Theos-Talk Archives (December 2004 Message tt00256)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Hejka-Ekins <jjhe@c...> 
wrote:


> You [Dallas] wrote:
> 
> >I have an intense dislike for "buzz" words like "post modern, 
modernist"
> >etc... which signify nothing at all. That is all to me, pseudo-
intellectual.
> >I try to deal with facts and truths, and care little for opinions 
and "buzz
> >words." 

> After knowing you for thirty years, I am not at all surprised by 
your 
> "intense dislike" concerning the use of current philosophical 
> terminology, and empathize with your frustrations of living in a 
world 
> where words and culture are in a constant state of change. I have 
also 
> lived long enough to have witnessed several such abrupt changes in 
our 
> society, and you have witnessed even more of them. But this is the 
> nature of the world which we live. We can curse the changes and/or 
hide 
> from them, or we can try to keep up.


Just an aside, if I may:

HPB may have introduced a "post-modern" concept in her works when she 
used the word *nastika*. One of the references to it is this: "The 
Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism, except in the Hindu sense of the 
word nastika, or the rejection of idols, including every 
anthropomorphic god. In this sense every Occultist is a Nastika." 
(SD I, Summing Up)

The literal meaning of the word is: "atheistical, infidel; an atheist 
or unbeliever; disbelief, atheism. When combined with the word 
*Karmanam* it means "denying the consequence of works".

The Online Etimology Dictionary (thanks, Bart) says that 
postmodernism is defined by Terry Eagleton as "the contemporary 
movement of thought which rejects ... the possibility of objective 
knowledge" and is therefore "skeptical of truth, unity, and 
progress." 

Another view comes from the Wikipedia: "Jean-François Lyotard 
famously described postmodernism as an "incredulity toward 
metanarratives" (Lyotard, 1984). Postmodernism attacks the notions of 
monolithic universals and encourages fractured, fluid and multiple 
perspectives and is marked by an increasing importance in the ideas 
from the Sociology of knowledge."

In other words, the postmodern mind rejects belief, monolithic 
ideologies, knowledge born of arrogance, questions everything, is 
skeptical of any form of fundamentalism and maintains that no 
dicourse can ever fully represent reality.

Yeap, HPB was probably a postmodern sphynx!


Pedro


PS - Best wishes for your complete recovery, Dallas.