THE CULT OF SELFISM AND THE POST-MODERN WORLD

This is part 3 of a 6 part series from an essay which I entered into an essay contest. Over the next several days we are going to be looking at the cult of selfism and postmodernism from a historical, philosophical, sociological, and theological angle. I promise not to get to deep into the subject but get ready to start looking at our culture from a totally different viewpoint. Today I wish to look at the philosophical aspect of how postmoderism and the cult of selfism took over our culture.

How do they relate?
(Philosophy)
The widespread cult of Selfism was basically born from the philosophy of Post Modernism or as some would call it “Ultra modernism.” Postmodern thinking has two basic components: community and language. In terms of community the postmodern thought is not the idea of traditional community, but bracketed community. Community based on age, technological knowledge, style, privilege, status, a cause, or even ideas, but rarely is it based on family, neighborhood, ethnic status or religion. The postmodern community maybe someone who lives across town rather than around the corner causing a loss of connectivity with the surrounding population. Because connectivity is lost in terms of relationship based on close reliability then the community factor which is longed for is not fulfilled. Mobility and freedom to move about as we wish is more important than knowing who it is who lives next door to us. I have experienced this through the years by talking to my peers about needing to belong to a local church. Universalism has overtaken the philosophy that people no longer associate the need of belonging to a local society. It is an inquisitive desire to know people from a distance so that the ugly wart of Selfism cannot be readily seen by those around us therefore we cannot be identified to this cult.
Because community has been redefined there is a loss of base regarding the past and passing generations. Connection is lost so the past is either forgotten or ignored. This shows up in no other place strongest than in the Christian religion. At one time the strength of many local congregations across American was the fact that there may have been three or four generations who belonged to that church. This connection and community was starting to be lost by the Great Generation who began to dabble with mysticism and existentialism. As has already been discussed this was taken up by the peace movement of the “Baby Boom” Generation and embraced. Now the tapering off of the “Great Generation” and the embracing of the “Baby Boom” Generation has given birth to a religiously irreverent and ignorant society which has lost and ignores history.
That leads to the second thing the post modern movement claims for itself, language. The reason for ignoring history and not connecting to community regarding past generations is because there is no absolute truth. Where as one generation questioned truth this generation does not even question it, we just do not believe in it. There is a contradiction which will be seen later, but my generation and the generations directly attached to it have no strong, hard core belief in absolute truth. Truth is what you make it therefore what seems right to me is what I choose to do. Since there are no absolute truths then the law regarding running the traffic light on red does not apply. It does not seem right to make me wait two minutes at a light when I can “safely” go through it. Or as the story illustrated before, if someone won’t let others be with the person they want to be with then they can end the life of those who stand in the way of their happiness. The cult of Selfism protrudes most strongly from postmodernism in this area.

Next we will look at the sociological effect it has had on our culture.