[lbo-talk] Talal Asad on Secularism, Liberalism, and Human Rights

[wrobert at uci.edu]

I think that if you go back to the major concerns of the foundations of
the secular state, Bhandari's comments are fairly sensible.  One of the
major concerns with the creation of secularism was the extraordinary
violence of the wars of religion.  This violence threatened the structure
of state authority.  Secularism was in part a neutralization of that
conflict.  In effect, the religious tolerence aspect of the concept was
based a notion of the private.  This fear can be found in American
politics, for instance with the fears of Kennedy's Catholicism or Romney's
Mormonism.  Both have that haunting of a double loyalty.  Talal Asad deals
with this in his formations of the secular book and Viswanthan discusses
it in other contexts in her book.   Robert Wood
>
> Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
>>
>> Non responsive abusive reply, Carrol. No bullshit here. Why haven't
>> you proven that liberal democracy makes the person not a religious
>> believer first but at the very least a internally divided subject
>
> I suppose by proof you mean a theorization of the empirical facts -- for
> that is what they are. In fact, whatevcer you might argue abstractly,
> every religious dogma has been/is being made to support almost any
> political position you might name. It would be incorrect to theorize
> this, just as it would be incorrect to theorize the temporary
> distribution of books, papers, articles of clothing, etc. about my
> dwelling.
>
> It's a fact. Deal with it.
>
> Carrol
>
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