No, I mean both “Christian” and “progressive” in a fairly conventional sense. It’s just that while I’m aghast at MM’s policy suggestions, I love his analysis of social history, at least the parts of it based on his idiosyncratic outside view.
He has a very poor understanding—indeed, a denial—of the emotional factor in society and the internal workings of ideology/religion, he’s very US-centric and really ignorant of more collectivist societies (e.g. Russia or Japan—he has never once written a single illuminating sentence about them), he rarely admits that his enemies can be simultaneously honest and intelligent.
However, many of his key points—the identification of truly history-making social forces (“the Clergy” et al.), Pronomianism vs Antinomianism, Leftism as a fundamentally Neoplatonic/Christian current, etc—that’s where he makes more sense than most other writers on the topic(s). Well, some very modern leftists, like Zizek, do approach such analysis at times—but with insufficient clarity, I’d say.
So, I endorse his broad sociological description (with caveats), but I’m in complete and utter normative disagreement with him on nearly every issue. E.g. I believe that “Antinomianism” is indeed morally superior to “Pronomianism”, because living through a system of artificial bindings—local, unequal, justification-free bindings—is in my opinion an affront to humanity’s better side, and that outweighs the material benefits of “law and order”. I think that certain states of being and feelings—especially social ones—are a more worthwhile thing for humanity to pursue than hedonism or QALYs. And many other such things, which IMO leave me in fundamental ethical opposition to him and his allies.
P.S. Please note that my caveats about his description of reality are major ones, and even the post on Pronomianism vs. Antinomianism, which is one of his high points, contains many absurd statements and general misinterpretation of human behavior. Yet it is intellectually stimulating to an extraordinary degree, unlike saner writings. And that’s the entire point to me.
P.P.S. I have just reread that post myself, and noticed with great amusement that M.M., like me, also examines Zizek’s view of social ethics—then he pronounces Zizek an incarnation of evil and the Devil’s emissary on Earth. It is refreshing to see my morals opposed with such mirror clarity. Here’s what he quotes from Zizek:
The Benjaminian “divine violence” should be thus conceived as divine in the precise sense of the old Latin motto vox populi, vox dei: NOT in the perverse sense of “we are doing it as mere instruments of the People’s Will,” but as the heroic assumption of the solitude of sovereign decision. It is a decision (to kill, to risk or lose one’s own life) made in the absolute solitude, with no cover in the big Other. If it is extra-moral, it is not “immoral,” it does not give the agent the license to just kill with some kind of angelic innocence. The motto of divine violence is fiat iustitia, pereat mundus: it is JUSTICE, the point of non-distinction between justice and vengeance, in which “people” (the anonymous part of no-part) imposes its terror and makes other parts pay the price—the Judgment Day for the long history of oppression, exploitation, suffering...
I find this… a little scary, yeah—certainly not to be immanentized rashly—but beautiful and inspiring, sublime. We are at war, then.
No, I mean both “Christian” and “progressive” in a fairly conventional sense. It’s just that while I’m aghast at MM’s policy suggestions, I love his analysis of social history, at least the parts of it based on his idiosyncratic outside view.
He has a very poor understanding—indeed, a denial—of the emotional factor in society and the internal workings of ideology/religion, he’s very US-centric and really ignorant of more collectivist societies (e.g. Russia or Japan—he has never once written a single illuminating sentence about them), he rarely admits that his enemies can be simultaneously honest and intelligent.
However, many of his key points—the identification of truly history-making social forces (“the Clergy” et al.), Pronomianism vs Antinomianism, Leftism as a fundamentally Neoplatonic/Christian current, etc—that’s where he makes more sense than most other writers on the topic(s). Well, some very modern leftists, like Zizek, do approach such analysis at times—but with insufficient clarity, I’d say.
So, I endorse his broad sociological description (with caveats), but I’m in complete and utter normative disagreement with him on nearly every issue. E.g. I believe that “Antinomianism” is indeed morally superior to “Pronomianism”, because living through a system of artificial bindings—local, unequal, justification-free bindings—is in my opinion an affront to humanity’s better side, and that outweighs the material benefits of “law and order”. I think that certain states of being and feelings—especially social ones—are a more worthwhile thing for humanity to pursue than hedonism or QALYs. And many other such things, which IMO leave me in fundamental ethical opposition to him and his allies.
P.S. Please note that my caveats about his description of reality are major ones, and even the post on Pronomianism vs. Antinomianism, which is one of his high points, contains many absurd statements and general misinterpretation of human behavior. Yet it is intellectually stimulating to an extraordinary degree, unlike saner writings. And that’s the entire point to me.
P.P.S. I have just reread that post myself, and noticed with great amusement that M.M., like me, also examines Zizek’s view of social ethics—then he pronounces Zizek an incarnation of evil and the Devil’s emissary on Earth. It is refreshing to see my morals opposed with such mirror clarity. Here’s what he quotes from Zizek:
I find this… a little scary, yeah—certainly not to be immanentized rashly—but beautiful and inspiring, sublime. We are at war, then.
Hi, I don’t think Russia is culturally a collectivist society. However, I could have a biased view. Do you have any evidence for this claim?