“Pomo,” in Doug Wilsonspeak, means “postmodernism,” as distinct from “modernity,” as distinct from “modernism,” which he says only produces insolent teenagers with unsightly tattoos (who presumably don’t know how to sing hymns in four-part harmony, damn them). And, being Wilson, he’s also coined the term “pomosexuals,” which is just so clever, isn’t it?
All of this nifty wordsmithing somehow is in the service of an appeal to lay down our rights and love our neighbor, an example of which love he gives us by wrapping all of the concerns of all of the people who are feeling all of the pain and oppression all of the privileged, affluent men in the nation (government, business, church and home) have heaped on them by reducing their lives’ concerns to this — who they want to sleep with and how much they want to tax others.
This is brilliant, really.
Not as an analysis, certainly, but as an example of how talking about lofty concepts like laying down one’s life for the preservation of the rights of others can produce snarkisms that describe some of these “others” as nothing more than “insolent teenagers with unsightly tattoos,” all because their parents don’t go, I guess, to CREC, Wilson’s vanity denomination churches. Which, of course, all evince Christian agape perfectly, and, more important, are steeped in the Reformed tradition of four-part hymn singing, disdaining the lamentable use of things you find in other churches. Like guitars and overhead projectors.
And the use of which, evidently, judging from recent Blog and Mablog posts, is part of the whole ball of pomo wax. At this point, before your head and mine explodes, let’s just let the man speak for himself:
Excerpted from Douglas Wilson on Blog and Mablog, Dec. 3, 2011:
” . . . So when I defend free men and free markets, I am not doing so for the sake of “the individual.” We had no business departing from the biblical description. I do not believe in the rights of the individual. I believe in the rights of my neighbor. And I can hear the disciples of Jim Wallis now . . . but who is my neighbor?
“This is no trifle. The Bible tells us that we should measure our love for God against our love for those we can see, like our brother, our neighbor (1 John 4:20). I cannot see “the individual,” and neither can the postmodernist, which is why denial of the rights of the individual roll so easily off their deconstructing (and yet never deconstructed, how convenient), tongues.
Pursue this to the bottom line. If there is no thing as the “rights of the individual,” then it shouldn’t be a problem if I make off with his wife. If there is no such thing as the “rights of the individual,” then we can jack his tax rates up to the point where we can finally pay for this socialist paradise we have going here. We can reveal the pomo agenda pretty easily, actually. Who do they want to sleep with, and who do they want to tax . . .”
Please, sir, tell us where this socialist paradise we have going here. I have too many friends who’ve paid, but haven’t gotten their tickets, itinerary, or lodging yet.
Beyond that, an analysis of postmodernism that suggests that within it there is no such thing as “the rights of the individual” argues against Wilson’s own analysis elsewhere of what’s wrong with secular society. Pomos, as Wilson cheekily calls them, are those who, he’s preached before, blaze the trail of rampant individualism, lacking respect both for their heritage and the covenant community that birthed it. They are determined to make their own way, in their own way; their alliances, even, are, in Wilson’s World, predicated on rebellion against the community and its Church. They are their own secular and stubbornly individualistic Fellowship Of The Aggrieved. Presumably, we know who they are because they are insolent and sport tattoos not to Wilson’s liking.
Wilson doesn’t go much for, doesn’t believe in, “the rights of the individual,” but the rights of his “neighbor,” and yet condemns what he calls the obvious result
of . . . disregard of the rights of the individual. But only if it’s a “pomo” disregard thereof, and he’s qualified to decide which is which.
Wilson can’t have it both ways, in the world of reason and reality, but posts like this reinforce two things: One, loving your neighbor is complicated and can include the opt-out of disdaining others based on what criteria the Capo gives; two, the man’s arguments just aren’t that compelling — certainly not so compelling as to be distributed by other than his own blog and own press. I found that to be true in my July 2007 radio debate with him — there wasn’t much “there,” there — and I continually wonder how it is that more than about nineteen other people bother much with with what he has to say.