File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2002/lyotard.0212, message 90


From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Postmodern Religion
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 19:35:32 -0600


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Let me preface my remarks with a slight disclaimer.  I was raised as a
Roman Catholic and currently consider myself to be an atheist.  What
keeps me from proclaiming myself a rabid atheist, however, comes from a
sustained understanding that any legitimate concept of politics must
remain limited in its scope. I simply don't think it is possible for
politics to accomplish everything.  
 
Religion, from this perspective, is concerned with accomplishing two
goals that perpetually elude politics.  For brevity's sake they may be
described as morality and mysticism or, to use more philosophical
language; goodness and happiness.  
 
Politics is primarily concerned with the question of justice.  It
strives to create the social conditions that make it possible for
goodness and happiness to be achieved, but politics alone cannot
guarantee these goals will actually be accomplished. Beyond a certain
point their realization remains up to us as individuals and
extra-political communities - the mystical quantum body of Christ.
 
When the matter is stated in this way, it's seen that religion has
something persistent about it. Unlike the State, it doesn't wither away,
but endures for as long as we call ourselves human and seek to realize
goodness and happiness within our lives. 
 
Alfred North Whitehead once described religion as what we do with our
solitude.  This open-ended definition seems adequate enough for my
purposes here. When religion is considered from this perspective, there
are certainly aspects of Lyotard's thought that might be interpreted as
quasi-religious statements.  Consider, for example, this quote I
recently posted in a somewhat different context.
 
"What we could say is that what is forgotten, of course, is that the
community remains intractable to the treatment of political unity; or
again, that this treatment has in appearance to be renewed from time to
time, while in reality it has to be renewed all the time, perpetually.
What cannot be treated, what is not manageable once and for all, and
what is forgotten by political treatment in its constitution of a
commonality of humans by dint of their belonging to the same polis, it
the very thing that is not shareable among them, what is not
communicable or communal or common at all.  Call it birth and/or death,
or even singularity."
 
This intractable may be re-described, using Pauline language, as the
'workings of the Holy Spirit'. It is encountered through an Event that
implies the intractable always manifests itself for us as a kind of
grace without regard to merit.  Just as the Christian testifies to the
Christ event, so each one of us must testify and bear witness to the
sublime, the differend; whose kingdom is never of this world. And faith
is required as the basic fidelity to the singularity of 'what has
happened'.
 
Pauline Christianity becomes an 'ethics of truth' to the extent that
this new being becomes re-inscribed as a universal subject.  The law of
love or Agape demands that henceforth each person deserves to be treated
as an end, not a means, because of his or her shared humanity; and this
law may be considered disinterested to the extent it applies to all,
without the prejudice of race, class, nationality, or social condition.
To the extent that this is really practiced, such a religion can be said
to be moral.
 
It is also mystical to the extent that one dies and becomes born again
through the Event. One is no longer bound to this animal, this body of
death, or what Paul terms the flesh.  Instead, one becomes, in Badiou's
sense, an Immortal.
 
These descriptions may sound somewhat facetious, but I am taking them
seriously to the extent I choose to interpret Christianity as a religion
that uses mythological language to describe existential Events.
Perhaps, something like religion needs to take place in our shared
solitude in order for each one of us to become fully human/inhuman.
"Unless you become a child again (shades of Lyotard's 'enfans') you
shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."  
 
I would even go farther and maintain that perhaps something like a
postmodern religious awakening of this kind may be needed in order for
the still-pending global politics of justice to be realized.
Individuals who remain tied to commodities are still in bondage and
alienated. Only those whose happiness arises from a 'non-present' Event
can make the break in the situation that the current form of our global
politics requires. 
 
God in this sense may be redefined as the She who does not present
herself but to whom we must continue to testify and bear witness.  God
is the multitude within us who resists the Demiurge of the Spectacle. 
 
Just as a trace of the Infinite is required to circumvent to premature
closure of Totality, so incredulity towards Metanarratives appears to
require a prior postmodern faith.  The idols of the marketplace are
overcome by the substance of things not seen.
 
eric
 

HTML VERSION:

style='tab-interval:.5in'>

Let me preface my remarks with a slight disclaimer.  I was raised as a Roman Catholic and currently consider myself to be an atheist.  What keeps me from proclaiming myself a rabid atheist, however, comes from a sustained understanding that any legitimate concept of politics must remain limited in its scope. I simply don’t think it is possible for politics to accomplish everything. 

 

Religion, from this perspective, is concerned with accomplishing two goals that perpetually elude politics.  For brevity’s sake they may be described as morality and mysticism or, to use more philosophical language; goodness and happiness. 

 

Politics is primarily concerned with the question of justice.  It strives to create the social conditions that make it possible for goodness and happiness to be achieved, but politics alone cannot guarantee these goals will actually be accomplished. Beyond a certain point their realization remains up to us as individuals and extra-political communities - the mystical quantum body of Christ.

 

When the matter is stated in this way, it’s seen that religion has something persistent about it. Unlike the State, it doesn’t wither away, but endures for as long as we call ourselves human and seek to realize goodness and happiness within our lives.

 

Alfred North Whitehead once described religion as what we do with our solitude.  This open-ended definition seems adequate enough for my purposes here. When religion is considered from this perspective, there are certainly aspects of Lyotard’s thought that might be interpreted as quasi-religious statements.  Consider, for example, this quote I recently posted in a somewhat different context.

 

“What we could say is that what is forgotten, of course, is that the community remains intractable to the treatment of political unity; or again, that this treatment has in appearance to be renewed from time to time, while in reality it has to be renewed all the time, perpetually. What cannot be treated, what is not manageable once and for all, and what is forgotten by political treatment in its constitution of a commonality of humans by dint of their belonging to the same polis, it the very thing that is not shareable among them, what is not communicable or communal or common at all.  Call it birth and/or death, or even singularity.”

 

This intractable may be re-described, using Pauline language, as the ‘workings of the Holy Spirit’. It is encountered through an Event that implies the intractable always manifests itself for us as a kind of grace without regard to merit.  Just as the Christian testifies to the Christ event, so each one of us must testify and bear witness to the sublime, the differend; whose kingdom is never of this world. And faith is required as the basic fidelity to the singularity of ‘what has happened’.

 

Pauline Christianity becomes an ‘ethics of truth’ to the extent that this new being becomes re-inscribed as a universal subject.  The law of love or Agape demands that henceforth each person deserves to be treated as an end, not a means, because of his or her shared humanity; and this law may be considered disinterested to the extent it applies to all, without the prejudice of race, class, nationality, or social condition. To the extent that this is really practiced, such a religion can be said to be moral.

 

It is also mystical to the extent that one dies and becomes born again through the Event. One is no longer bound to this animal, this body of death, or what Paul terms the flesh.  Instead, one becomes, in Badiou’s sense, an Immortal.

 

These descriptions may sound somewhat facetious, but I am taking them seriously to the extent I choose to interpret Christianity as a religion that uses mythological language to describe existential Events.  Perhaps, something like religion needs to take place in our shared solitude in order for each one of us to become fully human/inhuman.  “Unless you become a child again (shades of Lyotard’s ‘enfans’) you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

 

I would even go farther and maintain that perhaps something like a postmodern religious awakening of this kind may be needed in order for the still-pending global politics of justice to be realized.  Individuals who remain tied to commodities are still in bondage and alienated. Only those whose happiness arises from a ‘non-present’ Event can make the break in the situation that the current form of our global politics requires.

 

God in this sense may be redefined as the She who does not present herself but to whom we must continue to testify and bear witness.  God is the multitude within us who resists the Demiurge of the Spectacle.

 

Just as a trace of the Infinite is required to circumvent to premature closure of Totality, so incredulity towards Metanarratives appears to require a prior postmodern faith.  The idols of the marketplace are overcome by the substance of things not seen.

 

eric

 


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