On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 06:58:26 -0500 kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net> wrote:
> > By "forcing" the issue of universality - we actually *create* a
universalist discourse.
> ken please show me that you understand how ludicrous this statement is. i
beg of you. with fuckme pumps on, i beg of you to please acknowledge that you
understand the problem with this claim.
I was kind of coping that comment would slide (rhymes with... itsalie) and would simply be accepted as fact.
As most of us know, the dilemma of how to think the relation between universals (say, human right, for example) and the right to cultural difference is one of the greatest antinomies of our time. In the 'west' we generally take 'our' culture to be one among others - and at the same time - unqiue - as the claim goes, democratic thinking recognizes the alterity of others. In short, "we" have invented values we claim as universal. Castoriadis writes, "The exigency of equality is a creation of our history, this segment of history to which we belong. It is a historical fact, or better a meta-fact which is born in this history and which, starting from there, tends to transfrom history, including also the history of other peoples. It is absurd to want to found equality upon any particular accepted sense of the term since it is equality that founds us insomuch as we are Europeans" (see Castoriadis, Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy. 135). One of the essential attributes of democracy is an "active forgetfulness" - for democracy to be established on the grounds of the empty space of power - in denial of its contingent (flawed, imperfect, unfinished...) origin (which is why we speak of democratization). Walter Benjamin actually points this out - the violence through which the law emerges is forgotten once the law is established (See "Critique of Violence" in Illuminations). In our understanding of universals there are traces of colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism and so on. But since universals are in themselves empty (ie. we separate out the legislative / justification from the judiciary / application or interpretation) we constantly engage in the struggle for their meaning and for their expansion. The active forgetting that pertains to universal notions simply means that their exclusionist history does not diminish the inclusionary character that they have in contemporary democracy. As Laclau notes, "The universal is part of my identity insofar as I am penetrated by a constitutive lack." Again, with Castoriadis, "What is different in another society and another epoch is its very ratioanlity, for it is caught each time in another imaginary world. This does not mean that it is inaccessible to us; but this access must pass by way of an attempt (certainly always problematical; but how could it be otherwise?) to restitute the imaginary significations of the society in question" (67). Insofar as Sittlichkeit operates with a self-reflective awareness of its incompleteness, imperfection, its own constitutive lack or break with origins - it is constitutively open to the voice and presence of others. What is definitive for a universal is precisely its emptiness, there is always "missing" content. In short, universals are created and born out of violence, but we "forget" this violence the moment they are invoked. This forgetting is precisely a inclusionary gesture - because it indicates that the content of the universal is in question - contested and disputed. This is the problem that MacIntyre is not fully able to overcome (or even recognize?) with his incommensurability thesis (see R. McCutcheon's anthology Insider / Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion for an extended analysis of how this relates to issues in religion / theology... - which includes an important essay by MacIntyre). So, we can detect here how the issue is forced and created simultaneously. We must forget something (the origin of the law) in order to create space for a rejoinder. And it isn't even that we must forget something - we *have* forgotten something. It is constitutive of 'our' identity as 'western' (as part of the liberal democratic tradition - or at least within the borders of any consideration of human rights).
There are countless examples of this. The Amish refusal to send their children to public schools; Sikh headwear as part of a uniform; the question of intervention in instances of genital mutilation; the debates about spanking as child abuse... and so on.
This isn't to say that these issues are adequately resolved or even understood, but that in a democratic ethos, they are contested and debated - rather hegemonically I should add. This isn't a question of good-will or substance either. Rather, it is the form itself, as empty and contestable (as universal), that the content and substance of a democracy cuts its teeth. We create this space the moment we think and rise to the occassion of saying, "No!" The mere presence of at least *one* universalist discourse *changes* the way non-universalists discourses understand themselves. In short: the question has been raised - and it will not go away.
I also highly recommend looking at an essay by Jeppe Sinding Jensen, "On Universals in the Study of Religion" - Jensen writes, "To be honest, I am so much in favour of universals that I suggest we must invent them where we do not find them and this ought not to be controversial, because it is what happens in many a good sicnce. It is, of coruse, a normative statement, one that is important to recognizes for the study of religion..." And Jensen isn't anywhere near the strains of thought I'm drawing on... His essay can be found in *an absolutely brilliant anthology* !!! - Secular Theories on Religion: Current Perspectives, edited by Tim Jensen and Mikael Rothstein, 2000.
ken