You and Your Worldview Are Posted
Jun 26th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 4 Comments |
I have a new theory about theories. It’s a development of my theory about people. And it uses fun words.
I promised earlier that I’d have something more helpful to say about the different reading recommendations you’d get from conservative and progressives Christians. So I’ll do that in this post.
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Part 1 (of 4)
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Here’s the theory:
Humans are “as-coming-from.” To be what you are is to be coming from your past. You are always “approaching” your current situation and experiences. You don’t just have them, you “show up” to them.
Imagine the difference between meeting Bob walking down the street, knowing that he’s just come from proposing successfully to his girlfriend. Now, imagine the same encounter with Bob, but if he were coming from just having heard his stocks all tanked and he’s broke.
Where you’re coming from shapes who you are, and where you’re coming from shapes how you encounter everything.
People talk about “filters,” and how you “see things through the filter of [your worldview, your personal experience, your church, etc.].” But that makes it sound like you never see anything, never experience anything. It makes it sound like you’re always cut off from reality by your filter.
Instead, I propose that we don’t see things through filters, but we approach things from places. We come to each other, we encounter each other — perhaps at angles, perhaps from behind, perhaps head on — but we don’t see each other “through filters.”
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Part 2 (of 4)
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I’d like to call this the theory that people are “posted.” And I mean “posted” in the sense that a guard is “posted” at a certain spot, or an ambassador is “posted” in a certain country. You are “stationed” at your post, but you make forays from there into the surrounding countryside.
You are what you are as coming from your post.
And for humans, your post is your past.
And therefore, for humans, your post is always changing (because your past is always growing, and taking on different aspects as you have more experiences).
The question is, how much of your past do you acknowledge as your post? How much of it do you instead try to pretend you aren’t coming from?
Or which parts of your past do you focus on as being the primary aspects of your post? Do you see yourself as primarily coming from the “I was raised American,” or “I was raised Christian,” or “I always decide for myself,” or “I never win,” or “Johnny beat me up in kindergarten” part of your past?
How much of your past do you take as your post — and which parts of your past are your post without your realizing it — are questions each of us has to sort out.
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Part 3 (of 4)
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Also, every theory or worldview is “posted.” It “begins” from certain “positions” and “comes to” others only “afterward.”
For instance, instead of saying that for Mennonites, the New Testament only extends from Matthew 5:3 to 5:12, it is more accurate to say that the Mennonite view of the New Testament is “posted” in Matthew 5:3-12. A Mennonite is always coming from the Beatitudes whenever she or he approaches any of the rest of the New Testament.
Conservative evangelicals, however, tend to be posted in Paul. It’s not that they think the Gospels aren’t part of the NT. They just are always coming from the Epistles when they approach the Gospels.
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Part 4 (of 4)
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The fact that every theory consists of posts and positions (the first of which it is always “coming from,” and the second of which it “comes to”) plays out in the political realm as well. If you read my article today, you’ll see it in how I distinguish between conservatism and progressivism.
The former is posted in the opinion that government is a physical power. The latter is posted in the opinion that government is an economic power. Both then take up positions which include the view that government is “both,” but those will always positions which they come to, not positions they are ultimately coming from.
(And where you post yourself on the issue of what government is, determines whether you were happy or sad about today’s Supreme Court ruling on the DC gun ban.)
Fascinating.
I think I’ve asked you before if you’ve read any Whitehead or process theology. Brian Mclaren’s more recent work also reminds me of this idea.
My first thought in response to all this is a reaction mostly to the following:
“The question is, how much of your past do you acknowledge as your post? How much of it do you instead try to pretend you aren’t coming from?
Or which parts of your past do you focus on as being the primary aspects of your post? Do you see yourself as primarily coming from the “I was raised American,” or “I was raised Christian,” or “I always decide for myself,” or “I never win,” or “Johnny beat me up in kindergarten” part of your past?”
I’m not sure if you’re implying this point that I’m about to make and I’m too slow to see it, but here’s my thought/question/addition:
Is denying your post any different in principle than agnowledging it? Is being aware of it, in principle, any different than being ignorant?
It’s like the things that happen to exert a sort-of gravity. We might be destroyed by the things that happen to us. (the field sucks us back in) We might be impacted by the thing (we formulate some sort of stable orbit) We might not be impacted by a thing (we achieve escape velocity because the force of our will was stronger than the gravitational force exerted on us.)
I guess my observation is this: We are either metaphorical satelites, metaphorical comets (zooming away from the event) or metaphorical asteroids (zooming toward it.)
We could easily delude ourselves: we could well be orbitting an event in telling ourselves we’re charting our own course; we could speeding toward our doom and tell ourselves we’re in a stable orbit. We could even be in denial of the very existence of the gravitational field that is dominating our course…
Dude. Great question and great new metaphor. At the same time!
Haven’t read any Whitehead, but have read some McLaren. I actually want to say something related to the former, though, in an upcoming post. So yeah.
As to whether being aware of how you are posted is practically any different than not being aware, I think your gravity metaphor is “right on.” We’re always coming from somewhere whether we know it or not, and that shapes who we are, whether we know it or not.
My tentative answer would be as follows: being aware of how you are posted (or of “of what your post consists”) gives you the ability to not only understand yourself, but change your post.
After all, each (significant?) event in your life becomes part of your past, and therefore part of where you are coming from (your post). And thus the realization that you are coming from a certain post will become part of your post.
Furthermore, being aware of how you are posted should put you in a position to evaluate your post, ask which parts of it you want to cultivate (thereby layering on more of the same as you have more experiences, and thereby altering the overall character of your post so it is more like those parts of it you like), and ask whether you might not want to get to work setting up a new post for yourself.
After all, people can change. They can add a new post to their collection, and diminish the impact of other posts. Or they can begin to reemphasize a post that they had let essentially slip away.
[...] the Beatitudes, which I suggested before was the place from which all progressive Christians are coming when they “come to” any [...]
[...] I think it just proves my claim: Conservatives see government as a (primarily) physical power, and Progressives see it as a (primarily) economic power. (On what I mean by “primarily,” see here.) [...]