One more comment on Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? The problem with “robust and confessional dogmatism” in a postmodern world is this. There are only a limited number of options here, and all of them but one are variations of what Leithart identifies as “Christianity.” As he uses the word in his book Against Christianity, Christianity …
In Praise of Leithart
In my first pass on James K.A. Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, I recognized that he did not want to give way to the full-throttled relativism of postmodernism. He said some promising things early in the book, but, as I mentioned, by the end it was clear that his approach was not going to cut …
Catching a Blunder
My thanks to Prosthesis, who caught a significant blunder in my review of Smith’s book on postmodernism below. I quoted Smith summarizing Foucault, and then interacted with that as though it were Smith himself. Mea maxima blunda, and I have corrected the problem. My apologies to all my readers, and particular apologies to Smith for …
Come On Baby, Light My Fire
“Nietzsche, in contrast, recommended a music that inflames the passions, and he seeks to use such music with a view to overwhelming or silencing reason . . . In sum, for Nietzsche, when we experience the Apollonian we behold images, but when we experience the Dionysian—that is, when we experience music—we feel forces” [Carson Holloway, …
Even Looked Upon As Lawful
“And that fellow is certainly well aware that he is lying shamelessly; but because men like that have made up their minds to attack us in any way they can, they think that they have the right to blab about us anything that can stir up ill will against us. And, of course, when they …
Talking Yourself Into It
“Hence we see, that the longer one pleads for a thing, he becomes more confident therein, because his own pleading secretly prevails more with himself, than reasons proposed by any others to the contrary can” (Durham, p. 255).
Pretending To Leave Modernity Behind
Just finished Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? by James K.A. Smith. In some ways this was a very helpful book, but at the center, the place where the door moves on the hinge, this door squeaks in as annoying and exasperating a way as all the others. The tone is set in the introduction to the …
Yet Another Reason to Be Concerned About Global Warming
“But not all languages are equally musical. The musical-poetical language Rousseau discusses arose in the south, where the bountifulness of the climate made survival relatively easy. As a result, southern languages express the yearnings of the ‘heart,’ specifically the longing for romantic attachment to a person of the opposite sex” [Carson Holloway, All Shook Up: …
Why Some Listen
“Besides, since it is not at all fitting for us to be upset every time our doing well brings bad reports to our ears, so it is only those who are troubled by their own guilt who show themselves unduly credulous by listening to whispers and false accusations” (Calvin, Concerning Scandals, p. 90).
Ratcheting It Up
“There are some acts whereby men have accession to the raising and heightening of division, and oftentimes they are mutual: As . . . some men’s doing of some inconsiderate act, or writing some inconsiderate expresssion upon the one hand, and other too passionately and vehemently exaggerating such a fact, and condemning such an expression …