RELIGION, POLITICS, MEDIA, AND WAR
Michael Goldhaber: Atheism and Peace
Mary Keller wrote: From this perspective the a-theist is signifying the significance of their location in the world. When someone tells me, as you did, that they are an atheist I hear "I don't need God. I don't count on transcendentals. I am happy to become worm food. I'm not looking for wings." From my perspective the atheist and the theist are both exercising the cognitive desire to map out the significance of their location in the world.
Mary, I mistook your original position, it would seem, but here you mistake mine, and that of many atheists. [FOOTNOTE: Taken literally, a disbelief in god does not necessitate a disbelief in an afterlife (e.g., the original Buddhism, in which to be released from the cycle of reincarnation was a major goal) nor vice versa (Torah Judaism has “G-d” but no mention of an afterlife; on the holiest day of Yom Kippur, one prays only “to be inscribed in the book of life for another year,” i.e. not to die within the year.) But ignore these subtleties.]
Atheists believe there is no god. This has nothing to do with what they would like. Further, as an atheist, along with many others, I would not be happy to become worm food, in two ways. First, “I” will not exist after death (except in the minds of others). My dead body will not contain not myself; the self will have ceased.
Second, the prospect of death does not make me happy, but, no matter what I might want, heaven does not seem to be available as an alternative. Many atheists wish to avoid death simply by remaining alive. Some, such as Ray Kurzweil, think that we have reached, or shortly will reach, a time, when, at least for a fortunate few, life expectancy increases by more than a year every year, due primarily to medical advances, so living “forever” may become a scientific possibility. read more
Mary, I mistook your original position, it would seem, but here you mistake mine, and that of many atheists. [FOOTNOTE: Taken literally, a disbelief in god does not necessitate a disbelief in an afterlife (e.g., the original Buddhism, in which to be released from the cycle of reincarnation was a major goal) nor vice versa (Torah Judaism has “G-d” but no mention of an afterlife; on the holiest day of Yom Kippur, one prays only “to be inscribed in the book of life for another year,” i.e. not to die within the year.) But ignore these subtleties.]
Atheists believe there is no god. This has nothing to do with what they would like. Further, as an atheist, along with many others, I would not be happy to become worm food, in two ways. First, “I” will not exist after death (except in the minds of others). My dead body will not contain not myself; the self will have ceased.
Second, the prospect of death does not make me happy, but, no matter what I might want, heaven does not seem to be available as an alternative. Many atheists wish to avoid death simply by remaining alive. Some, such as Ray Kurzweil, think that we have reached, or shortly will reach, a time, when, at least for a fortunate few, life expectancy increases by more than a year every year, due primarily to medical advances, so living “forever” may become a scientific possibility. read more
Melani McAlister: RE: Evangelical Internationalism
John Williams Phillips wrote: A "pure" act: I wouldn't be surprised if the "difficulty" of finding the pure act turns out to be the difficulty. The evangelical international would not be "new" in the sense of an event or rupture that intervenes in the naturalised, or universalized modes of global discourse, if only because the Christianization of terms of compassion (forgiveness, tolerance, peace, sufferance) carries on quite independently of whether they are controlled by a Church or a religion in any of its evident forms.
In my view, this encapsulates the dilemma (or rather, one of the dilemmas) we've been discussing. While evangelical internationalism -is- new for American evangelicals, John is absolutely right that it is not new as a mode of connection, which in its expansiveness is both profound and potentially dangerous. Profound, in that the lived alternative to the globalizing of identity has been evangelical (and American) nationalism, in all its ignorance and arrogance. If middle Americans truly take in the view that people who are not American are, in fact, worthy of equal consideration, including the right to eat, the need for justice, the demand to be free, this is only to the good. However much these terms of understanding,in their universalism and their humanism, are problematic, it seems to me that they are also a necessary beginning: what would it possibly mean to say that the parameters of justice should NOT be all humanity? (This kind of humanism is, I believe, worthy of att empts at reviving and reworking.) read more
In my view, this encapsulates the dilemma (or rather, one of the dilemmas) we've been discussing. While evangelical internationalism -is- new for American evangelicals, John is absolutely right that it is not new as a mode of connection, which in its expansiveness is both profound and potentially dangerous. Profound, in that the lived alternative to the globalizing of identity has been evangelical (and American) nationalism, in all its ignorance and arrogance. If middle Americans truly take in the view that people who are not American are, in fact, worthy of equal consideration, including the right to eat, the need for justice, the demand to be free, this is only to the good. However much these terms of understanding,in their universalism and their humanism, are problematic, it seems to me that they are also a necessary beginning: what would it possibly mean to say that the parameters of justice should NOT be all humanity? (This kind of humanism is, I believe, worthy of att empts at reviving and reworking.) read more
Sangita Gopal: KARUNA, Compassion/Com-passion/Sarah and Negar
Thank you Sarah Husain for raising a number of remarkable questions with regard to compassion/com-passion - you are absolutely right - one can never "feel" what it is like to be under attack when one is safe. The related question that interests me is do two people in the same situation - both of whose homes are under attack - feel for each other? Is that "feeling for" - arising from a shared experience of oppression - the basis of their collective identity or is it rather a need for justice that unites them?
Given that justice always addresses a unitary subject - will the very process of getting justice again individuate these two homeless people, break apart that collectivity which issued the call for justice? Justice tends to treat the collective as "one" - "the Iraqi people" for eg. - thereby fixing permanently the contingent experience that created the collective - the homes under attack - and that fixing of identity that ensues from the vantage of those who enter the field of justice evades and erases all other aspects of being - one may be homeless NOW but one is far from destitute - it is the violence of this erasure - whereby the totality of the being is forgotten in the face of the single act of suffering - that I think Sarah alerts us to.
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Given that justice always addresses a unitary subject - will the very process of getting justice again individuate these two homeless people, break apart that collectivity which issued the call for justice? Justice tends to treat the collective as "one" - "the Iraqi people" for eg. - thereby fixing permanently the contingent experience that created the collective - the homes under attack - and that fixing of identity that ensues from the vantage of those who enter the field of justice evades and erases all other aspects of being - one may be homeless NOW but one is far from destitute - it is the violence of this erasure - whereby the totality of the being is forgotten in the face of the single act of suffering - that I think Sarah alerts us to.
read more
John William Phillips: Globalatinization and Compassion
Globalatinization is a rough translation from the French neologism "mondialatinisation" (rough because the notions of monde [world] and globe are hardly equivalent) and emerges in translations of seminars and talks by Jacques Derrida, principally, but has gained currency since the mid-1990s, especially in recent years, when diverse processes of globalization are nevertheless increasingly obviously Anglo-American. (Derrida's translator, Samuel Weber points out that the passage from "world" to "globe" does seem to suggest something of the Anglo-American nature of processes that globalatinization stands for).
Paul Mercken observes (and I agree) that the reference to the Roman suggests St Paul but also the holy Roman Empire, on the one hand, and the several no doubt historically heterogeneous processes of schizm and secularization that rather precisely each time oppose themselves to the Roman or later to the Christian in general: oppose themselves to, but carry on, in concept, language and gesture, the Christianity that thus continues to bear them.
This globalatinization governs not only Christian forms and secularised states (which, by being post-Christian and even, as we now sometimes say, post-secular, remain Christian) but also the Jewish and Muslim religions that in different ways share yet also fall out over e.g., Jerusalem, or the book(s) of Abraham/Ibrahim. The Latin thus not only governs the globalization of Christianized values (whether politicized or mysterious, secret or sacred) but of any thought that is expressed in the Latinate forms of the modern monotheistic religions: com-passio, religio. The problem comes to light (and in these terms has hardly been exhausted) in the Enlightenment or Aufklarung, and in the radical acts of les lumieres and is perhaps brought to a head by Hegel in his lectures on politics and religion. read more
Paul Mercken observes (and I agree) that the reference to the Roman suggests St Paul but also the holy Roman Empire, on the one hand, and the several no doubt historically heterogeneous processes of schizm and secularization that rather precisely each time oppose themselves to the Roman or later to the Christian in general: oppose themselves to, but carry on, in concept, language and gesture, the Christianity that thus continues to bear them.
This globalatinization governs not only Christian forms and secularised states (which, by being post-Christian and even, as we now sometimes say, post-secular, remain Christian) but also the Jewish and Muslim religions that in different ways share yet also fall out over e.g., Jerusalem, or the book(s) of Abraham/Ibrahim. The Latin thus not only governs the globalization of Christianized values (whether politicized or mysterious, secret or sacred) but of any thought that is expressed in the Latinate forms of the modern monotheistic religions: com-passio, religio. The problem comes to light (and in these terms has hardly been exhausted) in the Enlightenment or Aufklarung, and in the radical acts of les lumieres and is perhaps brought to a head by Hegel in his lectures on politics and religion. read more
Bracha Ettinger: Compassion and Com-passion
I will try to draw the field in which compassion can work. It is surely not the political field of forces. I agree with you that we can't talk on compassion within the context of a nation or a state. I too believe that "the entrance of the term compassion into the mainstream discourse is a neutralizing shibboleth". However, even though every concept can be used by the stronger for political and ideological manipulations, compassion itself is not inherently political and ideological. It is for that reason that to pretend compassion in the name of a nation or a state or even in the name of a community has no meaning, it is therefore a manipulative step. However, Compassion is a term that politicians can (and do) abuse in the same way that they can abuse whatever serves their purpose. I can't stop any politician from using this term, but this is not going to stop me from practicing and articulating compassion.
Compassion is intrapsychic, subjective and transsubjective. It works its way, like art does, by fine attunements that evade the political systems. When I say that the originry event of peace is compassion I address a kind of fragilizing subjective openness which is also a resistance, that the political level can't handle or reach by definition, though there is hope that it will take it into consideration at the long run, and always indirectly.
I am suggesting to articulate the originary com-passion, co-response-ability and wit(h)nessing in and by which pre-subjective primary compassion is manifested, and I start with the becoming-subject, the pre-subject and the partial-subject as we can understand them within the context of psychoanalysis--as coemerging with the mother, or even the archaic m/Other or m/Othernal figure. The pre-subject's compassion and fascinance informs its own emergence with-in a co-birthing (co-naissance) of trans-subjective entities—composed of I(s) and non-I(s)—by way of affective and trans-sensed knowledge. I am talking on compassion as growing within a transsubjective sphere revealed in inter-subjective relationships. It concerns webs of few each time, what I named “severality” to differentiate it from “multiplicity”. It evades “community”, “nations” and “states”. Trans-subjective co-response-ability, inaugurated by and in the primordial matrixial encounter-event—where pre-maternal hospitality, empathy and responsibility encounters prenatal pre-mature response-ability, compassion and fascinance—and inaugurated at the same time also by and in interconnectedness in self-relinquishment and wit(h)nessing, is a primary psycho-aesthetical and psycho-ethical basis upon which creativity and ethical potentiality can evolve all throughout life with-in new matrixial clusters (and not “nations” which are not matrixial custers or webs by definition). The matrixial is a signifier of feminine ethics and feminine aesthetics. My feel-knowing, that prematernal/presubjective experience of encounter-event, is being burnt upon, diluted inside, and is establishing a dimension of subjectivity-as-encounter, had been transmuted from an intimate enigma onto a metapsychological perspective through the ethical working-through of therapy and the aesthetical working-through of painting. The artistic core is a burnt. The experiencing of the artistic core etches the languishing subjectivity.Shareability in a space of the several entails what I named besidedness. In the matrixial sphere, besidedness, like fading-in-transformation, is a metramorphic unconscious mechanism. Besidedness is experienced and registered before substitution and split appear and also beside them. If depressive integration is a dissolving of a split, the joy and sorrow of besidedness is folded within differentiating-in-coemergence and co-fading, before and alongside split and substitution, before and alongside integration. In working-through our besidedness and recognizing it, we are becoming more vulnerable yet we are re-paving a path to the primary compassion. Re-co-birth can occur in hospitality and generosity triggered within com-passion.
I hope that at least to have made clear what is the human sphere I intend by the eventing of compassion and the encounter-event of com-passion. In the same way that we don't reject "love" simply because politicians talk in the name of love, and we don't stop loving our children because politicians talk in the name of "loving the children" , a clear difference will be made, at least in this discussion group, between the idea of compassion and the neutralizing politically abusive use of the term "compassion". read more
> Bracha Ettinger
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: read more
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: read more
Mary Keller: Religion, Politics, Media, and War
I wish to begin addressing Religion, Politics, Media and War by picking up two threads. The first, written by Melanie McCallister :
one could argue that Foucault's work is about defining the much earlier demise of spectacle (punishment for display) toward a rationalized discipline/surveillance that disguised and internalized the operations of power.
The second, Ryan Bishop wrote:
for the veil and unveiling relate to truth as aeltheia, or truth as
ongoing unconcealment.
You must try to understand how bizarre it has been for me over the past several years to see France legislate against the wearing of veils by Muslim female students (France is doing WHAT?) followed by Britains top brass arguing that it was necessary for a Muslim woman to meet with him without her veil so that he could evaluate the truth of her words by watching more of her face and seeing more of her demeanor (he thinks he can see truth that the veil would conceal?).
I sit in Cody, Wyoming, very near to where Dick Cheney lives, and can generally, comfortably assume that it will be my people and my President who would presume such measures in their policies. It is, after all, my President who continues to tell us that he has looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and judged him to be a good man, and that he looked current members of the Iraqi government in the eye and saw their honesty and determination. That such naïve phenomenology and epistemology is espoused by our figurehead is the kind of stuff I am used to. read more
one could argue that Foucault's work is about defining the much earlier demise of spectacle (punishment for display) toward a rationalized discipline/surveillance that disguised and internalized the operations of power.
The second, Ryan Bishop wrote:
for the veil and unveiling relate to truth as aeltheia, or truth as
ongoing unconcealment.
You must try to understand how bizarre it has been for me over the past several years to see France legislate against the wearing of veils by Muslim female students (France is doing WHAT?) followed by Britains top brass arguing that it was necessary for a Muslim woman to meet with him without her veil so that he could evaluate the truth of her words by watching more of her face and seeing more of her demeanor (he thinks he can see truth that the veil would conceal?).
I sit in Cody, Wyoming, very near to where Dick Cheney lives, and can generally, comfortably assume that it will be my people and my President who would presume such measures in their policies. It is, after all, my President who continues to tell us that he has looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and judged him to be a good man, and that he looked current members of the Iraqi government in the eye and saw their honesty and determination. That such naïve phenomenology and epistemology is espoused by our figurehead is the kind of stuff I am used to. read more
Melani McAlister: Evangelical Internationalism
My goal for this post is to lay out some thinking I’ve been doing lately about US evangelical Christians and their perceptions of the Middle East, which is the topic of my current research. In the book I’m working on, I argue that many observers, including most people on the left, have misunderstood the nature of American evangelical politics, in part because they misconstrue the nature and direction of evangelicals’ interest in global issues, starting with Iraq and the Mid East, but also in Africa and elsewhere. The picture is far more complicated than is often acknowledged by those who see all evangelicals as trying to bring about Armageddon.
Yesterday, the _Washington Post_ reported on the narrowing of the “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats in the United States, arguing that the Democrat wins last Tuesday could be traced, in part, to shifts among white evangelical Protestants: in this election, compared to the House races in 2004, the Democrats got 28% of the white evangelical vote. It wasn’t a tremendous increase from 2 years ago, but it was something. And it does leave us with the reality that almost 30% of white American evangelicals voted Democratic. African American evangelical numbers were undoubtedly much, much higher. I'm not one to see voting for the Democratic party as the sign of great liberalism, much less liberation, and it certainly was not either for many who cast their ballots. But for those of us opposed to the Iraq war and the “war on terror,” there are some genuinely positive changes going on among American evangelicals, including not only some changes in voting patterns, but also a d read more
Yesterday, the _Washington Post_ reported on the narrowing of the “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats in the United States, arguing that the Democrat wins last Tuesday could be traced, in part, to shifts among white evangelical Protestants: in this election, compared to the House races in 2004, the Democrats got 28% of the white evangelical vote. It wasn’t a tremendous increase from 2 years ago, but it was something. And it does leave us with the reality that almost 30% of white American evangelicals voted Democratic. African American evangelical numbers were undoubtedly much, much higher. I'm not one to see voting for the Democratic party as the sign of great liberalism, much less liberation, and it certainly was not either for many who cast their ballots. But for those of us opposed to the Iraq war and the “war on terror,” there are some genuinely positive changes going on among American evangelicals, including not only some changes in voting patterns, but also a d read more