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The Realization and Suppression of Religion
Knabb, Ken
http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/religion.htmhttp://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/85 Publisher: Bureau of Public Secrets Resource Type: Pamphlet Cx Number: CX16216 It is not enough to explain religion by its social role or historical development. The content that is expressed in religious forms must be discovered. Because revolutionaries haven't really come to terms with religion, it continually returns to haunt them. Abstract: Excerpts: Situationist theory has oscillated between the vision of totally alienated people bursting out one fine day with the release of all their repressed rage and creativity, and that of microsocieties of revolutionaries already living according to the most radical exigencies. It has failed sufficiently to deal with the more ambiguous experiments on the margins between recuperation and radicality where contradictions are expressed and worked out; leaving them to the recuperation which apparently confirms its position. It is not a question of being more tolerant with these experiences, but of examining and criticizing them more thoroughly rather than contemptuously dismissing them. It is often forgotten that revolutionary theory is not based on preference or principle but on the experience of the revolutionary movement. The basis of the critique of "sacrifice," for example, is not that one should be egoistic on principle - that it is a bad thing to be altruistic, etc. - but stems from observation of the tendency for sacrifice and sacrificial ideology to be important factors in the maintaining of hierarchy and exploitation … It is necessary to distinguish between a principled devotion to a cause, which may involve some sacrifice of one's narrower egoistic interests, and degradation before a cause that demands the sacrifice of one's "better self" - one's integrity, honesty, magnanimity. Though such an attitude is quite the contrary of elitist, it is easily capable of becoming so in relation to those who lack this autonomy or self-respect. Having experienced the excitement of taking his history into his own hands (or at least having identified with those who have), he arrives at an impatience and contempt for the prevailing sheepishness. It is but a step from this quite understandable feeling to the development of a neoaristocratic pose … Much revolutionary theoretical nonsense stems from the fact that in a milieu where "radicality" is the basis of prestige, one has an interest in making ever more extremist affirmations and in avoiding anything that might be taken to reflect a weakening of one's intransigence toward the official bad things … To be sure, situationists are often quite nice people; but this is virtually in spite of their whole ideological environment. I've seen situationists become embarrassed and practically apologize for having done some kind act. ("It was no sacrifice.") Whatever spontaneous goodness they have lacks its theory. Basic ethical vocabulary is inverted, confused and forgotten. The fact that one can scarcely use a word like "goodness" without sounding corny is a measure of the alienation of this society and its opposition … Much of what makes people dissatisfied with their lives is their own moral poverty. They are encouraged on every side to be mean, petty, vindictive, spiteful, cowardly, covetous, jealous, dishonest, stingy, etc. That this pressure from the system removes much of the blame for these vices does not make it any less unpleasant to be possessed by them. An important reason for the spread of religious movements has been that they speak to this moral inquietude, inspiring people to a certain ethical practice that provides them with the peace of a good conscience, the satisfaction of saying what they believe and acting on it (that unity of thought and practice for which they are termed "fanatics"). The revolutionary movement, too, should be able to speak to this moral inquietude, not in offering a comfortingly fixed set of rules for behavior, but in showing that the revolutionary project is the present focus of meaning, the terrain of the most coherent expression of compassion; a terrain where individuals must have the courage to make the best choices they can and follow them through, without repressing their bad consequences but avoiding useless guilt. The compassionate act is not in itself revolutionary, but it is a momentary supersession of commodified social relations. It is not the goal but it is of the same nature as the goal. It must avow its own limitedness. When it becomes satisfied with itself, it has lost its compassion. The situationists have adopted a spectacular view of revolutionary history in fixating on its most visible, direct, "advanced" moments. Often these moments owed much of their momentum to the long preparatory influence of quieter, subtler currents. Often they were "advanced" merely because accidental external circumstances forced them into radical forms and acts. Often they failed because they did not know very well what they were doing or what they wanted. Surrounded by all the verbiage about "radical subjectivity" and "masters without slaves," the situationist does not learn to be self-critical. He concentrates exclusively on the errors of others, and his facility in this defensive method reinforces his "tranquil" role. Failing to welcome criticism of himself, he cripples his activity; and when some critique finally does penetrate because of its practical consequences, he may be so traumatized as to abandon revolutionary activity altogether, retaining of his experience only a grudge against his criticizers. Appendix Kenneth Rexroth's Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century (Seabury, 1974) contains a pithy exposition of ways in which the dialectic of religion has continually given rise to tendencies that have been thorns in the side of dominant society and religious orthodoxy, particularly in the form here of millenarian movements and intentional communities … He falls back on the notion of an "alternative society": individuals quietly practicing authentic community in the interstices of the doomed society; on the theory that even if this offers little chance of averting thermonuclear or ecological apocalypse, it's the most satisfying way to conduct your life while you're waiting for it. The proliferation of such individuals holding to radically different values is a practical rejection of commodity ideology, a living critique of the spectacle effect. It is one of the possible bases of the modern revolution. But these individuals must grasp the historical mediations through which these values could be realized. Otherwise they tend to devolve into a vulgar complacency as to their superiority to those who don't make such a break, and take pride in their irreconcilability to the system as they are integrated into it. Subject Headings |