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Lecture Review |
Walter Truett Anderson on "Constructing reality"
Reviewed by Dan Liechty
The featured speaker for the April 9th meeting of the Foundation was author and political scientist Walter T. Anderson, who spoke on the topic "Constructing Reality in the 21st Century."
Anderson opened his talk with a lengthy quote from Ernest Becker to the effect that while human striving is motivated almost exclusively by social fictions of their own making, nevertheless it is both amazing and potentially liberating that human beings have been able to take a step back, analyze their own motives, and recognize the fictional character of their own hero systems. It is this recognition, according to Anderson, which is the foundation for a new kind of mindset. Anderson labeled this mindset that of the 'postmodern ironist.' In Anderson's schema, the postmodern ironist mindset is contrasted to the traditional, scientific rationalist and New Age romanticist ways of thinking, each of which comes into being in response to modernity and the exponentially increasing pace by which human beings must now confront chnge and information. That is, each way of thinking has its own sense of truth, how one goes about finding truth, and how one recognizes truth.
The traditionalist insists that truth is found in the mores, sacred texts and wisdom of his or her own tradition. The scientific rationalist insists that truth is to be found through continued application of empirical methods of investigation. The New Age romanticist claims to find truth in nature and through disciplined introspection. The postmodern ironist doubts the very nature of foundational truth. Truth is whatever is true within specific contexts, and the postmodern ironist will seek to accommodate himself or herself to the needs of specific situations.
Anderson used most of his talk to outline this kind of mindset and personality structure, sources for which he finds not only in Ernest Becker' writings, but also those of Peter Berger, Kenneth Gergen and Robert J. Lifton. It is a topic Anderson explored more extensively in his latest book, The Future of the Self, Exploring the Post-Identity Society (Tarcher Putnam 1997). In this talk, as in Anderson's books, he demonstrated his remarkable abilty to communicate very complex and often confusing ideas in clear, accessible and even inviting language. Yet Anderson is not simply a popularizer. In his speaking and writing he underlines the fact that to really communicate an idea to others, you must understand it very well yourself. Because he does so well understand the postmodern mindset, bringing it into cross-fertilization with other ways of thinking about the self and the world, Anderson is a deeply original thinker in his own right.
It goes without saying that Anderson's presentation provoked many thoughtful responses and questions. These and Anderson's audience interaction are on the tape and make up a segment at least as interesting and informative as his lecture itself. (Kudos also to the person who finally figured out how to record audience questions audibly!) Questions concerning religion, the need for tradition and the groundedness of the scientific method were all included in the discussion. In perhaps the most postmodern ironic move of the evening, Anderson responded to one question by insisting that the last thing he wants is for all of us to simply swallow the postmodern mindset hook-line-and-sinker. Rather he encourages people to dabble in each of these mindsets and feel free to fashion our own sense of truth drawing on the strengths of each!
Ernest Becker was perhaps a model for that suggested approach. For while he was determined to seek truth in whatever direction he saw it, which indeed made him a proto-postmodern, he maintained throughout that there was and is a goal to our endeavors. In that sense there is an Absolute which guides us, and this sets Becker apart from at least the most radical versions of postmodern relativism. That goal is the full liberation of all human beings, an ideal-typical goal which Becker defined as 'maximum individuality within maximum community.' All truth seeking is encouraged, through tradition, through introspection and through the scientific method, so long as it is guided by this overall goal. Anderson's explication of the postmodern mindset is a welcomed contribution.