Ideology and the Prospect of Christian Postmodernism

A practical statesman and careful observer of human nature, John Adams viewed abstract formulas for the perfection of society with deep suspicion. So hard held was this view that he decried ideology—the premise that the ends of human existence, even salvation, can be achieved in the earthly realm through adherence to a set of secular beliefs—as “the science of idiocy.”

Two centuries later, the question of ideology’s role in both our private and public life remains profoundly relevant. Has ideology, that defining philosophical characteristic of the modern age, finally run its course? Is it time to bury this failed god of abstract intellect and, if so, did something replace it?

Experience and the passage of time have served as potent clarifiers.

Untethered to human nature or the counsels of tradition, ideology creates an independent reality whose legitimacy is subject only to its own judgments and perceptions. For much of history, it provided self-justifying rationalizations for disruption and revolution, too often ushering its opponents to guillotines and gas chambers.

The murderous regimes of the 20th century were not the first instances of ideology’s lethal consequences in the pursuit of lofty ideals. Blood ran through the streets of Paris in 1789, with the Jacobins proclaiming, “Be my brother or I will kill you!”—all in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In a world shaped by ideology, killing fields and the gallows always lie just beyond the seductive vistas of the idyllic imagination.   The murderous regimes of the 20th century were not the first instances of ideology’s lethal consequences in the pursuit of lofty ideals. In 1789 the Jacobins proclaimed, “Be my brother or I will kill you!”Tweet This

Exhausted by decades of gulags and death camps, post-war Western intellectuals searched for an alternative beyond the ideological fetters of modernity. They embraced a secular postmodernism, which became synonymous with radical subjectivism or—as some observers have noted—a form of “liquid modernity” where reality became the object of doubt. Far from targeting any single truth, secular postmodernism waged war on the very notion of truth itself and inaugurated an era dominated by a social theology of raw power.

Rejecting the framework of yesterday’s intellectual pieties, the postmodernists erected a new paradigm of tolerance that—paradoxically—admitted no ultimate meaning and allowed no dissent. Tolerance and authenticity became the measure of virtue, with adherents singing alleluia at the altar of personal liberation. God was dead—or so these new ideologues taught. Postmodern man triumphed where Adam failed, extolling a new human nature where man is masterless, left to his own means and blazing toward his own end. 

What followed was a world of ennui and widespread unrest. We soon learned that the medicine of postmodernism may be worse than the disease of ideology itself. As an isolated philosophy without foundation or an ethical end, the promise of postmodernism remains bleak. But the postmodern imagination might contain seeds of hope and an opportunity to reframe the language of social and political thought.

Surrendered to anarchic subjectivism, postmodernism can be little more than a philosophy of despair—a “last ideology” that proclaims the end of reality and trumpets the impossibility of a universe ordained by God. But an imaginative postmodernism—predicated on a biblical view of human nature and shaped by a reverence for the dignity we owe to one another as the children of God—provides a hopeful, personalist alternative.  

It demands that all rights have prior, corresponding duties based in natural law. These are not the pretended rights of idealists but the firmly-established rights and duties that have come down through generations of Judeo-Christian revelation. It provides a realist perspective, allowing us to tame technology and endow it with an ethical dimension rather than be enslaved by it. It respects religious freedom and decries the “soft persecutions” suffered by those of traditional faith in the form of social ostracism.

It embraces voluntary social organizations that form the backbone of our communities. These intermediate institutions allow individuals to engage in a common enterprise for the common good and form a critical bulwark against the dangers posed by a centralized, behemoth state. It promotes the philosophy of subsidiarity, which counsels that social and political problems should be addressed locally whenever possible, while recognizing that we should first seek positive change within ourselves and our communities before we become self-appointed agents of national and global transformation.

It recognizes people as people, made in the image of God and worthy of respect.

Alone, postmodernism does none of these things. Yet, when enlivened by the Christian imagination, it holds significant transformative potential. A Christian postmodernism allows us to participate in existential reality as authentic beings in a divine economy. It is an escape from the boredom and nothingness of a Godless cultural wasteland.

A century ago, Pope Leo XIII entered a dialogue with modernity. Following the example of his predecessor St. Leo the Great in his confrontation with Attila the Hun, he wielded the sword of faith in defense of civilization. He did not reject the modern world but sought to harness its goodness while challenging its excesses.

Now Pope Leo XIV, in name and in action, appears eager to engage postmodernity. And it may be this dialogue between Christianity and the postmodern world that is the key to the renewal of our broken culture. For too long, Catholics have yielded postmodernism to radicals who have tirelessly worked to normalize the abnormal and elevate power over truth. But the pope’s early gestures toward an imaginative postmodernism show there is much room for hope following generations of despair.