The New Constellation and the French Revolution

ken kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Sat Jul 31 18:08:28 PDT 1999


On Sat, 31 Jul 1999 17:30:00 -0400 (EDT) Rakesh Bhandari wrote:


> Ken, sati seems an especially poor example here. The
British were in fact quite interested with ending "certain dreadful practices"; in your language desire was not interrupted or univerality thwarted or minds shut up. Who the heck are you quoting here anyway? "Spellbinding power"? No one gave this as grounds for not opposing sati, right? You made this up, correct?

It is my experience with too many students... let's call it a lousy indication of the spirit of the age... many people I've talked to about this indicate that they think it is wrong... but that "we" can't interfere because it is a local problem (Zizek and Salecl identify this as a new postmodern kind of racism / ethnocentrism / hate speech). This comes up time and time again. Sati might not be the best example... but even some of the articles I've read about it are unwilling to challenge the "religious" institution (at least the religious justification) (yet, the political dogmatic is different, esp. with regards to property, honour etc) behind it - saying that we must locate common ground elsewhere - such as pain. But this is nonsense! Do we have to wait until we see pain on someone's face before we find this "common ground." Why can't religious beliefs (specifically religious rituals) be challenged head on? I'm just frustrated I guess.


> Well, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation about the
world's most important social philosopher. Back to Habermas! (Do though check out the devastating critiques of him by Moishe Postone, Paul Thomas, John Rosenthal, Michael Schmid, Istvan Meszaros.)

Even Habermas is reluctant to take on the theologians. In his "debate" in Habermas, Modernity, and Public Theology he quite timidly approaches the theologians... These guys (Charles Davis, David Tracy, Peukert, Lamb et al) say the most unbelievable things like - "democracy will only be found in the churches" and "we must communicate with God before being able to communicative with others" and "we can only find justice through communication with the dead." Habermas doesn't take these people to task... almost like he's on tippy toes - like if he brings the full force of his intellect to bear they will fall apart... It's weird. He goes after the sociologists, but basically says to the theologians, "that's nice but..."

ken



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