This comment reminded me of a chart I saw in "Four Ways to be Absolutely
Right" by John Truett Anderson in _The Truth About The Truth_.
[for best results, set display font to fixed-width]
SCIENTIFIC - RATIONAL
+--------------------+
| secular humanism |
| skepticism |
| |
|SOCIAL - TRADITIONAL|
| +------------+ |
| |nationalism | |
| | regionalism| |
V V | | > constructivist
PREMODERN ----> MODERN ----> POSTMODERN ----> player
^ | > nihilist
| ROMANTIC - BACK TO NATURE |
+---------------------------------+
bioregionalism/new age spirituality
primitive chic
Anderson claims there are four distinct world views:
a) the postmodern-ironist, which sees truth as socially constructed,
b) the scientific-rational, in which truth is "found" through
methodical, disciplined inquiry
c) the social-traditional, in which truth is found in the heritage
of American and Western Civilization, and
d) the neo-romantic, in which truth is found either through attaining
harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the inner self.
Notice in the chart that scientific-rational and social-traditional
are both "modern", ie. level-2. They are both conservative attempts
to pull back from postmodernity (level-3).
Neo-romanticism, expressed in many forms of new age spirituality
and radical environmentalism, longs for a fantasized golden era
before the industrial revolution and the enlightenment.
Thought experiment: what if this chart isn't so much a *map* of
contemporary culture as a *map* of the mind?
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/