It moves

I just unfriended close to 40 people on Facebook.  That's a significant amount for my account, about 25% of my friends.  The criteria for selection was easy: if I had no interaction with them in over a year they were gone.  If I enjoyed their posts but didn't have any personal interaction with them they stayed.  There were a few nostalgic ones that slipped through too, even though I really had no meaningful interaction with them in any way. 

This is all part of a larger program I've initiated in my life.  It involves a reorientation toward real things and people, things I can touch and talk to, things that have a face, or cast shadows.  Of course I'm not cutting off the virtual completely.  This is in fact impossible- as Zizek has said: "Beyond the fiction of reality, there is the reality of the fiction."  I'm simply scaling back on a particular mode of the virtual.  Its truths are still present for those who have ears to hear... I've simply heard another sound.

The Church (fragment of a thought)

[...] One is reminded here of Jesus’ reinstatement of Peter. Jesus asked Peter three questions regarding whether Peter loved him or not, which were then quickly followed by the statement “feed my sheep/lambs.” Here community love is inseparable from the call to action, to “come follow me.” It is perhaps no accident that when Peter was about to follow Jesus and asked about one of his comrades who lingered behind Jesus responded with “what is that to you,” somewhat reminiscent of his response in the incident with the man who wanted to bury his dead relative but was quickly told by Jesus that the “dead can bury their own dead.” It is as if he was saying “Do not forget your task. Your subjectivity is not composed of worrying about another’s status, but your fidelity to the mission.” Here then is the proper way to understand communitas: not as an intimate community in which we get to find out each other’s deepest feelings and personal life stories, eliminating every perceived distance between one another. Communitas must include Jesus’ “what is that to you” element... Is this not also what many community churches and communist totalitarianisms have in common: the similar drive to know each other’s private thoughts, a refusal to grant any private “inner” space, making every personal idiosyncrasy or desire part of the commons (and then often collectively punished in some way)? The Christian subject’s proper response to the injunction to confess or share some inner part of oneself is therefore: “what is that to you?” The greater truth here is the task of the Church, i.e. the task set before the emancipatory collective.

Is it possible to detect here the difference between a kind of outward objective truth and a more inward subjective one? In other words, is the striving for “understanding-each-other” not a reflection of the recognition of the truth of subjective inner experience, versus another understanding of truth not located primarily in subjective experience, but in action and in an Idea? I wonder how much the former is a reflection of a kind of Schleiermacherian influence on religious subjectivity, and indeed post-modern culture, forced no doubt by the Enlightenment and modernity, and as such is more of a symptom perhaps than an influence. When the conception of an objective yet personal God was being severely called into question by science and modern reason, the move inward was a logical one. One should, however, refer to Wilhelm Dilthey here who suggested this inward move was already present in Christianity from the beginning, against the objectification of truth by the ancient Greeks:

For the Greek mind, knowing was mirroring an objective thing in the intelligence. Now [i.e., in Christianity], experience becomes the focal point of all the interests of the new communities; but this is just simple awareness of what is given in personality and in consciousness of the self.... With the enormous interest they generate, experiences of the will and of the heart swallow up every other object of knowledge.... If this community faith had immediately developed a science perfectly appropriate to it, that science would have to rest on the foundation ultimately resting on inner experience.

It was only the necessary institutionalization of the Church for the sake of administering a fallen Roman Empire and preventing anarchy that led to the suppression of this inward move: “Indeed the remnants of the ancient social institutions, and the culture they expressed rested on the shoulders of the Church.” What if, however, one were to read this situation from a Zizekian perspective? What if this outward rigidity of the Church was indeed its very necessary political expression? It is not that “oh no, the early Church lost its true inward character, exchanging rich inward experience for cold institutional control,” but rather that the institutional Church was the direct expression of Christianity’s kingdom self-understanding. Here the Church made precisely the move from “social movement” to Universal Singular, seizing the opportunity to relate to the social totality. For this reason the Church could never make the “Cincinnatus” move and dump the Empire at first opportunity after restoring security. Its program was total and all-encompassing. It could only be forced out by other political players, and indeed it slowly was, until finally succumbing at the political level at the very moment its objective foundation was greatly undermined: i.e. the Enlightenment and the death of the objective God, the Schleiermacherian move towards inward authenticating religious experience.

Theological Thought (an excerpt)

On a broader level Zizek and Badiou’s engagement of theological material raises another question. What is the status of theological thought? Who “owns” it, i.e. who has the right to engage in and utilize it? Is it the special possession of faith traditions, somewhat like the knowledge and apparatuses of various scientific disciplines, or can non-faith participants legitimately comment on religious theology? In other words, does it have the same status as communist egalitarianism, as pointed out by Rancière a propos failed communist communities:

They did not fail, as the opinion goes, because individuals could not submit to the common discipline. On the contrary, they failed because the communist capacity could not be privatized. The sharing of the capacity of anybody could not be turned into the virtue of the private communist man.

Insofar as egalitarianism, ethics, and the Event (in the sense of creative novelty) are concerned, can the Church (or any other monotheistic tradition) not admit that in the past it has “privatized the capacity of anybody,” has made these categories virtues of the religious community as if without the Church everyone would only do “what was right in his/her own eyes,” as if there could be no new subjective creation without the coming of the new person in Christ? It was Alan Watts, that once Anglican minister cum Zen Buddhist who summed up the state of homily during his time in the Church: “So much of the preaching we hear on Sunday morning comes down to this: ‘My dear people, be good!’” So much should be admitted. Does this not reflect, however, a kind of theology that is little more than humanism? If so it is merely a reflection of a kind of contemporary theology concerned with seeming relevant, having given up on the more problematic core of Christian thought, what Badiou refers to as a “fabulation:” the historical status and meaning of the Resurrection. The Church too is not without its reactionaries here. For them the Resurrection is not a historical category but like Badiou, merely provides a hermeneutical substrate for further thought regarding the human subject/community. This too is so obviously a compromise with modernity, one that would cause the one who said “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” to roll over in his grave. It reflects a certain cultural type, or because we are speaking of Badiou and Zizek we might properly say “class,” that as a result of a life of relative comfort can no longer identify with the words that follow those just quoted: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” In short, it reflects a decadent class theology.

Here then is the limit set upon the appropriation of theology. In so many instances, all of its resources are of the category “capacity of anybody.” It becomes privatized at precisely the point one can say “I have hope in Christ not just in this life only,” i.e. the Resurrection hope theology of the world’s destitute.

What is the meaning of Jesus? (To a comrade)

Don't mind at all.. feel free to post whatever you write me.

What or who is Jesus? Is this not the question you pose? He is neither angelic nor heroic. In fact, he is a failure. But let us not read this statement outside of its proper context. He is a failure precisely insofar as his life led to no real break in the situation. He came from nowhere, for a time was a someone, accrued those followers who glimpsed in him something higher than those animal interests so common in our species. But in the final hour all left him: his monument was little more than the tattered clothing of a common Jew, once a disciple "committed unto death" in this Nazarene cause, left behind when their owner fled for his life at the first sign of opposition. Pilate certainly never said the words "Ecce homo!" Perhaps only to ridicule this worm standing before him. Perhaps only appended to the gospel letter long after the fact. Here was no man, but something much less!

But you understand the radical break in history the death of this worm would wreak. Had the story ended with the crucifixion we would be left with any other self-deluded messianic fool, a lesson for other fools. History is replete with them. The life and death of this madman had zero consequences within the previous order. All those who were formerly willing to die with him (and declared so!), now returned to the sea whence they had been called with tail between legs. Zero consequences=zero Event. Ah but the world and ages this void would soon fill! No angels, no heroes present.. but grace was present.

We will not speak of "historicity." A truth is not of the historical order. We will speak of a break within a situation, a "creative novelty" if there ever was one. We will speak of maximal consequences, of the maximal existence of an inexistent. Why else is the Nazarene's "biography" so dispensable for St. Paul? It is clear that it is so because it is the biography of a madman and failure. It is a lesson for fools. But St. Paul is no fool! For him it is clear that the Resurrection retroactively reinstates this man from Nazareth: not his virgin birth, not his life among his disciples (Paul has no interest in biography), but his Death. This is so because the Death immanentizes the possibility of the Resurrection.

If we are to locate the meaning of Jesus in the regime of the given, it is here at this impossible moment, at this hole punched into the cosmos, a void circumscribed by being's appearance. That this void had such consequences is not a fantastic determination. This is merely its historical and political one. Fantasy is not a proper designate here. It belonged to the previous order of Messianic nationalism (an order Judas himself defended and grew disenchanted with). We are reminded of René Magritte's famous painting of a pipe with the inscription "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" beneath it. Here too might we not inscribe the field of the historical Nazarene with the words: "Ceci est un Immortel"?

Slave Labour

Some more pictures of worker’s conditions here

Moving to Dubai, Kuwait, and other Middle Eastern countries, men and women from the Philippines, India, and other South-east Asian locations, look for better work opportunities. Upon arrival their passports are taken from them. They soon discover the wages they were promised will be much lower. For years they are forced to work in dangerous conditions to pay back the cost of travel to their new jobs. Any sign of protest will invite beatings or arrest by police. Žižek is right to be critical: “This is the reality sustained by great “humanitarians” like Brad Pitt who invested heavily in Dubai.”

Living in Kuwait I have my own experiences of this. My partner was on her way to work one morning, and stuck in traffic she noticed a Kuwaiti man pull a Bangladeshi from a taxi and beat him with a belt. No one did anything to help. We were also told that workers could get a day off work if temperatures reached over 50 C (which frequently occurs: tomorrow’s forecasted temp is 53 C), but of course this would set construction back, so media outlets (presumably with owners whose interests reach into the building industry) would rarely publish temperatures over 49 C.

The shiny new skyscrapers and giant shopping centres of the Middle East, indeed whole cities are built with the sweat and blood of workers from Apac nations. The luxury contained in these shiny walls serves only to obscure the poverty and desperation of the slum dwellers outside. There will -there must- be a day of reckoning...

A Secular Age -reflection-

Having just completed Taylor's A Secular Age and having presented an analysis of it to my colleagues, I feel leaving a few of my reflections here makes for good closure.

One major conclusion I made was that Taylor and Žižek are in fact trying to do the same thing: revitalize their respective traditions with a vision of renewal. Taylor, following Péguy's comments, could have just as easily been quoting Žižek:

"Creative renewal was only possible in action which by its very nature had to have a certain temporal depth. This kind of action had to draw on the forms which had been shaped in a deeper past, but not by a simple mechanical reproduction, as with “habit”, rather by a creative re-application of the spirit of the tradition."

It was Lenin, when faced with implementing the New Economic Policy in 1922 (after the Bolshevik Revolution), a policy allowing a greater market economy and private ownership, who said it is sometimes necessary to “begin from the beginning” again and again. Žižek, apropos the Left, says this repeatedly. Following Badiou he emphasizes a fidélité à l’événement (Fidelity to the Event), in this case, a fidelity within a given context which is always "beginning from the beginning" in a creative reinterpretation of the emancipatory Idea. This is precisely Taylor's formulation for the Christian Church (sans the transcendent):

"The goal in this case is not to return to an earlier formula, inspiring as many of these will undoubtedly be; there will always be an element of imitation of earlier models, but inevitably and rightly Christian life today will look for and discover new ways of moving beyond the present orders to God."

Some Christians have begun to do this, to contextualize and move beyond traditional forms, while creatively reapplying the "spirit of the tradition". Whether they will gather momentum remains to be seen, a large part of this depending on their ability to avoid defining themselves by what they are not, or what they perceive themselves to be a corrective to. These considerations should not even enter the equation. Another risk will involve making the particular the universal, imposing some local form as a mould for all others. So a particular form may be successful (transformative etc), we may write books about it, others may start to think it would be possible to transplant the forms in other places (didn't something analogous to this happen with communism, so that we have Russian communism, Chinese communism, Cuban communism, etc, each taking on slightly or radically different form?). No, both Taylor (the transcendent frame) and Žižek (the immanent frame) insist on the key concept of contextualization, serving the Idea (which is Universal) of the movement from precisely where one is. Each of these emancipatory groups (or Christian groups, who may also have an emancipatory orientation in the Leftist sense) form a kind of communion. Taylor sees the way forward as a “communion of itineraries”, a multiplicity of “whole lives”.

So much more could be said here, but this will suffice for now. I close Taylor's massive tome with a new appreciation for this Catholic thinker at McGill. I am richer because of him. To be continued...

The Radical Core of Christianity

There is an increasing trend of materialists/atheists appropriating the language of Christianity for ideological reasons. It is not simply that Christianity, as an ancient and rich source of a wide range of philosophical and scientific thought provides some "models" or "linguistic schemas" for materialist appropriation. These interpreters are interested in a much more profound meaning of Christianity: Christianity as the religion of the exit from the religious.

It has been said that the only authentic atheism is one which has taken part in the Christian experience. What does this mean? A brief theological excursus is in order.

What took place when Jesus first appeared in Mary's womb? The writer of the gospel of John said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Later he said, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among men." The incarnation of God himself took place in Mary's womb. It is no wonder she was called "Theotokos" or "God-bearer" by later Christian thinkers. What was necessary for this to occur? St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians that Jesus had to "make himself nothing", literally, to "empty" himself, what theologians refer to as Christ's kenotic emptying. Empty himself of what? Of his divinity, his divine power. This kenosis is key for Death of God theologians like Thomas Altizer. It was here that they see a definite (de) evolution in God's being. God became man in Christ Jesus. He was indeed a man, but a man who was a God emptied of his power. The next step is crucial: the God-man was crucified. He was put to death. These interpreters see in Christ's "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" a confession of helplessness, a sign of his final kenotic existence. (It is interesting to note that the Gospel of Peter records Jesus as saying: "My power, my power, why have you forsaken me"). What took place on the cross was not just the death of a man, but the death of God. God merely remained consistent in finishing the final kenotic gesture and emptying the cup of his being to the last drop and then smashing the cup.

It is at this moment that Christianity prepares a way for the exit from the religious. Heaven lies vacant, the Christian God has emptied out any meaning the word "God" has ever had. There is no "big Other", no final Guarantor of meaning, no Master behind the curtain pulling the strings (and is Zizek not correct in saying that even in Stalinism there remains a big Other in the guise of "History"?). The stage lies silent and the audience suddenly realizes they're the main act from now on. Right away some people understand and start forming emancipatory communities. It's up to people to change the world, to emancipate humanity. The Spirit of Christ is now interpreted as the will and the action of the emancipatory people. Did Jesus not say, "where two or three are gathered in my name I am there with them"? Suddenly a light dawns on a radically new egalitarian community. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, there is no female and male..." The Spirit, to quote Hegel, "rises up out of the foaming ferment of finitude." Here now is the only locus of the Spirit: the new universal community. It is literally the people's fidelity to the Event.

The universal collective is soon challenged, however, by a particularist appropriation of Jesus. What this Christian God has done is more than some can bear. No, God cannot be allowed to die. So they constructed the myth of his resurrection. The radical message, the gospel, was soon embedded in an institutionalized ideology. The original heresy was committed: they identified the Church as the body of Christ, forced the particular at the expense of the universal.

The atheist challenge to Christians is clear here: Sacrifice the "Church" as its original founder once sacrificed himself, so that the kenotic will of God may be fulfilled. It's time to reclaim the radical core of Christianity: Christianity as the original and most complete atheism. It's time to form a new world order.

Proud Owner of a Frost

This gorgeous man has been hugely influential in my life. This particular painting was done by my sister and will soon grace one of the walls of my home (much to the chagrin of my wife! mwahaha!).