Talk Islam

thabet

  • 08:22:46 am on May 20, 2008 | # | |
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    Traditionalism — the intricacies of life have a purpose.
    Modernism — the intricacies of life obscure the purpose.
    Postmodernism — the intricacies of life have no purpose.

     

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Comments

  • Willow 9:06 am on May 20, 2008 | #

    Are you sure the postmodernism one isn’t actually nihilism? :) I think of postmodernism as “The intricacies of life have a purpose defined and expressed by the ruling hegemony, PS string of 75-point words.”

  • razib 4:08 pm on May 20, 2008 | #

    i think the trichotomy elides an important point: until a modernist critique traditionalists felt no need to explicate the nuances of life and justify them. in other words, the modernist critique entails that acts must have a reason, a purpose, else they can be thrown to the dung heap. trads who have done what they always did because that was done and always worked then needed to figure out rationales ad hoc if they wanted to engage because “it’s what we’ve done, it works,” wasn’t going to cut it for the skeptics.

  • Lawrence of Arabia 8:40 pm on May 21, 2008 | #

    post-modernism: the intricacies of life have no purpose but they are a lot of fun anyway.

    and i think the suggestion that somehow “traditionalism”, which i am assuming in this case is code for pre-modern, didn’t feel the need to explicate the nuances of life does really short shrift to aquinas or john calvin, not to mention al-arabi and ghazali. once upon a time there really were giants.

  • Ikram 7:51 am on May 22, 2008 | #

    Pithy one liners? Muslim Koans? I think you’re stealing Haroon Mughal’s old schtick.

  • aziz 5:14 pm on May 22, 2008 | #

    The mullah asked of the shayk, does Allah sit upon the prayer rug?

    the shayk answered, Ha Meem!

  • thabet 2:23 am on May 23, 2008 | #

    Ikram, Haroon’s still blogging.

  • thabet 10:55 pm on May 26, 2008 | #

    Personally, I don’t see as clear a dividing between something called ‘traditionalism’ and something called ‘modernism’. I am sure if we look closely enough we can find traces of one in the other, and vice versa.

    ‘Traditionalists’ are just as interested in reinforcing this divide as ‘modernists’.

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