Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

6
Postmodernity: Impact and Implications
Introduction
It is impossible to know to what extent the peoples of the earth are now interconnected,
as Globalisation has become a present reality for most of earth’s inhabitants,
largely thanks to the dawn of the ‘jet’ and ‘computer’ ages. Our economies are more
entwined than at any time in history: good in some ways, bad in others. What happens in
Japan, for example, can affect Canada and Bolivia as well. The rich Western nations are
some of the greatest consumers of raw materials the world has ever seen; but other
industrialized nations, especially Japan and China, are close competitors, and may soon
surpass the Western nations. At the rate humanity is consuming the earth’s natural
resources and polluting the planet and its atmosphere, is it any wonder people question
our collective future Yet, ‘progress’ marches on.
Throughout history, human selfishness and arrogance have caused great conflict and
incredible suffering. From mankind’s earliest interactions with his neighbours, there have
been arguments, battles and wars. Technological advancements that gave one man,
family, or tribe an advantage, led to counter-advancements by his neighbours, leading in
turn to other advances, and so forth. This tit-for-tat, create-and-retaliate mentality drove
mankind to new levels of destructive capacity during the 20th Century. By the 1960’s
and the height of the Cold War, men were finally capable of destroying the entire planet --
literally in minutes -- thanks to thermo-nuclear weaponry.
Pandora’s Box has been opened, and all mankind now lives with the daily, open secret
that there is no return from whence we had come. For instance, while the Cold War is
officially over, the US, Russia and various other nations, have thousands of nuclear
weapons ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Technological advances in military
weaponry have now made it possible to kill massively via many means: biological,
chemical, or nuclear weapons. Beyond intentional tools of destruction, humanity has also
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa