[BRIEF NOTE] Zizek on Religion
Mar. 26th, 2006 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe debate at The Glory of Carniola reminded me of Slavoj Zizek's editorial in The New York Times of 12 March 2005, "Defenders of the Faith." Said editorial is available in full at I Cite.
Zizek begins his essay by arguing that hyperterrorrism does not demonstrate as some have argued the ability to do anything in a post-religious society, that in fact "the lesson of today's terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted -- at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations."
Zizek goes on to argue, based on the support of the Slovene newspaper Mladina for both the construction of a mosque in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana and the republication of the recent controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammad, that vulnerable religious minorities like Europe's Muslims aren't faced with natural-seeming alliances: "These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims with a difficult choice: the only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the "godless" atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real allies are not those who first published the caricatures for shock value, but those who, in support of the ideal of freedom of expression, reprinted them." Some sort of critical dialogue is necessary, in Zizek's view, and inevitable.
I'm tempted to agree entirely with Zizek, though this mainly because he's agreeing with what I'd like to believe to be true. People in the comments at both blogs have brought him to task. I don't quite see how he can be challenged with support for Western hegemonism that others have identified comes from. Zizek's article is phrased as a recommendation to the (post-Christian) West, but it's clear from the context that he's also making recommendations regarding the proper sort of relationship to be had with Christianity and its derivatives. I also think that he's assimilating rather too many attitudes to his construction of "atheism," that many people who haven't taken positions on religion and many religious people would also share his expressed views.
Me, I think that Yves Le Breton's old woman had the right idea. I wonder what happened to her.
Zizek begins his essay by arguing that hyperterrorrism does not demonstrate as some have argued the ability to do anything in a post-religious society, that in fact "the lesson of today's terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted -- at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations."
During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis, Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered an old woman who wandered down the street with a dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl full of water in her left hand. Asked why she carried the two bowls, she answered that with the fire she would burn up Paradise until nothing remained of it, and with the water she would put out the fires of Hell until nothing remained of them: "Because I want no one to do good in order to receive the reward of Paradise, or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for God." Today, this properly Christian ethical stance survives mostly in atheism.
Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.
Zizek goes on to argue, based on the support of the Slovene newspaper Mladina for both the construction of a mosque in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana and the republication of the recent controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammad, that vulnerable religious minorities like Europe's Muslims aren't faced with natural-seeming alliances: "These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims with a difficult choice: the only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the "godless" atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real allies are not those who first published the caricatures for shock value, but those who, in support of the ideal of freedom of expression, reprinted them." Some sort of critical dialogue is necessary, in Zizek's view, and inevitable.
I'm tempted to agree entirely with Zizek, though this mainly because he's agreeing with what I'd like to believe to be true. People in the comments at both blogs have brought him to task. I don't quite see how he can be challenged with support for Western hegemonism that others have identified comes from. Zizek's article is phrased as a recommendation to the (post-Christian) West, but it's clear from the context that he's also making recommendations regarding the proper sort of relationship to be had with Christianity and its derivatives. I also think that he's assimilating rather too many attitudes to his construction of "atheism," that many people who haven't taken positions on religion and many religious people would also share his expressed views.
Me, I think that Yves Le Breton's old woman had the right idea. I wonder what happened to her.
