James Sire’s eighth major worldview (in The Universe Next Door) is postmodernism. One positive aspect of postmodernism is that it has caused man to question his view of reality, not just reality itself—that is to challenge his assumptions about reality, God, self, and truth.
Lens #8—Postmodernism
- This worldview focuses first on how language helps us construct meaning in this world (as opposed to focusing on what is there or how we know what is there).
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- Humans tell stories to make sense of the world, and truth becomes whatever we can convince our companions and our community to agree to with us.
- A metanarrative is the grand overarching account, the all-encompassing story, which is thought to give order to the historical record. Premodernists accepted the metanarrative written by God and revealed in Scripture. Modernists wrote their metanarrative using reason to understand reality. Postmodernists consider any single metanarrative oppressive to other individuals, so they reduce metanarratives to “power plays” by man.
- Similar to existentialists, postmodernists do not consider humans to have any substantial self, but they construct themselves through the languages and vocabulary they create.
- The postmodernist believes individuality should be denied for the sake of collective groups of people or cultures (collectivism). Ethics and knowledge come from whatever society says is good.
- Human history seems to be one long strand of shifting episodes that require acceptance of many fluctuating aspects of life.
- Science fiction often expresses the alternate realities and fiction of postmodernists.
Movies with a Postmodernist Lens
[Note: As with all film listings, please determine each movie’s suitability for your own family. Please do not interpret a film’s inclusion in a list of examples as Zeezok Publishing’s promotion of or agreement with that film.]
- The Hunger Games
- A Beautiful Mind
- Epic
- The Fountain
- Independence Day