This article was featured on the First Things website in honor of the magazine's 20th anniversary.
I think this business about modernism/postmodernism gets to the heart of a lot of our political difficulties. The Millennials are the first truly postmodern generation, and the reason for that is we have no memory of Soviet Communism. The Cold War was the last truly modern conflict, and following the USSR's collapse, we rhapsodically descended into the era of Nietzsche's Last Man.
9/11 was remarkable in that it created a truly modern moment within the new postmodern era. Indeed, there was a brief period when we nearly reclaimed a modern understanding of the world. However, perhaps the 9/11 moment is most remarkable in that it failed. We have reasserted our 90s discovery of postmodernism and nailed the modernist coffin shut for good. Terrorist events may rudely awaken us to the old ways, but the slumber of the nation-state in the public mind is now deep and may not ever end.
What I was saying about politics and Millennials earlier this week still holds true, but with the caveat that devotion to the Democratic party is extremely tenuous. The reason so many of my generation (myself included) find the contemporary Left-Right divide so tiresome is that each party seems equally committed to perpetuating modernism, when modernism is dead. The reason Barack Obama's campaign resonated so strongly with my generation was the way it promised to end modernism and take politics to a new era. In that effort it has manifestly failed--Obama's administration is merely a re-imagined incarnation of the modernist New Left, a desperate grasp at the programs and ideas of the last century unrequited.
I don't think this marriage to Millennials can last as long as it remains such. Obama's rhetoric may belong to a new era, but his policies are more modernist than the Republicans'. I don't see why a re-imagined Right Wing couldn't have wide appeal with my generation, provided they drop the thirty year old rhetoric (narrative?) of the late twentieth century. I think the Left has less distance to travel rhetorically, but in terms of policy, they have farther to go.
I'm not saying this change is good; I'm saying that it is real, and it can't be undone.
Politics has entered a new era. Late behind art, the academy, theology, and culture. Now we wait for the politicians to realize it.
I think this business about modernism/postmodernism gets to the heart of a lot of our political difficulties. The Millennials are the first truly postmodern generation, and the reason for that is we have no memory of Soviet Communism. The Cold War was the last truly modern conflict, and following the USSR's collapse, we rhapsodically descended into the era of Nietzsche's Last Man.
9/11 was remarkable in that it created a truly modern moment within the new postmodern era. Indeed, there was a brief period when we nearly reclaimed a modern understanding of the world. However, perhaps the 9/11 moment is most remarkable in that it failed. We have reasserted our 90s discovery of postmodernism and nailed the modernist coffin shut for good. Terrorist events may rudely awaken us to the old ways, but the slumber of the nation-state in the public mind is now deep and may not ever end.
What I was saying about politics and Millennials earlier this week still holds true, but with the caveat that devotion to the Democratic party is extremely tenuous. The reason so many of my generation (myself included) find the contemporary Left-Right divide so tiresome is that each party seems equally committed to perpetuating modernism, when modernism is dead. The reason Barack Obama's campaign resonated so strongly with my generation was the way it promised to end modernism and take politics to a new era. In that effort it has manifestly failed--Obama's administration is merely a re-imagined incarnation of the modernist New Left, a desperate grasp at the programs and ideas of the last century unrequited.
I don't think this marriage to Millennials can last as long as it remains such. Obama's rhetoric may belong to a new era, but his policies are more modernist than the Republicans'. I don't see why a re-imagined Right Wing couldn't have wide appeal with my generation, provided they drop the thirty year old rhetoric (narrative?) of the late twentieth century. I think the Left has less distance to travel rhetorically, but in terms of policy, they have farther to go.
I'm not saying this change is good; I'm saying that it is real, and it can't be undone.
Politics has entered a new era. Late behind art, the academy, theology, and culture. Now we wait for the politicians to realize it.
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