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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Revisiting the Post-Meaning Era
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
This article is a follow-up to my argument 'Toward a Post-Meaning Era'.
In the last two years I have discussed the concept with many people, and the one problem that has regularly come up is how to distinguish between post-modern thought and post-meaning thought.
These days I think of the difference between the two like this: post-modernism allows for the construction of meaning in opposition to absurdity, I.e. Absurd meaning. Post-meaning allows for no such defiant construction so we are left with 'the meaningless absurd.'
I like this phrase, 'the meaningless absurd'. I think it captures the essence of the post-meaning argument.
Does the meaningless absurd allow us to understand the devastating quake and tsunami of 2004. I don't think so. However the meaningless absurd does, I think, provide a frame within which to view the horror of the most savaged shoreline since D-Day. What happened is a true example of the meaningless absurd, because in the post-meaning era, we say that these things happen, and there is no reason or meaning behind it.
"Where is God in all this?" people ask. Indeed, where was God when the waves washed everything away? In the post-meaning era, it doesn't matter.
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