30.08.09
Postmodern New Age confusion
I thought I would re-cite part of James’ comment: Two comments from James
Hey, no nothing like that. I think Bennett’s book is fascinating and the man obviously had a genius level intellect (unfortunately, I guess he went off the rails).
Actually, my criticisms were levelled more against the Western “spiritual” scene than anything. I’m just tired of the kneejerk dogmatic postmodern ecumenicalism that has infected every level of discourse here (in every aspect of modern life for that matter). It is certainly welcome as a dialectical possibility, but this is seen as the most “enlightened” and only approach nowadays. Consequently, it is almost impossible to establish any sort of ethical or intellectual standards and the result is that a lot of people end up getting hurt. Postmodernism had its chance and it has been a failure (we should be thankful that it opened up people’s minds to new possibilities, but there are better ways to do that). We need people to speak out and not just kowtow to these absurd and childish New Age cliches (i.e. critical thinking abilities are a sign of the “dualistic mind”).
The whole postmodern strategy, as you note, has been a complete failure. And it has demonstrated that a lot of ‘enlightened’ people don’t understand history.
A critique of modernism is all well and good, but the real agenda in many cases behind this postmodern fixation is the anger of gurus against democracy and human autonomy. Most of the other aspects of critique are mostly a cover for these deeper motives.
It is clrear in Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky, with their crypto-reactionary anti-modernism, long before the term ‘postmodern’ was invented. And, of course, it is clear from Nietzsche who was explicitly a protopostmodern fascist.
And we have pointed many times to Andrew Cohen’s botched postmodern strategy, which his sidekick Ken Wilbur realized was a mistake, as he went into incredible gyrations about the postpostmodern in order to rescue something from disaster.
It is worth studying the history behind the history of the New Age movement, as it appears in the early nineteenth century in the Romantic era. Who else but Schopenhauer was a direct witness to this phenomenon (the details aren’t always included in the standard bios).