Slavoj Zizek: Self-love, Otherness, & Art vs. Science

Out of nowhere on Friday another Slavoj Zizek book jumped off the shelf at me and stole a good hour from my day. He fascinates me, and its not just because he quotes Chesterton all the time. I've written about him before, but what got me this time was a book he co-authored with two others, called The Neighbor.

Zizek has a knack for mining pop culture, the arts, philosophy and religion and melding bold reinterpretations of them together to form a seemingly scattered yet strangely seamless argument. The following exerpt is no exception. Though I am intrigued by a lot this passage has to say regarding sociology and even theology, there's one nugget I've put in bold because it does something I've never seen before: It pits art and science against each other and suggests that art (ideally) is a more reliable gateway to understanding. Check it all out and see what you think. Zizek writes:

"Today, we seem effectively to be at the opposite point of the ideology of the 1960s: the mottos of spontaneity, creative self-expression, and so on, are taken over by the System; in other words, the old logic of the system reproducing itself through repressing and rigidly channeling the subject's spontaneous impulses is left behind.

Nonalienated spontaneity, self-expression, self-realization, they all directly serve the system [which Zizek has just argued thrives on the white noise of our 'unconstrained permissiveness'], which is why pitiless self-censorship is a sine qua non of emancipatory politics.

Especially in the domain of poetic art, this means that one should totally reject any attitude of self-expression, of displaying one's innermost turmoil, desires, and dreams. True art has nothing whatsoever to do with disgusting emotional exhibitionism . . . . If there is a thing that provokes disgust in a true poet, it is the scene of a close friend opening up his heart, spilling out all the dirt of his inner life.

Consequently, one should totally reject the standard opposition of 'objective' science focused on reality and 'subjective' art focused on emotional reaction to it and self-expression: if anything, true art is more asubjective than science. In science, I remain a person with my pathological features, I just assert objectivity outside it, while in true art, the artist has to undergo a radical self-objectivization, he has to die in and for himself, turn into a kind of living dead. . . .

In contrast to the New Age attitude which ultimately reduces my Other/Neighbor to my mirror-image or to the means in the path of my self-realization . . . , Judaism opens up a tradition in which an alien traumatic kernel forever persists in my Neighbor---the Neighbor remains an inert, impenetrable, enigmatic presence that hystericizes me. . . .

The radical conclusion to be drawn from this is that one should renounce striving for one's own (spiritual) salvation as the highest form of egotism. According to Lean Brunschvicg: 'The pre-occupation with our salvation is a remnant of self-love, a trace of natural egocentrism from which we must be torn by the religious life. As long as you think only salvation, you turn your back on God. God is God, only for the person who overcomes the temptation to degrade Him and use Him for his own ends.'"

- Excerpted from chapter 3, "Neighbors and Other Monsters: A Plea for Ethical Violence", p. 134-142

Karl Barth on Christ-ian Forgiveness

I have only just begun my deep foray into Barth's theology of forgiveness, but the following extracts seem to me to be fairly indicative of his direction. He can certainly be found within his Reformed tradition, but with unique emphases and critiques. What I notice first off is his a resistance to talk of forgiveness as a static religious principle to be accepted or applied and a preference toward apprehending forgiveness as the free, dynamic, life-giving act of the God-man Jesus Christ. Here is an excerpt from The Doctrine of Reconciliation:

"We can and should, therefore, rise up and rejoice thankfully in the incomprehensible comfort and forgiveness of God, in all the assistance which we are given, in all the great and little lights which shine on our way, in all the strengthenings and encouragements, in short in all the unmerited favours addressed to us by the love of God.

Yet we should also be prepared sooner or later to be recalled in some way to his limits by this love, to find ourselves forcefully redirected to the humility which we so easily forget and loses when we bask in the divine sunshine.

For it is God Himself, and not just a lucky fate, which is favourable to us.

And so, when that which we have deserved overtakes us, the same can and should bow before it, humbling ourselves to the dust, finding ourselves absolutely directed to accept the awful things which he does not like, allowing ourselves to be led where we do not want to go, yet clinging to the fact-for it is in the same love of God that these things come to us-that we will not fall into the abyss but will still be upheld.

Even in these circumstances, there are always lights in the darkness, forgiveness in guilt, new life in death, breaks in the engulfing clouds, encouragements in despair. There is always reason for thankfulness even in the anguish in which we think to perish.

For it is God Himself and not a sinister and hostile force who judges us.

In both respects we have to do with the presence and action of God in its dynamic opposition to our perversion and corruption. In both cases the aim is our purification. God utters a Nevertheless, a merciful Therefore, both when He gives what is undeserved with goodness and what is deserved with severity. It is always His fatherly hand which is active both morning and evening, by day and by night, to our purification and therefore our liberation. In both cases God really gives Himself to us and for us. In both cases He comes into our life."

- Church Dogmatics IV.2, p. 774

(altered from 3rd person singular to 1st person plural)

A Brief History of Christian Forgiveness, Part 2

Anselm had already emphasized that Jesus Christ's death was the ultimate penance; the satisfaction for sin, and Luther sought to restore this to centrality. Reacting to the many systematic abuses of what may or may not have been well-intentioned procedures, Luther rejected penance, indulgences, confessors, and purgatory in favour of personal reception of Christ's "happy exchange" in personal Bible reading and prayer as well as corporate acts of remembrance and preaching.

The idea was that when Christ forgave and asked us to forgive he meant it for all of us, no matter what. Anyone could speak words of forgiveness to anyone. The point was not to have it regulated but to have it proclaimed and received over and over again, so that the power of forgiven-ness was new every morning and the freed life was an ongoing encounter with Jesus.

I assume you know about the Reformation. The Catholic church cleaned up the systematic abuses, by and large, but by then Protestantism had become a force of its own. These Protestants continued to face many of the same tensions surrounding forgiveness and the Christian life, but with Bibles in every hand and a world exploding in something called the Enlightenment, found new-ish ways of addressing them.

Within this Enlightenment, at least one person bears mentioning here. Immanuel Kant was one of a wave of new thinkers who was emphasizing the autonomy of the individual as a rational agent, thus calling into question the idea that anything could be accomplished "vicariously" and certainly discrediting authoritarian systems of penance and absolution. As you might imagine, this fed the fodder for those who, like those 7th century Irish missionaries, made penitence radically personal and applied it with rigid devotion. Groups like the Pietists and the Puritans and (insert the name of the church you probably went to here).

The Enlightenment made way for such modern thinkers as Marx and Freud---who defined all human action in terms of social and psychological dynamics respectively. Since then the social, political, philosophical, psychological and religious theories regarding guilt and forgiveness have abounded. In their wake, revolutionaries (and those otherwise optimistic about the advantages of social tinkering) have turned attention from the need for forgiveness by urging humanity toward the utopian possibilities where, essentially, forgiveness would no longer be necessary.

Of course, the frequent disappointments in this regard have caused modernity's self-assurance to bleed into post-modernity's deconstructionism. Now its a hodge-podge: Some continue forward on the myth of human progress and a good many others are wondering again about the practical wisdom of some sort of forgiveness as a societal and personal necessity.

For the last few decades forgiveness has been front and center in both large-scale, powerful forms such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by Desmond Tutu, and in small-scale, trivial forms such as the apology of Michael Richards on David Letterman or the now-common press conference apology-scene where the latest unfaithful politician tries to save some face (i.e., shorten the life-span of the story in the news cycle).

Western Christians to varying degrees have become wrapped up in all of these developments, while continuing (again to varying degrees) to emphasize the importance of forgiveness. In the evangelical protestant church, of course, the same old ancient problems have kept surfacing and resurfacing.

In the face of a lame kind of Christianity where forgiveness was a license to do whatever one wanted, Dietrich Bonhoeffer railed against "cheap grace" and reminded people of the cost of their freedom. Thus, church dramas and musical repetition were born. Dramas from the Ragman to The Passion of the Christ have each in their own way enabled church-goers to pay a sort of emotional penance, restoring their sincerity and resolve to do better next time, gratefully.

In the face of a legalistic, in/out kind of Christianity so prevalent in the modern era, Paul Tillich emphasized forgiveness as the "acceptance" which overcame the alienating powers of sin on persons and society. Churches occupying a come-as-you-are and stay-as-you-like posture have of course become more common than shopping malls, and quite comparable for their feel-good convenience.

Forgiveness has taken many forms, both in the church and out of it, to the extent that one cannot be too sure what is being talked about anymore. Is forgiveness a capitalism-enabling tolerance which allows individuals to operate autonomously and interact at will? Is it a blanket absolution which enables one to live and grow at one's own rate, free from the nagging problems of guilt and fear? Or, conversely, is it a luring promise used like a carrot on a stick to perpetuate the straighten-up-and-fly-right ethos of guilt and fear?

Furthermore, is forgiveness done more for the sake of the forgiver or the forgiven? Is it a personal, private thing or a social dynamic? Is it about avoiding punishment and escaping consequences or is it about a new life that is supposed to be effected? Is it a done-deal we live from of or is it a future event we live toward? Is it merely a ticket out of hell and a ticket to heaven or does it have to do with earth as well?

These questions and more like them have been the subject of many studies (although not as many as they deserve) and will continue to be, both in and out of the church. My own dissertation is hoping to discover what Karl Barth may have had to say about it. I suspect there are some good aftershocks to be felt in this regard from the theological seismic event of his Church Dogmatics. Who knows, maybe in there somewhere is a vision for a neo-Orthodox church that emerges from the rubble of modernity without simply being the tail wagged by the dog of postmodernity? (How's that for mixing metaphors?)

Regardless, there you have it: My interpretation of the history of Christian forgiveness. On one hand maybe kind of discouraging (did you realize something as simple as forgiveness could be such a hornet's nest?). On the other hand, maybe sort of encouraging (after all, there are no new problems under the sun). Either way, I continue to find my attention drawn and my eyes fixed on the narrative that has been playing out in time:

For there at the center of it all moving forward with a life of its own---in spite of many abuses, mistakes, and misconceptions and at the heart of many revitalizations, corrections, and fresh starts--there continues to stand the perpetually startling event of Jesus Christ.

A Brief History of Christian Forgiveness, Part 1

First, there was this man, in whom none could find any wrong, who came forgiving sins. (But only God can forgive sins!) Those who followed him around heard him casting his life and even his own death in terms of the history and hopes of the Jewish people, even taking on all the significance of the Suffering Servant, "crushed for our iniquities." He taught them to forgive as they were forgiven, and even said if they forgave anyone's sins, they were forgiven.

When this man, Jesus, died, all seemed for not. But then they saw him raised, and a new community was born. His subsequent ascension to heaven and gift of the Spirit meant two things. One was that it made that new community pretty vital to the passing on of all that that he had done. The other was that when it came to the freed life of the forgiven this new community was left somewhere between already and not yet.

Questions, of course, were raised: If one's forgiven state did not proceed forward into a freed life, had the forgiveness been effective? How could one be sure? Who could say? Certain practices and habits became ingrained into the community as they proceeded to work this out.

From early on, bishops and presbyters were given authority by the community to discern and deem forgiven. Confession was made publicly, but was directed to the leaders for declaration of God's forgiveness on Christ's behalf. There could be little fudging a system like that, right? Obviously the system didn't forgive, but was meant to facilitate vitality and center the community's life around Jesus' forgiveness.

Over time and in some places more than others, however, this public confession eroded in its effectiveness in that regard. Presbyters differed in the confidence they evoked from the people and people differed in the confidence they evoked in the presbyters and each other. Different ideas arose about what needed to be done about the frequent disconnect between forgiven-ness and the life that was supposed to flow from it.

The Montanists had a solution. They came up with ethically rigorous restrictions on who could and could not be deemed forgiven. Ultimately you had to evidence it before anyone would say you had it. Tertullian started off opposing this and emphasizing the empowerment of the leaders to proclaim Christ's forgiveness as freely given. But as people and presbyters alike turned this more and more into a license to careless living, Tertullian took more and more interest in the Montanist's regulatory impositions.

"Forgiven? Swell! But people still need rules." Concrete actions of penitence were important if one wanted to see Christ's forgiveness play out in a freed life. After all, Jesus did seem to invest the community with a lot of the responsibility in this regard.

Things evolved from there. Callistus, bishop of Rome, was basically granting forgiveness as an open freedom to indulge in wicked behaviour, and boy did Hippolytus ever have words for him.

Then the Christians were being ruthlessly persecuted, and there arose the problem of those who had recanted to avoid death and then regretted it and wanted to be forgiven. Some would have none of it, but Cyprian saw in Jesus' grace and teaching both an impetus to leniency and greater resolve. He played a key part in the development in a process (more reasonable than the Montanists but still pretty strict) of helping people apply the "medicine of atonement" to their lives.

Cyprian differentiated between smaller and greater sins, and since public oral confessions were getting "cheap", came up with different ways one could not only show one's true penitence but also form proper habits that promoted not needing forgiveness in that area again.

Thus, penance was born. Where baptism addressed the need to have a once-for-all act of reception of forgiveness, penance addressed that ongoing need to experience and embrace forgiveness again and again in every day life. Baptism was the gateway to new life and penance would help it along. Later on Gregory the Great quite cleverly called the one baptism of water, and the other the "baptism of tears".

This is the pattern that held sway in medieval times. Various events such as yearly Lent and regular Eucharist helped the community to address their ongoing sin, embrace forgiveness, and proceed in ever-new life together. Various structures such as penance and confession helped them personalize these and find accountability.

These "tools for embracing forgiveness", as I'll call them, evolved in various directions. On one hand, 7th century Irish missionaries emphasized individual application and devotion and outlined a privatized penitential procedure that came to have a certain popularity among the devout. On the other hand, institutional adaptations to the penitential system came along as well. The church was supposed to help people, after all.

So, handbooks for those who received confessions detailed methods for drawing authenticity out of people. Purgatory was conceived of as a stand-in answer for the question of what God might do with those who died without having the chance to have made a last confession. And in a development that would have pretty massive repercussions down the road, a system of indulgences was established.

This started off innocent enough. Facing the fact that few sins were actually private but actually had consequences for community and family life, a system was set up by which people could face payment for various sins that coincided roughly with the effects of their sin. Too often one's sins weaseled into habits and had a felt but largely hidden effect on those around. But having to pay an indulgence would make the ramifications of sin that much more real and obvious. These payments would be an incentive and reminder to not only receive forgiveness, but avoid the need for it in the future. Think of it as a massive community swear-jar.

Thus, church management of indulgences worked alongside penance as measures of exhortation, applying forgiven-ness to the living of the community. By the 13th century, however, indulgences, too, had taken on a life of their own. They were a chief source of church income and well, you know what they say about money and the root of evil.

In the 15th century, along came Martin Luther. We'll start with him in part two . . . .