Occupy Wall Street, Prophecy, and Dussel’s Analogical Hegemon

One of the loudest complaints against the Ocuppy Wallstreet movement is that it does not have a unified and coherent list of demands. While clarity of vision is something that every political movement should strive for, it seems to me that the Occupy Wallstreet movement is right where it should be for now: it is constructing what the philosopher Enrique Dussel calls an analogical hegemon. Below I explicate what this term means, why it fits this particular moment in the Occupy Wall Street movement, why Occupy Wall Street should continue down the road it is on and what we can hope for from/in it.

Zizek, Pentecostalism and the Inverted Fetishism of the Global North and South

We begin with Slavoj Zizek’s recent comments on a particular form of inverted fetishism,

“Populism is always sustained by the frustrated exasperation of ordinary people, by the cry ‘I don’t know what is going on, but I’ve just had enough of it! It cannot go on! It must stop!’ Such impatient outbursts betray a refusal to understand or engage with the complexity of the situation, and give rise to the conviction that there must be somebody responsible for the mess—which is why some agent lurking behind the scenes is invariably required. Therein, in this refusal to know, lies the properly fetishistic dimension of populism.”[1]

Hegel and Original Sin:Consciousness qua human self-consciousness is the Fall itself.

Below is a very short essay considering Hegel’s re-working of the doctrine of original sin. If you are unfamiliar with Hegel the first paragraph may be a bit confusing, but the rest of it should be intelligible. While I don’t entirely agree with Hegel’s reworking, I think that it, at the least, offers some important insights into human subjectivity. Enjoy!

Self-consciousness is the moment of the tautology “I am I.” It distinguishes itself from itself and moves beyond this distinction back to itself.[1]  It is a relation with itself consisting of an existential anxiety regarding its self-certainty.

Apocalyptic Dialectics

In this short essay I outline the position of rhetorical hermeneutics – Steven Mailoux’s theoretical stance – and juxtapose it with the position of apocalyptic dialectics. It is a brief sketch of a position that I think holds some promise. Apocalyptic Dialectics organizes itself through Hegel, Heidegger, Gadamer, Badiou and the Apocalyptic tradition within Christian theology.

In the following short essay I want to briefly outline the contours of rhetorical hermeneutics, and then move on to argue why, while being incredibly useful, insofar as it is unreservedly committed to a pragmatic position it is in danger of missing a larger truth; namely, the possibility of a dialectical unfolding of truth within history.

Further notes towards the Dissolution of Scientific Realism

It has been argued that epistemological realism is the best, if not the only, way to make sense of the success of science. Larry Laudan is skeptical and seeks to question, “whether the realist’s assertions about the interrelations between truth, reference and success are sound.” (22) To do this Laudan sets up an overarching and flexible umbrella that he terms convergent epistemological realism (CER for short). CER is based on five claims that Laudan believes most realist hold, implicitly or explicitly, in some form:

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (5)

Thomas Kuhn suggests that the problem that Darwin presented to the modern mind was not evolution as such. The idea that man had evolved from preceding forms of more and more primitive life had been present for some time in various modes. In all of these forms, however, there was always a goal, a telos, to the process. Whether an idea in the mind of God or a plan inherent in nature the process of evolution was being directed to a specific end. (171) The novelty of Darwin’s position was that evolution took place through the process of natural selection. That is, Darwin removed teleology from the equation. (172) One could say that Darwin moved evolution into pure immanence.

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (4)

Thomas Kuhn writes that: “In so far as (scientists) only recourse to (the) world (of their research) is through what they see and do, we may want to say that after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world.” (SSR, 111) The question becomes: in what way does Kuhn mean this statement, as purely factual or merely metaphorical? To begin with one must take note of a statement he makes later in the same section, “… the scientist after a revolution is still looking at the same world.” (129) So, it is safe to say that Kuhn is a realist of some sort.

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3)

Scientific revolutions are those moments in the history of science in which one paradigm is replaced by another. In order to clarify further, Kuhn compares scientific revolutions to political revolutions. In political revolutions there is a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the governing institutions that eventually reaches a threshold: similarly, in scientific revolutions the paradigm—it’s methodology, tools, theories and ontology—has ceased to facilitate exploration in an arena in which it had previously led the way and thus dissatisfaction grows. (92) Another, and what Kuhn refers to as a more profound parallel is that of incommensurability.

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2)

Kuhn is intent on showing that normal science takes place only within paradigms. Paradigms provide the procedures, applications (standard tests and instruments), laws and theories that allow normal science to carry out investigation. (60) In short, they provide scientists with a picture of the way the world is and what kind of phenomenon can be expected. Yet, this picture shows itself to be problematic at times when phenomenon arise that the paradigm has not prepared investigators for. (57)

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1)

For Thomas Kuhn normal science consists of moping up exercises. (SSR, 24) What Kuhn means by this can only be explicated further when one understands what he means by paradigms.

While many understand the history of science to be a continuous chain of discoveries and enlightenment, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn suggests another picture. For him science is characterized by both continuity and discontinuity. The continuity of science is found in temporally located research traditions, i.e. paradigms, while the discontinuity is found in the transitions that take place from one paradigm to another.

Hyperbole

Vertigo—a sense of dizziness felt when staring into the abyss of complexity.

When one is assaulted by the freedom of an I-tunes gift card and the infinite choices presented there in, one cannot but feel vertigo. One can spend all time traversing the infinite connection of signifiers—different bands, albums, genres, artists and music-mixes.

This vertigo now characterizes all of life, to such an extent that when someone says that the answer is simple an impulse propels us towards consent. A biological impulse sent through our system in order to assuage a low-level anxiety that is constantly reminding us of a lack of homeostasis.

This impulse propels us towards all types of options.

The err and fallibility of Innerancy and Infallibility: Biblical Dialectics

The Bible:

Act I.

Inerrant or Infallible?

Both of these delineations, while the later surely has some heuristic use, suggest to me idolatry.

Guest post

I have a guest post up at my friend Joey’s blog found here

A little teaser-

“…So, to turn the statement around: while those who only focus on praxis verses theory—and what is theology if not the attempt to theorize rightly about God and his work among us—may not be caught masturbating, it is highly likely that they may instead find themselves in bed with the whore of Babylon.”

Cavanaugh’s critique of Boff and Sobrino meets Zizek

This is taken from a conversation I am having in the comment section of my post on Zizek, Hauerwas and Chocolate Laxatives. I wanted to move it here because I thought it might stir some interesting conversation on its own. If you want to see the entire context check out the other post.

Cavanaugh has an interesting section in Torture and Eucharist where he makes use of and then critiques Boff’s and Sobrino’s accounts of martyrdom. He likes that they want to expand the definition of martyrdom, but dislikes the fact that (1.) they base their definition on “abstract principles” of love and justice, (2.) seem to valorize the intentions of the individual martyr’s, and (3.) include those who die while participating in violence. In contrast, Cavanaugh thinks that martyrdom should be based on whether or not the community of which the martyrs were a part is able to recognize the body of Christ in the martyrs death. (TandE, 60-64).

I do think it is problematic to base notions of martyrdom on the individual’s intentions if that is really what Boff and Sobrino do. I don’t, however, agree with the other critiques.

Nietzsche and Qohelet on Immanence

What follows is a section from a paper I wrote comparing Nietzsche’s philosophy of immanence to that of the author of Ecclesiastes–Qohelet. The section presented here is specifically focused on Nietzsche’s philosophical vision. Enjoy!

1. Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Immanence

A. Introducing Nietzsche

While at age six Nietzsche was referred to by his classmates as “the little pastor” due to his ability to recite Scripture and hymns, by age 20 he had decided to quit taking the Eucharist. This brought shame and dismay to his mother who had at one point thought he might follow in the footsteps of his father, a deceased Lutheran pastor.[1] From this point on there is no sign that Nietzsche ever looked back as he followed what he called the “will to truth”, the desire to find and embrace the truth at any existential cost, for the rest of his life. By the time Nietzsche came into his own philosophically he had thoroughly embraced atheism and was set on working out its implications.

This must be kept in mind when reading about Nietzsche’s famous statement “God is dead”.When Nietzsche’s fictional madmen jumps into the midst of the crowd in the modern market place, “piercing” them with his eyes and declaring that they have murdered God it is not a metaphysical entity that he is speaking of, but rather the myth that gave meaning to existence.[2] The madmen gives voice to the anxiety felt by Nietzsche in light of this “great” dead that has “unchained the earth from its sun” leaving us “straying as through an infinite nothing”. (GS 181)