The Pre-modern, Modern, and Postmodern Man - 12.21.09

Student Question: What are the differences among the Pre-modern, Modern, and Postmodern man?

In the Pre-modern man, “we have a consciousness in which there is a true cosmos: God is at the center, it is like a mandala, and then there is an order, there’s a beauty, a pattern, which was referred to in the Middle Ages as the great chain of being. . . . And then in the Modern Era, the center of the mandala drops off, and there is a sense, ‘Well there actually is no God.’ . . . And so the Modern Age is the loss of God and the beginning of humanism. . . . And then in the Postmodern Age—particularly in the 20th century—we have even man dropping out. Nietzsche said ‘God is dead.’ But the Postmodern said that man is also dead. There is no man. Man is a construct. In fact, what men are, are simply fragments.” Recorded on the evening of Monday, December 21, 2009.