Sub Ratione Dei

The Monocultural Myth

Review of Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, Penguin, (2006). ISBN: 0713999381.

Amartya Sen is well known as a economist and political theorist and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 1998. In this book Sen tackles the idea of identity and its link to violent conflict. Beginning on a more distinctly geopolitical level Sen discusses the potency of the clash of civilizations mode of thinking both on the more academic level (eg. Samuel Huntington) and on its more widespread appeal. The core of Sen's criticism is that such approach commit the reality of the practice of identity in the modern world is more complex than the monoculturalism the clash of civilizational paradigm assumes. While it is true that the world may be split into some major identity groups (Western, Islamic, etc) the ascription of singular identity for the millions of individuals that ascribe to these groups is naive. It is from this criticism that Sen derives his subtitle "The Illusion of Destiny", Sen convincingly argues that people cannot be boxed into a particular identity group, Muslim for example, and in doing so there beliefs about a particular issue (western decadence for example). Hence Sen writes:

In our normal lives we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups - we belong to all of them. The same person can be, without any contradiction, an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, [etc] Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person's only identity or singular membership category. Given our inescapably plural identities, we have to decide on the relative importance of our different associations and affiliations in any particular context (p. xii-xiii).

We acknowledge this on a local level; therefore, why do we believe that on an international level these plural identities are not operative. Sen argues with reference to India how they do. It is clear he argues that the claims of a Muslim civilization are nonsense. Moreover, this idea of ideologically separate civilizations does not cohere with the known facts of history; there has always been global development and many of the so-called western developments (freedom, democracy, separation of Church and State) have not only been present elsewhere but have served as the impetus for their development in the West. Thus far the criticism Sen offers is fairly standard; Sen however makes an interesting development in his argument against monocultural mindset that is the foundation for the clash of civilizations. This error of ascribing singular affiliations to cultural groups is also present in those who praise other group's true essence. To take Islam as an example. Sen notes that one of the first responses to the rise in islamophobia was a rise in the "true Islam is a religion of peace" rhetoric. Sen notes that this, like the clash of civilizational approach, fails in asserting a singular attribute to a cultural affiliation that is in reality far from homogeneous. What makes Sen's argument more interesting is his later argument against what he labels plural monoculturalism. In a readable survey of the problems of multiculturalism. Whilst a discussion of tolerance and diversity is sadly kept on the periphery Sen does raise the issue that often plaques multicultural theory, that of group rights versus individual freedom. Plural monoculturalism is the theory that modern life (I was going to use the word society but for the plural monoculturalist there is no such thing) is made of of numerous cultures exist alongside but distinct and separate and sealed off from all other monocultures. There is no real interchange or dialogue, an intermutual sharing of life and learning. Instead one is left misunderstanding and a denial of that most precious right, the freedom of self-definition. Multiculturalism requires and appreciation and indeed valueing of diversity; monoculturalism can live in oblivion to it. While Sen largely dismisses multiculturalism (something I do not) his discussion is a useful criticism of some popular misconceptions of the multicultural approach. 

The Divine Farce, Or, On Not Finding God in Holes ** Contains Spoilers **

Michael S A Graziano, The Divine Farce, Leapfrog Press, 2009.

It is I think telling that Graziano's The Divine Farce features within its pages a multitude, and quite possibly an infinitude of bodies that eat, drink, and copulate with Sage (the novel's narrator) there are only three actual characters and even here the name's are Sage's own inventions.

I don't generally "get" fiction, this book being the first novel I have read in at least a year. In spite of this I did find this short book (only 125 pages) immensely compelling. Of the reviews I have read most seem to read this book as an allegory the human condition, and I am sure they're right. However, and I suspect this interpretation is a consequence of my own neuroses, I could not help but find in the text an allegory of the humanity's metaphysical search, it's search for the grand arche that, once discovered, makes the seemingly complex clear. While notions of deity are only implied the reference to the divine in the title seems to point in this direction. But before interpreting the text let me introduce it.

The novel opens with three people ensconced in a concrete cell, not enough room to stand or sit but instead three tangled bodies lumped together for time immemorial and, quite possibly, for eternity. A prison, with no knowledge of what preceded the incarceration, a living hell for no discernible reason. The only sustenance being a pear nectar that ran down the cell walls. Existence, to the extent that there was any existence, was hopeless - the narrator, Sage, opines:

We should have been grateful for the nectar, but it didn't succeed in mollifying us. We stamped, we shouted, we pounded on the walls. Of course we did. We felt sick with panic. We shook with rage. We sobbed. But none of it helped. If I hit the wall, slamming it with the soft part of my palm, lunging at it with my shoulder, I accomplished nothing more than a wet slapping sound, a dull ache, and a bruise that I could feel afterward for a while. None of us could hear any indication of a hollow space behind the wall. its solidity was so absolute that I lost the ability to imagine emptiness outside the microcosm. In my mind the the universe was filled up infinitely with concrete, and at its center was one tiny bubble in which our randomly assorted souls had been entombed (p. 9-10).

What is interesting about the text is that for all the anger and futility quite soon anger turns to resignation, and even contentment and the developing "mutual harmony" of the cramped conditions. And this is where, in my own neurosis God enters the fray. The mutual harmony is shattered when the previously impenetrable cell is revealed to be penetrable after all and in a cruel twist just as Sage is resigned to an eternity of horrid but not quite unbearable existence locked together with his two companions the wall begins to slowly show signs of degradation. At first this was just a gritty residue on the tongue after drinking the pear nectar that dripped down the walls but with the possibility that the hitherto impenetrable cell is in fact vulnerable Sage is left with an existential dilemma. The possibility of escape therefore becomes both intriguing, hopeful and terrifying. What the hole in the wall however indubitably showed that sooner "or later, the entire surface was going to wear away around [them]. [They] were evidently not in eternal stasis" (26). Despite protestations from his companions and the inherent terror of entering the unknown the hole "had to" be developed and the wall torn down so as to see what, if anything, lay beyond it.

It is here that I felt such empathy with the Sage character, for it seems an analog of my own feelings regarding religion/God. Life, however constricted and shitty, would seem so much more amenable without the "God Hypothesis", and yet I must still engage theology. It is both a matter of reluctance and compulsion.

And so Sage digs his way out of his heaven/hell (Graziano maintains a real ambivalence throughout the text). However, on escaping one prison even though he does with his fellow detainees Sage falls to a far more expansive prison. Even though he had been cramped, unable to cramp or stand, the cavernous expanse prefigures a more severe confinement as soon the "mutual harmony" of the three co-prisoners is shattered as Sage overcome by the need to explore becomes detached and although surrounded by a multitude of bodies there is no mutual interaction on a 'real' level - even sex is impersonal.

And yet the desire to question, to seek what lies beyond continues and Sage spots another hole high in the Cave's ceiling, another window into what could but probably won't be a portal to a better future. In this way the story continues. The metaphysical search continues but it would be easier to cease, and yet Sage continues to move beyond the result is a yet deeper level of hell/heaven.

In this way the novel reminds me of Camus' interpretation of the Myth of Sisyphus although inverted, there is always a search for an arche, it will never be found, we know it will never be found, the search for it is itself regressive but nevertheless the search must go on. To refuse is suicide. 

Highly recommended, it is definitely among the most thought provoking texts I have read this year.

Putting the Problem Back into the Problem of Evil

Review of Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, Cornell University Press, (1999). ISBN: 0801486866.  REPOST

This book has been sitting on my to read list for over a year and I am still not sure what motivated me to pick it up when I did. Although a Priest in the Episcopalian church and, at the time of publication Professor of Historical Theology at Yale (she has since moved to Oxford where she is Regius Professor of Divinity) Adams is best known as a philosopher within the analytic tradition. That is normally enough, particularly with my more recent continental leanings, for occasion disinterest. Coupled with this the fact that the title itself is less than appealing and that the language and argument is quite complex and difficult to follw in parts I read this with some trepidation.All of the above goes to show, to quote a cliche, that one should not judge a book by its cover. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God is an superb book, particularly in terms of how the book's argument is constructed. J L Mackie's argument in his 1955 essay "Evil and Omnipotence" is taken by Adams to be the work that set the agenda for five decades of philosophical reflection on problem of evil. Briefly stated Mackie put the problem the following way: (traditional) theism posits that God, is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good. However, in addition to the first proposition it is also the case that evil exists. These two statements are, according to Mackie, inconsistent to the point that it is the case that to hold both together is evidence against the reasonable belief in God. In short, the problem of evil makes theistic belief irrational. Adams begins by retracing (analytic) philosophy's attempts to respond to this argument. The second problem, "evil exists" is not generally challenged (although I guess Augustine's idea of evil as the privation of God rather than a separate entity does tip its hat in this direction) Some argument's, such as those of Rolt [in 1913, hence before Mackie's paper] and Hartshorne in their own way question Mackie's first premiss: the idea of omniscience and especially omnipotence (see Hartshorne's Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes), evil is in some sense a force that God is impotent against because s/he cannot prevent this. However, the majority of responses to Mackie's problem of evil do not agree with both of his propositions; where they differ is in the conclusion that the two are incompatible with each other. Adams offers a brief summary of each of the main trajectories of responses by Christian philosophers to Mackie's problem including the Free-will theodicy of Plantinga and the soul-making (Ireneaen) theodicy of John Hick. In and of itself this brief survey of Christian approaches to the problem of evil is a helpful introduction and overview to the current state of academic thinking on the subject; however, Adams' intention is not just to offer another "introduction to philosophy of religion" type of book but to actually advance and even more interestingly change the intellectual parameters within which the debate is played out. At the heart of Adams' objections to these contemporary approaches to the problem of evil is her contention that they simply do not appreciate the full force of the problem of evil. Evil is not merely a phenomenon that can serve as an intelluctual defeator of theistic belief for those philosophically minded it is something that can cause immense epistemological and existential (why the response to evil can be existential will, I hope, become clear in the course of this review). Part of the problem with contemporary theodicies, argues Adams, is that they simply do not take the terror of evil into account in their deliberations, evil is dealt with in the abstract apart from the anguishes and pain of modern life (and death). Consequently Adams critises Plantinga's startling admission that his "generic and global approach" enables one to "avoid specific consideration of evils, so appalling and so horrifying that we not only do not know why God permits them, we cannot conceive of any plausible candidate reasons" (p. 25). This leads us to Adams' introduction of horrendous evil back into the philosophical responses to the problem of evil. Horrendous evil is not however best understood as a particular category of evil (as opposed to minor and 'really bad but not quite horrendous' evil. Against the tendency toward abstraction Adams argues that an intellectually coherent theodicy must tackle the worst of evils; Adams suggests that horrendous evil should be understood as "evils the participation in which (that is, the doing or suffering of which) constitutes prima facie reason to doubt whether the participant's life could (given their inclusion in it) be a great good to him/her on the whole" (p. 26). This turn to the individual is one of the interesting features of Adams' approach. She is insistent that a more abstract answer to the problem of the compossibility of divine goodness and inexlicable evil will not do. In each case the question is the compossibility of evil with God's goodness to a particular individual. It is this problem, which the process theodicy of Hartshorne in particular ignore, that is at the heart of the existential problem of evil. Adams summarises her basic argument on this score as follows:

I contend that God could be said to value human personhood in general, and to love individual human persons in particular, only if God were good to each and every human person God created. And Divine goodness to created persons involves the distribution of harms and benefits, not merely globally, but also within the context of the individual person's life. At a minimum, God's goodness to human individuals would require that God guarantee each a life that was a great good to him/her on the whole by balancing off serious evils. To value the individual qua person, God would have to further to defeat any horrendous evil in which s/he participated by giving it positive meaning through organic unity with a great enough good within the context of his/her life.

Adams' criticism is not limited to Christian respondants to Mackie, however. The problem of evil as Mackie presented it is aperversion from the Christian view of God. For this reason Adams critises both the theologian and the atheologian for their presentation of the argument on 'neutral' terms. Consequently Adams writes concerning Mackie that "insofar as [he] wished to show the believer's view contradictory and irrational, he must take an interest whether (1) [God is omniscient,omnipotent, and perfectly good] and (2) [evil exists] can be understood as compossible on the believer's construal of these claims" (p. 13 - empahsis added). It is in this area that Adams made what was for me the most surprising departure in the text. After many chapters of analytic philosophy Adams changes tack to a smattering of historical theology/mysticism and good doses of biblical theology and social anthropology. The reason for doing this, as hinted in the quote above, is to paint a Christian understanding of the place of evil within the Christian narrative; a significant part of which, like David Bentley Hart's recent piece of popular theodicy, is to turn the the aesthetic, particularly the beatific vision. Against the doctrine of divine impassibility Adams presents a Suffering Christ (in both human and divine hypostases) as integral to an adequate doctrine of at-one-ment. All of the preceding argument leads up to answering one question: is the existence of horrendous evil compossible with God's goodness to individual participants in such horrors? Adams answers in the affirmative:

On my account for God to be good to a created person, God must guarantee him/her a life that is great good to him/her on the whole and one in which any participation in horrors is defeated within the context of his/her own life (p. 156).

Given Adams' language of God's guarantee of a life (both ante and postmortem) that is a great good it will not come as a surprise to see that Adams links this guarantee to a soteriological universalism and a God who has taken the initiative and suffered just as we have suffered.  It is a fascinating argument, and one that I am at least sympathetic to. However, it is also at this point that Adams lets go of some of the rigorous scholarship that she has demonstrated throughout the rest of the text. An appeal to universalism is obviously not unique in philosophy of religion (see Hick for example, although Adams' is clearly of a different kind) but the justification for this development was surprisingly vague. However, beyond all of my initial expectations Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God is an excellent and intriguing book, and, as a result Marilyn McCord Adams is certainly on my radar in terms of future reading.

Fotion on Legitimate Authority - Who Decides?

In his recent restatement of Just War theory Nicholas Fotion differentiates the process principles from the de facto freestanding principles in the jus ad bellum (the term de facto is not actually used):

[The principle of legitimate authority] identifies those who have been given the power to engage in the decisionmaking process. That power might reside in a king, a chancellor, a dictator, a council, or a legislative body. The locus of authority varies with the nation. If the legitimate authority sanctions a war, one step in going to war legally has been satisfied. If, however, the war is authorized by some individual or group other than the legitimate authority, then the war is automatically unjust (p. 18).

I have recorded before that I have experienced a development in my thinking to the point where I am more sympathetic with JWT approaches but the proceduralist approach of Fotion here bothers me (which is marked out by the rest of what I have thus far read, namely the first c. 60 pages of the book). JWT seems to be reduced to a checklist of sorts and, certainly if applied in its entirety the world would be less violent that it is but justice seems to be periphery of the theory's application.

However, what interest me here is Fotion's differentiation of the freestanding principles over and above the proceduralist principles. For Fotion there are four procedural jus ad bellum principles before entering a war, all of which must be met for the the given conflict to be a just war: Just Cause, Last Resort, Proportionality and Liklihood of Success. Hence a war can have high likelihood of success but be for unjust causes (e.g., the German expansion into the Sudetanland), alternively, a war can be for just reasons but be entirely didproportional (e.g., the Hiroshima and Nagasaki capaigns). However, what unites the proceduralist principles is there conditionality - the context determines their applicability in a given case.

Over these proceduralist principles Fotion includes two de facto principles that will always be met in a just war. The first, Right Intentions is on my reading of Fotion's account pretty meaningless a just cause is essentially synonymous with tight intention. However, it is Fotion's account of legitimate authority (quoted above) that I want to focus on here. In particular, there are three facets that strike me:

First, the legitimate authority refers to those who have "been given the power" to decide.  Second, while the mode of legitimate authority may vary, its sole location does not - it is the nation state that goes to war. While I may quibble exclusive situatedness on way as the prerogative of the nation state, as though the nation state fell, God-given and immutable from the sky these two statements do not by themselves concern me too much. However, Fotion's closing caveat, namely his assertion that if, however, "the war is authorised by some individual or group other than the legitimate authority, then the war is automatically unjust"  seems to me entirely unsatisfactory.

Think about that - "automatically unjust". That seems to me to be a very dangerous caveat. Certainly there should be a presumption against such non state actors but a foundational and absolute illegitimacy? Taken together with the previous two points this seems to catapult JWT back into a sort of modified divine right of kings. While there may be a tip of the hat toward democratic engagement in the decision to go to war in the reference to "those who have been given power" when taken together with the absolute illegitimacy of a non-nation state being a legitimate authority even if, as is conceivable within a totalitarian scenario the national "legitimate authority" speaks with marked from the national will. In which case what meaning does "legitimate" have in this context? It can't mean any form of democratic consensus instead it must represent a deification of the nation state.

Following this point Benedict Anderson expands on the sovereignty of the nation state:

It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm. Coming to maturity at a stage of human history when even the most devout adherents of any universal religion were inescapably confronted with the living pluralism of such religions, and the allomorphism between each faith's ontological claims and territorial stretch, nations dream of being free, and, if under God, directly so. The gage of this freedom is the sovereign state. (p 7 emphasis in original).

Hence my point that there is a sense in which the nation has substituted the monarch as the absolute unquestionable authority, a divine right on nation. The result of this is JWT, to the extend that it is an instrument of justice, relies on a top-down implementation. I would rather contend that if JWT is to be at all useful (and I am not convinced it is) then this fetishisation on the nation state as the only possibly valid legitimate authority should be dispensed with.

References ...

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev ed. (2006).

Nicholas Fotion, War & Ethics: A New Just War Theory, Continuum, (2007).

The Princely Principle

Review of Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Penguin, (2003[1513]).

Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat but, with the fall of the republic and the ascension to power of the Medici he lost his post because Machiavelli worked to maintain Florence's Republican credentials. The Prince is, in part, an attempt by Machiavelli at damage limitation and try to secure a future for himself in the new administration. However, as Machiavelli himself concedes, there was a flaw in his obsequiousness which he tried to mitigate against in his opening letter to Lorenzo de Medici:

I hope it will [not] be considered presumptuous for a man of low and humble status to dare discuss and lay down the law about how princes should rule (p. 3-4).

I am not aware that de Medici ever commented as to whether he did in fact consider Machiavelli's action presumptuous; however, the fact that Machiavelli never worked in Medici's employ again suggest that he did and one is tempted to think that given the fact that Machiavelli's thesis is that the prince is of a different character to us mere mortals then he was right to do so for in the very act of writing the book Machiavelli has to a certain extent undercut his own argument. While Machiavelli's immediate aims were unfulfilled The Prince has become one of the key texts of modern political theory. If truth be told I was perhaps expecting a little more from this book given the regularity with which Machiavelli is cited, although evidently often by those who have not read Machiavelli himself. Although not strictly separated as such there are two emphases in the text. The first, which will appeal to military strategists, is a series of observations of maintaining power over a newly obtained territory and the means by which the prince should do this. The second is an examination of the prince's relationship to the aristocracy, other neighbouring princes, the military, and the general population. What ties all these different constituencies together is the calculated disavowal of ethics. Back in 1997 the new UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook Robin Cook launched a new ethical foreign policy; at the time I remember being impressed. In it Cook promised that

Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. The Labour Government will put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy

A centrepiece of Machiavelli's argument is that there is not, from the Prince's perspective a necessary correlation between ethics and politics. As Anthony Grafton summarises in the introduction Machiavelli argued that "the prince could not be constrained by the demands of normal morality if he hoped to do his job properly ... Politics must have its own rules" (p. xxiii-xxiv). On the face of it, Cook et al were charting a new way from that envisaged by Machiavelli, however, on closer reflection they played a Machiavellian political strategy masterfully, the Iraq war being symptomatic of this (although, to be fair, it should be remembered that Cook resigned from the Cabinet over this issue). Machiavelli argues that the prince, even if privately generous and virtuous must always be prepared to politically divorce this ethical framework from political praxis and, as Machiavelli notes one of the best ways to be allowed to do this - for the Prince's power is never absolute, hence the need for wile - is to play on the moral virtues of those who could stop them. Accumulate natural resources while preaching freedom and peace; praise justice while undermining international law, etc. I do not like what I read, but over 500 years since it was first published The Prince strikes me as an extremely perceptive book. It is not that the leader should be wholly self-serving - for, contrary to some characterisations that is not Machiavelli's argument but if one is to succeed in the community of nations (I use success in the normal sense and not as a statement of personal approval) then ethics should be subservient to power. We may hope for the day when that is not so but at present it is the world in which we live.

Related Links: Online version of Machiavelli's The Prince

The Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy's Article on Machiavelli. 

A Scholars & Rogues review of the book.

Liberalism the (sort of) Vampire

Review of Michael Walzer, Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism, Yale University Press, (2006). ISBN: 0300115369.

Walzer begins Politics and Passion with an observation what while empirically evident in all our lives needs to be reiterated again and again in political philosophy; namely, that we all have pluriform identities. Where Walzer differs from others such as Amartya Sen who have dissented from the tendency towards monocultural identities is his summary of how the plurality of affiliations are often involuntary in nature, the clearest example being that which we involuntarily receive from our parents and guardians in our early youth.

In the course of a discussion of international politics that aims to spread an emancipatory ideal (often coterminous with the spread of liberal democracy) Walzer makes the following comment:

a politics committed to transcending group life, breaking the categories of difference, is likely to be ineffective (there are many examples); and it is pretty sure to be nasty and repressive in its own way. Individuals with rights are also individuals with emotions: they have the affiliative passions that go with their practical attachments, and if we want to strengthen their hand, some of the help they need has to come via their own political associations (p. 138).

Liberalism is, argues Walzer in Politics and Passion, a philosophy that does - in a fashion - aim to transcend group life. With the noble (in theory at least) goal of promoting a universal egalititarianism for all inhabitants qua citizens. Walzer is certainly not alone in noting that the problem is that a nation's citizenship (those who seek and are involved in the political process) and its inhabitants are not synonymous. And Liberalism, in acting as though this is not the case, does great damage to its own stated agenda of toleration and respect when it ignores this fact (notwithstanding the very real harm it can do those minorities who are inhabitants but not citizens of a nation). If one could condense Walzer's dissection of Liberalism's ailments it would be this: Liberalism is a vampiric entity that sucks all passion all passion from the political process leaving nothing but an empty shell of a person.

To expand his point Walzer draws attention to the sociologist Lewis Coser's study of Greedy Institutions; that is, groups and organisations that demand everything of their members. Within this category of the greedy institution are many groups disfranchised (sometimes by intent of others, sometimes by their own passivity) - a prime example are groups such as the Amish.

It is here that Walzer differs from the Liberal strategy of asserting individual autonomy at all costs. If the aim of liberalism is to promote egalitarianism then such a heavy-handed approach is heavy-handed and, more importantly from its own perspective, it is counter-productive. We all know the response of a cornered animal when it is threatened, it lashes out. Similarly, a group under constant critique is more likely to close ranks, withdraw, and have its own bonds of solidarity strengthened (incidentally, this is precisely the response Rowan Williams is warning against in his tentative suggestion that Shari enter as a subservient and voluntary avenue in family law disputes between Muslims).

However, in recognising the hard case of bringing often involuntary members of these greedy institutions into the autonomy granted to those of more avowedly plural identities Walzer is not suggesting an ideological free for all (as some unwise Governmental critics of Williams's speech read him as saying) ; it remains the case that Liberalism will always have recourse to coercion, particularly in the case of the greedy institution as Walzer himself hesitantly admits (emphasis in original):

Coercion itself cannot be avoided; civic education does have to be legally mandated and compulsory. And since it challenges the totalizing claims of the religious or ethnic community, it is sure to encounter opposition. Its aim is to allow or encourage the community's children, as many of them as possible, to accept another identity, that is, to think of themselves as responsible and respected participants in democratic decision-making. Citizens of the state can honestly say that they want these children to add citizenship to their existing religious or ethnic self-understanding, not replace the latter with the former (p. 60).

However, as Walzer continues in the passage there is a replacement here: a monocultural traditionalism is replaced by one that incorporates a fuller spectrum of contemporary human existence. The question can legitimately be asked as to whether this necessarily coercive pluralisation of identities betrays the ideal of toleration which in the potted history of liberalism - replete with references to the Peace of Westphalia - is one of its cornerstones? Here is Walzer's response

Maybe, but I am not advocating the total replacement of traditional ways. I don't want to insist that members of the parochial or tribal group be taught to draw up their own life plans without copying from their parents. I mean to be more tolerant than contemporary activist versions of liberalism would allow - without, however, endorsing the illiberal way of life of greedy communities (p. 60-61).

By and large Walzer succeeds in this aim and in the process has produced a compelling analysis not only of the dead-end that is the usual liberal policy of excluding passion from the political terrain but also the delicate and imprecise balancing act that the inclusion of passions creates, particularly as it relates to minorities.

 

Augustine on Nature

In her discussion of Augustine Carol Harrison comments

For Augustine, peace is a natural law inherent in the order of nature, the absence of which moves even irrational creatures to seek to recover it. All rational creatures possess a certain degree of peace in the ordered subjection of the body of the soul. It is, in fact, a part of a natural order of human existence in society. Disorder and war are simply symptoms of its absence, of the dissolution of human society (p. 207).

I have to say I find this argument troublesome. I don't really see what reasonable use the idea of "natural law" has in this context. It is clear that Augustine is referring to a pre-lapsarian state. Nature here seems to represent not to an underlying state of affairs, that which is a given and common / accessible to us all but something that is in a real sense unobtainable. If, as I think she is, Harrison is signalling that the world as it is experienced is for Augustine a distortion of the the divine will then fine. But why label this unobtainable and theoretical pre-lapsarian state as natural when, viewed from a post-fall perspective, it is completely non-experiential (from the post-lapsarian perspective). Experience, by which I mean an encounter - although not necessarily cognisance of the same - with that which is apart from faith, is surely an indispensable facet of any meaningful notion of natural law/theology. For sure, the question of revelation is relevant here. But unless one sees revelation as general, namely accessible to all, in which case it is functionally synonymous with nature as I have described it here then to label such knowledge / believe as "nature", as Augustine does here, makes no sense to me. It is as though Augustine has turned the notion of nature on its head, that which is, is not, that which is not is a symptom of the natural order of things. I was going to post a little more on how Harrison develops Augustines theology of peace but this is already a little too convoluted so perhaps soon.

References ...
Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity, (2000). (UK Link).

Humanitarian Non-Intervention

The so-called responsibility to protect or idea of humanitarian intervention is something i continue to reflect upon and, notwithstanding some trends such as CPT it is something the church largely ignores. However, the more I reflect the more I find myself rationalising two kingdom approaches and, in some sense, compromising my own commitment to non-violence - all in the name of human rights. All this is by way of preamble to Zizek's discussion of humanitarian intervention in Violence. And, as an aside, this is now the third book I have tried to read of Zizek's the first (The Metastases of Enjoyment) was simply unintelligible, the second (The Fragile Absolute) was not that much better but this book, while still meandering, is far superior and I don't think this is due to me beginning to come to terms with his writing, I do think this is stylistically speaking a much better book. In any case, Zizek describes humanitarian intervention as SOS violence. It is not actually the theory of humanitarian intervention the idea that there is a pure theory of humanitarian intervention devoid of politics that Zizek disputes. Humanitarian crises, that is the reception from those not suffering, are mediated crises. Humanitarian crises and one can immediately think of Zimbabwe and the DRC as current examples demand urgent action (think Bsp Sentamu's call that Mugabe is removed) but Zizek makes a call for inaction. Why? I'll let Zizek explain, well kind of! First Zizek highlight the hypocrisy of the "liberal humanitarian"

Let's think about the fake sense of urgency that pervades the left-liberal humanitarian discourse on violence: in it, abstraction and graphic (pseudo)concreteness coexist in the staging of the scene of violence against women, blacks, the homeless, gays ... "A woman is raped every six seconds in this country" and "In the time it will takes to read this paragraph, ten children will die of hunger" are just two examples. Underlying all this is a hypocritical sentiment of moral outrage. Just this kind of pseudo-urgency was exploited by Starbucks a couple of years ago when, at store entrances, posters greeting customers pointed out that a portion of the chain's profits went into health-care for the children of Guatemala, the source of their coffee, the inference being that with every cup you drink, you save a child's life. There is a fundamental anti-theoretical edge to these urgent injunctions. There is no time to reflect: we have to act now. (P. 6).

Against this manufactured urgency, this focus on anti-theory, Zizek in typically contrarian style suggests that the only practical response is "to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to "wait and see" by means of a patient, critical analysis". (P. 7). To understand the counterintuitive nature of the argument requires us to recognise that violence seen is the simplest but also the most transparent of the systemic violence of social relations, it is not however synonymous with violence itself; Zizek differentiates subjective from objective violence. Subjective violence is the language we have come across already in this post, it is the (sometimes) visible suffering of genocide victims for example. It is the sort of violence that evokes calls for humanitarian interventions, that demands urgent action. Objective (systemic) violence however is unseen and refers to the often "catastrophic consequences of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems" (P. 2). In short, it is the violence of normalcy. In a key text Zizek expands on the divergent critical standpoints required to address these two manifestations of violence and the parasitic nature of the one on the other:

The catch is that subjective and objective violence cannot be perceived from the same standpoint: subjective violence is experienced as such against the background of a non-violent zero level. It is seen as a perturbation of the 'normal' peaceful state of things. However, objective violence is precisely the violence inherent to this 'normal' state of things. Objective violence is invisible since it sustains the very zero-level standard against which we perceive something as subjectively violent. (P. 2).

It's difficult to get to what Zizek precisely means regarding call to do nothing, to rebel against the anti-theory of interventionism with disengaged reflection apart from the experience of subjective violence. To put it bluntly I would have a little bit more time for Zizek's reflective approach if he were to move to Zimbabwe's Cholera ridden streets to do his philosophising. But that is not to say that Zizek's diagnosis of relatedness of subjective and objective violence is not important. Jean Bricmont has forthrightly charged that the need to act that Zizek refers to amounts to using human rights to sell wars. Elsewhere in a book I am hoping to read over the coming weeks Naomi Klein has introduced the idea of disaster capitalism. This is the real benefit of Zizek's argument, there is no neutrality in the call to action elicited by portrayals of mass subjective violence. Any humanitarian intervention is but a plastering over of the cracks. Perhaps such actions return life to a status qua but that is nothing to be proud of. And this is perhaps my gripe with Zizek's argument, the subjective/objective distinction is ultimately meaningless - it is media manufacturing and popular perception that sees one form of violence and does not even see the other, even if it sees its effects. Is this not reason for the academic, rock star or not, to disavow disengaged pholosophy and actually get embedded, to become partial to suffering subjective or otherwise.

Elsewhere ... Halden discusses the same passages as i have above a lot better than me. Liberated Noise does the same. Finally, A C Grayling reviews the book in The Australian.

Liquid Happiness

Zygmunt Bauman, The Art of Life, Polity, 2008.

Zygmunt Bauman is best known for his thesis of Liquid Modernity (I have referred this in passing here) - in this book moves beyond the purely sociological to offer more of a philosophical take and addresses the question of identifying meaning in our lives. Bauman's argument centres around the question of happiness being the leitmotif of modern life and in the process presents a very good, if somewhat repetitious, account of capitalism's reliance on manufacturing desire. To quote the US declaration of Independence (which Bauman does not) life for many is about the pursuit of happiness. However, as the happiness of materialism is illusory - and hence modern life is a pursuit in which the target is never obtained. Happiness, or rather the pursuit of happiness, paradoxically (so the logic goes) constitutes a limit on the pursuance of life and in particular liberty. To be beholden to the golden calf that you hope is just around the corner is a very perverse kind of freedom. Given that happiness does not work the remainder of Bauman's work addresses what, given the constraints of the liquid modern we are to do. In a survey of key philosophers, notably Sartre and Nietzsche, Bauman suggests we are all responsible for our own life trajectories even if that is a submission to the larger forces. The liquid modern idea is one that I find persuasive but extremely depressing - I suspect Bauman has something of a similar response. He is careful to offer an optimistic refrain - the illusion of happiness may be influential but it is not determinative, choices can still be made but these choices are hard and counter-intuitive (for the pursuit of happiness is all-embracing), but nevertheless even a choice to enter the unknown is still a choice, and that's not nothing.

Elsewhere ... Wikipedia Profile Another review, appreciation and discussion of Bauman.

The Magic System

I'm sorry for yet another quote from Raymond Williams but this one is superb. From Raymond Williams, Culture and Materialism, p. 185:

It is often said that our society is too materialist, and that advertising reflects this ... But it seems to me that in this respect our society is quite evidently not materialist enough, abd that this, paradoxically, is the result of a failurein social meanings, values and ideals. It is impossible to look at modern advertising without realising that the material object sold is never enough: this indeed is the crucial cultural quality of its modern forms. If we were sensibly materialist, in that part of our living in which we use things, we should find most advertising to be of an insane irrelevance. Beer would be enough for us, without the additional promise that in drinking it we show ourselves to be manly, young in heart, or neighbourly. A washing-machine would be a useful machine to wash clothes, rather than an indication that we are forward looking or an object of envy to our neighbours. But if these associations sell beer and washing machines, as some of the evidence suggests, it is clear that we have a cultural pattern in which are not enough but must be validated, if only in fantasy, by association with social and personal meaning which in a different cultural pattern might be more directly available. The short description of the pattern we have is magic: a highly organized and professional system of magical inducements and satisfactions, functionally very similar to magical systems in simpler societies, but rather strangely coexistent with a highly developed scientific technology.

Good eh?