From: "jamesdaly" <james.daly-AT-ntlworld.com>
Subject: Re: BHA: Religious sensibility??
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:23:53 +0100


Dear Tobin, and all,

Hegel in the first of the two *Early Theological Writings* claims that Jesus
taught that true religion is autonomy, i.e. the self-imposed obedience to
the Kantian categorical imperative (Enlightenment -- JD), but in the second
reverses this position, claiming that that is a form of slavery to law, and
that Jesus as son of God exemplified religion as pure willing love
(Romanticism -- JD).  I agree with you that the approach to such questions
in terms of development in history is, as I said in a previous post, a
dangerous one (because, I would add, it is a wrong one).  I write this on
the dreaded 12 July, the anniversary of William III's defeat of James II's
army in the battle of the Boyne (my speech recognition programme knew to
capitalise "Boyne"-- but hopefully that is because it is American, and the
Boyne is an Irish river).  Many -- perhaps most, and certainly most
English -- Marxists, including the editors of the New Left Review and the
Socialist Register, read Marxism as an extension to the Whig interpretation
of history, and consequently in effect support all means necessary,
sometimes including assassination, to maintain the partition of Ireland by
British imperialism and its sidekick orange colonialism, with its Ku Klux
Klan-style bigotry and hatred, on the grounds of Protestantism's historical
progress over Catholicism. A very honourable exception is Louis Proyect's
Marxist mailing list http://www.marxmail.org

I would say that the interpretation of all this and similar examples should
be not that religion is mechanically produced, still less that it
mechanically progresses, but that religion both as it is practised and as it
is ideologically theorised is deformed from its true essence, which is
something we have to seek -- perhaps along the lines suggested by Pinkard's
definition.  Plato seems to have been tending to mono-theism, but his
Socrates at the end of the Phaedrus composes a beautiful prayer to Pan,
whose name signifies the unity of spirit and nature.

P. S.  By the way, isn't "Semitic " not a religious but a (pseudo-)racial
term (which should include the Arabs)?

Best

James


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
To: "Bhaskar list" <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 3:46 AM
Subject: Re: BHA: Religious sensibility??


> Hi Mervyn--
>
> The Hegelian view of religion raises a question that I've occasionally
> wondered about.  My comments are partly aimed at understanding religion
> itself (on which I'm no expert), and partly at what sort(s) of theology
> could fit in with DCR (if any can at all).  So, requoting your quotation
of
> Pinkard's account of Hegel's views....
>
> >                            In religion,
> > one attempts to "elevate" oneself to the divine by a communal reflection
> > on what is essentially at stake in life, and in being so elevated, one
> > seeks to experience a "unity" with the divine [i.e.] an identification
> > with what is "absolutely" true that ... does not involve alienating
> > one's own deepest interests ... from this experience of the "absolute",
> > of what is normatively authoritative for how one is to lead one's life
> > and to reflect on the meaning of the full range of life....
>
> Does this definition fit the religious life of (say) ancient Greece?  I'm
> not sure.  It strikes me as better suited to monotheism than to polytheism
> or animism.  It also sounds more mystical than I think accords with most
> people's experiences of religion -- I don't mean that most people are
unable
> to have such experiences (quite the contrary, though they're not always
felt
> as "religion"), but rather that such experiences are exceptional rather
than
> normative.  (I suppose this is one reason for the introduction of the
> Sabbath -- one of the first labor laws in history, isn't it?)  In any case
> I think there can be important differences between experiencing a "unity"
> and experiencing the "absolute."  When a Navaho performs a ritual before
> hunting or to bring rain, is she striving to experience the "absolute"?
One
> might reasonably argue here that she's seeking a kind of "unity" with
nature
> (or one part of it), but it doesn't seem to me to be what Hegel had in
mind.
> I am of course speaking from a position of woeful ignorance, so I'd be
happy
> to hear from anyone more knowledgeable.
>
> My driving question is that I don't see a theological version of CR as
> necessarily being monotheistic, which it clearly is in Bhaskar's view.  I
> think one could argue quite plausibly that some form of polytheism would
> make much more sense: after all, critical realism posits a universe filled
> with all sorts of powerful particulars.  So why not say that each being
has
> its own animating spirit?  And why insist that there has to be some
greater,
> unifying spirit?  Part of my musings along these lines derives from seeing
> that in the CR critique, positivism and conventionalism are in effect flip
> sides of a single coin, and I have wondered what might be CR's idealist
flip
> side.  Polytheism or animism seem pretty good candidates.
>
> I'd like to discuss a little further the place of Judaism in RB's
narrative,
> but I want to take your two points in opposite order.
>
> > Secondly, I don't see it as a "dismissal" of Judaism, which rather plays
> > an important role in the dialectical learning process of the species.
> > "Judaism" here stands, I think, for a stage or moment in the development
> > of the human soul (or *Geist*, in the manner of Hegel), rather than for
> > the religion of a particular ethnic group. There *is* a connotation of
> > "primitive" or "early" - *Geist* has since moved on, the "dilemma of
> > Judaism [having been] resolved" - but for all I - and as you say,
> > Bhaskar - know(s), so has Judaism.
>
> I agree that this is the role that RB wants Judaism to play in his
"Odyssey
> of a soul," and to that extent it is parallel to the various other
religions
> his soul imbibes.  But RB's handling is nevertheless problematic.  There's
> no discussion of Jewish beliefs whatsoever -- just the extremely broad and
> abstract issue of "the God within and the God without," which apparently
is
> derived simply from the New Age writer Neale Donald Walsch and which
doesn't
> strike me as a particularly big issue within Judaism.  This commentary
> contasts with the comparatively fuller treatment given to the other
> philosophies and religions; and references to the Jewish Life 1 (L1) in
the
> rest of the book are few and far between (the other are reviewed often).
> And I don't think he describes the issues raised by any of the other
> philosophies or religions as flatly "resolved."  Plus, God help us, he
> injects a prefiguration of the Christian doctrine of Jesus's resurrection
> into his account of L1's spiritual growth (75-76), a bit of teleology if
> there ever was one and one clearly at Judaism's expense.  Besides, RB says
> that the "secret doctrine of the constellational unity of the inner and
the
> outer ... was well known to the initiates who taught our soul."  That
would
> seem to include the teacher of L1, in which case Judaism has already
> resolved this purported dilemma and RB's account of it is
> self-contradictory; or if we're supposed to infer the doctrine is only
known
> to the *later* initiates, then Judaism taught the soul nothing (that is,
RB
> *mentions* nothing) and was a rather trivial, if not outright worthless,
> stage of the soul's odyssey.  Any way I cut it, RB's treatment of Judaism
is
> scarcely on an equal footing with the rest of his discussions.
>
> I think at this point I should emphasize that I am *not* charging Bhaskar
> with anti-semitism, certainly not of a conscious sort, and probably not of
> the subconscious variety, except perhaps to the extent that it's embedded
in
> the dominant culture.  I do however think he ends up treating Judaism with
> arrogance (should I add, and with disrespect toward his own L1?).
Couldn't
> he have at least read someone who knows Judaism from the inside?  (I
haven't
> read Walsch and so I can't say how well or even whether he writes about
> Judaism, but I was able to dredge up a couple of reviews online.  One said
> that he spends a lot of time bashing organized religions, especially
> Catholicism; the other -- published in Tikkun, a magazine for leftwing
> Judaism -- criticizes him for failing to address a problem he generates of
> Hegelian unhappy consciousness, but doesn't speak of anything Walsch may
say
> about Judaism.  So he either avoids saying anything blindingly stupid, or
> doesn't say anything significant about it at all.  In any case, RB's
> reliance on secondary or tertiary interpreters is dismaying, amounts to
> trusting hearsay, and is crummy scholarship -- not mention sloppy work
> toward his soul's enlightenment.)
>
> > First, what Bhaskar's saying re Judaism - that it's a religion of
> > "externally imposed injunctions" rather than of a "loving heart" or
> > inner commitment - is not at all original to Bhaskar; it's part of the
> > conventional (presumably by and large non-Jewish) wisdom re Judaism. See
> > e.g. Zizek, *The Fragile Absolute* for a similar view. *If* it's true, I
> > myself would regard it as a limitation for reasons I think I needn't
> > rehearse.
>
> I want to raise two sorts of questions to the suggestion that Judaism is a
> religion of "externally imposed injunctions": (1) Is it true? and (2) Even
> if it were true, so what?  Does that really entail what one might infer?
> The two are related.
>
> So, is it true?  Well, maybe, maybe not.  Yes, there are those Ten
> Commandments.  Yes, one of the five books of the Torah (what some of you
> call the Old Testament) is a big stack of laws.  (What an idea -- written
> laws!)  But the rub is, what does this mean?  The significance of such
> "external injunctions," and the degree to which they are in fact external,
> can only be judged in a larger context.  Judaism started off with an old
man
> who felt commanded, much against his wishes, to sacrifice his son, and at
> the point of raising the blade had sufficiently demonstrated his devotion
to
> God that God said "Okay, stop this and go be fruitful instead."  The point
> for Judaism is not the command from God, but Abraham's devotion.  How
> external is that?
>
> But, I think more significantly for this discussion list, are the more
> sociological features of Judaism.  Judaism did have its priestly tribe,
but
> that was a couple *thousand* years ago, and so far as I can tell it's been
> almost as long since anyone cared.  (Possibly longer -- Moses, after all,
> was not a priest! ;-g ).  Judaism has no Pope or episcopacy.  Instead it
has
> the rabbi ("master," but in the sense of "teacher").  Along with the Torah
> are volumes upon volumes of commentaries by rabbis across the centuries,
> rich with analysis and not infrequent disagreements, contradictions,
quips,
> and surprises.  Imagine Christianity if its major figures were all people
> like Anselm, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham, *without* the Popes or the
> rest of the Church structure, and you'll get a sense of what goes on.  Add
> to this the fact that from very early on Jewish men had to learn to read
> (and women increasingly did so too, even if unofficially), and the fact
that
> Jewish services do not require a rabbi -- just a minimum of ten Jews, a
> rabbi is gravy.  (Even synagogues get along just fine without a rabbi,
such
> as the one in Helsinki.  They had one for a few years before I was there,
> but they fired him and went on as before.)  If ten Jews without a rabbi
can
> hold a perfectly kosher service in Judaism, how external is that
injunction?
>
> The upshot?  Let's see, you've got a bunch of educated people who usually
> but not always have a rabbi to ride herd over them, the rabbis adore
> debating interpretation, and the big requirement is that you perform
certain
> activities (like keeping the Sabbath and having sex with your spouse) and
> don't do certain others (like committing murder and having sex with
someone
> else's spouse).  Do that, then you're an okay Jew -- and you can pretty
much
> think what you like.  (My mother, who has gotten somewhat conservative in
> both her politics and her religiosity, remains merrily agnostic.)  So,
have
> an experience of unity with the divine, don't have one, but in any case
> don't tell lies about people.
>
> Compare Christianity, which requires personal belief in specific
doctrines.
> If you don't believe Jesus is/was the Messiah, then you're no Christian.
> You don't believe God can be simultaneously one and three persons, then
> you're booted from the True Church.  The history of Catholicism is replete
> with heretics, to say nothing of forced conversions, Crusades, and
> Inquisitions; Protestantism keeps splintering into various denominations
and
> sects (how many different brands of Baptists are there nowadays, three?
> four?).  Have there been Jewish heretics?  I don't know.  Jesus, maybe,
but
> he was also a Jew who was commemorating Passover during what became his
Last
> Supper.  And the divisions within Judaism into various "movements"
> (Orthodox, Reform, etc) -- which are not separate religions -- are few and
> basically concern not so much points of doctrine but matters of practice
> (should men and women still sit separately? how much or little work is
> allowed on the Sabbath? which old rituals should we keep?).
>
> So from my perspective, the call for personal belief sounds like thought
> control.  Whereas, "externally imposed injunctions" means obey the laws
that
> keep this society together, and beyond that you have freedom of thought.
> The laws are even written and you're supposed to learn to read.  Horrors!
>
> Thus, to return to your own concern over Judaism's "externally imposed
> injunctions":
>
> >            *If* it's true, I
> > myself would regard it as a limitation for reasons I think I needn't
> > rehearse.
>
> Is having a society with laws a limitation?  Certainly, many laws may be
bad
> or injurious, but are laws as such?  Myself, I would say no.  And better
to
> have laws that concern behavior but allow freedom of thought than laws
that
> concern thoughts themselves.  Moreover, I think the view that "externally
> imposed injunctions" are inherently a limitation assumes -- guess what! --
a
> thoroughly bourgeois notion of individual freedom without restraint or
> responsibility.
>
> Watch out for that petard, Mervyn!  ;->
>
> Anyway, I'm sure by now all of you will agree that a truly eudaimonistic
> society would be Jewish!  (What a boon to comedy!)
>
> Heretically yours,
>
> T.
>
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus-AT-mail.com
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
>
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