A POSTMODERNIST CRITIQUE OF OMOLUWABI IN YORUBA THOUGHT

Abstract

Postmodernism, a philosophical position that advocates the relativity of truth, knowledge, values and morality, is opposed to any essentialist cultural or grand narrative like omolúwàbí in Yorùbá culture. Many scholarly attempts have been made to review the postmodern paradigm, especially concerning such over-arching narratives in political and epistemological domains. However, there is a dearth of attempts to examine the sustainability or otherwise of the postmodernist critique of such grand values that sustained many traditional cultures such as omolúwàbí. This study was, therefore, designed to examine the extent to which grand moral narratives like omolúwàbí could withstand the onslaught of the postmodernist critique. This is with a view to establishing the extent to which omolúwàbí, a grand cultural narrative that promotes the good of human flourishing, cannot be relativised. Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics served as framework, while Interpretive design was used. Texts examined in African Philosophy included Idowu’s Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief (OGYB), Fadipe’s The Sociology of the Yoruba (TSY), Ajadi’s OMOLÚWÀBÍ 2.0: A Code of Transformation in 21st Century Nigeria (OCT), Hallen’s The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful (TGTBTB) and Akintola’s Yoruba Ethics and Metaphysics (YEM). In Epistemology, Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (PMN), Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition (TPC), Wheen’s How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World (HMJCW), Moore’s Philosophical Studies (PS) and Bewaji’s Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (ITK) were interrogated. The texts deal extensively with critical issues on moral values and knowledge acquisition. The philosophical tools of criticism, conceptual analysis and reconstruction were used. The OGYB, TSY, OCT and TGTBTB reveal that ìwà (character) is crucial to being in Yorùbá society, and omolúwàbí is the vehicle by which it is transmitted. The degree and quality of humanness in a personality is depicted by his/her ìwà. Omolúwàbí legislated the right course for a good society in the traditional Yorùbá society and also served as the foundation on which values that sustained traditional Yorùbá society were built. Hence, an active renaissance of its ideology is solicited to engender a good society (YEM, OCT, TGTBTB). The PMN, TPC and ITK show that foundationalist account of truth has been questioned by postmodernists, who emphasised that knowledge does not require foundations to qualify as truth. Truth is a subjective notion and thus, method of knowing cannot be grand, universal or objective. However, HMJCW and PS claim that abandonment of objective truth may be socially unhealthy as it becomes difficult to pass moral judgement on acts like honour killing in some cultures on the ground that we cannot judge others by our own standards. Critical intervention revealed that omolúwàbí, a grand cultural narrative that promotes the good, which is an indispensable ideal for societal flourishing, is immune from postmodernist critique. The postmodernist critique of omolúwàbí cannot be sustained because omolúwàbí espouses such humane qualities and virtues like honesty, truthfulness, kindness, compassion and justice, which are indispensable to engendering a stable and happy society