The debate continues…
I tried to post my response to Richard’s response on his website but it kept getting atomatically rejected (perhaps because of its size), so I am having to put it here. This will primarily be of interest to those who have already read what Richard had to say in response to my last post (which should be read before you read this)…
Thanks for responding Richard. I too see this as an academic dispute among friends and personally really like everyone involved. However I am wary of playing into that game too much. To talk about how we are all really friends and could sit and have a drink together is the common way that intellectuals view debate these days and part of the reason why fundamentalists reject it. I can see their point, to them the importance of the debate is placed in subservience to depoliticized friendships. It is as if the discussions do not really matter, only our current social interactions are important. To the militant however these philosophical/theological/political issues are more important than individual friendships (as I will mention below they rightly see a problem with the common liberal rendering of concrete and abstract). And we must remember how Jesus himself came with a sword!
These issues, as they infiltrate society, play out in real ways (either positive or negative) and are bigger than our like or dislike of each other. Of course I view what fundamentalists actually take to be important as totally ridiculous: the truth of their claim is to be found in its form, not its content. As I have argued elsewhere, their seeming potency is anything but.
In this way, contrary to what some have suggested (that we take ourselves and our views too seriously) I stand by the argument that if we do not care passionately, even obsessively, about this debate then we are not taking ourselves, or our views, seriously enough. Anyway, I will now run through your main points and respond,
—-
‘Setting oneself up as the prophetic/lone/contrary/heretical voice of hope is a dangerous thing to arrogate’
Hhhhmmmm, even if it were true that I have set myself up as some lone prophet this would be an ad hominem fallacy that does not deal with the substantive part of my argument.
‘”the Law itself is a transgression” – I recognise the “Hegelian move” but refuse it for philosophical and theological reasons…’
I have to see your philosophical and theological arguments in order to assess your claim… they would need to be good though!
‘I’d want to assert that seeing law (…..moral imperatives, social constraints, law of the land, international justice etc etc) is God-given and necessary and need not negate the structural critique of our complicity in sin that you outline’
It depends on whether by ‘necessary’ you mean that it is necessary to have some standards (laws) or whether you are saying that you can isolate which laws are necessary. I totally agree with the first and find the second philosophically/theologically problematic. I would need to unpack a little more about dialectics in order to show why. But the basic reason is that I cannot see how such metabeliefs can be grounded in Reason. They are properly dogmatic (in the sense that they need to be assumed and then employed in order to see how ‘useful’ they are). My point in outlining the Law – Crime – Law-is-crime dialectic is about showing how any given System is ideological in nature and ungrounded, but that this is generally concealed and needs to be revealed.
‘My point was to focus attention on the most vulnerable party to the scenario: “the widow and the orphan” in Somalia itself (and knowing folk working in Somalia I do understand that glamorising the Somali pirates and warlords is more than a tad offensive to those widows and orphans)…. The essence of my objection is a thoroughly political one: that when the grammar of the debate is framed around a dialectic with church, our language loses any coherent moral significance and becomes atomised and individualistic… The place with which you and Kester are asking these questions is not alongside the orphan and the widow… the poor and the marginalised are only co-opted as pawns to make a point about “our” marginalisation’
Here you seem to think that I equate the suffering of those in war torn parts of the world with Western Identity Politics. Even if I did (and I do not – I follow Badiou’s critique of identity politics and do not equate sexism in the workplace etc. to rape in a war zone) it is not connected to the core of the argument I made. Also I am not sure why I should be concerned that some of your friends would be offended by my claims (unless I am going to meet them at a party). Your friends sensibilities are not my concern. My point still stands until addressed – namely that your critique of Kester was depoliticised. Above you talk about ‘the widow and the orphan’ in humanitarian ways. The logic is something like this: ‘Real people are suffering, helping them is of prime importance, political questions are subservient’. Here you take a standard (non-Hegelian) reading of concrete and abstract (concrete being the suffering of real people, abstract being the opaque political background that they inhabit). I agree with Hegel that this understanding of concrete/abstract has got things the wrong way around (the concrete is really the opaque structural background that fuels the suffering, the abstract is the depoliticized concentration on people removed from political realities). I am a concrete thinker rather than an abstract one!
‘I can’t apologise for stating that i believe that “there is a coherent moral vision to be applied, inescapably, and we practice that moral vision in community and in our tradition’.
Don’t appologise for it… convince me! BTW I can agree with this statement if I change it slightly – ‘we must create a coherent moral vision to be applied, inescapably, and we practice that moral vision in community and in our tradition’
‘For so many academic liberal theologians as well as those in pastoral ministry, the “religionless Christianity” that was popularised in the 1960’s by John Robinson is just redundant, vacuous and didn’t work.’
I have seen this as well, but it frustrates me cause I generally don’t find reasons why. They just don’t seem to like it. Of course something is redundant in a certain way if everyone treats it that way, but as a philosopher I want to see reasons. Indeed perhaps the revitalised strength of Altizer that we are witnessing in some circles today is partly the result of an insufficiently strong critique by those who rejected him.
‘if my discourse cannot talk about good and evil, right and wrong, belief and unbelief… i will actually not be listened to and have (in their view) nothing to offer’
The issue is not about using these words but about working out what we mean by them. My point is that we must show how our beliefs about what these words mean are based upon metabeliefs that are problematic. The problem is both philosophical – these metabeliefs are taken as something that we can ground (making them inherently conservative) – and theological in the dogmatic sense – they don’t do enough to transform society in love. I am arguing that we need a teleological suspension of the Ethical in order to expose some of the problems with the way that our society is currently structured.
‘So, my persistent question remains, “where” is the unorthodox heretic/pirate located? It still seems to be located contra church’.
You obviously are not convinced by what I said concerning particularity within actuality. But you have not said why.
‘Many other people, and certainly the poor and the marginalised of this world, are looking for something rather more substantial from the church’
Again I refer to my comments on concrete and abstract. I am saying that your understanding of ‘substantive’ is ethereal. I am attacking the conservative, apolitical idea that says, ‘people are suffering, there is no time to sit around and do politics, we have to act now’. I am saying that this belies an inherent problem… if we do that we end up helping individuals but not changing structures – we change things in a way that ensures nothing really changes. Things are so bad we need to talk about real politics again. Politics with a capital ‘P’ rather than the managerial politics we see today in which ‘the end of history’ is assumed to have already taken place. Zizek makes a great point when he says that it while it is popular to ridicule Fukuyama in intellectual circles, we all seem to agree with him in practice.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:22 am
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September 24th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Hi Pete. You’ve made the Hegelian concrete/abstract thing a little clearer – thank you. I’m not convinced though – surely both real suffering AND structural backgrounds can be concrete in their own ways. And equally they can both be abstract at times. Am I missing something?
September 24th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Hey Mike
Thanks. The basic point is for Hegel is that suffering subtracted from the conditions which cause it is abstract because it abstracts the real suffering from its real cause (a cause which is opaque). It is simply that whatever suffering we are faced with we are careful that we do not divorce it from the context (and the context will vary) that creates it. So it is not that the suffering itself is abstract or concrete but rather whether we divorce it from its (political) context. Hope that helps
September 24th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I’m really appreciating this debate and have posted my thoughts on a particular aspect of yours and Kester’s thinking – the use of dual narratives – at: http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2009/09/of-orthodox-heretics-pirates.html.
I conclude that: “The reality of dual narratives in our lives and practices is, it seems to me, something that we are often fearful of admitting within the Church. Instead we often speak and act as though there is only one story, one interpretation of scripture, and one ‘pure’ motivation for our actions and practices. Brewin and Rollins are among those challenging the naivity and, sometime, hypocrises of this position and, therefore, they receive flak from those with vested interests to defend.”
September 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I’ve just ran into this blog(via Len Sweet tweet) and tried to catch up with the whole thing but still am not all that clear. I’ll try to read more to understand more. I’m a bit of a tangent reader so forgive me if this is not withing the realm of this post. After reading three of the posts(of which I’m still not sure where the debate began or who is Kestor and “the Project”) I read through the lectionary texts for this week. And a whole ball of thought has bubbled up for me. One thought is that “the emergent” conversation,(of which I’ve went to a few tasting’s of over the years) seems to have lost much of its momentum.(maybe just for me) Maybe Pete Rollins is one of the veins that is keeping the conversation going. And certainly if he is then he probably can respond to the other questions that have popped in my head after reading today’s lection. What is “Salvation” mean to a post modern Orthodox Heretic? Is “Hell” considered in a post modern conversation? How does the cordial conversations with friends while having a pint, deal with the notion of individual “sin”? That is all. Cheers!
September 24th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Umm.. Ok… But the way you’ve put it there it sounds like you’re agreeing with Richard. Although it is pretty difficult discussing Hegel at 2pt fonts on my mobile phone! You guys really need mobile browser friendly plugins on your blogs. LOL
September 24th, 2009 at 11:36 am
pete,
thanks for these reflections, and some clarity on the dialectic you are deploying. however, some comments here:
first off, in you last post you said:
“So to ‘betray our betrayal’ is to misunderstand our negation of negation (fidelity is betrayal, orthodoxy is heretical, God is the ultimate rebel, Christianity is anti-Christian) as a mere negation (betrayal, heresy, rebellion, anti-Christian) and then move back to a previous affirmation (fidelity, orthodoxy etc.).”
but to be strictly Hegelian you would have to saying something more like “fidelity is the identity of fidelity and betrayal, orthodoxy is the identity of orthodoxy and heretical, God is the identity of radical conservative and ultimate rebel…etc”. I point this out because I think they are saying different things (what you said and what Hegel would say), but if you really meant the latter then that is fine and you were writing short-hand. But if not it would help me to know the difference.
Also, your discussion of concrete and abstract sounds more Marxist that Hegelian to me. Where is the thrid term of the dialectic? depending on the translation and the location in hegel’s ‘Science’ or ‘Phenomenology’, the order is typically particular-universal-singular (or particular-universal-’concrete universal’ in which the last term is the “truth” of those before.
I bring up these more philosophical questions because there are multiple types of dialectic beyond Hegel’s, and while I see you claiming to follow Hegel (so thanks for sharing your sources), but I’m not sure the Pauline dialectics of “now/then” or “already/not-yet”.
So for me it does not good to claim that someone is non-dialectic and therefore misunderstands (as you do above several times), because I would say that I’m attuned to and affirm dialectical philosophy and theology, and therefore do understand what you are doing, but I’m still not sure I agree with it.
So the payoff for me is while I agree on the global political stage regarding Capitalism that “”the Law itself is a transgression”, I don’t also have to affirm that linguistically, psychologically, or ontologically (or rather, there could a degree to which I affirm them at one level and not another) and still be a dialectical theology who has moved beyond foundtionalism.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:43 am
perhaps I would go on to say that dialectically I affirm your project at concrete level of politics and church institutions, but then when I move to other levels of abstractness (theology, gospel, ideal church) things would dialectically flip and we might see that what we thought in earnest was most concrete was actually the most abstract and that what was most abstract was actually the basic movement of thought. In this way the Psuedo-Dionysian movement of denial sheds the falsely concrete on the way to the True.
but of course, that all sounds rather speculative…detached from the militant politics of the cross. or is it?
September 24th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Two things:
a) Geoff your critique of Pete’s rendering of Hegel about the classical way to read Hegel of identity of identity and difference might be helpful save for the fact that if Pete’s reading Hegel through Zizek then he resists exactly this presentation of Hegel’s dialectics
b) The resurgence of Altizer must be as Freud would have it the, “Return of the repressed’
September 24th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Jeremy,
No i disagree, Jeremy. Zizek’s rendering of the dialectic is “X is the identity of X and Y”. of course what he means by this is different than the older hegelians who use it as a progressing of thought toward the Absolute. Zizek on the other hand is against this panlogists understanding of Hegel where all is subsumed in the totalization of thought. For Zizek the culmination of the ‘negation of negation’ is to ‘tarry with the negative.’ In this sense, for Zizek, Hegelian dialectic works not toward a totalizing Absolute point of view but rather the admission of the non-All which persists at the center of thought. One place Zizek spells this out clearly in the essay “Ticklish Subject” in the volume by the same name (which also speaks of the relationship of concrete/abstract).
So, yes I agree that Zizek handles the dialectic differently than other Hegelians, but no I don’t think Pete (at least from these posts) is involved with Zizek’s dialectic.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Thx for the clarification
September 24th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
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September 29th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
“For so many academic liberal theologians as well as those in pastoral ministry, the “religionless Christianity” that was popularised in the 1960’s by John Robinson is just redundant, vacuous and didn’t work.”
I’ve never been to an Ikon service (or Ireland itself, for that matter) but this seems to me an unfair criticism. From reading Pete’s book, and correct me if I’m wrong, it seems to me one of the goals of Ikon is to step beyond the theological paradigms represented by the liberal Protestant Robinson on the left and his evangelical counterparts on the right. And as theologically wayward Robinson and others may have been, they are to be given credit for being on the right side of many justice and peacemaking issues.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
On another note, it strikes me that the emerging church may be as beneficial for “traditional” forms of Christianity as the Reformation was for the Catholic Church. After all, the Reformation stimulated the Counter Reformation, which gave us the eloquent testaments of St. Teresa, John of the Cross, and Montaigne.
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