The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Premodernity

Hi All,

So, I've been reading a little about this "Emergent" movement or church and post-modernity or post-modernism, and one thing struck me. At least some post-modernist seem to be against this adversarial relationship of things like "knowledge and ignorance" or "dark and light" or whatever, but I've noticed that in this discussion it seems that there's only 2 sides, either "you're post-modernist or not" or "you're modernist or post-modernist", seems kind of two sided, and as my title suggest, I wondering about what I would guess must be the other (3rd)side, pre-modernity. I checked out that oft critized "wikipedia" site and my own dictionary (which has nothing because it's really old).

I just want to know the standard stuff you'd know about any position, who holds it, what defines it (beyond being whatever modernist and postmodernist are not) and why it's so disagreeable to post-modernist? I've heard a couple of professors at my school suggest that we can look at the pre-modern period (middle ages (please don't use that term "Dark Ages")) as Europe with God and the "Enlightenment" as Europe without God, so if the pre-modern period includes God, why doesn't anyone seem to argue for this? Do people just not like terms with "pre" as a prefix because it implies something hasn't arrived yet?

Whatever you can give me, it's appreciated.

-Brother Luke

P. S. Please don't waste my time telling me about the evils of Emergent or demonizing "POMO's", that's not what I'm asking about and I dare say that I am just as able as many of you of working through the issue myself (if I haven't already).

You may enjoy Understanding the times: a strange postmodern world. The "normal" applies, however it is somewhat helpful with the terms....

You may find dividing the periods as such helpful from a philosophical perspective: Premodernity (Aquinas), Modernity (Hegel), and Postmodernity (Nietzsche) division of human history.