popper’s Critical Rationalism.). Kant postulated that our intellect enforced order upon our sensations to form our ideas. Sir Popper built upon this foundation in the 20th century by postulating the falsification of scientific theories. Basically Popper wrote that science that cannot be falsified is not science. Before Popper scientific theories were formed via induction from hypothesis and validated via rigorous experimentation to be proved as true. Since Sir Popper no one seeks to prove a theory as true; the focus of experimentation is to prove a theory false. In the scientific realm this has validity since one only needs one failed experiment to disprove a theory despite however long a theory may have been used; Newton’s theory for example. Unfortunately, Sir Popper was a philosopher first and applied his theory of falsification to his Open Society theory. Thus, sixty or so years after the Social Gospel movement had severed the reliance with absolute truth and values, science, philosophy and popular culture embraced relative values based primarily on one’s experience; welcome to Postmodernism.
Postmodernism was supported by the Frankfurt School with its Critical Theory approach; that is, question everything to reject its objective truth and then interject one’s subjective truth that corresponds to one’s ultimate goals. This found acceptance in the Western socialism of the mid to late 20th century, including America. It permeated throughout the educational industry, the television and movie industry and the music industry. By the late 20th century several generations of citizens had been trained in Critical Theory which segued into the Postmodernism Socialism of Popper and George Soros.
Social Justice primarily relies on
Fertile Fallacies and Reflexivity to succeed
George Soros built on and expanded Popper’s Open Societies concept but added several important features to move the Open Societies development forward. I have discussed these in previous posts but the most important of these concepts are: Tolerance Paradox, Fertile Fallacies and Reflexivity. Tolerance Paradox briefly states that the practice of tolerance leads to the destruction of tolerance by those who are intolerant; therefore, one needs to protect true tolerance, as they define tolerance, by practicing intolerance of those who were intolerant of one’s tolerance. If it sounds confusing just wait. Fertile Fallacies are explicit falsehoods, lies, designed to elicit predictable results from certain members being targeted. These innuendos carry the force of believability and as more people respond to and accept these Fertile Fallacies the more self-fulfilling they become. However, the Tolerance Paradox and Fertile Fallacies are merely tools to promote Reflexivity. In essence, Reflexivity is deliberate circular reasoning that begins as falsehoods but become reality as people believe and change behavior based on their beliefs {these is the legacy of Hume, Kant, and Popper who substituted experience for logic}. It was through these means that Mr. Soros broke the Bank of England and made his billions by selling the British pound short; it was he who began the fertile fallacy that the pound was weak, ready to fail when it was in fact strong. However, these innuendos were enough to panic investors, make the pound weak thus becoming self-fulfilling prophecy.
Truth is of little relevance to Reflexivity
People judge by their experiences, not truth
The Social Justice movement uses Fertile Fallacies and Tolerance Paradoxes in the Reflexivity framework to paint their opposition not only as intolerance but as enemies of mankind and social justice; especially Christians who believe in the absolute truth and Gospel message of the Bible. The goal of the Social Justice movement is to weaken and then replace national sovereignty with international sovereignty from one central government. Truth is of little merit since truth relies on objective, immutable standards that transcend experience. Herein is the error of Hume, Kant, Popper, Soros and others; they dismissed Aristotelian Logic in order to fabricate their experience-based criteria for judging their truths are correct and your truths as evil, if they do not coincide with their truths. Aristotelian Logic: Law of Identity; Law of Excluded Middle; Law of Non-Contradiction and Law of Logical Inference. The Law of Identity is most frequently violated since it demands that terms, truths, hypothesis, allegations, etc. be succinctly defined and validated by empirical, measurable criteria. This eliminates experience as a determinate of truth upon which the entire Social Justice movement is based.
Social Justice Movement Demands
Strong Central Government Force
Herein is the ultimate self-destructive paradox. The promoters of Social Justice demand that the Central government use force to make everyone equal. This appears to promote national socialism. However, what is actually occurring is the indoctrination of people to accept “protection” from government or the sacrifice of personal liberties in exchange for security from attack {which can never be guaranteed}. Though national government is only too happy to acquire more power with the consent of the people it is only the stick to condition society to accept strong central socialism. At the appropriate moment national sovereignty will be subjugated to a strong central international sovereignty such as occurred in Europe. The individual sovereign nations joined together to form a European Union (EU), strong central government. Though the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU this has yet to occur. Why? Because the nations gave up their individual sovereignty for economic “security”. They are no longer sovereign nations but simply separate divisions in the EU. This was the model America gave to the World starting with Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, and given to the World by Woodrow Wilson with his League of Nations which later became the United Nations.
Christians, the events of our day reflect the activities of Lucifer to impose a top-down order. God can have a personal, intimate unique relationship with each and every believer simultaneously promoting the good of each person uniquely and individually. Lucifer is not God and has none of the attributes of God. Therefore, to maintain control in imitation of God he can only institute a strong central dictatorial reign designed to make everyone “equal” at the lowest common denominator. This is willingly enforced by everyone via the solidarity movement in which each member forces everyone to be equal or punished. Thus, Satan’s mode of government is socialism. However, it is not for us to wage a war against Lucifer or socialism. OUR commission is to take the Gospel out making disciples of those whom God saves through our teaching and preaching and living of His gospel truth, absolute truth. When Christians fail to heed this Commission they are disobedient to Christ and entering into the domain of Lucifer; thus, they are doomed to disappointment, failure and chastening by God. God will allow Lucifer and his governments, which are ALL governments, to do their will. This will result in increasing violence, degradation of the human condition but the increasing promotion and spread of the Gospel. We must understand current conditions and past history to coherently obey Christ and avoid the traps of Lucifer so that when we stand before Him He will bless us for obeying His will. Amen.