File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0311, message 89


From: gvcarter-AT-purdue.edu
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:30:36 -0500
Subject: Re: fundamentalists just wanna have fun



Eric,

Your mention Paul Tillich reminds me of a talk by a Carl Shrag, a Purdue 
emeritus faculty member in the philosophy department and former graduate 
assistant of Tillich's.  Shrag relayed an anecdote wherein Heidegger gave a 
speech to an auditorium in a time not too long before the release of Being and 
Time, and Tillich, who was somehow close enough to H. to partake in a walk 
immediately after the lecture, (reportedly) said to him:  "That was a profound 
sermon, Martin."  Heidegger, evidently, did not reply.  Shrag suggests there's 
much to this silence, though (of course) there's a promotional element insofar 
that Shrag's own work tries to look at phenomenology from the difficult role 
religion may continue to play despite the "human" and "transhuman" categories 
that may lend themselves to easy definitions and dismisals.  

Perhaps this opens up an something not wholly related to the present exchange, 
but I am curious of views on Pascal's wager.

best,

geof       



Quoting Eric <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>:

> Steve,
> 
> I recognize religion can play an ideological role; the one socially
> sanctioned legal drug of choice for many. I also know too where your
> comments on Buddhism are probably leading. 
> 
> In America 'Free Tibet' is a very popular liberal cause, but it is often
> based on a naive notion of the former Tibet as a kind of Shangra-La. In
> reality, the Buddhism represented by the Dali Lama tends to be
> paternalistic, authoritarian, homophobic and oppressive, but this is
> seldom communicated through the haze of its fairy tale utopian image. 
> 
> I also talked in previous postings about the links of Zen Buddhists with
> the Japanese war machine during WWII.
> 
> I think part of the difference between us on this topic come down to
> this.  While not promoting theism, I have come to recognize religion as
> a fundamental category of 'human' or 'transhuman' experience, one that
> does not easily disappear, but which is capable of morphing and adapting
> itself to changing circumstances. Like the experience of the sublime
> with which it is linked, religion is a primordial possibility that
> registers again and again on human consciousness in feeling of awe and
> terror, in the experience of love and the miracle of rebirth.  
> 
> My favorite definition of religion is the existential one formulated by
> Paul Tillich.  He spoke of it as a 'ultimate concern' and recognized
> that even an atheist must face religious issues to the extent that he or
> she is concerned with the momentous issues of birth and death.  
> 
> I personally think much of Lyotard's philosophy is connected with
> 'religion' in this rather broad use of the term. Some of the concepts he
> formulated, such as the in-fans, the inhuman, the sublime, anamnesis,
> the figured and the differend certainly explore this 'region of the
> soul', without necessarily formulating theistic solutions. I also see
> Zizek and Badiou  working a similar ground. (I agree it is
> 'materialist', but ask you to consider the fact that etymologically
> 'matter' is derived form the Latin, mater - our great mother, the matrix
> of all, the goddess whose veil has never been lifted.)  
> 
> I feel this is far from the pious nostalgia of a Heideggerian return.
> Just as Lefevbre and the situationists envisioned a revolution in
> everyday life, so these religious categories need to be re-examined from
> the standpoint of a micropolitics of the personal that tends to resist
> the State and the ideological formulation of secular humanism that we
> are only legitimized by family and work.
> 
> Marx was once famously accused of merely secularizing the Augustinian
> concept of the two cities unto human history. If this is religion, then
> let's make the most of it.
> 
> eric    
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> [mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of
> steve.devos
> Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 5:07 AM
> To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject: Re: secular transhumanism
> 
> Eric/all
> 
> I realise it was a rhetorical question; But fundamentalists don't have 
> any fun, either intellectually owing to their belief in some apocylypse 
> or other, and certainly not emoptionally and physically because of the 
> endless prohibitions... and as for the endless physical and emotional 
> abuse imposed on the body of those destined to believe. In contradiction
> 
> to this I suppose that we could follow Freud where he noted that the 
> very acts forbidden by religion are endlessly practiced in the name of 
> religion - in such cases such as rape and muder (in the name of 
> religion) - as with the condemning of the 'other' because they are 
> external to your group to oblivion and death. Not much fun here then 
> either... (I'm listenning to Arvo Part's 'Orient Occident' as I write 
> this and whilst Part is a great composer of music possibly even sublime,
> 
> he is hardly an example of 'fun' (indeed nobody in the house apart from 
> George the Cat and I can stand it...)
> 
> With regard to the censoring of higher modes of consciousness and 
> ecstasy - what precisely is so good about attempts to achieve this 
> through the resurrection of the religious experience in a postsecular 
> fashion ? The question I have for you is slightly different  in that I 
> am reminded of Zizek's question in the beginning of Hallward's book on 
> Badiou, where he asks 'What is the utility function of an ideological 
> state apparatus ?'  now a materialist answers this by pointing towards 
> the fact that the 'utility function' of an ISA is not the reproduction 
> for itself of the ideological network of ideas, feelings and objects nor
> 
> the social  circumstances that created it but the reproduction of the 
> ISA itself.  So then to paraphrase him 'What is the utility function of 
> a religious form ? '  It's true that the same religious ideological 
> structure can accomodate itself to vastly different social modes - 
> [Catholic Christianity in 1492, 1939-45 and it's current reactionary 
> forms in the 21st C - (let s not discuss Buddhism and it's supposed 
> peacefulness...) ]  and it does so just to continue to exist...  So as 
> such, then how does the transformation from the secular, to the 
> postsecular not make one think that what we are seeing is this process 
> in operation ?
> 
> Incidentally as this is in some ways an unoffical discussion list for 
> Badiou/Zizek let's be clear that their materialist relationship to 
> Christianity is markedly different from the postsecular approaches that 
> are attempting to make Deleuze a religious thinker, or even worse the 
> 'postsecular messisiniam'  that seems to haunt derrida's recent 
> religious conversion... The important difference is well put by Hallward
> 
> "'...the foundations of meaning being itself inaccessible, there are 
> only interpretations...' Whether this foundation is divine or profane , 
> religious or humanist makes little difference to Badiou. Religion  
> subordinates the articulation of Truth to a reverence for the One 
> meaning of meaning..." If modernity is marked by the passing of the 
> 'one'  it is by no means clear that attempts to resurrect the post-One 
> can or should be allowed to succeed.
> 
> ecstasy - the dream of Cocteau that opium could be made physically 
> harmless, though to be honest I'd prefer espresso a turkish cigerette...
> 
> regards
> steve
> Eric wrote:
> 
> >Steve,
> >
> >At the back of the mind when I used the phrase secular humanism was
> >Nietzsche's concept of the ubermensch and his early book title: "Human,
> >All Too Human."  As Badiou shows in his non-theological writings, the
> >latent 'humanism' that underwrites talk of human rights and radical
> evil
> >is in fact a kind of ideology; one that is geared towards a concept of
> >humanity as good, hardworking, pious and patriotic citizens.  As such,
> >something to be surpassed.  
> >
> >In Lyotard's concept of the inhuman, what is at stake is the idea that
> >what ultimately gives humanism value is the very fact that it cannot be
> >closed in upon itself.  We can only be human to the extent that we are
> >faithful to the contingencies of birth and death that Lyotard often
> >terms the in-fans. Obviously, this region of the soul is one that has
> >been heavily strip-mined by religious orthodoxy and my question back to
> >you is 'why should we let the fundamentalists have all the fun?'
> >
> >Another reason I used the term was that transhumanism also refers
> >obliquely to a movement in psychology that was popular back in the
> >eighties and which was very interested in investigating deep states of
> >consciousness elicited through such things as mystical experience,
> >meditation and drugs. You don't have to be a theist to believe that
> such
> >experience occur and even have their own legitimacy.
> >
> >Personally I find the current drug laws more than just stupid. I think
> >they are political attempts to control our consciousness and limit's
> its
> >scope and range to the conventional out of the state's desire to have
> >pliable subjects. I guess part of my concern is that under the name of
> >rationalism and secular humanism, there has also been an attempt made
> by
> >'progressives' in the past to censor and repress these higher modes of
> >consciousness and legislate another taboo on ecstasy. 
> >
> >I believe that humanity has a potential that far exceeds the current
> >spectrum of experience allowed to it under capitalism and today we must
> >struggle to claim this as our own.  That is what I am calling secular
> >transhumanism.
> >
> >eric
> >
> > 
> >
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