Showing newest posts with label Postmodernism. Show older posts

What follows, in the first part of this post, is a little background that is hopelessly general, but it is needed to provide a framework for the point that follows. Please bear with me…

Postmodern philosophy has permeated our society, and it is often a favorite punching bag for Christian thinkers, who long for the more concrete days of modernism. It is interesting, though, to remember that modernism was no friend of Christian faith. In fact, I would contend that a postmodern society is better equipped to hear the gospel than a thoroughly modern one. I can hear the swelling cry, “But…Postmodernism denies that there is truth.” The truth is that this statement isn’t entirely true.

It is probably more accurate to say that Postmodernism is skeptical regarding any ability to faithfully understand and communicate that truth. To a postmodernist, a thing may be absolutely true (though some do even doubt this), however, once it is comprehended or communicated, that truth can be (some would say “is”) hopelessly obscured mainly by culture, language, and perspective. In this way, all communication is seen as, at best, an approximation of the individual’s perception of truth. These views show up in the study of linguistic communication, where the text is often misunderstood, to greater or lesser degrees.

The evidence for this tendency to misunderstand bare text is almost obvious, especially in light of our modern, text driven, communication forms (like blogging or email). In this environment, meaning can be lost or even reversed, in some cases, in the mind of the reader, simply due to a lack of “tonal” information. I have thought about this quite a lot, in light of patterns of interaction seen regularly in online forums like SI. Tone of voice, and even facial expressions, contribute significantly to effective communication, so care should be exercised in seeking to understand a textual communication in their absence.

As a side note, we should probably view our initial understanding of any written communication as an approximation of the communicator’s intent. This way, we will be more skeptical of our own understanding, and we will seek clarifications and additional information in order to understand the whole. I believe this is how every text should be approached and understood - especially Scripture. In fact, I firmly believe Linguistics and Hermeneutics are the grounds upon which the battle for the Bible will be waged in the next fifty years.

This brings us to “tone.” (Hang in there…we are almost to the main topic.) To the postmodern mind, how something is said is equally important with the verbal content of what is said. For example, I can say the words, “I love you,” and alter my tone of voice to communicate meaning that is sarcastic, deep, flippant, casual, questioning, or even completely opposite of what the words would seem to say. Context also plays a role in this, since the words spoken in my home, alone with my wife, will likely carry a different connotation than if they were spoken in church to the whole congregation.

To further complicate the question, I can communicate (more generally) with only the tone of my voice. The Charlie Brown television specials are an excellent example of non-verbal communication. Remember the teacher? Whaah Whaah wa wa Whaah Whaaaaahh? Then there was Woodstock and snoopy…no words, but you could clearly understand what was being “said” by tones and visual context. To suggest that these characters don’t communicate would be silly, but we also don’t have the precision of communication that would be added with the inclusion of words.

Music is just like the tone of your voice. In fact, cultural musical expressions often reflect the speech patterns and tones of the language of that particular culture. It is as if music simply amplifies the tone of voice. So to suggest, as some Christians like to do, that music does not communicate apart from the words would be just as incomprehensible as suggesting that tone of voice does not communicate apart from the words. You can do, with music, everything that you can do with your tone of voice…sometimes better. So, it is possible to musically mock good doctrine with exactly the same words you use for preaching it.

Some would like to take this idea and begin to build a taxonomy to describe the communication of music in precise terms, but this is the equivalent of trying to build a taxonomy of tonality. Such an effort is doomed to fail, because while tone and music both communicate, they are (at best) general approximations of meaning. There is no precision to it, and context plays an important role in understanding the expression. There is a big question as to whether music communicates inherently or culturally, but the truth is that it really doesn’t matter how it communicates. We must accept that music does, in fact, communicate; and we must accept that we can approximate (in general terms) what is expressed in a given cultural environment.

No matter how we approach the music question, we must understand that music is part of the message, and how we sing matters as much as what we sing. In fact, we can even say that it is a message. When we couple this with a postmodern skepticism of bare verbal communication that is increasingly indicative of our society, how can we ignore the communicative content of our musical expressions? I believe it would be a grave error.