Postmodernism and Mormonism: Part 6

[_beastie]

Ben -

While I mainly want to read the interactions between you and runtu and others who know more about the subject than I do, I do want to welcome you back. I'm glad to see you on this thread. I always think of you when the topic comes up. While I don't agree with your stance, I do admire your consistency with this topic. I think many internet defenders of the faith who invoke some form of post-modernism just aren't consistent and it's an application of momentary convenience.

[_mfbukowski]

I think on the one hand, that if we start from a position of belief in God - a God that is external to our reality, then we can suggest that at least from God's end, real communication can occur. That is, God can communicate His will to an intended recipient (even if that recipient filters that communication). Because God is external, He can exist outside of language. And so in theory, communication with God can also be external (outside of language) - at least one directionally. I have often wondered if this wasn't the situation in events like that described in 3 Nephi 28:13-14 -

13 And behold, the heavens were opened, and they were caught up into heaven, and saw and heard unspeakable things. 14 And it was forbidden them that they should utter; neither was it given unto them power that they could utter the things which they saw and heard;

Too often, LDS will compare this to the mysteries of say, the Temple, where we covenant not to disclose certain things. But this really seems to me to suggest that their language was simply incapable of expressing what they experienced. And it isn't just communication - it is an experience that they have, that cannot be spoken.

This is precisely what I think Wittgenstein is talking about when he discusses the "unspeakable"; there is a gap between experience- and especially religious experience- and what is definable in language.

So that though language defines they way we think about many things there is also the "visual" thinking you mention in regard to your experience of math, "aural" thinking when one can "hear" music which as never been written etc. The common denominator may very well be "culture" which defines the boxes of perception but there is much outside the boxes as well.

So to me it is clear that there are many ways to define experience which are not linguistic.

I personally experience philosophical discourse as very spatial, almost as a field defined by boundaries with each argument having certain limits and I often "see" contradictions as intersecting and crossing within the "boundaries" of other arguments. It is almost a territorial thing.

[_Runtu]

Ben. first of all I am quite pleased and grateful that you have taken the time to read what I wrote and respond to my questions. I had been hoping someone would do that, and given that you're the one person I know on these boards who knows something about this subject, I'm glad you did. I've always appreciated your posts, particularly your consistency of thought and your kindness. I don't have a ton of time today, but I'll make a few comments.

I think on the one hand, that if we start from a position of belief in God - a God that is external to our reality, then we can suggest that at least from God's end, real communication can occur.

I think that's where you break with postmodernism. Once you assert that something, someone, whether God or anything else, is external, you're rejecting the postmodern notion that there is no clean distinction between the external and the internal. It's fine to believe in something real that is external to us (most of us do), but if you accept postmodern ideas, that belief tends to unravel itself.

That is, God can communicate His will to an intended recipient (even if that recipient filters that communication). Because God is external, He can exist outside of language. And so in theory, communication with God can also be external (outside of language) - at least one directionally.

I like this idea, but it really isn't compatible with postmodernism. But even so, if God can communicate with us outside of language, that means we have the ability to understand that is likewise outside of language. I'm not sure I agree with that. This would be akin to mfb's idea of "instantly apprehensible truth," which has never really made sense to me.

I have often wondered if this wasn't the situation in events like that described in 3 Nephi 28:13-14 -

13 And behold, the heavens were opened, and they were caught up into heaven, and saw and heard unspeakable things. 14 And it was forbidden them that they should utter; neither was it given unto them power that they could utter the things which they saw and heard;

Too often, LDS will compare this to the mysteries of say, the Temple, where we covenant not to disclose certain things. But this really seems to me to suggest that their language was simply incapable of expressing what they experienced. And it isn't just communication - it is an experience that they have, that cannot be spoken.

I'm not sure the inability of spoken or written language removes experience from depending on the structures of language. That something is ineffable, it doesn't mean that the experience itself was pre-linguistic, or free of all language constraints.

Having said that, we don't normally get God communicating to us in such an external way (and notice that they were "caught up into heaven" - they are taken out of the world to see something external to it).

I've had those ineffable experiences, so I know what you mean.

I am slowly working on an essay for publication titled "Nephi: A Postmodern Reader" (the double-entendre in the title is intentional).

I would love to read it (and if you need any free editing help, I'm always available).

When God wants to reveal something spectacular to Lehi, he gives him a book and tells him to read! This is quite distant in terms of communication from the shared vision of the Tree of Life which Lehi and Nephi see (and which is distinctly different for them both - because it is experiential revelation - and they both experience it differently - or at least this is what Nephi tells us).

I agree. The Book of Mormon's injunction to "like then scriptures" to our own lives seems an implicit acknowledgment that language is fluid and context-sensitive, so it doesn't inherently "mean" anything until it is processed by the individual.

I think in getting back to your question, we have several issues. One is that we certainly shouldn't see one way as privileged over the other ways. But, and this is part of the key, that doesn't mean that we (individually) are necessarily going to find all paths or directions to truth equal in our own experience. And so what this means is that while we may find one way to be of far greater value to ourselves, we can't of necessity claim that ours is the best way in any absolute sense, or the only way, or even the most appropriate way for anyone but ourselves. Nor can we suggest that in our way that we have found absolute truth.

I can agree with that. What sparked my essays was the use of postmodernism in some quarters to deride certain forms of knowledge-seeking in favor of the One True way to truth. As you note, that's a misuse of postmodernism.

And this is talking about truth. Some truths will be easier to learn in a scientific fashion, or by experiment and observation. Other truths may not be easier (for us as individuals). I always found mathematical discovery to be the closest in my experience to spiritual enlightenment in a secular field of study. Math for me is very visual and experiential.

Your approach is pretty similar to mine. Again, what I was responding to was an assertion quite different from that.

I think when we get to this point, the hypothetical stops working within the practical of reality. There is that old joke, right? What does an agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac do at night? He lies in bed, awake, wondering if there really is a dog. One of the issues here is that these kinds of questions run counter to our experience. We generally don't listen to someone talking to us and start asking all these questions about meaning.We don't tell our kids that they aren't really learning things, that they are merely learning language. And we don't let our curiosity about whether or not gravity will keep working today lead us out a 15th story window to fall down to the pavement below. We aren't so much worried about the absolute "truth" implied in your question, because in many ways, that absolute truth doesn't keep us from going about our business. If we can accept that we are in some ways a product of language and ideology, that doesn't prevent us from deciding that these are still good enough to provide a basis for rational thought and belief.

That's pretty much what I said to mfb the other day: we may understand on some level that everything we think we know is provisional, but we need to act on the assumption that we do know it, or we couldn't function. What I was talking about is the logical end of postmodernism, which is in many ways an acknowledgment that we don't really know much of anything. Taken the right way, that conclusion reflects a humbe approach to truth rather than despair about the emptiness of existence.

This has been for years a rather pet peeve of mine. After all, the church is a noun. It's like saying "that tree is true" or "rock is true". Which, perhaps in some existential way is quite accurate (but ultimately meaningless).

I go back and forth on this. It is sort of a nonsensical statement, but then the D&C refers to the church as "true," so it's difficult to criticize people for following scriptural precedent.

Usually, when people say "I know the church is true", they are intending to convey by that statement a list of propositions, which, they believe (perhaps to the point as I note above that can claim knowledge in a rational way) to be true. They don't provide the list of propositions. And most of the congregation can nod their heads, because when they hear "the church is true" they too hold a set of propositions involving the church, which they also believe (likely in some rational fashion) to be true. And in reality, no one in the congregation likely shares the exact same set of propositions. And they are all saying "Amen" to their own version of the church (determined as we note in this discussion by language and ideology and a whole slew of other factors). And we can all be happy that we have, in our many disparate identities as members of the church, found unity.

Fair enough, but again you are suggesting a sort of provisional truth that, in my view, isn't particularly compatible with Mormonism, at least from a postmoderni perspective.

The other thing is that there are very, very few post structuralists and postmodernists in the church. There are probably more Girardians. So, much of your discussion here wouldn't make a lot of sense to the vast majority of members of the church. But in following your first question, the postmodernist is not going to deny them their narratives and metanarratives. They will simply express a desire that these various narratives (including postmodernism itself) should not be privileged or set up as a metanarrative - as the only way to truth.

I'm quite aware that there aren't many postmodernists in the church (you're a rare individual). It's in the privileging of metanarratives where I see the problem with the church: Moroni's promise is what works. Spiritual communication with God is not only the privileged source of truth, it is in many ways the only source of truth.

So, in answer to your question, nearly everyone who uses the phrase "I know the church is true" will tell you that it isn't an assertion that they know nothing. They do mean something by it. And if we ask them, they will provide us (generally - at least in my experience) with a list of propositions which they feel are implied in that statement. And on some level they can indeed know this - because absolute truth is not, in my opinion, a necessary basis for rational thought or belief. And I think that those who look at language in the way being presented here simply won't use the phrase, because to them (as it is to me), the phrase itself is empty of real meaning.

Of course they mean something. My point was that in meaning something, we (perhaps unconsciously) acknowledge that said meaning unravels. We say I love you because we mean it, but in doing so, we are also saying I am alone.

I would say that what you are presenting is a clash of paradigms. Because in Jacob we have this interesting text right? And we read it, and we have to interpret it. But Jacob didn't speak the language he wrote in. He had to interpret it, and to write it down. And we get this interesting notion with Nephi and his vision of the Tree of Life. The appropriate way to understand the vision isn't to ask the oracle (that was Laman and Lemuel's approach) but to ask God to receive the vision. There is something about revelation from God - revelation from something external to our experience - that is of value to us because it is external. And we cannot get that something from a text. We cannot get it from another witness (because, after all, then we don't have this externality to it). Whatever they experienced can only be related to us through language - through difference. If God speaks to us, it is in a personal way to a particular person at a particular place and time. We cannot write it down and keep that meaning. We cannot remember it and keep that meaning. It is gone. But, we can go back for more. I think that to answer your question, the Spirit is a powerful witness because it isn't language. And it can change people - it can take them out of their place and put them someplace else.

That is a uniquely Mormon perspective, I think. This notion of being able to get at what is real and true that is external to language doesn't make a lot of sense if one accepts postmodernism. That's why I think you do what I do: you accept the implications of postmodernism up to a point. It's like the statement made that we can shift all paradigms but one: the gospel is true. What I see you doing is acknowledging the messiness of language and existence and getting around that by suggesting a communication free of language. When I was in grad school at BYU, we were discussing the text as the interaction between author, text, and reader and how you can't ever transcend that. The professor stated that the only way to break through that triangle was through the spirit: it alone communicated truth independent of language. That's what I see you doing. Again, that's what I would do if I were still a believer, but it's not really a postmodern stance.

Members of the church have always struggled with this. There is always this attempt to ground language in meaning. Joseph Smith struggled with it terribly. He wrote in a letter in 1832: "Oh Lord God; deliver us in thine own due time from the little narrow prison, almost as it were, total darkness of paper, pen and ink; and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language." For him, at times, the solution was the mythical language of Adam - a language without imperfection, ground externally in its meaning. But, of course, that's an entirely different and engaging topic. But I do wonder if the language of the Book of Mormon (which contains a lot of interesting things about language - perhaps as out of place in the 1830s as it would have been 1200 years earlier) didn't influence Joseph's thinking about language.

Ben M.

I have thought about writing a piece on how Joseph Smith seemed to take an almost postmodern approach to language and text, and your quote there seems to support that. For most religious people, scriptural text, once written, is set in stone, and it is an affront to God to revise it. Joseph, however, freely rewrote, erased, and emended not only revelations but the Book of Mormon itself. To me, that suggests a much more fluid approach to text than most people give him credit for.

Wow, I have written too much. Time to get back to work, but I really do appreciate your response, Ben. Best to you. And I'm serious in my offer: if you need an editor (which is what I do), I'd be happy to look at anything you come up with.

John

[_Runtu]

This is precisely what I think Wittgenstein is talking about when he discusses the "unspeakable"; there is a gap between experience- and especially religious experience- and what is definable in language.

So that though language defines they way we think about many things there is also the "visual" thinking you mention in regard to your experience of math, "aural" thinking when one can "hear" music which as never been written etc. The common denominator may very well be "culture" which defines the boxes of perception but there is much outside the boxes as well.

So to me it is clear that there are many ways to define experience which are not linguistic.

I think you're using a narrower definition of language than I am, which probably explains why we haven't been understanding each other much. Language isn't just the written and spoken word, and text isn't that either. Language in the sense I'm using it is the structure behind human experience that makes that experience understandable and meaningful.

You speak of experiencing things spatially or visually, as if that is outside of language and text. But in the sense I'm using "language" (and the sense that postmodernist discuss text), there is a structure behind that spatial or visual experience, and that structure follows identifiable linguistic patterns and structures. Hence Levi-Strauss sees no difference between the language of ritual and that of poetry.

(As an aside, you might enjoy Gaston Bachelard's "The Poetics of Space," which is a beautiful little book about thinking and meaning spatially.)

I personally experience philosophical discourse as very spatial, almost as a field defined by boundaries with each argument having certain limits and I often "see" contradictions as intersecting and crossing within the "boundaries" of other arguments. It is almost a territorial thing.

Yes, it is. But you're still seeing thing in terms of structures, boundaries, contradictions. These are language in the sense that I am using it.

[_mfbukowski]

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but just to clarify a bit

It's fine to believe in something real that is external to us (most of us do), but if you accept postmodern ideas, that belief tends to unravel itself.

John we have gone around and around on this one, and maybe to try once more for a second, in my view it is not an issue of "external or internal" but more a question of linguistic vs non-linguistic experience and/or thought. I think there is nothing we can experience which is totally outside our cultural context, almost by definition, since the cultural context is what creates experience. But certainly there is experience and thought which is not linguistic. Orienting oneself on a map I think is a good example. It is visual and instantaneous. We might say "Oh- it goes this way" but we just SEE that. For me the reason this is relevant is that it shows that spiritual experience could be in a similar category- instantly apprehended but not linguistic. Again I would think of a Helen Keller who had not learned language- I would not be willing to say such a person did not have what we would call "experience".

I like this idea, but it really isn't compatible with postmodernism. But even so, if God can communicate with us outside of language, that means we have the ability to understand that is likewise outside of language. I'm not sure I agree with that. This would be akin to mfb's idea of "instantly apprehensible truth," which has never really made sense to me.

I think it is more than "akin" - it IS the same idea. Again "postmodernism" is a definition and I see little value in spending so much time discussing whether or not such a restricted notion definition "fits" the definition of "postmodernism" or not. But I suppose I have beat that point into the ground.

But again, as one comes over the rise of a hill and sees the Grand Canyon, say, I think that that perception includes the data of "I see two cows one barn and a big cliff with hills on the other side" but it also includes with it an instantaneous apprehension of beauty- obviously something which is quite complex. We might say "Wow- isn't that gorgeous!". The apprehension is as instant as noticing the two cows and a barn, but is something else beyond that as well. And of course I use that as an analogy of knowing what is like to "know" instantly that a communication is "from God" as well as knowing instantly what the contents of the communication includes.

That's pretty much what I said to mfb the other day: we may understand on some level that everything we think we know is provisional, but we need to act on the assumption that we do know it, or we couldn't function.

This is really the essence of Pragmatism and what I mean when I (and they) say that truth is "what works". The proposition demonstrates a functional necessity to believe that it "true" so powerfully that to deny it would be to deny that functionality itself. So maybe we are closer than we thought on this point.

And to me, "I know the church is true" reflects a bundle of implied propositions which are really speaking about the functionality of the church in that individuals life, and the difference it has made for them.

[_mfbukowski]

I think you're using a narrower definition of language than I am, which probably explains why we haven't been understanding each other much. Language isn't just the written and spoken word, and text isn't that either. Language in the sense I'm using it is the structure behind human experience that makes that experience understandable and meaningful.

You speak of experiencing things spatially or visually, as if that is outside of language and text. But in the sense I'm using "language" (and the sense that postmodernist discuss text), there is a structure behind that spatial or visual experience, and that structure follows identifiable linguistic patterns and structures. Hence Levi-Strauss sees no difference between the language of ritual and that of poetry.

Well that could be. I am of course coming from a bit of a different discipline than you, but I wonder than how you would define "culture" if "language" is that general.

Is music "language" to you? I can see that it is "A" language, but I would not describe it as "language" except when discussing music notation or something like that.

Are the visual arts- painting, sculpture, photography, "language"?

If that's the case, we could definitely be advancing the cause of communication here.

[_Runtu]

John we have gone around and around on this one, and maybe to try once more for a second, in my view it is not an issue of "external or internal" but more a question of linguistic vs non-linguistic experience and/or thought.

Ben was talking about God being external, which is why I referred to it that way.

I think there is nothing we can experience which is totally outside our cultural context, almost by definition, since the cultural context is what creates experience. But certainly there is experience and thought which is not linguistic. Orienting oneself on a map I think is a good example. It is visual and instantaneous.

Again, your definition of "linguistic" is far narrower than mine. Orienting oneself on a map requires understanding what the map and its symbols mean: and that is a linguistic act.

We might say "Oh- it goes this way" but we just SEE that. For me the reason this is relevant is that it shows that spiritual experience could be in a similar category- instantly apprehended but not linguistic. Again I would think of a Helen Keller who had not learned language- I would not be willing to say such a person did not have what we would call "experience".

Again, all I can say is that you're using "language" and "linguistics" differently than I am.

I think it is more than "akin" - it IS the same idea. Again "postmodernism" is a definition and I see little value in spending so much time discussing whether or not such a restricted notion definition "fits" the definition of "postmodernism" or not. But I suppose I have beat that point into the ground.

Postmodernism aside, you're arguing for a pre- or extra-linguistic way of experience. To me, experience itself involves interpretation, which is a linguistic act in the broad sense of the term.

But again, as one comes over the rise of a hill and sees the Grand Canyon, say, I think that that perception includes the data of "I see two cows one barn and a big cliff with hills on the other side" but it also includes with it an instantaneous apprehension of beauty- obviously something which is quite complex. We might say "Wow- isn't that gorgeous!". The apprehension is as instant as noticing the two cows and a barn, but is something else beyond that as well. And of course I use that as an analogy of knowing what is like to "know" instantly that a communication is "from God" as well as knowing instantly what the contents of the communication includes.

I don't believe you can experience "beauty" without having the concept of beauty already at hand. In fact, I don't think you can experience much of anything unless you have some context with with which to understand it. The choice to ascribe certain feelings or experiences as coming from God is just that: a choice. Someone else might have same experience and instantly apprehend that he felt a surge of mitichorians.

This is really the essence of Pragmatism and what I mean when I (and they) say that truth is "what works". The proposition demonstrates a functional necessity to believe that it "true" so powerfully that to deny it would be to deny that functionality itself. So maybe we are closer than we thought on this point.

I don't think there's a lot of difference between us, actually. Where we have gotten off track is that you've wanted to discuss a whole lot of things that are beyond the scope of what I intended, which was simply how postmodernism relates to Mormonism. As I said, I'm happy to discuss these larger questions of knowing and thinking and being, but they really aren't what my essays were concerned with.

And to me, "I know the church is true" reflects a bundle of implied propositions which are really speaking about the functionality of the church in that individuals life, and the difference it has made for them.

I can see that. I hope you can also see that for me the difference it made in my life leads me to the opposite conclusions about the church.

[_Runtu]

Well that could be. I am of course coming from a bit of a different discipline than you, but I wonder than how you would define "culture" if "language" is that general.

I am trying to be as precise as I can, but it's not easy. In its broadest conception, language is how humans interpret and structure the world around them (or, if you're a poststructualist, it's how humans are structured). So, we could speak of the language of culture or of art, meaning the structures and conventions and symbols by which culture and art are understood to humans.

If you will, every human activity has a metalanguage, or a set of assumptions, conventions, structures, that make them what they are. For structuralists, these metalanguages tend to have the same kinds of structures: so, ethnic identity, for example, follows the same kinds of structures that art and music and poetry does. Hence, even the field of history can be seen as a poetic and creative act because it is the act of assigning structure (and hence meaning) to a set of events or objects. That's what I mean by language. I cannot conceive of a human experience that exists outside of that kind of language.

Is music "language" to you? I can see that it is "A" language, but I would not describe it as "language" except when discussing music notation or something like that.

Then your definition isn't as broad as mine, as I suspected.

Are the visual arts- painting, sculpture, photography, "language"?

If that's the case, we could definitely be advancing the cause of communication here.

Again, everything human involves interpretation. Even feeling pain or beauty requires us to understand what pain or beauty is or means.

That's why this notion of instantly apprehensible "truth" from God is bewildering to me. Ben at least understands that he's positing a form of experience different from all other human experience. I can accept that approach. Where I disagree with you is in the insistence that spiritual experience isn't any different from apprehension of pain or beauty. To me, those require language (again, in the sense I use it).

[_mfbukowski]

John
Ok we are getting somewhere. Communication established. What you call "language" I call "culture".

So we just need a word for verbal and written communication exclusively and we are there.

This word would fill in the following blank: "I speak the French _____, but I don't understand a word of the German _______".

Got one?

[_Runtu]

John
Ok we are getting somewhere. Communication established. What you call "language" I call "culture".

So we just need a word for verbal and written communication exclusively and we are there.

This word would fill in the following blank: "I speak the French _____, but I don't understand a word of the German _______".

Got one?

It might be helpful to use Saussure's distinction between "langue" and "parole."

Langue is the rules, structures, conventions, symbols, that make up any system (art, culture, ethnic identity, verbal and written language).

Parole is the actual instance of putting langue into practice. So, a written or verbal statement (I could eat a knob at night, for example) is parole, not langue. Does that make sense?

In none of the essays I've written have I been talking about parole, or as you put it, verbal and written communication. I've been talking about language as how humans experience.