Nešventas sakramentas: ideologija, tikėjimas ir išsilaisvinimo politika

LTNešventas sakramentas. Ideologija, tikėjimas ir išsilaisvinimo politika yra bandymas suderinti sunkiai suderinamus dalykus - akademiškai neutralius filosofinius tyrinėjimus apie religijos ir politikos santykius su gilia asmenine-egzistencine patirtimi. Be to, tai noras pateikti tam tikrą filosofinį požiūrį į tikėjimą, susiejant jį su išsilaisvinimo politika. Jis yra rizikingas, o mano vienintelė viltis yra tai, kad progresyvūs netikintys comrades ir kolegos skaitys ją atvirai, lygiai kaip tai darys ir tikinčiųjų bendruomenės, kurių konservatyvi dispozicija šioje knygoje yra kvestionuojama. [Iš Įvado]

EN[...] Book challenges conservative Christian ideology and argues that there are philosophical resources within the Judeo-Christian faith tradition to align it with the politics of emancipation. By engaging with the arguments of classical liberalism for the separation of church and state, religion and politics, the book contends that the religious right’s hysteria against ‘sexual promiscuity’, LGBT, and abortions is an unjust ideological obfuscation of existing power relations. It is the unholy alliance between conservative evangelicals and political power that has caused churches to appear blind towards the neoliberal reality of exploitation and growing economic disparities. The key philosophical questions addressed in the book are: how should we conceptualize ‘ideology’; what is the relationship between ideology and faith, and what is the nature of human subjectivity? One of the philosophical theses defended in this book is that ideology, among other things, acts as a bridge between politics (as understood by Niccolo Machiavelli and Max Weber) and religion. Starting from a definition of ideology as ‘the ruling ideas of the ruling class’, the book questions Karl Marx’s notion of ideology as false consciousness and fictitious imagination of one’s place in the world. It engages with Louis Althusser’s famous 1969 essay ‘Ideologie et Appareils Ideologiques d’Etaf. According to Althusser, the main function of ideology is to hail individuals into subjects through a process of interpellation making sure that existing power relations, essentially those of production and exploitation, are successfully reproduced. He distinguishes between repressive state apparatus and ideological state apparatuses arguing that the first functions through repression while the second function ‘by ideology’, when individuals freely become subjects by being convinced and initiated into a dominant discourse.Althusser concludes that‘ideology has the function of constituting concrete individuals as subjects’. Although Althusser’s account of ideology and subjectivity is instructive, it is nonetheless one-sided. To be sure, ideology is pervasive and functions to make individuals into docile subjects of existing power relations. However, is every kind of subjectivity produced by the Althusserian mirror of ideology? Are there other sources of subjectivity apart from ideology? The philosophical thesis put forth in The Unholy Sacrament is that ideology is passive, while faith is an active source of subjectivity: faith moves and produces the subject as a self-conscious person, while ideology is a first level generality. Faith, as a rational belief and a life affirming disposition, is therefore a positive force that gives birth to an ethical stance necessary for any emancipatory praxis. In a similar way to Alain Badiou’s conception of fidelity to an event, the book argues that faith is a result of an existential event and can grow only due to systematic and critical reflection and articulation. Faith thus understood is not and cannot be a dogmatic and uncritical assertion of an opinion imposed from outside. Rather, it is open-ended and progressive in the sense that it is directed towards the future. Similar to Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the active will to power, faith has nothing to do with a reactive embittered resentment. Saint Pauls definition ofpistis is instructive here, when he says that ‘faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’. Passive ideological generality functions as an unfounded and not- fully-rational,‘non-coercive'belief in the dominant discourse designed to legitimate political and economic structures of exploitation. Faith, on the other hand, is active introspective reflection rooted in an existential event that produce meaningful subjectivity.Thus conceptualized, faith enables the subject to hail ideology; due to faith the subject of an existential event is able openly to question ideology and the injustices of existing power relations. It is in this sense that faith is intimately linked to emancipatory politics. However, faith becomes a religious ideology when it turns into a reactive public morality proclaimed by political powers and supported by reactionary religious communities. In advocating a contemporary form of emancipatory politics, Aristotle’s notion of zoon politikon is philosophically appropriated. The key premise of rational human enquiry is that human subjectivity is inter-subjective. At the core of all culturally mediated practices is cooperation, which is the most fundamental ontological feature of human life. The inter-subjective world of human practices is mediated by logos, a world we share in common with those who are engaged in it. Inter-subjectivity allows us to articulate a philosophical conception of the common good in a concrete and rigorous way. The book shows how politics in emancipated societies are based on the notions of common good, teleology and meaningful practices. An essential element of emancipatory politics is a specific notion of economic democracy. In as much as capitalism is based on the narrow dictum of instrumental rationality and profit maximisation it is irrational and thus should be fought against and resisted. The monograph concludes with an interpretation of Saint Paul’s political theology and its relevance for contemporary efforts towards emancipation and social justice. [From the publication]

• Politikos mokslai / Political sciences
• Filosofija / Philosophy