Henry Jenkins posts a previous article of his on the issues of how corporate media strategies and grassroots efforts among consumers to control media investments collide.

This essay focuses on the resulting reworking of the “moral economy” that shapes the relations between producers and consumers. “Moral economy” refers to the social expectations, emotional investments, and cultural transactions which create a shared understanding between all participants within an economic exchange. The moral economy which governed old media companies has broken down and there are conflicting expectations about what new relationships should look like. The risks for companies are high, since alienated consumers have other options for accessing media content. The risks for consumers are equally high, since legal sanctions can stifle the emerging participatory culture.

The proposal in this thesis is as follows:

Our contention is that this research increasingly needs to adopt a comparative or transmedia approach because of the increased flow of media content and audiences across every available platform and the speed with which developments in one media sector impact thinking in every other corner of the entertainment industry.

This is sure to be worth a continued reading since it deals with the sources of cultural production in any technologically advanced society such as the US.

Think of the phenomenon in 1994 with OJ Simpson’s infamous “slow ride” in the white Chevy Blazer.  As people watched the media that corporate news projected, they went outside to participate in the event as this demonic version of the ice cream van passed down their street.  This signaled the first obvious collapse in the boundary between content and consumer.

Cultural production from instant video feeds, instant participation in online environments, and media allowing any consumer to produce competitive media rivaling corporate cultural production makes for a fascinating phenomenon in the objectification of cultural structures of meaning.

If we are to take a postmodern critique seriously, what does the church look like? Postmodernism does not really tell us and that is both its own shortcoming as a theoretical basis to launch our own reconstruction of ecclesiology and therefore the shortcoming of its continual reference among emergents as it were. I have written on this before in relation to why it is not a good thing to be overly zealous about postmodernism regarding a critique of education. Both education and the church cultivate similar aspects of what it means to be human and do so on similar pragmatic organizational fronts. So what I want to do for the remainder here is to reference myself, but in a very postmodern way, redirect the focus by changing references in the piece from education to the church.*

“That postmodern critique has at least left a dent in modern assumptions of reality and truth fostered by modern discourse seems well documented enough (Rorty 1979; Baudrillard, 1984; Giroux, 1988; McLaren 1988; Jameson, 1997; Harvey, 1990; Bloland, 1995; Best & Kellner, 1997; Schrag, 1992). However, the question remains: what has the critique meant to the curriculum?

Understandably, there are misgivings about … raising the flag of postmodernism in ecclesiology. Peter McLaren has written quite extensively that postmodern theory, while it makes suggestive arguments that challenge modernist assumptions and exposes the power/knowledge problem in modernist hegemony, suffers from a profoundly anemic abstraction from the political and social context of the very issues it raises (McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2000, 2002). “(P)ostmodern theory has failed to provide an effective counterstrategy to the spread of neoliberal ideology that currently holds … policy and practice in its thrall” (McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2000, p. 28). As Habermas argues, the problem with postmodern theory is that it makes purchases on modern subjectivity and self-relationality as argued first by Hegel and then responded to through Nietzsche, Horkheimer and Adorno, Bataille, Derrida, and Foucault (Habermas, 1996). According to Habermas, Hegel in a sense created the direction for the later postmodern turn as he opted to argue in terms of subject-centered rationality rather than communal praxis. Habermas’s project is therefore to correct Hegel’s direction in favor of a praxis-oriented “communicative reason”. Habermas has been employed by theorists such as Jack Mezirow in transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991, 1995). However, McLaren & Farahmandpur argue for a revitalization of Marxist theory to correct postmodern theory’s “strategic ambivalence about capital” (p. 26, 2000). They acknowledge the positive contributions of postmodern theory in terms of “helping educators grasp the politics that underwrite popular cultural formations, mass media apparatuses, the technological revolution’s involvement in the global restructuring of capitalism from Schumpeter to Keynes, and the reconciliation of schooling practices in the interest of making them more related to (racial, gender, sexual, and national) identity formation within postcolonial geopolitical and cultural spaces” (McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2000, p. 26). However, McLaren & Farahmandpur throw the baby out with the bathwater in their argument for a “critical reflexive Marxist theory” (2000, p. 28) in order to solve the problem of postmodern theory’s social anemia.

Both Jean-Francois Lyotard and Richard Rorty share criticism for universals or “metanarratives”, in Lyotard’s terms, that have a penchant for dominating and radically conditioning discursive activity along the lines of Kant’s project of determining necessary conditions of knowledge and ethics. Lyotard views difference as leading ultimately to further fragmentation and incommensurability. This occurs through delegitimation of knowledge.

With the removal of foundations in terms of metanarratives or discourses that can adequately legitimate the existence of the university as a unified body of discursive activity, the notion of what any organization looks like and what its function serves is at stake – especially those of the church. If the church as the bastion of spirituality and the body of Christ to transform society and culture no longer can lay claim to that function, what then legitimates its existence? The answer is in its performative role in society as one among many organizations that contribute to and sustain the socio-economic system of the marketplace. “The moment knowledge ceases to be an end in itself – the realization of the Idea or the emancipation of men – its transmission is no longer the exclusive responsibility of scholars and students” and theologians we might add (Lyotard, 1993, p. 50). Truth, beauty, and goodness are no longer the foundations of the university but have given way to marketability and the efficiency of the socio-economic matrix.”

The problem with any zealous adoption of postmodernism for the reformation or reconstruction of an organization or a system is that it does not in itself offer any basis for reconstruction. The aims of so many postmodernist theories is deconstruction for the sake of deconstruction. Or it results in critique just for the sake of critique. In this way postmodernism becomes as faddish as that which it critiques. Because it ends up having no pragmatism suggestive of reconstructing something that does not work for whatever reason, it suffers from this social anemia that McLaren notes in his Marxist critique. So my question to emergents who talk about postmodernism as if it is as common as the Super Bowl, filing taxes, the Iraq situation, or health care ethics is what does the church look like after that critique? My contention is that postmodernism cannot really tell us, it is not a monolithic or consistent basis for critique, its theories do seem to lack the pragmatism necessary to reconstruct something after deconstructing it, and the assumption that we are in a “postmodern” world is not accurate at best and likely misleading.

It seems that the emergent use of postmodernism as a basis for its theoretical assertions ends up as no more than a buzz word or a fad in itself. It comes out as meaningful as saying that there is a postmodern science or a postmodern God. There really are no such things as either of those, but perhaps if our discourse focuses on those concepts intently enough we will believe it. Discourse will be there for the sake of discourse itself about those things, but neither has changed except in our imaginations.

So what does this look like and what does it mean? In my last piece on this I want to offer an alternative move in which emergents ought to be grounding their theoretical and intellectual basis. This finds it home in pragmatism and in critical theory. If you want to critique something, have an alternative that works without dissolving into another way to be “relevant” to the normative culture of 18-35 year olds. When this happens we have proven Lyotard right and the church simply exists as another arm of market performativity rather than as an agent of social change.

*See Tatusko, A. (2005). “The tacit media pedagogy as praxial critique: A critique of postmodern theory for higher education”. Teacher’s College Record, 107(1), 114-136.

I am currently attending the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). The strength of the conference is also its greatest weakness: diversity. It is a strength because diversity is represented well in the presentations and the racial and ethnic composition of the attendees is incredibly diverse for an academic association meeting. It is refreshing to see and I think should be held up as a model for academic discourse in other disciplines where appropriate.

But at the same time there is this often explicit rebellion against what we might call a “white male” predisposition to research to what often has seemed to be an irrational degree. Here there is political urge to correct a problem and it has seemed to become irreducibly infused with what we learn from the research presented. It cultivates a blindness to outcomes in research that may be true, even if the focus of the research was on white men - even privileged white men, spare the thought! So is there a degree to which inclusiveness of diversity hurts our research aims? Continue Reading “The Strawman at ASHE (Is that too sexist?)” »

The AAUP released a new statement on freedom in the classroom to respond to many concerns over faculty indoctrination of students to specific political views. The protection from indoctrination and for faculty to pursue divergent perspectives without fear of being removed from their posts is the genesis for the AAUP. However, freedom for faculty to present their views of things in the context of the classroom is a continual source of debate.

Peter Wood recently posted an article on Inside Higher Education in response to this AAUP statement that is somewhat misleading of the problems even though he does hit a couple of issues square on. His usage of some terms and how he relates them in his rhetoric is misleading. The problem here is that the terms “postmodernist” and “indoctrinate”, and “truth” are used in direct competition with one another as if this is the case.

First, is the problem the espousal of a postmodernist reasoning in the disciplines? Why is this a problem? Continue Reading “The AAUP: Freedom in the Classroom” »

(Click for a larger image in a new window.)

Atheists generally seem to have an issue with the level of accountability a person of faith has, regardless of their good intentions and relative moral constitution to love others as best as possible. The problem is often the association one has in a religion with those actions committed by others that denigrate and devalue human life with faith as a justification for doing so. The argument runs that the line of distinction drawn between those who have faith in God who are inclusive, tolerant, and even try to practice charity, service, and hospitality to the neighbor and those who practice exclusivity and devalue those who are of different race or beliefs and harm the life of others as result is an arbitrary boundary that is irrational. Hence, all values that have faith not only in God, but even primarily in God are accountable for all practices that have faith as a core value or praxis.

An analogy is sometimes used to justify the rational basis for this argument. Racism is by nature considered a bad thing - it is a harmful idea by virtue of the very understanding it espouses of others different from one’s self. Not all racists may practice discrimination, lynching, etc. Racism can be a belief and an ideology for living even if one does not actively and openly behave in a denigrating way towards those of other races and religions. So where does one draw the line between a good racist and a bad racist? Are not even those racists who secretly denigrate and devalue human life on the basis of race supporting a fundamentally harmful ideology even if they do not appear to practice discrimination? Again, this would seem to be an arbitrary boundary between what one believes and what one actually does. However, we would be hard pressed to think that there are really any “good racists” in the world and so, the boundary is as artificial and arbitrary as it is dishonest.

Continue Reading “Is Faith Fundamentally Harmful?: Faith as an Epistemological Construct” »

The central idea of Christianity is whether or not you love your neighbor and it is not whether or not you subscribe to a particular notion of God. The cross is the revelation of the love of God for us. Many religious persons have it reversed. For the religious person bound inextricably to dogmatic assertions about God the test is first to agree to propositions about God, then to love. But should not love come before dogma? If your neighbor is anyone regardless of proximity, socio-cultural status, race, etc. then you must love everyone. For when Christ was Crucified he did not save those who professed correct dogma, but came first to save those who were cast out because they did not have any dogmatic understanding of God at all and were excluded from the society inside the gates of the city who were revered for their knowledge of God and the Law. Christ included the excluded. The Cross includes and does not exclude, it is the radical essence of God’s love. “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). As Barth says, “He died for us whilst ‘we’ - all that we are and have and do - were weak and godless. How then can this relation between Him and us - between Him, risen from the dead, and us, still involved in all questionable possibilities of a life which has not yet been illuminated by the light of his death - be fundamentally altered?” (The Epistle to the Romans, Oxford 6th Ed., 1968, p. 160). Placing dogmatic propositions about the love of God before the love of God itself is dogmatic idolatry. Excluding anyone from the Kingdom of God you profess based on dogmatic requirements alone is therefore an evil since it excludes God in order to exclude others who do not conform to the propositions about God.

Idolatry is why religion causes problems, harms people, and intensifies a negative response to it. Idolatry is still seen in a primeval view of something physical like the golden calf or a statue of Mary. But the religious have been lulled to sleep in not understanding that they can idolize their own ideas. When that happens, you must exclude and therefore harm others because persecution or disagreement of your ideas is a test for truth. Opposition and truth therefore co-terminate and become the essence of self-idolatry. If no one really opposes your idea, then it will become as one pinch of salt in 20 gallon vat of sauce - imperceptible and insignificant. But to turn your idea into a totem that all can see and then demanding that this is the way to know sacred reality apart from all other means; the consequence for not bowing before it, an extrication from any notion of what is right or good, is like tossing 10 pounds of raw meat into that vat and serving it to a life long vegetarian while convincing them in the midst of abdominal discomfort that it is the only thing good for them anymore. Religion becomes a means of status - of celebrity; a means of vanity; a means of replacing the imperceptible image of God with a structure of ideas that suit you - and in fact are you as a copy of yourself as an idealized image of what you look like perfected and in God’s Kingdom for eternity. Dogmatic idolatry becomes a form of wicked self-idolatry posing as the revelation of God when it is the revelation of an idea of a notion of self.

Religion and the entire structure of belief in God so conceived as dogmatic idolatry can more subtly and more powerfully block one from knowledge of God for the end of this knowledge is knowledge of an idealized self. Not the true self; but a re-imagined self cast in the image of God. Imagining one’s self in relation to God this way paradoxically eliminates the relationship between self and God for it eclipses the image of God with the image of the self. The relationship with God calls one’s self into question; it fuels one’s very existence. When the relationship between self and God collapses through dogmatic ideology, one’s very existence is called into question. But here not by that which gives life, but that which gives nothing. As the serpent would eat its own tail dogmatic idolatry leads to death. Doctrine that demands an immutable and therefore eternal status replaces the eternal Word to which it is designed to give witness. As an imperfect witness divined by imperfect and fundamentally limited and contingent beings it must change as people change. This is the nature of ideas and how human notions about this or that reality reveal there contingency on reality as a whole. To ignore this fundament of human evolution is to deny humanity of its very being and therefore to deny human being from its access to God.

The contingency of human being and the realization of the very limitation of human knowing in relation to God who is an eternal an infinite limit to any knowledge of God in God’s own self is paradoxically a knowledge that gives life. Relating to God through a knowledge of God that is understood to be contingent in itself is therefore sacramental – it is an icon. As with Christ, to know the limit of human being which is death, is to know the source of life who conquers death by calling the very essence of human being into question. Life therefore meets us in our death. And relating to our death as a possibility and necessity of our contingency is a source of life. It is that which gives life, for by relating to the necessity of death we understand what it means to be human and how temporary, limited, and contingent our ideas about the eternal must be. And it is only in the midst of this limit that God meets us and pierces through contingency to give a momentary glimpse of the eternal and infinite; a boundary only the person of the risen Christ has crossed.

Intuition is not a sense. It is an unchecked and reflexive assumption made based on the structures of cognition that are shaped in interaction with the environment. We are both hard-wired therefore with some sense of intuition, but our cognitive evolution develops that intuition through our life span as experience interacts with the environment. When we analyze our intuitions, they become part of our own meta-cognitive processes called consciousness. Until that point, they are unconscious judgments we make and nothing more. Thus the effect of an intuition (the feeling that “something is wrong here”) is more apparent than that which caused it (the movement of an unconscious judgment).