Humanist Christian Consciousness - Essay Example

Essay Question 1) Respond to following quotation below. Losing Community “We should become suspicious of the retrospective consciousness of thelost community and its identity ... the thought of community or the desire for it might well be nothing other than a belated invention that tried to respond to the harsh reality of modern experience” Jean-Luc Nancy points to the Western preoccupation with some lost archaic community as an argument that we should be wary about. Here, there is supposedly an Occidental nostalgia that deplores the loss of familiarity, fraternity and conviviality as the world evolved. (p. 10) Such nostalgia implies an earlier, perhaps even primal concept of communion that came with the emergence of humanity. For Nancy, this a mere confusion because community is essentially Christian and that the communion and the relationship within is anchored on the godhead. The idea is that it is a “belated invention that tried to respond to the harsh reality of modern experience.” (p. 10) At this stage, we have two prominent factors that constitute the framework of community: the divinity variable and the human experience. It is important to underscore that in this line of thinking the effect of alterity and of linguistic dissemination is downplayed in opposition to Wittgenstein’s theories of the subject. Nancy bestowed a significant role on the divine in regard to the initiation, establishment and maintenance of a community. Through a belief in god, men commune together in a desire to be one with him. This underscores how the community becomes a tool not just in achieving a goal of oneness or brotherhood with the divine but in coping with the human experience. Respond critically to Jean-Luc Nancys claims. As opposed to the traditional concept of lost community, Jean-Luc Nancy stressed the loss of a humanist Christian consciousness that “gives every appearance of recuperating the transcendental illusion of reason when reason exceeds the bounds of all possible experience… the experience of concealed immanence.”(p. 11) Perhaps the most significant implication of this is how “community” is rendered absent in pre-Christian timeline or in non-Christian communities. The religious argument is that God designed men to enter into relationship and that ideally there is never a loss in the community. It does away with other factors such culture, gender and politics, among others. This argument takes a religious standpoint, which unfortunately marginalize the previously mentioned issues. While it has merits, the Nancy claim is just an aspect and it does not have sole claim to what constitutes community, and, hence, exclusive causality over the alleged loss. According to Seyla Benhabib, human have self-identities which are closely linked with the self-other relations. (p. 72) In her explanation, it is clear that religion is not the only basis of the moral judgments and in the formation of self-identity. For example, Linnel Secomb talked about the familial, tribal or cultural similarities as well as the common history and shared cultural institutions as the elements that constitute a community. (p. 85) Is it not that an erosion of any of this elements in the course of time and human experience undermines community, or at least change it? This is the problem when community is explained from an exclusive standpoint. By arguing that community is solely a Christian ideology, Nancy limits his argument, allowing for gaps in his argument why it can be lost. In the evolution of community – as it adjusts itself to the movements and challenges as days and years pass – it increasingly becomes complicated. In this regard, Nancy’s argument becomes ironic. Consider: The body of God is the sole basis for the communion. Consequentially, the death of the divine would mean the loss of the community. Today, modernity, intellectualism, capitalism, materialism and other economic and political concepts, seem to smother the very concept of God, relegating it into either a myth or just a minor variable in everyday life. As a matter of fact, there are already those who argue that it is a hindrance to modern institutions and thus deserves to be eliminated. Jacques Derrida, for instance, argued that that it is mechanism of exclusion. (cited in Seccomb, p. 85) Indeed, if one looks closely in the public discourse, one would find that liberals are repugnant of the community because it is supposedly repressive of individual freedom and well-being. (Kymlicka, p. 369) Besides the aforementioned factor, the major threat to the existence of community comes with the idea that it can be built. Borrowing from the social democratic theory, it is possible to build and maintain a community that is bound together by nationhood, rights and responsibilities that are fulfilled because individuals draw support and services from the communion. (Finkelstein & Goodwin 2005, p. 123) Hence, when this is attacked, say as a consequence of conflict wherein a people is obliterated (i.e. the case of the aborigine communities in Australia) the community becomes doomed. More specifically, I would like to cite the more contemporary forces that assail community that could contribute to its demise. Today, there is the changing morals of individuals that results to the breakup of the nuclear family and as mentioned earlier, the “mythologization” of the divine. The promotion of self-interest and individual rights amid the backdrop of the increasing urbanization fuels this phenomenon. In this regard, it is important to remember that the people and other institutions that constitute the communion are finite, and so it makes sense for the community to be lost when their lifespan ends. However, this perspective of the “loss of community” underscores the fact that it could be strengthened. In using American society as an example, Mark Reinhardt, drove home the point that the habits of mind, the structure of prestige, the distribution of wealth and opportunity, the tenor of the American days and nights, all fall under the shadow of history. (p. 113-114) Such history may be religious or not, but the circumstances in the American narrative highlights several and usually mutually reinforcing elements that either foster or harm the incidence of community. Essay Question 2: Respond to following quotation below. “the aim of democratic politics is to construct the them in such a way that it is no longer perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, but as an adversary.” Restoring Democracy: Eliminating Indifference to Difference Chantal Mouffe used her “agonistic pluralism” theory in stating that “the aim of democratic politics is to construct the ‘them’ in such a way that is no longer perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, but as an adversary.” (p. 101-102) The statement is anchored on the liberal-democratic ideal of tolerance wherein there is no enemy but adversaries. Here, the differences in standpoints are respected because the conflict or the disagreements are legitimate. To further elaborate, Mouffe, distinguished it from the concept of competition by stating that in this adversarial politics there is the shared adhesion to the ethico-political principles of liberal democracy. (p. 102) And so, while there are disagreements, there is a common ground and the idea that the whole exercise is for the purposes of the common benefits. It is here where Mouffe crafted the term “agonism” to describe the struggle between adversaries instead of branding it as pure antagonism. (p. 102-103) Respond critically to Chantal Mouffes claims. The superiority of democracy to other forms of government is obvious enough. It is even safe to say that the democratic government became the only legitimate government in this century. In the words of Seyla Benhabib, democracy is best understood “as a model for organizing the collective and public exercise of power… on the basis of the principles that decisions affecting the well-being of a collectivity… as the outcome of a procedure of free and reasoned deliberation among individuals.” (p. 68) However, liberal democracy has its share of problems, the most important of these is that in taking in as much perspectives as possible – the moral, the religious, philosophical, economic, social, among other divergent values and interests – it becomes impossible to arrive at a rational consensus on political decisions. (Mouffe, p. 89) The result could be polarization, the exclusion of some sectors, among others. Needless to say, there are a number of political models that are presented seeking to address the diversity problem or the antagonistic nature that hinders democratic governments. There is the deliberative model, aggregative model, and so forth. One of the most significant, though, is the approach suggested by Chantal Mouffe: the agonistic model. Fundamental in this approach is the idea that there is a fundamental tension that cannot be eliminated between the logics of democracy and of liberalism. In the model, Mouffe argued that while tension in pluralism is “ineradicable” it can be negotiated. (p. 93) The agonistic model is an answer that banks on political association that implies commonality. “What we are looking for,” wrote Mouffe (1992), “is a way to accommodate the distinctions, without renouncing the ethical nature of the political association.” (p. 231) With her approach, Mouffe maintained that a total pluralism must not be accepted however. According to her, “some limits need to be put to the kind of confrontation which is going to be seen as legitimate in the public sphere.” (p. 93) There is also the problem in regard to the tendency of liberal democracies to be manipulated by politicians. The result is that liberal-democracy tends to be indifferent with difference and ignore the values of ideal liberal-democracy. One of the issues that illustrate this problem is the case of female discrimination. The present conception of the political, wrote Mouffe (1992), is a male one and that women concerns cannot be accommodated within such framework. (p. 373) This is reminiscent of Carole Pateman’s framework of patriarchal society that women must navigate through the “fraternal approach.” (p. 43) In applying the agonistic model, Mouffe argues that the political framework must accommodate women because that is essentially what democracy is all about and that it would address a restive group who could in fact contribute something to the democratic politics. The concern in regard to the prevalence of passion and chaos in the democratic political discourse must not be seen as a negative phenomenon. It is wrong to think that people’s clamor for equal rights and involvement as an exclusively selfish desire or attempt at advancing personal interest. William Connolly pointed out that “one is likely to be… more assertive of one’s rights, more disposed to respond to grievances or injustices in these domains if one has interiorized the definition of oneself as a citizen in a democracy.” (p. 199) There is one point in Mouffe’s agonistic model that I particularly disagree with. According to her, democratic individuals can only be made possible by multiplying the institutions with democratic values. (p. 94) The reason is that there will always be possible contradictions between systems of rights that competing democratic institutions impose on their members. Now this brings us to another complication, the dissolution of the government into a multitude of competing institutions which results in the fragmentation of citizen’s affiliation and loyalties. This stokes the tension in the democratic discourse. For example, “an emphasis on the economic welfare may undermine a sense of collective identity by increasing competition among social groups.” (Benhabib, p. 68) All in all, the problem of liberal-democratic societies today seem to be focused on the failure to represent the true ideology with the exclusion of individuals and the groups that they represent in the political process. Here, dominant groups used the political system in order to force the members of a society or a community to submission. Jill Locke has proven this in her extensive discourse on the emergence of the civil society groups seeking to redress the grievances of marginalized groups in the political system. What Mouffe and score of other scholars have put forward in order to solve the problem is to go back to what democracy is originally about. It should be about the strength of the people, about tolerance and equality. Works Cited Benhabib, Seyla, Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy, Seyla Benhabib, (ed), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996. Benhabib, Seyla, Autonomy, Modernity and Community: Communitarianism and Critical Social Theory in Dialogue, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992. Connolly, William, The Politics of Territorial Democracy, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1991. Finkelstein, Joanne and Goodwin, Susan ‘Community’, The Sociological Bent: Inside Metro Culture, Southbank, Victoria, Thomson, 2005. Kymlicka, Will, ‘Community, Robert E Goodin and Philip Pettit, (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996. Locke, Jill, Hiding for Whom? Obscurity, Dignity and the Politics of Truth, Theory & Event, 3:3, 1999. Mouffe, Chantal, For an Agonistic Model of Democracy, The Democratic Paradox, London, Verso, 2000. Mouffe, Chantal, Feminism, Citizenship and Radical Democratic Politics, Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (eds), Feminists Theorize the Political, New York, Routledge, 1992. Mouffe, Chantal, Democratic Citizenship and Political Community, Chantal Mouffe, (ed), Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community, London, Verso, 1992. Nancy, Jean-Luc, ‘Preface,’ The Inoperative Community. Peter Connor (ed. and trans.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. Pateman, Carole, The Fraternal Social Contract, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism and Political Theory, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1989. Reinhardt, Mark, The Song Remains the Same: Communitarianisms Cultural Politics, Jodi Dean, (ed), Cultural Studies and Political Theory, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2000. Secomb, Linnell, ‘ Interrupting Mythic Community’, Cultural Studies Review, Vol 9 No 1, May 2003. Young, Iris Marion, The Ideal of Community and the Politics of Difference, Linda Nicholson (ed), Feminism/Postmodernism, New York, Routledge, 1990. Read More