Deep Philosophy Pun of the Day
The status update of The Vancouver Public Library’s copy of Jacques Derrida’s On Grammatology reads: Trace.
Beyond awesome. Somewhere Derrida is grinning.
Chris Dierkes
Chris Dierkes (aka CJ Smith). 29 years old, happily married, adroit purveyor and voracious student of all kinds of information, theories, methods of inquiry, and forms of practice. Studying to be a priest in the Anglican Church in Canada. Main interests: military theory, diplomacy, foreign affairs, medieval history, religion & politics (esp. Islam and Christianity), and political grand bargains of all shapes and sizes.
Did you skip all the theology classes in favor of goofy postmodern yo-yos in priest school, Dierkes? Your affection for French deconstructionists has me baffled.Report
Well maybe this is a post for another day, but Derrida’s later work is on friendship, mourning, religion, and negative (apophatic) theology, so I find it appropriate. JD is very influenced by Emanuel Levinas whose Totality and Infinity (which i read on my honeymoon of all places) is one of my all time favorite texts.
Jack Caputo’s work on Weak Theology is an application of Derrida (and Deleuze’s ontology) to theology. Mark C. Taylor’s work is also in that genre. A short version is that Caputo equates Deleuze’s the virtual (Derrida’s trace writ large) with the kingdom of God.
In the end I think Deleuze, Derrida, and Foucault were all searching for essentially a spiritual vision–they keep hovering around the flame but never take the dive.
Habermas is now doing dialogues with the Pope as Zizek is debating postmodern conservative theologian John Milbank on the reality of Christ. Badiou is also in this light–atheist writing about theology.
Jaybird’s ears are probably now burning with thoughts of post-theism and post-post theism.
While the US is still locked into a very modernist ultimately silly debate around supernatural theism versus New Atheism, the European philosophical and theological scene is more advanced. Since Marxism is dead, the only alternative to the neoliberal dominance is (the continentals are finding) some version of theology. Even Zizek calls his work materialist theology.
Anyway, deconstruction, post-structuralism, etc. is not ultimately my school of thought, but I find a lot of value in it.Report
I was yanking your chain, but that’s actually pretty interesting. I’d definitely be interested in reading more of your thoughts.Report
From my perspective, it’s yet another “hurray, God is dead! We’re finally free of superstition and cant! Now, here’s your bell, book, and candle, and we meet on Tuesdays and Fridays and here is a list of taboos and we are boycotting the following businesses and here’s a packet with…”
The medium is the message, in that case. At the end of the day, they want New Life Church 2.0. You know… New Life only without Haggard and with smarter (by definition) people showing up.Report
who Caputo and Taylor?Report
I’m not familiar with Caputo or Taylor.
I was more referring to the application of deconstruction to most theological thought (or post-theism). Zizek, as you’ve pointed out, is a great example of this. It manifests itself as a “hurray, liberty” and, immediately, tries to find functionally identical things to fill the yawning vacuum.Report
Well maybe this is a post for another day…
I hope you write that post, Chris. I’m glad to see Derrida, Caputo, et al getting attention at the League. Very cool.Report