new feed

if any of you care. I've got a new feed by feedburner.

Escape from the ‘Now’, or Return turn to the Present? toward an answer (pt. 2)

I would say that philosophically and cultural/pastorally our problem is not our abandonment to the present, but rather the inability to receive the ‘present’ time.

on answering the philosophical objections to the present (if that can be done): as I mentioned in the comments the either/or the modern/postmodern discussion seems to be a univocal present which guarantees ‘presence’ of ideas and universal accessibility. While under the aegis of progress (moving forward), we really end up with the end of history, and the eternal now of philosophical or political thought.

Against this is an equivocal casting of our anchors into the past (for Levinas) or the future (for Derrida). But these anchors never reach the bottom (nothing determinate) and therefore we are still lost in the see of time, confronted with the Other that faces us, but we can never bring into our present (time) or presence (space). [In light of this I could add two things: 1) much of American pragmatist conceptions of truth and its political relations are similar. and 2) much of currently theological eschatology adopts the above positions, separating the future Kingdom of Christ from the present Church/Body of Christ.]

So against the univocal and equivocal, I would insert the analogical via the time of incarnation. The time of the ‘already-not yet’; the time which splits time in the middle (of the incarnation/crucifiction/resurrection) awaiting it culmination in the future. But his eschatology is not totally separate from the present (working toward the Kingdom, but without claiming too much [Reformed and Pragmatist conceptions do this], but the bears upon the present and we work to participate/create/appropriate the future right now.

And of course I would say that this shift from retreat to the past/future to fully engaging the present, is correlative to shifting from the ethical (what can we do/say) to the political (what must to do/say).

so, concerning the cultural ‘now’ of capitalist modernity: well, I don’t think there is more for me to add then I did in my response to Jason, so I’ll leave it hear for now.

---
disclaimer: yes I know i've oversimplified Levinas and Derriad. It is much more sutble than this. But hey, this is a blog not a term paper. And while all for rigorous thought, there is also the time to step back and argue the big picture.

Escape from the Now, or Return turn to the Present (pt 1)

what is the situation of the 'present', or the 'now', in the current philosophical and cultural perspective?

philosophically:
The ethics of the Other, recourse to the Past/Future, are all attempts to escape a totalitarian conception of rationality and correlated politics. With Levinas’ turn toward a forgotten past where ethics preceeded ontology, and Derrida’s endless deferral to the future, the present time was vacated as a means to guarding against the ‘presence’ of modernity, the immediacy of Enlightenment rationality, and it politics of certainty. Is the future really what we should be longing for? A ‘messianism without messiah’ for Derriada? A future without determinate content, b/c otherwise it would be rendered 'present.'

but I ask, might we instead return to the present? Not to demand, control, or institute the ‘presence’ of some idea, but to be present to receive the gift of the present.

culturally:
This perspective seems to also accord with recent articulations of the social/cultural milieu of forgetting the historical (past) and lacking utopian dreams (future) [see Jason Clark and my response]. Because of this there is the contemporary desire to remember and hope for the future (See Fredrick Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future [which i want to read, and would fit with SciFi Fridays]).

So, again, should the goal of contemporary philosophy and pastoral cultural critique be to get us out of the present, the keeper of presence (philosophically), or escape the Now of consumer capitalism (culturally)?

I say No! I think the situation is exactly opposite.
But I’m not telling why ‘til later.

What do you think?

been working

Well I've been working a bunch for church and at the 'bucks. But I did manage to finish The Worthing Saga. I'll post my reflections for SciFi Friday.

Very thoughful posts on Senator Obama and that lack of the Christian Left from Jamie Smith (Barack Obama: Another Reason to Leave the Christian Left) with expansion by Eric Lee ( Modernity attempts to subvert Christianity's particularity).

Also, I'm working through Lacan again. I love it. I'm working throug Book I of his seminars: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book I : Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954

And I'm reformatting a bit of the format here, trying to make categories and update my reading list.

i'll try to post profound thoughts soon.

detecting prejudice in the brain

I've been in a discussion with Kester Brewin over at Complext Christ concerning the relationships of gift, market, and plunder economies.

And then I came over this this morning. Very disturbing: "Dehumanizing the Lowest of the Low: Neuro-imaging responses to Extreme Outgroups".

If you believe someone is not human, they even your brian acts as if they are not human!

the presence of the present

“Contemplation means ‘being’ with God within the reality of the present moment”

“We don’t know how to be with your kids
We don’t know how to be with ourselves.
We don’t know how to be with God.” (from CYM)

Especially with the advent of Information Technologies, we never know when or where we are. This goes back to the question before concerning if we are trapped in the ‘NOW’ of an endless present (because we have forgotten the past and no longer hope for the future), or rather are we kept from ever entering the present.

As I’m working though thoughts on spiritual direction, youth mentoring, and a general youth ministry here at LOV, I’m leaning more and more toward thinking that our biggest problem is that we don’t know how to be present with people…we don’t know how to just sit with someone and be there fore them. Rather we are off in the future dealing with the next project or problem, or we are thinking of the past with regret or nostalgia. Or while physically present, we are mentally across the world or neighborhood thinking about different places/people. We are rarely present, even to ourselves.

SciFi and the Body

So I’m about to start reading something that intersects with something I just read. Riding in the back of a friends car, I saw a book by Orson Scott Card, and asked about it. He said it was better than Ender’s Game (which is hard to believe), so I borrowed it, The Worthington Saga. The premise is that a drug called Somec drastically increased people’s life span, but only for those who can afford it, creating two societies: the who live long and those who live short.

Now sometimes it is reality that imitates fiction, but a book was just released and reviewed over at New Left Review. In it the author, Herve Jurin, describes the new movement toward the ‘body’ in capitalism. This is not the old biopolitical refine that our bodies are the symbolic territory fought over by different ideologies (a la Foucault and many feminists theorist…who of course are on to something there). Jurin is not talking about what the ‘body’ means in different contexts (manufacturing meaning of ‘body’), but the actual manufacturing and disposal of bodies through alternative birth strategies and end of life options.

“In between entry [birth] and exit [death], meanwhile, the body-shops of maintenance, repair, transformation and perfection are proliferating, as expenditures on dietetics, health care, cosmetic surgery, embellishment soar…announc[ing] a time when the human body has started to pre-empt all other measures of value in the West, separating the experience of contemporary generations from that of all predecessors, and the rest of the world."

This is the human body turned into property to enhance value, and ultimately to extend life, separating the need for regeneration (or procreation as the old term goes). Jurin argues that capitalist industry will in fact move dramatically toward the maintenance of the human body as its priniciple industry, away from information technologies.

Pretty scary thoughts. Anyway, check out the review, and I’ll start in on the Worthington Saga and see what it is all about.

Who knows, maybe I’ll try to revive Science Fiction Fridays.

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 2)

(continued from yesterday)

new war

This new, and I am persuaded more important, battle lines are being drawn within the ranks of those who have already dismissed the modern project. These postmodern pragmatists, instead of rejecting truth and objectivity (which is the inversion of the modern project), argue that Truth is in the Objectivity. Or rather, Objectivity is Truth. These pragmatists do not want to jettison Truth or Objectivity, but to retain both via modification. Pragmatists, like modernists, desire to retain the link between objectivity and truth, keeping a robust account of the objectivity as social norms and practices, and expounding a minimalist form of the truth. So, unlike the modernists who understand objectivity as something like universal access to all rational observers, pragmatists argue that objectivity is situated not in individual, rational subjects, but is found in the rationality of social practices and those properly trained into them. And, unlike a modern theory of Truth which claims the complete correspondence of statements and objects, usually assuming a type of metaphysical supplement, pragmatists argue for Truth as a partial, provisional, and falliblist part of our everyday practices which is non-relative (not subjectively constituted) and non-metaphysical.

Now of course, this account of Truth is not very different than other postmodern versions of contextuality and interpretation. But the firm linkage of this Truth with a social understanding of Objectivity becomes the new war over words. This old linkage with revised concepts, while at the same time attempting to under gird rational discourse within democratic society, becomes the new area of exclusion for authentic theological discourse.

For it seems to me that this new war is that between Truth as Objective and Truth as Subjective. In a good old reform adage, we cannot come to know the Truth unless we have been converted/changed/redeemed, and this entails a Subjective transformation; a transformation by the Truth. The Truth makes us, not the other way around. We practice the Truth (subjectively), we do not observe it (objectively).

stakes

If we accept, or fail to understand, this new movement of philosophical/political theory, within the various postfoundational discourses, we will again fail to articulate a truly Christian vision of the present/future, and mistakenly underwrite the “violence inherent within the system.” To link Truth with the Objectivity of social practices, again block the New Revelation of God in all historical situations, it again binds us to the imminence of this world.

So instead we should assert that Truth is out there, but it is not Objective. Truth is embattled, fragile, and hard to find, it is not Objective as a rule to be followed, but rather written on our hearts as a gentle wisdom.

Philosophy and Critical Theory

Philosophy, Politics, and Critical Theory

Philosophy

"If the Lord is Risen, why can't we see Him?"

Badiou: Event, Truth, Subject

Badiou on Heideggar on Truth

Badiou on Truth and the (re)turn of Philosophy

Theology's Conversation Partners: Continental, Analytic, or Beyond?

Ricoeur on Levinas: “Self” between the “I” and its overthrow

Levinas' Infinite Trauma

Levinas on Levinas

Zizek on Levinas: Smashing the Neighbors Face

Universalism, Truth, and St. Paul: interview w/ Badiou

Ethics of the Other? Badiou on Levinas

Escape from the ‘Now’, or Return turn to the Present? toward an answer (pt. 2)

Escape from the Now, or Return turn to the Present (pt 1)

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 2)

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 1)

With Friends like Rorty, who needs Enemies.

Reviews of "Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Realism, not Empiricism

Multitude, People, or...

Critical Theory

Political priests and Sectarian Theologians: is the shrine empty? (3)

“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse. (2)

Emerging Church as “Empty Signifier”: Labels don’t fit because the container is Empty (1)

Politics

Advent Explorations

Third Party- christians and politics

“It’s not about racism, it’s about law and order.”

christians and the political

Emerging Church

Post on the Emerging Church

“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse. (2)

Emerging Church as “Empty Signifier”: Labels don’t fit because the container is Empty (1)

Culmination-Culture, not Counter: of temporal refugees

Lines of convergence: global-urban-postmodern

Science Fiction Fridays

Series on Science Fiction, Ideology, and Theological Hermeutics

Science Fiction Fridays: Weekly Series

Science Fiction Fridays: C.S. Lewis on SciFi

Why Star Trek is liberal ideology.

SciFi and the Body

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 1)

Objectivity and Truth: the new war

(please forgive my militarist tone: i was sitting in the hot sun on vacationwhen I wrote this: although i’m uncertain about the correlation).

below i present the new linking of ‘objectivity’ and ‘truth’ which pragmatist develop against foundationalist. But I think this new link is bad, and that truth is not objective. (see also a good discussion from a while back at generousorthodoxy)

old war

The collusion of objectivity and truth has been under fire for several years now, especially among evangelical Christians. Usually the warring parties gather under the banner of ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’. (I could site parties but I’m not going to bother.)

The conservatives (or modernists) argue (or merely assume) that Truth is only assured by Objectivity. If something is not objectively true, then it is not true. Truth is not subjective after all, for that would be merely whim or opinion. They generally disparage the enemy by claiming their opponents have given up on Truth all together and have embraced relativism, or at least agnosticism.

The liberal (postmodernist) responds by saying that they certainly have not given up on Truth, but they realize that Truth is very hard to get at, that there is never merely an Objective point of view, and that instead of Objectivity we must realize our embeddedness in particular stories, local contexts, and idiosyncratic interpretations, all of which do not bar the Truth, but open up the Truth is different ways.

Now concerning this war, it is somewhat old news, and while the battles rage, I do not think that those articulating the postmodern (or premodern depending on your view) perspective should continue fight this battle, when a more pressing conflict is brewing, drawing new battle lines.

Well, I'll tell you tomorrow or Monday.
But what do you think is the most pressing issue after ?
Have I majorly misconstrude the issues?

on Jason Clark's "why we live in the now"

Jason Clark has this great post I just came across, on “The past of the Future: Why we live in the now." Following something he read he argues that we are trapped in the ever present ‘now’, totally losing any sense of past or future.

below is my response looking at it from the angle of ‘desire’ instead of ‘information.’

----

jason,

on the level of ‘information’ I totally agree with you. But on the level of ‘desire’ I think it is totally opposite.

Because of capitalism’s endless need for new desires, creating new opportunities for consumption, we are always forced into the future where we hope to find satisfaction–but it never comes, it is always in the future. and conversely, we are trapped into a pastward gaze of regret b/c of all the failed attempts at satisfaction–this is called ‘buyers remorse’ for a reason.

The problem I see facing the church in Theocapitalism, is how to regain the present, a present totally full of gratetude and thanksgiving, living contently. Then the past will be redeemed and the future fulfilled.

We live in a fantasy of a future (my next sexual encounter, getting a raise, buying a car that will symbolize my status) that we never embrace the present. Also, our culture is fixiated on the 'new and improved' and everything 'faster/better' that we live discontent with the present, looking toward the future.

But of course this is an individualized future (of personal desire), not a social future of uptopian dreams.

So it is a bit of both: concerning information and concrete planning, our culture is trapped in the "now"; concerning our desire (which inform our consumption) we are trapped in a future of false hope and a past of regret.

But I would say, pastorally, our concern is to help people live into the present full of contentment (not letting the future rule them) and without guilt or regret (not letting the past rule them). But we also, along the information level, need to teach church history especially (past), and a proper doctrine of eschatology (future).

anyway, those are my thoughts on the topic.

---

What do you think our problem is? Are we stuck in the 'Now', or stuck in the 'Future' never able to embrace the present?

Warning Label for the Bible

Go over to Dan Kimball's blog for a warning label for the Bible. It is all too true.

“It’s not about racism, it’s about law and order.”

“It’s not about racism, it’s about law and order.”…a response to the immigration marches I read last month.

Now of course the true debate around ‘illegal immigrants’ are neither that they are immigrants (concerning racism) nor that they are illegal (law and order). What this is all about really concern economics, not law or ethnicity.

but now someone has gotten it all right, but so wrong:

“The rich, they’re totally oblivious to this situation—what the illegal immigration, the illegal housing, the day labor is doing to us [‘us’ being legal middle class citizens trying to exist]…Everyone’s exploiting these people [immigrants]—landlords, the contractors. And now we [middle class Americans] can’t afford to pay taxes. People like me who want to live the suburban dream, we’re being pushed out unless we join the illegality.” (NYTime Frontpage story)

Yet the speaker of these words, while properly diagnosing the problem as economically driven big business exploitation on both sides of the border, thinks the solution, the way to save these immigrants is to throw them out. He is trying to only buy from American owned, larger chain businesses who he thinks only employs legal workers. But could it be that the very American Dream of the middle class is producing its own nightmare lived out before them, exploited laborer who they think are ruining their lives.

What we really need to do is join the illegality of the situation, join with and support the illegal immigrants against the exploitation in general, rather than merely undergirding American exploitation against legal workers. By joining the illegality, I don’t mean going and breaking the law, but standing against what ‘law and order’ is meant to protect, the economic status quo.

-soon i’ll relate this to ‘workers rights’ movements and ‘civil rights’ movements and how they are being played off each other in relation to 'illegal immigrants.'

I was gone; now i'm back

So I've been gone for the last 2 weeks. Roughly on vacation. Two weeks ago I was in MN with a bunch of other emerging church people. fun times. and last week I was with only my family. Great time.

I did some reading and some writing and some brainstorming so hopefully I'll have some time to sit down and work out what I've been thinking.

But alas, now I've got to get out from under all these emails in my inbox.

Political priests and Sectarian Theologians: is the shrine empty?

(continuing on...)

It goes like this: The priests of the ‘empty shrine’ (like Stout and Laclau) see a religious community making substantive (and theological) claims about itself and politics in general. To the priests this is an attempt at creating a particularist identity without reference to the larger context (the secularizing context), and therefore sectarian. The theologians counter that they are indeed making reference to the context, and that they are even trying to change the context. But the priests reply that the theologians are closing down discussion (rather than opening it up) because they are attempting to fill the ‘empty shrine’ with their particular god. But by definition the shrine must remain empty, otherwise political disagreement will revert back to sectarian violence. So the priest remind the theologian, either enter politic by acknowledging the ‘empty shrine’, or continue in your sectarian complacency and complaining.

It seems some in the EC are opting to endorse the ‘empty shrine’ approach of modern democracy, seeing no alternative in their compulsion (which is good) to bring their faith out the private realm into the public, this is their equating the 'empty signifier' with the 'empty shrine'.

But might what we think is 'empty' is really a cover for both the invisible idols of nationalism and capitalism?

“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse.

Here is my question, of which I do not have answers, just a feeling.

“If the EC has assended to the function of ‘empty signifier’, does that mean it needs to support the politics of the ‘empty shrine’?”

My feeling and hope is to answer, NO. But some (perhaps many) in the EC answer, YES.

Let me explain:

The logic of the “empty signifier” seems to give a good understanding of the emerging church and its self-understanding as a ‘conversation’ and in its perpetual mis-understanding by everyone else.

But this logic applied to politics by Ernesto Laclau [in Emancipation(s)] leads straight toward a politics of the “empty shrine” (where there is no “common good”, no common vision for society, and no telos...only the competition of ideas without any gods underwriting it all). The problem is that this vision of politics (which is Liberalism) assumes conflict and violence as the norm, assumes scarcity and loss, and usually disregards substantive theological claims/practices.

So might not the EC enter into a differential relationship not only with those in modern theological/political context, calling that context into question and thereby moving along in the logical of the ‘empty shrine’, but also question the context of antagonistic politics altogether? But to do this looks like a return to sectarian communities with ontological assurances which cannot be allowed into democratic discourse.

What say you?

(next..."political priests and sectarian theologians: is the shrine empty?")

...pithy saying on politics…

We the Church must develop more self-confidence, not assuming ourselves merely one soul among many hoping to be infused into the Frankensteinian body of the State. We already have a body, a flesh in which we are living. We are the public Body of Christ, and as such we must continue to proclaim to the world, "This is my body, given for you."

next, the 'empty signigier (of EC) vs. empty shrine (of Politics)'

Emerging Church as “Empty Signifier”: Labels don’t fit because the container is Empty

Claim

The Emerging Church has always been called a conversation, and it is generally always misunderstood by those trying to define it? Why a conversation? And why such misunderstanding? (See the recent call not to have a statement of faith, the reminder of EC as conversation, and a friendly diagnosis of potential pitfalls [see especially Peter Rollins comment], all revealing the perplexing nature of the EC)

I suggest that the Emerging Church (conversation) is in the position of the ‘empty signifier’ which enables discursive transformations. The Emerging Church is an ‘empty signifier’ gathering together all the different protest directed at the modern church (both liberal and conservative) and it relationship with culture and politics. It is so difficult to define the EC because it in general is situated in a negative (empty) relationship with many different discourses (the discourse of conservative evangelicalism; mainline Protestantism, Religious Right, etc.). The EC is a signifier for something that does not yet exist (empty signifier); or rather, it designates something which all the other discourses can not yet talk about. Yet over time, the EC with change the discursive system enough (created alternative differentiations) that a definition will emerge.

(This understanding also helps to make sense of disagreements within the EC concerning allegations of ‘liberal’ theological hangovers, and ‘sectarian’ political engagement. This is occurring not so much because the is rampant liberalism or sectarianism with the EC, but because our discursive systems are transforming in relations to different primary oppositions.)

Questions: Why do you think it is so important that this is all a conversation, and that its so misunderstood?

Explanation

Let me explain: (these thoughts brought to you be Ernesto Laclua’s “Why do Empty Signifiers Matter to Politics?” in Emancipation(s).)

A discursive system (or conversation/language/language game) is constituted by oppositional differences, situating various relationships. Each element sets itself off as different than another element (class, race/ethnicity, political affiliation,) by means of certain markers (class= clothing, cars, houses; race/ethnicity= color of skin, traditional cultures, languages; politics= big/little government, welfare, Republican/Democrats). But these of course are not necessary relationship of differentiation, but merely contingent, and the discursive system is never able to fully close (totalize) or account for itself. And to this largely structuralist account, post-structuralists, of which Laclua is a part, notes that is always slippage and protest within a discursive system.

So, how do you question a discursive system? How do conversations change? Well different people and communities begin questioning the necessity of particular differentiations among various discourses (from questioning if there is any real difference between Democracts and Republicans; between theological conservatives and liberals; between American Empire and the EU). These particular struggles begin concretely as a differentiation from a certain element (theology= post-liberals and post-conserative from liberal/conservative; politics= the green or independent party from Democrat/Republican), but also function thereby to question the entire system (a leaving of modern theology in its liberal or conservative guises; leaving partisan politics).

Questioning the system always has this dual nature: both a particular struggle within the system, but also representing the universal struggle against the system. This move from particular embattlement to universal critique reveals the place of the ‘empty signifier’, reveals it as the rallying points for various different struggles. The signifier is empty because it is not fully identified with a particular struggle (a particular sign) but is freely floating between, or unifying, many struggles.

This I propose is how the EC is functioning with ecclesiastic systems (mainline and evangelical), disrupting the discursive coherence and creating an opportunity to ask different question, occupy different spaces, and arrange different relationships. All of this makes it exceedingly difficult to label, pin-down, or box in the EC. And even within the EC, I would say that Radical Orthodoxy, American Pragmatism, and the Duke School all function is a similar way as an ‘empty signifier’ transforming current discourses.

Again: Why do you think it is so important that this is all a conversation, and that its so misunderstood?

…Next up…“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse.