Page 1 of 1 pages
—thought you might dally with this one…
Mary
Posted by Fred on Dec 23, 2003 at 5:54 PM
Religon is a very dangerous thing. isdtead of looking to the heavens for answers we should be focousing our eyes to reality. Creating divisions like heaven and hell we narrow our understanding of each other by placing each other in the belivers and non-beliver.
Posted by Denny on Dec 25, 2003 at 1:10 AM
Marxism does not need christian metaphysics; that is as absurd as Hegalian “wishful thinking.”
Dialectical materialism is as simple as it is true: the means of production controls all other structures within a society—civil or economic.
Anyone who ever doubted this reality need but look around today in the arts, to the military, to the congress and the courts to see the evidence of Marx’s insight.
The American Republic was a pre-capitalist system; but no longer. Capitalism has permeated and degraded every aspect of American life. Unless the people control capital the continuing tradegy will never end—a tragedy of oligarhic plutocrats and further impoverished masses.
Christianity is a fool’s opiate and nothing has changed—except that mass media is its step child!
Posted by richard nemo on Dec 27, 2003 at 2:44 AM
Marxism does not need christian metaphysics; that is as absurd as Hegalian “wishful thinking.”
Dialectical materialism is as simple as it is true: the means of production controls all other structures within a society—civil or economic.
Anyone who ever doubted this reality need but look around today in the arts, to the military, to the congress and the courts to see the evidence of Marx’s insight.
The American Republic was a pre-capitalist system; but no longer. Capitalism has permeated and degraded every aspect of American life. Unless the people control capital the continuing tradegy will never end—a tragedy of oligarhic plutocrats and further impoverished masses.
Christianity is a fool’s opiate and nothing has changed—except that mass media is its step child!
Posted by richard nemo on Dec 27, 2003 at 2:45 AM
Well, I haven’t read Zizek’s latest book, but I doubt he’s promoting Christianity per se, as some of the other commentators here think.
Zizek has always been a philosopher with a wide range of source material. I suggest reading the Ticklish Subject to get a handle on his main ideas, relating to agency and the Subject.
Jason…
Posted by Jason Walsh on Dec 29, 2003 at 3:47 AM
Capital is the re-incarnation of Christ. Ponder that idea, and you will see how Marx (and Zizek) misses the boat.
Posted by Luke Lea on Dec 29, 2003 at 9:26 AM
Zizek’s been looking awry at xianity since the beginning. Just look at a few of his titles: for they know not what they do, the fragile absolute, on belief…He often stops to tell Jewish jokes and to see how they are treated (especially by the Nazi’s) as the Other who have access to secret pleasures. Here, I think, he is advocating for guilty pleasures, the embrace of the bad boy who is doing what is politically incorrect in order to be transendentally correct. Zizek’s our modern Whitman: he embraces contradiction, and in this embrace he makes it difficult to follow. Unlike the gnomic utterances of Christ’s ‘follow me”, Zizek ‘s path is certain to lead to error’s den, the place where truth arises from misrecognition.
Parke
Posted by parke muth on Dec 29, 2003 at 10:55 AM
Christianity has always contained an element of Marxism- from Jesus’ advice to the rich young man to give his possessions to the poor and “follow me”, up to the early Christian community described in the Acts of the Apostles as sharing all property in common. Capitalism, on the other hand, seems to be in opposition to Jesus repeated advice to give to the poor, avoid accumulating wealth, to seek the happiness of others rather than ourselves, etc. The successful (i.e. rich) Capitalist, according to Jesus, has less chance of achieving heaven that a camel does to pass through the eye of a needle.
Posted by david ross on Dec 29, 2003 at 12:01 PM
Yes, “religion is very dangerous”. We all know how well humanists and Marxists governments have been in creating a heaven on earth.
Religion has been used by those who had power as their main objective, but this has nothing to do with the basic and fundamental message of true religion. However, Marxists governments have as their roots a disdain of mankind that more often than not ended in mass killings and brutality on unforseens scales.
Yeah, religion really is the problem. Let’s try one more shot at humanistic governments in the 21st Century, then maybe we can duplicate the last century, the most bloodiest one in history.
Keep up the utopian dreams. Just remember Moore defined Utopia as ‘nowhere’. He assumed it would be seen as the fantastic tale and critique of secular government that was so obvious. I’m sure he would be both amused and disgisted that so many of you still cling to this obnoxious belief.
Posted by RNC on Dec 29, 2003 at 12:01 PM
Jesus did indeed say that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
However, do you think Jesus looks down on wealthy capitalists like Tom Monoghan (Dominoes Pizza) who has donated almost all of his wealth to social and Christian institutions aimed at helping the needy?
Jesus was admonishing those who accumalated wealth for wealth’s sake. To twist His words in order to defend anti-capitalism is a poor attempt to assist an old and refuted ideology.
Posted by RNC on Dec 29, 2003 at 12:08 PM
The combination of politics and religious is too too volatile - look around you - and will almost certainly lead to hosts of unanticipated consequences. Secularism. A secular republic. The particular genius of the American founders was to bottle the genie, for at least a few centuries, although I would argue the cork has decayed somewhat. In attempted to achieve the country we most want to live in, religion - and particularly revealed religions like Christianity - needs to excised from the public arena. Otherwise, how do you diffenentiate yourself from, say, al-Qaeda?
Posted by Thelex on Dec 29, 2003 at 4:29 PM
So Zizek wants the passion, the commitment, the enthusiasm - the sauce without the substance. Who’d have thought the man, always so ready to wield the word “reality”, would make a case for such self-delusion, such pomo self-construction?! Dream on, Slavoj. In the long run (and how long it is!) personal passion can triumph only if there’s a profound belief in the reality of a personal victory ... a (dare I say it) ... a resurrection.
Posted by Arthur on Dec 30, 2003 at 8:56 AM
In my darker moments I feel that arrogantly secular leftists and smugly religious capitalists deserve each other. But I guess I have more sympathy for the religion-hating leftist, who at least isn’t trying to co-opt what ought always to be a thorough alternative, not only to the world of capital, but to the world of politics. After all, it’s politics that primarily wants to sort people into categories and parties; Christianity just stupidly recreates this habit in defiance of its own best insights.
I appreciate McCarraher’s analysis. For a better and sharper treatment of Marx and Jesus than I suspect you’ll get from Zizek, TRY JACQUES ELLUL!!!!
Posted by Philip Christman on Dec 30, 2003 at 12:50 PM
oh god, this is the single worst review of Zizek I’ve ever read.
“If socialists must confront the
Posted by oh_god on Dec 30, 2003 at 7:10 PM
I truly appreciate Zizek’s revisionist strategy. I feel that modern Marxists and many soft core left wing conscripts are intellectually born to die, degenerate or isolate as a consequence of the race horse syndrome. The scope of their out-dated, old-school arguments is basically too restrictive. The resulting policies and recommendations are therefore impractical and even unsound, particularly when it comes to economic policy.
Yet, this is not a crisis of Marxism per se. It is a problem of those who try to profess these ideas. To shield themselves from public humiliation many Marxists dress their opinions under the most pedestrian of radicalisms. Lack of creativity is an illness which affects liberals and conservatives alike. Nevertheless, I feel Zizek is addressing it correctly, as a critical obstacle to the progress of the Marxist philosophy.
As I understand Christian history, Jesus most basic disapproval of the leading religious institution was its intransigence and out of sync dogmatism when observing the law of the Christian god. I believe that the idea of critical devotion to the law, professed by Jesus to his followers, may be the corner stone of the relative success of Christianity. So, if it worked for Jesus, it may serve the neo-marxists purpose.
I’m not sure Zizek is the modern messiah of communism but I think he’s work will do more good than harm.
Additionally, the fact that modern Marxists are trying to revive their revolution by rebelling against the old communist church is a sign of intellectual life and this type of endeavors should always be welcomed by all.
Posted by Jose Champsaur on Dec 30, 2003 at 8:24 PM
—G. K. Chesterton was born in the 19th Century, but the lion’s share of his greatest work was in the 20th.
—I hope Zizek doesn’t lay claim to any originality in identifying the early Christians as communists. That tired old trope has been around since before the October Revolution, and it is still a lie. The scriptures say that the Christians agreed to hold all possessions in common. Emphasis on “agreed”: the scriptures do not say that they did so at gunpoint. All worldly government is backed up by force, ultimately, no matter what that government is trying to get you to do. Marxists dictatorships—for there can be no other kind of Marxist government—use force to compel behavior that can only genuinely spring from love.
—Sin, despite all our attempts to abolish or “outgrow” the idea, remains a woven-in part of the human fabric. It is no illusion! Secularists may not be able to accept that a puny little person could somehow aggrieve The Supreme Being. But it is not impossible for them to acknowledge that something answering to the name of sin is within us, poisoning our relationships, perverting our potential, and ruining lives, both individually and collectively. I recommend the book, _The Seven Deadly Sins Today_, by the late British journalist Henry Fairlie.
—I sure hope that Zizek’s treatment of Judaism isn’t as idiotic as this review makes it sound. Just this week, in that big earthquake in Iran, Israel offered to send rescue teams to the stricken city. The mullahs refused, of course, and so more people died than needed to. But that’s Judaism for you: they are willing to rescue people in a country that has sworn the jews’ extermination. A Light To The Nations, indeed. If Judaism was only a complete theory of candle-lighting and bread blessing, as someone once said, what good would it be?
—Why are there still any Marxists? Haven’t the purportedly “scientific” bits of Marxism been blown to atoms by now? Hasn’t the body count gotten high enough to make even the most dyed-in-the-hairshirt leftist wince by now? What is there now, other than a lot of arm-waving about how things should be different than they are?
Zizeks lauds the value of having something for which you are willing to risk your life? Sorry, but that is no guide to what is good or true, only to what is emotionally satisfying. It isn’t always the same thing, and as history shows, the confusion tends to produce an awful lot of mass graves.
Posted by The Sanity Inspector on Dec 31, 2003 at 12:00 AM
McCarraher discussion of Zizek is not touching upon any new ground. I don’t see how anyone can write about the subject of Christianity and Marxism and leave out philosophers like Cornel West. Nonetheless, I enjoyed he article.
Posted by Timothy Brown on Dec 31, 2003 at 12:15 PM
Hmmm… “Welcome to the paradise of the Real” indeed, Dr McCarraher. But how then does any social and/or economic critique of Christian Communisim - albeitly inclusive of the reality of God, I agree - conclude in anything other than a Christian theocracy? Does this mean Dr. McCarraher’s review is that of a socialist and a christian, and therefore an anti-democrat as well?
Posted by Gregory N. Garcia on Dec 31, 2003 at 1:18 PM
Everyone who notes that there is “some Marxism in Christianity” has their history backwards - there is some Christianity in Marxism. Remember that both Marx and Lenin studied theology in their youth. Communism was a sort of secular adaptation of a traditional Christian narrative… not consciously, but the connections are there, and that’s what Zizek likes to talk about - the legacy of Christianity persiting, however paradoxically, in Communism and other modern anti-religious movements.
And note to anyone who thinks that religion is dangerous: Stalin, Pol Pot, all the great Communist killers were atheists, it didn’t make them any kinder. Maybe it’s better to say that ideology is dangerous. Or better yet, people are dangerous, and they’ll defend their evil deeds by whatever cultural forces have shaped their minds.
Posted by Neil Uhl on Dec 31, 2003 at 1:28 PM
I know academia is the last refuge for failed ideologies. After all, that’s where any remaining Marxists still tend to lurk. What is news to me is this alleged Marxist “rediscovery” of Christianity—albeit for the futile purpose of somehow resurrecting the very failed ideology itself (Marxism). Certain vanquished ideologies and ideologues simply don’t know how to just lie down and die! Ah, for the resignation of embracing history’s dust heap gracefully!
Posted by Habib c. Malik on Jan 2, 2004 at 5:39 PM
For those interested:
A three day conference (10-12 May 2004) will be organized at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (Netherlands).
Ending Up With Religion (Again) ?
Christianity in Contemporary Political and Psychoanalytical Theory
It is well known that since the Enlightenment, religion has been one of the main targets for Western critical theory. Already the eighteenth century considered a religious ‘worldview’ as being contrary to the Enlightenment’s scientific and rational spirit. During the next two centuries, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and many other ‘masters of suspicion’ unmasked religion as an ideological weapon in the hands of the ruling political and cultural power.
Contemporary thinkers stemming directly from this tradition fully endorse this critique. Yet, it is remarkable to see that in their works religion, and in particular Christianity, has come once again to play an important role. While it remains a significant object of criticism, it is often at the same time a positive point of reference. At least, certainly among some of the most ‘leftist’ critics, there is an affirmative approach to Christianity. It is as if the interest in Christianity, including its problems and its crises, seems to help current ideology critique to deal with its own problems and crises. Is this perhaps the reason why some of the most innovative theoretical concepts of recent thought are explicitly sustained and illustrated by Christian topics? Here one can mention the importance of mysticism for Lacan, Lyotard’s fascination with Augustine and Derrida’s preoccupation with religion in works like Circonfession, Sauf le nom, Donner la mort and Foi et Savoir. Also
Posted by Dominiek Hoens on Jan 3, 2004 at 10:51 AM
Happy reading!
Posted by Debjani on Jan 4, 2004 at 7:54 AM
Seeking to see what In These Times is up to, lately, I find this representative of a sterile genre which is the opiate of intellectuals. It is a pity.
Posted by Irving Pangloss on Jan 6, 2004 at 10:32 PM
Anyone who thinks that Marxism is only alive in the ivory towers of Academia should think again. Any place where poverty, corruption and dispair are present will find an able and willing audience looking for hope. Until governments, particularly our capitalist freinds from the West, are willing to address these issues they will find themselves doing battle once again with their thought to be former foe.
Posted by Dave Darwin on Feb 1, 2004 at 6:02 AM
I haven’t read it, but this book sounds a lot like Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason… another synthesis of existentialism and Marxism that comes up with very similar results (and is about 60 years old). The anti-Semitic paranoia is a, shall we say, interesting addition in the Nitzschean tradition, however, as is Zizek’s pot shots at theologians as weak little men (which was done with, I am sure, much more humor by Ingmar Bergman in Smiles of a Summer Night…).
I suppose the book serves as an intellectual procovation, but there are some of us who have already read Sartre… so I’m not sure if Zizek is trying to be some sort of American Sartre for the new millennium, or is he’s just playing a confidence game.. having not read the book (and not planning to) I would guess the latter, but who knows? In any case, both seem like rather bad ideas.
Posted by patrick on Feb 3, 2004 at 9:14 AM
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Reader Comments
—thought you might dally with this one…
Mary
Religon is a very dangerous thing. isdtead of looking to the heavens for answers we should be focousing our eyes to reality. Creating divisions like heaven and hell we narrow our understanding of each other by placing each other in the belivers and non-beliver.
Marxism does not need christian metaphysics; that is as absurd as Hegalian “wishful thinking.”
Dialectical materialism is as simple as it is true: the means of production controls all other structures within a society—civil or economic.
Anyone who ever doubted this reality need but look around today in the arts, to the military, to the congress and the courts to see the evidence of Marx’s insight.
The American Republic was a pre-capitalist system; but no longer. Capitalism has permeated and degraded every aspect of American life. Unless the people control capital the continuing tradegy will never end—a tragedy of oligarhic plutocrats and further impoverished masses.
Christianity is a fool’s opiate and nothing has changed—except that mass media is its step child!
Marxism does not need christian metaphysics; that is as absurd as Hegalian “wishful thinking.”
Dialectical materialism is as simple as it is true: the means of production controls all other structures within a society—civil or economic.
Anyone who ever doubted this reality need but look around today in the arts, to the military, to the congress and the courts to see the evidence of Marx’s insight.
The American Republic was a pre-capitalist system; but no longer. Capitalism has permeated and degraded every aspect of American life. Unless the people control capital the continuing tradegy will never end—a tragedy of oligarhic plutocrats and further impoverished masses.
Christianity is a fool’s opiate and nothing has changed—except that mass media is its step child!
Well, I haven’t read Zizek’s latest book, but I doubt he’s promoting Christianity per se, as some of the other commentators here think.
Zizek has always been a philosopher with a wide range of source material. I suggest reading the Ticklish Subject to get a handle on his main ideas, relating to agency and the Subject.
Jason…
Capital is the re-incarnation of Christ. Ponder that idea, and you will see how Marx (and Zizek) misses the boat.
Zizek’s been looking awry at xianity since the beginning. Just look at a few of his titles: for they know not what they do, the fragile absolute, on belief…He often stops to tell Jewish jokes and to see how they are treated (especially by the Nazi’s) as the Other who have access to secret pleasures. Here, I think, he is advocating for guilty pleasures, the embrace of the bad boy who is doing what is politically incorrect in order to be transendentally correct. Zizek’s our modern Whitman: he embraces contradiction, and in this embrace he makes it difficult to follow. Unlike the gnomic utterances of Christ’s ‘follow me”, Zizek ‘s path is certain to lead to error’s den, the place where truth arises from misrecognition.
Parke
Christianity has always contained an element of Marxism- from Jesus’ advice to the rich young man to give his possessions to the poor and “follow me”, up to the early Christian community described in the Acts of the Apostles as sharing all property in common. Capitalism, on the other hand, seems to be in opposition to Jesus repeated advice to give to the poor, avoid accumulating wealth, to seek the happiness of others rather than ourselves, etc. The successful (i.e. rich) Capitalist, according to Jesus, has less chance of achieving heaven that a camel does to pass through the eye of a needle.
Yes, “religion is very dangerous”. We all know how well humanists and Marxists governments have been in creating a heaven on earth.
Religion has been used by those who had power as their main objective, but this has nothing to do with the basic and fundamental message of true religion. However, Marxists governments have as their roots a disdain of mankind that more often than not ended in mass killings and brutality on unforseens scales.
Yeah, religion really is the problem. Let’s try one more shot at humanistic governments in the 21st Century, then maybe we can duplicate the last century, the most bloodiest one in history.
Keep up the utopian dreams. Just remember Moore defined Utopia as ‘nowhere’. He assumed it would be seen as the fantastic tale and critique of secular government that was so obvious. I’m sure he would be both amused and disgisted that so many of you still cling to this obnoxious belief.
Jesus did indeed say that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
However, do you think Jesus looks down on wealthy capitalists like Tom Monoghan (Dominoes Pizza) who has donated almost all of his wealth to social and Christian institutions aimed at helping the needy?
Jesus was admonishing those who accumalated wealth for wealth’s sake. To twist His words in order to defend anti-capitalism is a poor attempt to assist an old and refuted ideology.
The combination of politics and religious is too too volatile - look around you - and will almost certainly lead to hosts of unanticipated consequences. Secularism. A secular republic. The particular genius of the American founders was to bottle the genie, for at least a few centuries, although I would argue the cork has decayed somewhat. In attempted to achieve the country we most want to live in, religion - and particularly revealed religions like Christianity - needs to excised from the public arena. Otherwise, how do you diffenentiate yourself from, say, al-Qaeda?
So Zizek wants the passion, the commitment, the enthusiasm - the sauce without the substance. Who’d have thought the man, always so ready to wield the word “reality”, would make a case for such self-delusion, such pomo self-construction?! Dream on, Slavoj. In the long run (and how long it is!) personal passion can triumph only if there’s a profound belief in the reality of a personal victory ... a (dare I say it) ... a resurrection.
In my darker moments I feel that arrogantly secular leftists and smugly religious capitalists deserve each other. But I guess I have more sympathy for the religion-hating leftist, who at least isn’t trying to co-opt what ought always to be a thorough alternative, not only to the world of capital, but to the world of politics. After all, it’s politics that primarily wants to sort people into categories and parties; Christianity just stupidly recreates this habit in defiance of its own best insights.
I appreciate McCarraher’s analysis. For a better and sharper treatment of Marx and Jesus than I suspect you’ll get from Zizek, TRY JACQUES ELLUL!!!!
oh god, this is the single worst review of Zizek I’ve ever read.
“If socialists must confront the
I truly appreciate Zizek’s revisionist strategy. I feel that modern Marxists and many soft core left wing conscripts are intellectually born to die, degenerate or isolate as a consequence of the race horse syndrome. The scope of their out-dated, old-school arguments is basically too restrictive. The resulting policies and recommendations are therefore impractical and even unsound, particularly when it comes to economic policy.
Yet, this is not a crisis of Marxism per se. It is a problem of those who try to profess these ideas. To shield themselves from public humiliation many Marxists dress their opinions under the most pedestrian of radicalisms. Lack of creativity is an illness which affects liberals and conservatives alike. Nevertheless, I feel Zizek is addressing it correctly, as a critical obstacle to the progress of the Marxist philosophy.
As I understand Christian history, Jesus most basic disapproval of the leading religious institution was its intransigence and out of sync dogmatism when observing the law of the Christian god. I believe that the idea of critical devotion to the law, professed by Jesus to his followers, may be the corner stone of the relative success of Christianity. So, if it worked for Jesus, it may serve the neo-marxists purpose.
I’m not sure Zizek is the modern messiah of communism but I think he’s work will do more good than harm.
Additionally, the fact that modern Marxists are trying to revive their revolution by rebelling against the old communist church is a sign of intellectual life and this type of endeavors should always be welcomed by all.
—G. K. Chesterton was born in the 19th Century, but the lion’s share of his greatest work was in the 20th.
—I hope Zizek doesn’t lay claim to any originality in identifying the early Christians as communists. That tired old trope has been around since before the October Revolution, and it is still a lie. The scriptures say that the Christians agreed to hold all possessions in common. Emphasis on “agreed”: the scriptures do not say that they did so at gunpoint. All worldly government is backed up by force, ultimately, no matter what that government is trying to get you to do. Marxists dictatorships—for there can be no other kind of Marxist government—use force to compel behavior that can only genuinely spring from love.
—Sin, despite all our attempts to abolish or “outgrow” the idea, remains a woven-in part of the human fabric. It is no illusion! Secularists may not be able to accept that a puny little person could somehow aggrieve The Supreme Being. But it is not impossible for them to acknowledge that something answering to the name of sin is within us, poisoning our relationships, perverting our potential, and ruining lives, both individually and collectively. I recommend the book, _The Seven Deadly Sins Today_, by the late British journalist Henry Fairlie.
—I sure hope that Zizek’s treatment of Judaism isn’t as idiotic as this review makes it sound. Just this week, in that big earthquake in Iran, Israel offered to send rescue teams to the stricken city. The mullahs refused, of course, and so more people died than needed to. But that’s Judaism for you: they are willing to rescue people in a country that has sworn the jews’ extermination. A Light To The Nations, indeed. If Judaism was only a complete theory of candle-lighting and bread blessing, as someone once said, what good would it be?
—Why are there still any Marxists? Haven’t the purportedly “scientific” bits of Marxism been blown to atoms by now? Hasn’t the body count gotten high enough to make even the most dyed-in-the-hairshirt leftist wince by now? What is there now, other than a lot of arm-waving about how things should be different than they are?
Zizeks lauds the value of having something for which you are willing to risk your life? Sorry, but that is no guide to what is good or true, only to what is emotionally satisfying. It isn’t always the same thing, and as history shows, the confusion tends to produce an awful lot of mass graves.
McCarraher discussion of Zizek is not touching upon any new ground. I don’t see how anyone can write about the subject of Christianity and Marxism and leave out philosophers like Cornel West. Nonetheless, I enjoyed he article.
Hmmm… “Welcome to the paradise of the Real” indeed, Dr McCarraher. But how then does any social and/or economic critique of Christian Communisim - albeitly inclusive of the reality of God, I agree - conclude in anything other than a Christian theocracy? Does this mean Dr. McCarraher’s review is that of a socialist and a christian, and therefore an anti-democrat as well?
Everyone who notes that there is “some Marxism in Christianity” has their history backwards - there is some Christianity in Marxism. Remember that both Marx and Lenin studied theology in their youth. Communism was a sort of secular adaptation of a traditional Christian narrative… not consciously, but the connections are there, and that’s what Zizek likes to talk about - the legacy of Christianity persiting, however paradoxically, in Communism and other modern anti-religious movements.
And note to anyone who thinks that religion is dangerous: Stalin, Pol Pot, all the great Communist killers were atheists, it didn’t make them any kinder. Maybe it’s better to say that ideology is dangerous. Or better yet, people are dangerous, and they’ll defend their evil deeds by whatever cultural forces have shaped their minds.
I know academia is the last refuge for failed ideologies. After all, that’s where any remaining Marxists still tend to lurk. What is news to me is this alleged Marxist “rediscovery” of Christianity—albeit for the futile purpose of somehow resurrecting the very failed ideology itself (Marxism). Certain vanquished ideologies and ideologues simply don’t know how to just lie down and die! Ah, for the resignation of embracing history’s dust heap gracefully!
For those interested:
A three day conference (10-12 May 2004) will be organized at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (Netherlands).
Ending Up With Religion (Again) ?
Christianity in Contemporary Political and Psychoanalytical Theory
It is well known that since the Enlightenment, religion has been one of the main targets for Western critical theory. Already the eighteenth century considered a religious ‘worldview’ as being contrary to the Enlightenment’s scientific and rational spirit. During the next two centuries, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and many other ‘masters of suspicion’ unmasked religion as an ideological weapon in the hands of the ruling political and cultural power.
Contemporary thinkers stemming directly from this tradition fully endorse this critique. Yet, it is remarkable to see that in their works religion, and in particular Christianity, has come once again to play an important role. While it remains a significant object of criticism, it is often at the same time a positive point of reference. At least, certainly among some of the most ‘leftist’ critics, there is an affirmative approach to Christianity. It is as if the interest in Christianity, including its problems and its crises, seems to help current ideology critique to deal with its own problems and crises. Is this perhaps the reason why some of the most innovative theoretical concepts of recent thought are explicitly sustained and illustrated by Christian topics? Here one can mention the importance of mysticism for Lacan, Lyotard’s fascination with Augustine and Derrida’s preoccupation with religion in works like Circonfession, Sauf le nom, Donner la mort and Foi et Savoir. Also
Happy reading!
Seeking to see what In These Times is up to, lately, I find this representative of a sterile genre which is the opiate of intellectuals. It is a pity.
Anyone who thinks that Marxism is only alive in the ivory towers of Academia should think again. Any place where poverty, corruption and dispair are present will find an able and willing audience looking for hope. Until governments, particularly our capitalist freinds from the West, are willing to address these issues they will find themselves doing battle once again with their thought to be former foe.
I haven’t read it, but this book sounds a lot like Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason… another synthesis of existentialism and Marxism that comes up with very similar results (and is about 60 years old). The anti-Semitic paranoia is a, shall we say, interesting addition in the Nitzschean tradition, however, as is Zizek’s pot shots at theologians as weak little men (which was done with, I am sure, much more humor by Ingmar Bergman in Smiles of a Summer Night…).
I suppose the book serves as an intellectual procovation, but there are some of us who have already read Sartre… so I’m not sure if Zizek is trying to be some sort of American Sartre for the new millennium, or is he’s just playing a confidence game.. having not read the book (and not planning to) I would guess the latter, but who knows? In any case, both seem like rather bad ideas.
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