http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2007/12/21/what-inspires-us-what-holds-us-together/ Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:52:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2007/12/21/what-inspires-us-what-holds-us-together/#comment-197 Jim Norwine Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:01:10 +0000 http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2007/12/21/what-inspires-us-what-holds-us-together/#comment-197 I want to ask Professor Taylor if his take on fullness is not finally too generous. (I say this in spite of the fact that, I think like Taylor's, my own worldview is "postmodern" in being at once both orthodox [conservative Lutheran in my instance] and yet also non-hegemonic. That is, this sort of hybrid or what might be thought of as "transmodern" orthodoxy is sufficiently modest to accept the truth that my belief that "my way is the highway" is only that: my belief. Who am I to dictate to the Always-So concerning the legitimacy of other paths...?) I sympathize with his desire to be inclusive but question whether in fact fullness, real fullness, is possible in a secular Weltanschauung. Here I am more or less equating fullness with what Leslek Kolakowski calls "special significance". Kolakowski makes it clear that he thinks that, absent God, such capital-M meaning is not available to us. It is nihilism, soft or hard, all the way down. Philip Rieff, in his brilliant 2006 screed "My Life Among the Deathworks," makes I think the same argument, i.e., that the now-dominant postmodern or what he terms "third" culture is doomed because of its rejection of the "vertical in authority". Atheism is of course an entirely reasonable perspective, but if one takes the king's shilling does not one have to live with the consequences of that decision? To suggest that real fullness still somehow remains in a heartless existence in which special-significance meaning has been slain seems to me at the very least disengenuous, something like when supposedly devout Christians go through life blithely ignoring our soul-test to defend the poor and powerless. Thank you I want to ask Professor Taylor if his take on fullness is not finally too generous. (I say this in spite of the fact that, I think like Taylor’s, my own worldview is “postmodern” in being at once both orthodox [conservative Lutheran in my instance] and yet also non-hegemonic. That is, this sort of hybrid or what might be thought of as “transmodern” orthodoxy is sufficiently modest to accept the truth that my belief that “my way is the highway” is only that: my belief. Who am I to dictate to the Always-So concerning the legitimacy of other paths…?) I sympathize with his desire to be inclusive but question whether in fact fullness, real fullness, is possible in a secular Weltanschauung. Here I am more or less equating fullness with what Leslek Kolakowski calls “special significance”. Kolakowski makes it clear that he thinks that, absent God, such capital-M meaning is not available to us. It is nihilism, soft or hard, all the way down. Philip Rieff, in his brilliant 2006 screed “My Life Among the Deathworks,” makes I think the same argument, i.e., that the now-dominant postmodern or what he terms “third” culture is doomed because of its rejection of the “vertical in authority”. Atheism is of course an entirely reasonable perspective, but if one takes the king’s shilling does not one have to live with the consequences of that decision? To suggest that real fullness still somehow remains in a heartless existence in which special-significance meaning has been slain seems to me at the very least disengenuous, something like when supposedly devout Christians go through life blithely ignoring our soul-test to defend the poor and powerless.
Thank you

]]>