John A. Woodward: On Religion, Politics, Media, and War
I would like to preface this post with a statement of encouragement and interest in this debate. Not only is there a genuine sense of openness, but all posts have been measured by a certain reasonableness that would make Juergen Habermas proud. In this post, I would like to address Mary Keller's post on Religion, Politics, Media and War with an eye towards the clarification of the French issue and a pragmatic approach to secularity and religion. I think it is dangerous to assume that this banning of the hijab or the veil from the classroom is related to a larger movement that suppresses basic freedoms in the French public sphere; and it is also crucial, as Mary Keller suggests, to correct the (seen as confrontational) relationship between religion and the secular state.
Mary Keller begins with a reference to two threads that bears some examination: One from Ryan Bishop's posted response to Wolfgang on the question of the originary moment of peace, and the other is Melani McAlister's post on spectacle and war. The juxtaposition of these quotes suggests a forged relationship between the notion of veiling or unveiling and its epistemologically oriented metaphorical interpretation and Foucault's conclusions regarding the shifting of punishment from open, public spectacle into the dark prisons. The construction of Foucault's system of punishment, oriented towards disciplining the body and soul of the citizen, was a shift, as Melani McAlister reads it, from the open display of state power in the spectacle, to the internalization (mystification?) of state power in the prison system. In relationship to religion, this has always been the case. The public spectacle of religion is celebration and communal gathering; but in Catholicism at least, the sin is revealed in the dark, prayer takes place in silence, relics are hidden away in safes, behind paintings. This has fed conspiracy theories about Catholicism for centuries. The spectacular side of religion (i.e. the open portrayal of a relationship between the 'proletariat' and a higher, mystical being) did not really come full-fledged into the west until Protestant religions took a foot hold. Religion as a power struggle, as Mary Keller seems to wish to address the issue, has always been an aspect of religion, as well. Catholicism defined itself as essentially *not* Islam throughout the Middle Ages. Islam represented the radical 'other', sometimes revealed as the exotic other, yes, but always radically different and thus defining. It continually defined itself internally, as well, by 'resisting' the manifold heresies (Palagianism and Aryanism being two of the more prominent). This resistance bubbled up again, in Catholicism, the dominant religion throughout Europe, in the form of the counter reformation (Catholic reformation). This was (obviously) the 'resistance' to Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Anabaptism, Calvinism and so forth. The 17th century Catholic obsession with the apocryphal story of Judith, Judith as the symbol for resistance, the symbol for the Catholic minions of religious virtue against the teeming enemies (this time, not the Muslims, but the Protestants), is a clear indication of the traditional importance of 'defiance' in religious existence. Now to the situation in France, for a moment. It should be made clear, as it was not in the American media (thus this in itself represents one of the issues that Mary Keller wished to address), that the situation in France is much more complex. The notion of laicite is central to the French state. The question of the hijab, then, was one specifically of the 'hijab' as religious icon, and not one of the head scarf. Young girls can still wear head scarves in French schools, depending on the principle's understanding of the law, of course. This law is, by the way, limited to the state school system, not the university system. This is also *not* limited to the hijab. No religious icon can be openly displayed in the classroom. They can be displayed in the school yard, on campus, but not in the classroom. Whether one agrees with the concept of laicite is not yet at issue, simply the clarification of the law--which is in compliance with laicite. The situation in France (especially considering the recent 'riots' and the continual poverty of the racial other in France) is much more complex. Thus Mary Keller's conflation of the nun and the hijab is rather misleading. Neither can appear in the French classroom--both can appear in the American classroom. France understands the hijab perfectly, which is one reason it is banned from the secular classroom; this negotiation of power is not one for the classroom at all, according to French laicite. Now, Mary Keller makes the argument, on the whole, against the facile approach to laicite or secularization, i.e. against the simplistic understanding of religion as irrational. (Or so it seems to me...) We could formulate this in Habermasian terms by asking where the place for religion is in the public sphere. It seems, as Mary Keller does, we need to draw a distinction between iconography as a symbolic practice and deeply held religious beliefs that inform both the moral approach to the lifeworld and religious intersubjectivity. To truncate this already long post, I will present some hasty conclusions on this matter:
1) it is clear that the presentation of symbolic iconography is powerful to both members and non-members of the religious community, especially in the well-mediated age of contemporary social economy. No one can be offended by the 'Jesus fish' if that person does not understand that a) it represents a particular religious belief and b) it makes an inherent comment in the contemporary discourse on creationism and evolution. (This last 'inherent comment' is not at all related to the deeply held religious beliefs of the bearer of the icon, which is the problematic. It is one that is generated outside of these beliefs, i.e. within the public sphere, and demands a certain 'working through' in order to be rid of these connotations) 1(a) thus the presentation of these symbols has significant bearing (intentional or unintentional) on the discourse of the public sphere and on intersubjective exchange.
1(b) as a means of defining, representing, mediating the deeply held religious beliefs it operates as a symbolic bridge to discourse that transcends the intersubjective exchange and informs the members of this exchange a priori. This is the 'identity function of the symbolic material.
2) The question of deeply held religious beliefs is much more complex and has a longstanding, complex tradition behind it. While these beliefs inform intersubjective exchange, it is the gift of the enlightenment that members of the public sphere can request of each other to reduce their beliefs to the reasonable and rational--and to weigh them out in the process of communication. It should not be good enough to state simply that "marriage is between one man and one woman." We should be forced to base this *belief* in reason, in a rational framework. Religion should be seen as a moral set of codes to be respected, but not always perfectly adhered to by the state. It is on the communal level that religion should play out, through processes of intersubjective identification. But the mode must shift when entering the public sphere to an informing construct rather than a restrictive one.
But, I do completely agree with Mary Keller on the question of negotiating power and the *recognition* of this negotiation in all religious fields. Communication can only be effective if there is a process of negotiation and a certain understanding of the nature of the other. But, by so doing, we are making the leap into a mode of 'reading' this religion as 'oppressive' or as a power negotiation at its heart that is then represented by the hijab. We must then see Muslim women as striving to negotiate their oppression. This is predicated, however, on recognizing the western female, sexually free, able to wear what they want, as constructed by the media, which is where I believe Mary Keller was going. I see one problem with this: we are hung up again with the universalization of women (that mirrors the long-standing universalization throughout patriarchal history) and the construction of their 'condition' within the social field. Women are always already 'women' and not 'woman'. Either we recognize women (woman) as individually responsible for her decisions in cultural affiliations or we do not. (I differ with Mary Keller significantly on drawing an artificial distinction between religion and culture--religion is primarily a means of intersubjective identification, i.e. culture, and only secondarily a means of individual emotional transcendence.) Now, the conflation comes in presenting the hijab as both deeply religious symbol and the symbolic representation of belief bound up with the transhistorical function of religious beliefs. One is synchronically oriented and the other is diachronically oriented. This conflation is the assumption that all resistance to the hijab or other religious iconography is based simply in an 'Enlightened' desire to suppress them. That is not always the case. Much conflict occurs in the question of the synchronic or diachronic nature of belief; this is also the center for familial conflict within ?westernized? religious communities. Do you believe in the negotiation of power (synchronic and thus *informed* *enlightened*) or do you simply believe what you are told to believe (i.e. diachronic, traditional, transhistorical). The question is then whether the former is true or the latter: if the former then the person is someone who is actually negotiating with power, because aware of it; if the latter then that person may not be negotiating with power but be 'buying' into it, blindly so to speak.
This brings me to the second quote and my conclusion: Ryan Bishop is referring to the possibility of an originary moment of peace. He uses the metaphor of the veil to probe what he calls the "epistemology of violence." The veiling and unveiling of the screen, of media, and so forth reflects truth as a process, and one that is essentially unending. Mary Keller reflects this epistemology of violence, as does Homer, onto the female body. What does this mean for the epistemology itself? To probe violence through the 'veil' is to unveil it, revealing it as the woman must reveal her face for the British technocrat. Truth is traditionally found in the unveiling of it, while 'surveillance' operates as an internalizing function of state violence. But surveillance also plays into a mythification of state power, a removal of it into its core and away from the public sphere that supposedly determines it. The unveiling of the female body, then, takes up the symbolic function of the unveiling of surveillance itself. The state reveals itself by proffering its own hidden agenda onto the covered female. The response to this should be pragmatic: unveiling the nature of the veil outside of its transhistorical function. Folding that into a recognition of its pragmatic power. The ideological function, that is to say, must be pierced to reveal something more profound, and this can only be done in a pragmatic and open framework. Sincerely
> John A. Woodward
Mary Keller begins with a reference to two threads that bears some examination: One from Ryan Bishop's posted response to Wolfgang on the question of the originary moment of peace, and the other is Melani McAlister's post on spectacle and war. The juxtaposition of these quotes suggests a forged relationship between the notion of veiling or unveiling and its epistemologically oriented metaphorical interpretation and Foucault's conclusions regarding the shifting of punishment from open, public spectacle into the dark prisons. The construction of Foucault's system of punishment, oriented towards disciplining the body and soul of the citizen, was a shift, as Melani McAlister reads it, from the open display of state power in the spectacle, to the internalization (mystification?) of state power in the prison system. In relationship to religion, this has always been the case. The public spectacle of religion is celebration and communal gathering; but in Catholicism at least, the sin is revealed in the dark, prayer takes place in silence, relics are hidden away in safes, behind paintings. This has fed conspiracy theories about Catholicism for centuries. The spectacular side of religion (i.e. the open portrayal of a relationship between the 'proletariat' and a higher, mystical being) did not really come full-fledged into the west until Protestant religions took a foot hold. Religion as a power struggle, as Mary Keller seems to wish to address the issue, has always been an aspect of religion, as well. Catholicism defined itself as essentially *not* Islam throughout the Middle Ages. Islam represented the radical 'other', sometimes revealed as the exotic other, yes, but always radically different and thus defining. It continually defined itself internally, as well, by 'resisting' the manifold heresies (Palagianism and Aryanism being two of the more prominent). This resistance bubbled up again, in Catholicism, the dominant religion throughout Europe, in the form of the counter reformation (Catholic reformation). This was (obviously) the 'resistance' to Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Anabaptism, Calvinism and so forth. The 17th century Catholic obsession with the apocryphal story of Judith, Judith as the symbol for resistance, the symbol for the Catholic minions of religious virtue against the teeming enemies (this time, not the Muslims, but the Protestants), is a clear indication of the traditional importance of 'defiance' in religious existence. Now to the situation in France, for a moment. It should be made clear, as it was not in the American media (thus this in itself represents one of the issues that Mary Keller wished to address), that the situation in France is much more complex. The notion of laicite is central to the French state. The question of the hijab, then, was one specifically of the 'hijab' as religious icon, and not one of the head scarf. Young girls can still wear head scarves in French schools, depending on the principle's understanding of the law, of course. This law is, by the way, limited to the state school system, not the university system. This is also *not* limited to the hijab. No religious icon can be openly displayed in the classroom. They can be displayed in the school yard, on campus, but not in the classroom. Whether one agrees with the concept of laicite is not yet at issue, simply the clarification of the law--which is in compliance with laicite. The situation in France (especially considering the recent 'riots' and the continual poverty of the racial other in France) is much more complex. Thus Mary Keller's conflation of the nun and the hijab is rather misleading. Neither can appear in the French classroom--both can appear in the American classroom. France understands the hijab perfectly, which is one reason it is banned from the secular classroom; this negotiation of power is not one for the classroom at all, according to French laicite. Now, Mary Keller makes the argument, on the whole, against the facile approach to laicite or secularization, i.e. against the simplistic understanding of religion as irrational. (Or so it seems to me...) We could formulate this in Habermasian terms by asking where the place for religion is in the public sphere. It seems, as Mary Keller does, we need to draw a distinction between iconography as a symbolic practice and deeply held religious beliefs that inform both the moral approach to the lifeworld and religious intersubjectivity. To truncate this already long post, I will present some hasty conclusions on this matter:
1) it is clear that the presentation of symbolic iconography is powerful to both members and non-members of the religious community, especially in the well-mediated age of contemporary social economy. No one can be offended by the 'Jesus fish' if that person does not understand that a) it represents a particular religious belief and b) it makes an inherent comment in the contemporary discourse on creationism and evolution. (This last 'inherent comment' is not at all related to the deeply held religious beliefs of the bearer of the icon, which is the problematic. It is one that is generated outside of these beliefs, i.e. within the public sphere, and demands a certain 'working through' in order to be rid of these connotations) 1(a) thus the presentation of these symbols has significant bearing (intentional or unintentional) on the discourse of the public sphere and on intersubjective exchange.
1(b) as a means of defining, representing, mediating the deeply held religious beliefs it operates as a symbolic bridge to discourse that transcends the intersubjective exchange and informs the members of this exchange a priori. This is the 'identity function of the symbolic material.
2) The question of deeply held religious beliefs is much more complex and has a longstanding, complex tradition behind it. While these beliefs inform intersubjective exchange, it is the gift of the enlightenment that members of the public sphere can request of each other to reduce their beliefs to the reasonable and rational--and to weigh them out in the process of communication. It should not be good enough to state simply that "marriage is between one man and one woman." We should be forced to base this *belief* in reason, in a rational framework. Religion should be seen as a moral set of codes to be respected, but not always perfectly adhered to by the state. It is on the communal level that religion should play out, through processes of intersubjective identification. But the mode must shift when entering the public sphere to an informing construct rather than a restrictive one.
But, I do completely agree with Mary Keller on the question of negotiating power and the *recognition* of this negotiation in all religious fields. Communication can only be effective if there is a process of negotiation and a certain understanding of the nature of the other. But, by so doing, we are making the leap into a mode of 'reading' this religion as 'oppressive' or as a power negotiation at its heart that is then represented by the hijab. We must then see Muslim women as striving to negotiate their oppression. This is predicated, however, on recognizing the western female, sexually free, able to wear what they want, as constructed by the media, which is where I believe Mary Keller was going. I see one problem with this: we are hung up again with the universalization of women (that mirrors the long-standing universalization throughout patriarchal history) and the construction of their 'condition' within the social field. Women are always already 'women' and not 'woman'. Either we recognize women (woman) as individually responsible for her decisions in cultural affiliations or we do not. (I differ with Mary Keller significantly on drawing an artificial distinction between religion and culture--religion is primarily a means of intersubjective identification, i.e. culture, and only secondarily a means of individual emotional transcendence.) Now, the conflation comes in presenting the hijab as both deeply religious symbol and the symbolic representation of belief bound up with the transhistorical function of religious beliefs. One is synchronically oriented and the other is diachronically oriented. This conflation is the assumption that all resistance to the hijab or other religious iconography is based simply in an 'Enlightened' desire to suppress them. That is not always the case. Much conflict occurs in the question of the synchronic or diachronic nature of belief; this is also the center for familial conflict within ?westernized? religious communities. Do you believe in the negotiation of power (synchronic and thus *informed* *enlightened*) or do you simply believe what you are told to believe (i.e. diachronic, traditional, transhistorical). The question is then whether the former is true or the latter: if the former then the person is someone who is actually negotiating with power, because aware of it; if the latter then that person may not be negotiating with power but be 'buying' into it, blindly so to speak.
This brings me to the second quote and my conclusion: Ryan Bishop is referring to the possibility of an originary moment of peace. He uses the metaphor of the veil to probe what he calls the "epistemology of violence." The veiling and unveiling of the screen, of media, and so forth reflects truth as a process, and one that is essentially unending. Mary Keller reflects this epistemology of violence, as does Homer, onto the female body. What does this mean for the epistemology itself? To probe violence through the 'veil' is to unveil it, revealing it as the woman must reveal her face for the British technocrat. Truth is traditionally found in the unveiling of it, while 'surveillance' operates as an internalizing function of state violence. But surveillance also plays into a mythification of state power, a removal of it into its core and away from the public sphere that supposedly determines it. The unveiling of the female body, then, takes up the symbolic function of the unveiling of surveillance itself. The state reveals itself by proffering its own hidden agenda onto the covered female. The response to this should be pragmatic: unveiling the nature of the veil outside of its transhistorical function. Folding that into a recognition of its pragmatic power. The ideological function, that is to say, must be pierced to reveal something more profound, and this can only be done in a pragmatic and open framework. Sincerely
> John A. Woodward