Notes from a Postsecular Swede (Me)
by Adam Robbert
In his latest post Matt Segall writes:
“Whitehead’s style of philosophizing has much to do with his understanding of history. From his perspective, the history of religious experience is a fact about the Cosmos that must be taken up and integrated by speculative philosophy.”
I haven’t dwelled on this aspect of Whitehead’s thinking sufficiently, thanks for bringing it to my attention Matt. I think this is a crucial fact relevant to religious-secular discourses. I can’t see any way that religious experiences or practices can, with any requisite fullness, be explained away by cultural or psychological needs, biologically advantageous structures of belief, sociological or material circumstances, or anthropological studies of religious practices. Of course there are many important insights gained from such studies, and I do not deny the importance of, for example, Feurbach’s, Marx’s, or Nietsczhe’s (my favorite) critiques of religion, and in particular, christianity. However, religious experience whether true, false, manipulative, or constructive, is a fact of human experience that dates back at least 30,000 years (and probably much further), and requires an approach of study befitting its mode of practice. Academia in general may not be up to such a task as it is organized today, and this is something that, as academics, we should be attentive to.
I think the discussion of religion, particularly in such academic contexts, is profoundly impoverished and often reduces religion and religious practice to a question of verifiable truth value. I suspect that this is totally the wrong methodology to approach religion with, if I may even continue to vulgarly use a term that cannot be universalized to every culture. In this sense I am a little hesitant to compare different worldviews and systems of belief under the singular banner of “religion.” Just because a view is not secular in the modern sense of the word does not imply that it is a “religious” view, as though non-secular/post-secular views imply a religious orientation that is somehow flatly comparable to christianity. The same can be said about comparing “buddhism” and “christianity”- a favorite trope of people doing the inter-religious dialogue game. It seems that we miss finer shades of detail in the rush to label something “religious” (is it not true that buddhist-scientist dialogues have to some extent had more to say to one another than buddhist-christian dialogues? Religious taxonomizing can hide these questions).
None of this is what I hear Matt arguing, but in the context of the larger ongoing discussions on naturalism and theology I felt it was important to raise such intercultural and intracultural issues vis-a-vis the question of religion and secularity. I would pose the central question, then, in a different way: what are we not addressing when we juxtapose religion against scientific naturalism? We can’t leave our religious legacies behind, no matter how atheist we become, because we are all immersed within an ecology of ideas. I think Foucault (who would never use the ecological language) has amply demonstrated the perseverance of the christian worldview in the face of secularization, in fact modern western secularization seems to readily spring forth from christianity (as so many philosophers and social scientists have demonstrated). Appeals to naturalism don’t overcome this just because they are stated as such, naturalism is still wedded to the legacies and histories of christianity (which itself is not a closed, pure unity- but thats another story). This is of course different than claiming some variant of christian theism, but it is nevertheless a central consideration.
Again, I am compelled to highlight the problematics of discourses such as these since so many languages, practices, and worldviews are being decimated outright by the militarization of commerce and consumption as we speak. If we construe philosophy as that which is meant to eradicate falsity and reduce complexity so as to heighten understanding (I think this is a slightly barbaric approach to philosophy if taken as its sole aim), then we must also consider the norms within which we approach and judge the multiplicity of claims we call “true” and “false.” Further, from an ecological perspective, ideas and values will always have multiple, contradictory, and emergent effects. Thus I am happy to say that religious thinking can be both “true” and “false” depending on its enaction. In my view, philosophy is thus as much about the construction of new concepts as it is about the eradication of old ones.
Whitehead’s ability to stay with the often marginalized elements of academic discourse such as a religion only adds to my respect for him. Thinking ecologically, for me, means to attend to the factors of experience which are, and not only the ones which are true, since in the context of an ecology of ideas, it matters precious little whether something is true or false, but rather what effects a system of thought has. This is why secularists and theists can both call the other to task for the atrocities committed in the aim of both theism and secularization- all ideas have multiple, recursive effects. In this way questions of truth value are still central and meaningful, but do not provide the sufficient criteria for evaluation.
Are you aware of Scheler’s response to Nietzsche? It’s quite ingenious, but by the end of it he admits that it would omit many “Christians.”
I would also affirm the tendency of academia to reduce religion to its truth-value, and then usually dismiss it. And, as you note, religions are so vastly different that generalizations cannot be made, e.g., the difference between Abrahamic religions (religions of faith), vs. creedal, vs. orthdoxic contra orthopraxic, etc.
Thanks for bringing this nuance to the discussion, Adam. I agree that “religion,” as a category, tends to whitewash cultural differences. Similarly, categories like “Buddhism,” “Hinduism,” “Indigenous,” etc., were invented by Western, often Christian scholars and anthropologists. They refer to how ‘we’ see ‘them,’ not to how they see themselves. But I also think that, as we move further into an undeniably planetary phase of human evolution, cultural differences are becoming as constructed as they may once have been given. People are “interactive kinds” (a phrase coined by sociologist of science Ian Hacking), which means that they are aware of the fact that they have been labeled, and may begin to change their beliefs and behaviors as a result. “Indigenous” people, for example, once they begin to be visited by affluent white eco-tourists, may begin to cater to these tourist’s desire to see them perform their sacred rituals by performing them every week instead of once a year. Eventually, the rituals become more entertainment than mythic participation. A tragedy of commodifcation? Probably, but the point is that once a culture contacts “others” and becomes conscious of the way the others perceive it, it is never the same. Something new emerges. Point being, while I don’t want to whitewash, I think the various cultural expressions of “the sacred” are becoming increasingly bound together in our now global marketplace of religions. We can regret this fact as an extinction of cultural uniqueness, but it is nonetheless a fact that we all have way more in common with one another than we ever have before.
Our view here might be slightly different, and I should say that I am about to deviate a little from the locus of the above conversation in order to explore other (related) issues you are raising. For example, I’m not sure that cultures were ever “given” whereas now they are “constructed.” I would differentiate my position a little differently from what you are suggesting in that 1) We have to problematize the notion of cultural purity, or as you say “uniqueness” and 2) Rather than centering cultural uniqueness as the key element we ought to be attentive to, what I would emphasize is the dramatic loss of cultural autonomy, and I mean this in the basic sense of self-governance. Diversity and uniqueness are too often appeals to neoliberal conceptions of economics and identity, distractions that allow the incorporation of subaltern groups into global capitalism with or without consent.
Thus, we don’t merely need to advocate for the ability of subaltern social groups to maintain their uniqueness, we also have to advocate for their ability to maintain autonomy- real autonomy. The problem with the market place of religions is that it is, to a large degree, part and parcel with the (militarized) consumer imperialism of the global north. Of course the gain is a greater access to knowledge and worldviews, but this exchange is not necessarily symmetrical nor sanctioned by all participants. The problem, then, lies more with the destruction of local groups ability to manage their own affairs and economies because of their subsequent incorporation into global systems of asymmetrical exchange, rather than their loss of purity or giveness. Its an extra-religious problem that leads us to the question: what does this one world need to look like given that its always going to be a multiple world?
Are you prepared to claim that there must be something to every widespread set of beliefs people have? For example, racism has been common throughout all cultures. Are you prepared to claim that there is truth to racism and that it is something “we shouldn’t explain away” as based on other things, whether they be cultural, neurological peculiarities of our brain, etc? I ask because this is the argument both you and Matter are making with respect to god and religion. You’re claiming that hecause it is widespread, there must be something to it and that it shouldn’t be “explained away” through ethnography, sociology, cog sci, neurology, etc. Yet all things being equal, I don’t see why I shouod accept this thesis in the case of religion but not racism. In fact, I take it that the fact that belief in the divine has been so widespread throughout history and culture is evidence of a neurological ground of religious belief (it’s a spandrel), not evidence for the truth of that belief. I’m all for investigating why the many myths of the world have such potent meaning and significance for people, but that’s an ethnographic secular project, akin to literary analysis, not a project that argues these things have true referents or that the divine actually exists.
Thanks for your excellent questions, Levi. In short, I am prepared to claim that any account of the world we generate must not preclude the experiences people have of the world. This is different than claiming that there is positive truth value to those experiences, but nevertheless such moments in human life must be included in our datum of experience. This is my, following Whitehead’s, point about stating that religious experience is a cosmological fact: religious experiences do happen. To do away with the religious experience in our account of the humans and the cosmos, for me, suggests something like the following hypothetical position: there are many ways to experience the “human,” the “divine,” and the “cosmos,” but some of these are false and deluded, having explanations other than what the individuals who believe in such things happens to think is the case, because of this I shall ignore these elements of human experience and produce an account of experience without them. This is not a move I am prepared to make. I don’t see you arguing that we remove religious experience in our accounts of the world either, Levi. However, our approach to the study of the matter is different.
I think approaching matters of humans and religions as cosmic facts actually creates greater ethnographic import, and not less, since excepting the cosmic fact of religious experience at least provides the ground with which to approach a study of religious experiences from a greater number of perspectives. Secularity, for my tastes, reduces the number of ways we can study something in an unhelpful way, particularly in the case of religion. I think this is to our disadvantage, hence I don’t assume secularity when interpreting religious experiences, even as I don’t deny secularizing methods.
Further, I have to return to my statements in the above post and make extra clarifications. I claim that ethnography, biology, sociology, or psychology are not adequate to explaining “away” religion, and I hold this to be true. However, this is not an exclusive property of religion or religious thinking. I do not think biology, sociology, or psychology will explain away philosophy or science, or any other system of ideas for that matter, either. However, I have definitely not denied the importance of ethnographic or psychological studies of religion, or as you as rightly point out, the possible neurological ground that makes religious thinking possible for humans every where. Rather, I prefer to take a more integral approach by suggesting that all phenomena can be treated and approached with a mix-methods, transdisciplinary mode of research. You wrote: “I’m all for investigating why the many myths of the world have such potent meaning and significance for people, but that’s an ethnographic secular project, akin to literary analysis, not a project that argues these things have true referents or that the divine actually exists.” I totally agree with this statement, with one caveat. Ethnographic research is one mode of studying the significance of religious and mythological systems, not the only one. Thus while I wouldn’t reduce religion to biology, culture, or psychology, I am all for employing all of these disciplines (and more) in the study of religious experience, practice, and belief. What I will not do, however, is somewhat arbitrarily decide that one of these fields can dominate religion (or any other mode of thought) and explain it in terms of its own language. I need more thorough descriptions of phenomena in order to feel satisfied that I have done the experience justice, a singular approach just won’t do it for me. Again, this is not because of a special property of religion per se and is rather an approach that I would take with any subject.
Your comparison to racism is apt. Racism is a fact of the world that must be confronted and dismantled in ourselves and in our culture. Like religion, the fact of racism’s existence must be taken into account in order to treat it as the real, live, and contentious issue that it is. We can’t start with racism by saying “well its not really true and has no basis in biology,” which of course is an absolutely true statement, but often doesn’t do a thing to stop racism in the world. Racism, in order to be dismantled, must also be encountered as a real fact of people’s experience. We know, for example, that biological discourses on race themselves have a racist history (as does ethnography and anthropology), we also know that the actual biological evidence against racism doesn’t stop racism from acting in the world. Thus, for me, treating racism as a real phenomena is essential to its possible extinction. I hope this answer helps clarify things for you, as I found your question to be very provocative and important, it has definitely helped to further refine my position.
In sum, I am not looking for the evidence of a truth of belief in the case of religion or racism as the sole means to approach the topic. Rather, I move to study the effects of those practices as well (this is also consistent with the ethnographic approach you suggest, but I still don’t have to reduce the phenomena to ethnography). For me, then, moving ahead to the truth claim aspect of an experience is only one part of a larger move that involves multiple sets of actions and multiple methods of research, each only partial in its account of a phenomena. I do not hear you disagreeing with this and hopefully drawing it out more gives you a better sense of my position. Thanks for the great questions.
(A brief “confessional” might help to further situate my perspective: I have never been to church and have virtually no contact with religious communities -product of being Swedish I think- I do not necessarily have something personal at stake in this conversation, I’m more drawing out what I see as an important aspect of religious studies.)
[...] Bryant has posted a comment in response to me over at plasticbodies. He has also posted a comment directed at Adam and I over at knowledge-ecology. I’d like to respond to some his questions [...]
[...] that there must be some ontological truth to the claims of religion (i.e., that God exists). Over at Knowledge Ecology’s blog I pointed out that there are at least 30,000 years of racism and sexism and that the form of your [...]