By insisting that this is all there is, the secularist position forecloses the emergence of anything other than this. Since people are violent, we must manage violence with violence as responsibly as possible—any other option is just foolish. What troubles me is that by sticking to what is probable and practical, secularism misses that which from our perspective seems impossible—say, peace, justice, compassion for all sentient beings, swords into plowshares…. These sorts of promises, it seems to me, are only held by something like transcendence—even if only the possibility of transcendence—the possibility that things might genuinely be otherwise.
Posts Tagged ‘transcendence’
December 3rd, 2010
Thinking otherwise
posted by Mary-Jane Rubenstein
November 29th, 2010
Love and reason
posted by Patrick Lee Miller
Anyone who has entered the labyrinth of A Secular Age should welcome this volume as a guide. Its contributors unwind many threads—some leading deeper inside, others promising a way out—but this series of posts can follow only one. Taking up Taylor’s distinction between traditions of transcendence and those of immanence, while remaining sensitive to its subtleties, William Connolly divides these traditions still further, observing that they are constituted not only by the beliefs they affirm about the world but also by the emotions they cultivate toward the world thus affirmed. Not content to delineate merely abstract possibilities, though, he adds that “each tradition is equipped to honor Jesus by offering a distinctive interpretation of his calling and mode of inspiration.” Accepting his invitation, this post (and those to follow) will attempt to offer such an interpretation—from the perspective of the Heraclitean tradition.
July 7th, 2010
Salvation, semantics, and what secularization has to do with it
posted by Lauren Salmn his most recent contribution to The Immanent Frame, “Waiting for Godot, who is either late or not coming at all“, Vincent Pecora provides a provocative response to posts by Alex Hernandez and Justin Reynolds, which question, criticize and reflect on Pecora’s distinction between “secularism” and “secularization” (and particularly his statement that “ ‘secularization’ is a conceptual improvement over ‘secularism’ ”).
July 7th, 2010
Waiting for Godot, who is either late or not coming at all
posted by Vincent P. Pecora
I wondered how long it would take DPDF participants to undo what I thought I had carefully assembled in my opening post on “Secularism, secularization, and why the difference matters.” Not very long at all, it seems. And so, I will try a response here to Justin Reynolds and Alex Hernandez, both of whom have questioned what I actually mean by saying that “secularization” is a conceptual improvement over “secularism.”
June 23rd, 2010
Thinking of Vincent Pecora, with Eric Voegelin in mind
posted by Justin ReynoldsVoegelin’s central, surprisingly Kantian thesis is that some recognition of transcendence is the precondition of open, self-reflexive inquiry. Founded on this recognition, he seeks to build “a new science of politics and history” capable of overcoming the dogmatic tendencies in “scientism.” He’s after, I think, something very similar to what Edward Said – and Vincent Pecora in his recent post – meant by the term “secular criticism.” If this is right, it raises the question of whether the “infinite” process Pecora recommends should be called “secularization” at all. Maybe God is less worth barring from the public realm than forms of dogmatic faith. It’s worth remembering that theology has its own resources for the fight against what Said calls “pseudo-religion.”
October 31st, 2008
Immanent spirituality
posted by Patrick Lee Miller
A worthy touchstone to arbitrate between worldviews immanent and transcendent is the désir d’éternité, the “desire to gather together the scattered moments of meaning into some kind of whole.” According to Charles Taylor, who adduces this touchstone, only transcendence has a satisfactory response to its longing: personal immortality. What response, if any, remains for immanence? Must it invent comic masks to hide the frown of an indifferent world? Must it surrender everything to the river of a senseless time? Must it be mute before the anguish of the bereaved? [...]
April 17th, 2008
Belief, spirituality and time
posted by William ConnollyCharles Taylor, in his magisterial book on the Secular, periodically engages a constituency he calls immanent materialists. I would like to pursue that discussion, focusing on a subgroup within it, to see how its devotees and those Taylor identifies with most might interact in noble ways. [...]
February 15th, 2008
Equal opportunity criticism (affirmative faction)
posted by Gil AnidjarHeidegger did not need to point out (but he did) that God occupies a hegemonic place as the figure of transcendence that characterizes the Christian and post-Christian tradition (let us not rush too quickly to operate our own secularizing machines, global experts on world-religions that we are, to claim that other “traditions” equally partake of this particular character). But – and here is some more outbidding – God is not transcendent enough. In order to be a critical secularist, one would have to demonstrate a more unyielding antagonism, take a more radical stance (or agonizing distance), and install oneself in a more transcendent position vis-à-vis the object of one’s critique. What object? More often than not “religion” and better yet “religions.” But not only religion, of course.
January 28th, 2008
Going beyond
posted by Craig CalhounOne of the main arguments of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is that people, at least modern secular Westerners, have come routinely to think that the world as it is must be all there is. The contrast between immanence and transcendence is thus one of Taylor’s main organizing themes. Immanence locates both our sense of reality and our sense of the good within the world around us; transcendence gives us a sense of something beyond. Taylor develops this in conjunction with a notion of “fullness” to try to evoke what it means to live in more constant engagement with that which is beyond the immediately given, the spiritual which might infuse nature, for example, or the Divine which might lift morality above a notion of ethics as mere fairness. [...]
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