Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 18:55:16 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Postmodern Religion




Eric
I'll address Zizek seperately- but just to make things easy - '...the 
authentic christian legacy is much to precious to be left to a few 
fundamentalist freaks...'  but Blair is not a fundamentalist freak, just 
an ordinary Christian... who will decide whether to participate in the 
war in Iraq and engage in the 'usual acts of mass murder' on the basis 
of social and political decisions. There are three underlying reasons 
for caution with Zizek's logic - 1) Zizek wants to seperate Christianity 
from fundamentalism - whereas it is not clear this is the problem.  2) 
He makes the assumption that there is an authentic christian legacy - 
which is extremely dubious but as usual with Zizek brimming over with 
interventionist zeal. 3) Why Christianity ?

Let's go back to the begining of this thread:

"...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. ..."

In response to the intial statement and subsequently I proposed that - 
1) 'goodness and happiness' cannot be understood ethically and morally 
 as deriving from 'religion' but rather that they derive from the 
social. 2) That one of the things that the post-68 politics had taught 
us was that the 'personal is political' (i used the more encompassing 
phrase 'everything is political' because I was thinking in terms of the 
non-human as well)  and that as a consequence we should assume that 
nothing escapes the socal and the political boundaries. 3)  I stated 
that capitalism is secular, meaning that it is indifferent to the 
symbolic history of societies - that is to say that it does not care 
about the 'mythical narratives and the ideological and moral 
prescriptions' that constitute the tradition of a community, a notion 
which I think is better understood through the 'social imaginary' which 
allows for both the community and the personal to understood through the 
same phrase. (This is the underlying logic of Lyotard in relation to the 
late notion 'Development'  and Deleuze and Guattari's borrowing of 
 deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation.)

I cannot find a reply from you on any of the above points except the 
last. To which you state that the religious beliefs of Blair are 
'significant'. They are not, it simply proves his idiocy and confirms 
the point that goodness and morality and completely divorced from 
religious belief and ideology. (My daughter accuses me of being 
neo-kantian at this point...) It is true that the moral/ethical 
judgements of Bush/Blair can all be defended as ethically and morally 
acceptable from their religious perspectives. It is not clear to me how 
this enables goodness and happiness to be related to religion.

No I am not serious about my 'economic reductionism' I was trying out 
the 'idea' simply doesn't work - but i am about my materialism as I 
don't think that a transcendental perspective helps understand the 
triviality and irrelevance of the human in the universe.

For an actual ethical and moral position I would say we have to start 
somewhere else entirely, not a return to zero however (anything but that).

And I don't think the dilemma of  reading is simple at all...

best regards as ever

steve
(I may be flying into a meeting in your local area in mid-feb fancy a 
drink or meal - corporation will be  paying)

Eric wrote:

>Steve wrote:
>
>"Interesting that we have read the same texts, 'the fragile absolute'
>and 'on belief' so differently"
>
>Steve:
>
>For me, the answer to this dilemma is very simple.  You are simply
>continuing to misread Zizek.
>
>As long as you interpret secularism to mean a non-theistic understanding
>of relationships; you, Zizek, and myself are in complete agreement. When
>you go beyond this, however, to argue in a pre-Gramscian, crude Marxist,
>economically deterministic way that "Capitalism is simply indifferent to
>anything that is not related to the economic" you end up with a paradox.
>If what are saying is true, then you can no longer consistently maintain
>that "...western buddhism thus perfectly fits the fetishist mode of
>ideology in our allegedly post-ideological era...." 
>
>I challenge you to give me a quote from Zizek that actually follows your
>current line of argument. If you refer back to my previous posting on
>this topic you will find that what I said about Buddhism completely
>agrees with what Zizek says.  
>
>Your problem is this. If as you say, "capitalism doesn't care" how can
>you explain why the ruling party in the United States is currently
>operating from Christian fundamentalist principles, why Islamic
>fundamentalism is on the rise in the Mideast, and why New Age thought
>and Buddhism appear to play ideological roles in developed Western
>society.  
>
>To examine such relationships is not to "want to believe in a religious
>position as a personal thing" but to have a more nuanced understanding
>than your base-superstructure kind of argument allows. 
>
>Are you really seriously arguing here for economic reductionism or are
>you just getting carried away again with 'rabid atheism"?
>
>eric 
> 
>
>
>
>  
>

HTML VERSION:

Steve wrote:

"Interesting that we have read the same texts, 'the fragile absolute'
and 'on belief' so differently"

Steve:

For me, the answer to this dilemma is very simple.  You are simply
continuing to misread Zizek.

As long as you interpret secularism to mean a non-theistic understanding
of relationships; you, Zizek, and myself are in complete agreement. When
you go beyond this, however, to argue in a pre-Gramscian, crude Marxist,
economically deterministic way that "Capitalism is simply indifferent to
anything that is not related to the economic" you end up with a paradox.
If what are saying is true, then you can no longer consistently maintain
that "...western buddhism thus perfectly fits the fetishist mode of
ideology in our allegedly post-ideological era...." 

I challenge you to give me a quote from Zizek that actually follows your
current line of argument. If you refer back to my previous posting on
this topic you will find that what I said about Buddhism completely
agrees with what Zizek says.  

Your problem is this. If as you say, "capitalism doesn't care" how can
you explain why the ruling party in the United States is currently
operating from Christian fundamentalist principles, why Islamic
fundamentalism is on the rise in the Mideast, and why New Age thought
and Buddhism appear to play ideological roles in developed Western
society.  

To examine such relationships is not to "want to believe in a religious
position as a personal thing" but to have a more nuanced understanding
than your base-superstructure kind of argument allows. 

Are you really seriously arguing here for economic reductionism or are
you just getting carried away again with 'rabid atheism"?

eric