Postmodernist refers to both a time period, and to a philosophical system.

The Postmodernist Era is roughly from the time John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960 to the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City in 2001. During that time period, the country experienced a lot of change. There was the Civil Rights Movement and the introduction of “black history.” There was the Women’s Movement and the development of “women’s history.” People began to realize that truth wiggles. It varies with point of view and other factors as well. There’s more to truth than the modernists supposed were “facts.” During that era, we experienced the Vietnam War and the peace movement against it. We could no longer trust what the government told us. We were told that the war was about the spread of Communism from Russia and China. It was more about oil in the South China Sea. In 2026 some people in the country still fear Communism or Socialism above all else. Me? I worry about dictatorships and totalitarianism. I’m a real Postmodernist.

As a philosophical system, the basic assumptions are that “truth wiggles;” that we pick and choose what we take seriously, and we pick and choose according to an “esthetic ethic.” Instead of a rigid idea of right and wrong, something is “wrong” when it’s ugly and repugnant. An esthetic ethic includes the idea that violence is icky and obscene. It’s even worse if the person or group doing the violence is a whole lot bigger and more powerful than the victim. It’s called “bullying.” Other people’s feelings and lives have value alongside our own. I agree with the Biblical admonition to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and one’s neighbor can be anyone in the world, perhaps even all animals.