CULTZA:

A cult is an organization whose constituents are adherents to both a code of conduct and a frame of reference which is self-contained, forbidding departure without excommunication, reinforcing psychological damage via conformism. Of all contemporary cults, the most common and despicable appears to be that of “postmodernism”: a slightly overused term for an EXTREMELY overused mode of thinking.

Postmodernism was a conclusion which philosophers arrived at as a sort of surrender or concession to defeat. It is a term that is used aptly to describe not only the “groundlessness” of morality, tradition, and metaphysical inquiry, but also the willful-yet-inevitable ACCEPTANCE by ordinary people of this perceived futility.

If the term itself appears pretentious, it is only because the one who perceives it to be such takes this condition for granted, calling it “life”. Yet it ought to be transparent how this is a cultish dogma. Postmodernism offers no escape from the constantly changing stream of information; it blocks off all paths to either a meaningful future or an authoritative past. Not only does the past matter less now than it did when it was present, but that which WAS past IN the past mattered more when the latter past was present than either past matters now in our current present. The greatest danger in postmodernism is its narcissistic refusal to change permanently. Narcissism is not to be confused with unyielding rigidity; narcissists often adapt to their circumstances when they cannot adapt their circumstances to themselves, yet what characterizes narcissism in particular is the seeming inability to change in the long term, to adopt a new paradigm of consistency which is more inclusive, perceptive, or conscientious.

So it is with postmodernism: its condition is ever-shifting, yet its fundamental character remains infantile, self-referential, and egocentric. Everything becomes a function of the individual subject, devoid of transcendence into the ancient ideals of Solidarity, Heroism, Virtue, Beauty or Truth.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

In this world, nihilism prospers under the GUISE of meaning, as terms such as “identity”, “freedom”, “pride”, and even “right” or “wrong” are torn from their roots and left to be constantly redefined by an illiterate Public.

The Past is reduced to that which we are anxious to escape, whereas the Future is feared as that which cannot be prevented but which we seek to avoid. The Present, in turn, loses all its meaning in the overlying Course of History; so long as “progress” is still a meme in circulation among the masses, Our Society must surely be the best of all possible worlds to DATE, but each new day will render it obsolete, meaning that at no point can one look back and say, “how great the Past was!!” And yet we feel a constant nostalgia, s though we had not only “lost something” but were in a constant process of losing it, and this wistful melancholy is warranted, for this process of loss has in fact been carefully scrutinized by authorities whose insights too are in the process of being lost.

In Truth, any one of us can work to stop this process of dissolution. Yet I don’t believe that ever before in the course of history has the temptation been greater to surrender responsibility for Mankind’s Future and to simply use the March of Progress as a sublimation for the individual ego and will.

[({DM.A.A.)}]