The Rise of the Post-modern Mind (Part I)

It is becoming evident that Christianity in the Western world is going through some sort of change or crisis. New patterns of spirit are rising. The state of religion in America at mid-century has been discussed recently and excellently by Will Herberg (Protestant, Catholic, Jew, 1955) and by Martin Marty (The New Shape of American Religion, 1959). Both use a sociological approach. The gist of their message is that a new religious outlook is rapidly emerging, based essentially on conformity to “the American way of life,” and that this new outlook poses many problems for any vital religious message.

These new patterns, we would suggest, seem to imply a general shift of values, a change in man’s view of Reality, so far-reaching in nature as to reflect the emergence of a “new mind,” a new outlook on man and the cosmos. Its startling significance may be gauged from a remark by C. S. Lewis: “Christians and Pagans had more in common with each other than either has with a post-Christian” (Time Magazine, May 2, 1955).

Those who subscribe to this “post-modern” mind do not always do it consciously; nevertheless, their behavior and half-formulated assumptions make sense only in terms of it. A philosopher like Jean-Paul Sartre will explicitly formulate his view of why man is not bound by history; a novelist sympathetic to the “beat” position, like Norman Mailer, will approvingly define a hipster as “a man who has divorced himself from history, who does not give a (blank) about the past” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 28, 1960); the teen-ager will seriously look with contempt upon history as neither true nor valuable.

This “post-modern” mind, however it appears, does indeed pose new problems for the Church, and problems with which it is ill-equipped to deal. The average evangelical can perhaps bring forward several arguments against atheism; can he, however, answer a man who seriously argues that all religions are true?

BASIC SHIFTS OF PERSPECTIVE

There have been such shifts of mind before; for example, around 300 A.D., when the classical or Graeco-Roman mind yielded to the Christian mind; or, around 1650 A.D., when the Christian mind expressed in the Middle Ages and the Reformation gave way to the “modern mind”—which, if our suggestion is correct, is now in its turn dying. The mind of a society does not, of course, shift all at once. Many classical influences carried on into the Middle Ages and Reformation; many Reformation influences extended on into the modern mind; and many modern influences doubtless will carry over to the “post-modern” mind. Nor does the mind of a society change completely. Augustine’s contemporaries were, many of them, pagans, though they lived in a “Christian” society. Darwin’s contemporaries were, many of them, Christians, though they lived in a secular society.

What, then, is meant by “mind” here? We use the term for the ideas which shape society, or the outlook which shapes society’s institutions, or the basic assumptions which form a “way of life,” or the world-outlook which is reflected in the real goals of a society. Ethics reflects metaphysics; and the aims of a society reflect a view of Reality which the society has formulated.

Thus, if a society view’s Reality as “that which Reason contacts,” then it will be concerned to encourage the free play of Reason. If one of the ideas shaping society is, say, that freedom is a basically important thing, then freedom will be part of that society’s way of life, and that society’s institutions will be set up so that freedom will be gained. Or, if one of the basic components of the society’s outlook is the idea that salvation is essential, then that society’s institutions will be set up so that salvation is available. Or, if one of the basic assumptions of a society is that a high standard of living is highly valuable, then a high standard of living will become a primary goal. In this sense, then, we can suggest that the classical mind was different from the Christian mind, which was different in turn from the modern mind, which is different from the new mind now emerging. And that fact means, among other things, that: the classical outlook is different from the Christian outlook, and so forth; that the classical institutional patterns are different from Christian, and so forth; that the basic assumptions are different; that the goals are different; and that the view of Reality is different. And, using “mind” in that sense, we can repeat our suggestion: the modern mind is dying, and a “post-modern” mind is emerging with which the Church must reckon.

EARLY MODERN ASSUMPTIONS

The modern mind flourished from around 1650 to 1950, more or less, or loosely from 1600 to 1900. It was not born overnight, obviously, but emerged only after centuries of gestation. While it flourished, it shaped many dramatic developments: science, representative democracy, religious toleration, factories, capitalism, colonialism, nationalism, socialism, a vast increase in knowledge, great wars, and much more. Their modern development was no accident; they are tied into the basic assumptions and consequent goals of the modern mind. Aquinas could hardly hold, for example, religious toleration; Huxley could hardly avoid advocating it. What, then, were some of the controlling assumptions of the modern mind?

Reality in the basic sense, independent of ourselves so the modern mind held, is the Patterned Reality of nature. This Patterned Reality can be found by Reason, and Reason is therefore that in man which defines him, which puts him in touch with Reality as no animal can be. “I think, therefore I am”; I am defined by my Reason—which contacts the Patterned Reality “out there,” which shows me the Patterns; which shows me the scientific laws that govern Reality. Reason comes to mean the use of the scientific method. Science gives an “ever-increasing understanding” of Reality, so that man is progressing constantly. Progress means an advance towards greater knowledge, more science, more understanding, and more use of understanding to gain ever-increasing control over Reality, nature’s Patterned Reality. Reason obviously implies an efficient and rational government, and it probably implies, further, a rational democracy as the best form of government, and that the State’s concern should be in areas such as progress, advancement of science, education for all along rational lines.

Religion, in the modern outlook, played a minor role. Any educated modern would view it with suspicion unless it was accommodated to the modern mind. And this, of course, could be done. If God was viewed, say, as the rational Watchmaker and Creator who started the universe and set up its scientific laws (as by Franklin), or as the cosmic Spirit revealing Itself in history (as by Hegel); and if Jesus was looked on as a great Teacher, worthy to be ranked with Socrates and Buddha—then there would be no objection. If God was viewed as nonexistent, that was all right too. In any case, God lost any significance for decision-making in the areas of politics or economics or education or science or, indeed, anything important.

Such, in oversimplified form, was the modern mind (now dying). Protestant orthodoxy had a difficult time with it. Giving up the notion of a “Christian society” in the older sense (its last supporters were perhaps the Puritans), the churches generally either adopted the modern mind and salvaged what religion they could (roughly the “modernist” answer) or, while accepting many modern assumptions, tried to hold emotionally to personal salvation (roughly the “fundamentalist” answer). Catholic orthodoxy retreated behind its Roman bastions and hurled excommunications, anathemas, and fulminations (freedom of conscience was “madness” flowing from the “corrupt fountain of indifferentism,” as Gregory XVI put it). But the modern mind did not listen.

The modern mind, with its view of Reality as the Patterned Reality which Reason and science contact, with its natural laws governing the physical world, and its rational laws of human nature governing all men, came under increasingly severe attack after 1850 from thinkers who may be regarded as transition figures to the post-modern mind: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and many others. Today, we would hold, the post-modern mind has actually begun to emerge—not only in the ivory towers, not only in Europe, but in the assumptions of the American man on the street.

What is this “post-modern” mind? It has, in brief, a different view of Reality. If the Christian mind held that the highest Reality is the Triune God, and that the Self is defined in terms of relation to Him; and if the modern mind held that the highest Reality is the Patterned Reality of nature, and the Self is defined by its having Reason and contacting that Patterned Reality; then the post-modern mind, denying both the Triune God and Patterned Reality, holds to the Self and the Unpatterned Reality. The Self creates whatever value and meaning there is; the mysterious Unpattern lies outside, impenetrable and awesome.

Many things follow. The task of philosophy becomes the task of considering the relation between the Self and the Unpattern (is the Self completely free of the Unpattern? Is the Unpattern an enemy or a friend or neither? Is the Unpattern completely impenetrable or can we intuit or envision something of it?). Art and literature picture either the Self or the Unpattern: else they do not portray the Real. Objective values (that is, values existing independent of the Self) do not exist, and to pretend that they do is unreal, is nonsense. The question becomes what kind of subjective values (values freely created) to choose (for example, are all subjective values equally valid? Or do some choices limit the freedom to create, which is the definition of the Self? or limit the freedom to live always “open” to the Unpattern, another possible definition of the Self? Do values developed by a Group help or hurt the Self?). In any case, on this approach, to hold that values exist out there, objectively, is nonsense. (There is a connection between the philosophers’ criticism of objective values, and the sociologists’ stress on the social relativity of values, and the beatniks’ love for Margaret Mead [see Time, June 1, 1959, citing Lawrence Lipton, The Holy Barbarians], a sociologist who has “demonstrated” cultural relativity. Each in his own way reflects the emerging “post-modern” mind.)

Religion in consequence, it would seem, would hold a different place than in the modern mind. But it will be a curious place. For Reality is the Self and the Unpattern. And thus God must either be somehow created by the Self, or be the Unpattern; else God won’t be Real. If it can be shown that God is a creation of the Self (for the Self creates all pattern and value and meaning), then let’s have God; or, if we wish to call the Unpattern by the name of God, then let’s have God. In either case, God will then be Real (for Reality is Self and Unpattern). But if we think God exists outside these two alternatives, then we err; or better, any such God would be unreal, not Real, not existing in the Real world!

Now, a broad definition of Reality obviously does not immediately answer all the burning questions. Defining Reality as Patterned Reality which Reason encounters still left many questions confronting the modern mind. Defining Reality as Triune Personality which the soul encounters bequeathed many knotty questions to the Christian mind. Defining Reality as Self and Unpatterned Cosmos leaves many problems for the post-modern mind. Since our concern is to tie in the post-modern mind with the actions of the man on the street, we now consider the question of “how I must act,” which the post-modern mind’s broad definition of Reality still leaves open.

This question of action can be viewed as implying a prior question: what is the relation between Self and Unpattern? If the Unpattery is seen as a wonderful, mysterious thing, then we should act so as always to be “open” to it (Heidegger). If it is viewed as the meaningless blind enemy (Sartre), then we must maintain our freedom against it. Thus, we would find our Self in either being “open” to Unpattern, or being free from it.

But we can also take a third alternative and say that the problem is, more basically, giving the Self security against whatever threats it faces. And, since whatever the Self freely creates is real, the problem would be for the Self to create this security; and this would be done if the Self could create a feeling of security.

The most obvious way to gain this feeling of security is to identify in some sense with a Group. (What does “identify in some way” mean? Answers may vary: Dewey’s “adjustment” is one possibility, and Ernst Junger’s justification for Nazi ideology is another.) Another way is to be accepted by something other than the Group; but this may seem difficult, since the Unpattern seems remote to most, and nothing else besides Self (and Selves like us, the Group) and Unpattern is Real. However, if we freely create something else, it will be Real, since it is tied in with the Self; and thus if we create, say, a kindly Person who likes us, he will be Real (because we believe in him); and this too would tend to give emotional security. Thus, ideally, to gain this security for the Self, we should belong to a Group which creates a kindly Person who likes all Group members.

This third alternative, though it draws (largely unconsciously) on several philosophers, has not yet, to my knowledge, been worked out philosophically. It does seem to me to be a variety of post-modern mind which is of importance, not only in the semi-worship of the Leader elsewhere (Hitler, Lenin, Peron), but also in the thinking of the post-war generation of Americans. It is, among college students, perhaps more important than the other two ways of acting (being “open to” or “free from” the Unpattern) mentioned above, though these do exist and are followed, and are closely related to this third alternative.

Here we might well pause, for it is necessary to introduce at least some evidence. For the foregoing analysis may well seem extreme, and therefore be dismissed as merely a series of completely unfounded generalizations. By way of supportive evidence, consider two statements: ‘We are living in Rome at the time of the barbarians,” according to Henri Petoit, a leading French Catholic intellectual (Time, May 7, 1956); and, if that can be dismissed as European hysteria, consider C. H. Greenewalt, president of DuPont Corporation: “I know of no problem so pressing, no issue so vital, [as the] growing emphasis on group conformity” (New York Times, April 27, 1956).

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

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