In the 20th century, Western countries underwent a radical shift in cultural paradigm, marked by a transition from modernity to postmodernity, which proclaims disillusionment with the values and ideals of the culture of the Modern Age and is constructed on the principle of its opposition.
Today, discussions are unfolding in the public sphere about postmodernism as the dominant cultural paradigm of development in modern Western societies and a significant part of our own society.
Postmodernism has been thoroughly analyzed both as a paradigm in itself and through comparative frameworks and oppositions such as postmodernism–modernity, postmodernism–religion, postmodernism–culture, and so on. Much less has been said about how to overcome the destructive tendencies of postmodernism and what seeds of a new paradigm—one that will replace postmodernism—are contained within it.
POSTMODERNISM AND RELIGION
As is well known, it was the culture of the Modern Age—modernity—still rooted in Christian European culture, that gave rise to atheism and radical forms of secularization. Essentially, cultural values grounded in Christianity were gradually replaced by ideas of progress, scientism, and atheism. How, then, does the role of Christianity—the traditional religion of Western countries—change in postmodern culture?
In recent literature, it is widely claimed that contemporary culture is post-secular.
The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas writes most actively about post-secularization in modern Western societies. He concludes that there is a need for desecularization of culture, which, in his view, is обусловлена тем, что светская культура обнаруживает свою неспособность формировать граждан, ориентированных на нечто большее, чем собственное благополучие. → is due to the fact that secular culture reveals its inability to form citizens oriented toward something greater than their own well-being.
The idea of a religious renaissance in postmodern culture is also substantiated by the German philosopher Peter Koslowski: “Postmodernism exhibits spiritual and religious features. It reminds us that culture and society always have a religious dimension. In this way, it aligns itself with the Middle Ages and at the same time opposes the Young Hegelian ‘project of modernity.’”
At the same time, many contemporary researchers argue that the revival of Christianity will become the foundation for overcoming the crisis of personality in the modern world. This position is clearly expressed in G.S. Kiselev’s article “The Modern World and ‘New Religious Consciousness,’” where he describes the modern human need for God: “In our time, it is becoming increasingly clear that a person without God, reduced to a purely natural being, is not only incapable of realizing their ideal, but is directly doomed to perish—most likely by their own hands.”
CULTURE THROUGH THE EYES OF POSTMODERNISTS
How do postmodernist authors interpret culture? In the work “Rhizome” by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, an opposition to the theocentric and traditional cultural model is formulated.
They contrast the symbol of the tree with the rhizome (root system), which becomes the embodiment of a new type of culture. Unlike the hierarchical structure of root, trunk, and branches, the rhizome represents connections in terms of heterogeneity and equality. It signifies a chaotic emergence of multiplicity, movement without a defined direction, spreading without purpose, making it impossible to predict the next step.
The concept of the “rhizomatic” eliminates the idea of a center and authority—without which the Christian worldview is unthinkable—and places at the center of culture the notion of the masses, freed from any authority or hierarchy of values. In such a culture, a person moves within a stream of consciousness without adhering to any authority, which is incompatible with traditional Christianity, grounded in the recognition of a Creator and a clear hierarchy of values.
The loss of orientation and cultural center characteristic of postmodernism generates a schizophrenic fragmentation of personality, underlying its deep existential crisis. Demonstrating the destructiveness of decentered existence for the individual, Paul Tillich writes: “Self-loss, as the first and basic mark of evil, is the loss of one’s center of determination; it is the disintegration of the centered self through impulses of dissolution that cannot be unified. As long as these impulses are centered, they constitute the personality as a whole. But when they oppose one another, the personality disintegrates.”
A similar view on the necessity of a personal center is expressed by Peter Koslowski, who believes that such a center is possible only for a religious person, since the center of human personality can only be transcendent. He criticizes theories suggesting that the self can be formed solely through socialization.
Emphasizing the importance of the religious dimension for the realization of the self, Koslowski writes: “Through the self-creation of the self (and this is a deep conviction of Christianity, all world religions, and all great philosophy), human life becomes a participation in the eternal self-creation of the divine self… Participation in divine life constitutes the center, the essence of human selfhood, and the heart of any living culture.”
THE “LOST PERSON”
The destructive consequences of losing hierarchical value orientations for personality in the secularized culture of the 20th century are vividly evident. Deprived of a clearly defined value system capable of forming an integrated personality, a person in secular Western culture strives for external success, but instead of achieving it, experiences emptiness, self-loss, and anxiety due to abandoning true values in favor of false ones imposed from outside.
The link between internal conflicts and value pluralism is noted by Karen Horney: “If a civilization is stable and traditions are firmly established, the range of possible choices is limited… But if a civilization is in rapid change, where highly contradictory values coexist, choices become numerous and difficult.”
In such a situation, a person moves in all directions without any clear goal or meaning. Horney notes that people in modern civilization are doomed to choose between conflicting value orientations, often without realizing or resolving this conflict—they “go with the flow” and remain in a state of uncertainty.
Perhaps the clearest manifestation of decentered personality is the “market character” analyzed by Erich Fromm in “To Have or to Be?” and “Man for Himself.” Its essence lies in the fact that a person perceives themselves as a commodity among other commodities; therefore, their main goal is to remain in demand. Fromm points out that throughout life, a person is taught how to stay desirable. To do this, one must constantly change and imitate those who succeed on the market.
This constant change becomes the only stable trait of the market character. As a result, a person ceases to perceive themselves as an independent being, loses individuality, and becomes entirely dependent on others’ opinions.
The integral expression of self-loss and decentered identity in 20th-century culture is conformism, the essence of which is that “the individual loses themselves; accepted morality imposes a certain personality type, which they readily adopt, becoming ‘one of many,’ exactly like others and as they are expected to be. The boundary between the personal ‘I’ and the external world disappears…”
The loss of a personal center drives individuals to seek support in something external.
At the same time, this loss of center—resulting from secularization—leads to widespread neuroses and psychoses in 20th and 21st century Western culture. As noted by V.P. Rudnev, in the 20th century “every third person is neurotic and every tenth is psychotic.”
Karen Horney offers one of the deepest understandings of neurosis, stating that it arises from “the clash of opposing neurotic tendencies.” As a result, a neurotic experiences a state of “falling apart into pieces.”
To avoid disintegration, a person escapes from their real self and creates an idealized self, where conflicting aspects are reshaped to appear harmonious. However, this does not resolve the conflict but deepens it.
A paradox emerges: in exalting themselves and rejecting higher authorities once provided by Christianity, a person becomes the center of their own world, only to fall into disintegration and self-destruction, ultimately rejecting their own self.
THE END OF HISTORY?
The paradox of Western cultural development lies in the fact that thinkers who initiated secularization believed that removing God from the world would lead to free individuality.
Instead, secularized 20th-century culture produced a strong tendency toward the leveling of individuality. The dominant personality type at the end of the century is not a free creative individual, but a conformist who lives by the principle “I will be like everyone else” and fears any expression of their true self.
In the Christian worldview, clear distinctions exist between the spiritual and material realms, with the former taking precedence. In postmodernism, however, the absence of clear ontological foundations erases the boundary between reality and unreality, leaving a person in an illusory world and subject to manipulation.
In summary, the postmodern individual loses their being, personality, values—everything. At the center of postmodernism lies emptiness.
No wonder Konstantin Leontiev once defended the “flowering complexity” of the world and warned against the simplifying uniformity brought by capitalism (and postmodernism as its direct consequence). What was once prophecy is now reality.
“Nothing negates itself”—an idea partially echoing Hegel—aptly describes the mechanism of postmodernism. This sealed emptiness denies any movement within itself, remaining constant and unchanging. Hence, many proponents of postmodernism speak of the end of history.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST EMPTINESS
What can oppose the totalitarian emptiness of postmodernism? The answer is creativity in its fullest sense.
For example, Kuvaev offers an original interpretation of emptiness as opposed to creativity: “The Japanese character ‘geki’ (theater) consists of two parts—the left means ‘emptiness,’ the right ‘halberd.’ This can be interpreted as a symbol of the struggle against emptiness… The strength of theater lies in the immediacy of the moment, which cannot be stopped, and is therefore dangerous for emptiness.”
A more radical opposition to postmodernism is the revival of Christianity and Christ-centered existence, capable of restoring a hierarchy of values. Christian ascetic creativity, forged in struggle with fallen nature, could replace the chaotic emptiness of postmodernism.
Christianity calls individuals to shape themselves in the image of God, providing both moral orientation and self-identity grounded in absolute values.
Moreover, Christianity offers knowledge unclouded by secular culture—the knowledge of spiritual laws, more fundamental than scientific laws, since spirit precedes matter.
If the Church minimizes its engagement with postmodernism, it may preserve itself from its corrosive influence, making possible a kind of “New Middle Ages,” built on fundamentally different foundations. While the original Middle Ages were based on Christ’s first coming, the new one would be oriented toward His second coming.
However, this raises an eschatological problem: according to the Gospel, the reign of the Antichrist precedes Christ’s return. Thus, the future is at least dualistic. Overcoming postmodernism may lead not to renewal, but to deeper decline—especially if true religiosity is replaced by a false, distorted version.
Nevertheless, it is essential to attempt to construct visions of a future culture that can overcome the “nothingness” of postmodernism. Only through creative effort can a viable future emerge—one that can be evaluated even before it fully comes into being.
The New Middle Ages may become a time of spiritual maturity, where Christianity forms the environment of human existence. It could be an era of genuine creative values, entirely different from the scientistic surge of the early 20th century—perhaps even the last epoch in human history.