Mihai on Postmodernism

“The postmodern individual is the most conditioned and the most chained human type that ever existed in our recorded history. Not only a complete slave to any whim or impulse that presents itself as ‘the next best thing’, but also the perfect puppet to even the most gross and evident manipulation. Since he can mold himself into anything he ‘wants’, the postmodernist can, thus, also be molded, from the outside, into anything that the technocratic ‘elites’ of our days desire. He can be subjected to all manners of social engineering, without even the least possibility of resistance, for he can never discern between his desire and the desire of another — in the absence of any absolute, stable point of reference, external circumstances become the only considerations, and circumstances can always be easily manipulated. However, what is most striking to this postmodern ‘philosophy’ is its resemblance of many traditional spiritual disciplines. Let’s take deconstructionism: in virtually any authentic religion or spiritual path, the goal is to purify the human person of passions and artificial desires in order to truly be one’s self, understood as the inner vocation and essence, which is the direct manifestation of the will of God. In postmodernism we see a caricature of this ideal. Here the individual is called upon to ‘release’ himself from the bondage of external ‘conventions’ and ‘constructs’ and be whoever he wants to be. However, without God, without the vertical dimension it all becomes a contradiction. Since no essence is recognized, the only solution that postmodernism sees is to become ‘free’ by a horizontal and meaningless change of artificial identities. In reality, as said above, the postmodernist doesn’t actually free himself from external ‘constructs’, but merely trades one for another ad nauseam.”

— Mihai, On Postmodernism