Thursday, September 1, 2016

A Rousing Charlie Hebdo Rendition of ‘A Rose by Any Other Name…’


The psychiatrist-philosopher Karl Jaspers identified it as the struggle with the unseasonable spirit of the times (Kampf mit dem Ungeist der Zeit; interview in Die Zeit, 20, February 1958). But in a more literary incarnation it remains the perplexing problem of ‘a rose by any other name….’ The Bard puts this divisive metaphor of the rose & its scent into the mouth of Juliet when she realizes that her Beloved Romeo, whose essential perfume has intoxicated her, has the odious name of Montague—“wherefore art thou Romeo?”
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;     
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.       
[…] O! be some other name:   
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose   
By any other name would smell as sweet;        
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,   
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;        
And for that name, which is no part of thee,    
Take all myself.

Building upon the metaphor: no matter what name we give a thing, the essential perfume of its reality never changes, for good and for ill. Romeo was a delightfully aromatic essence-of-rose, but bore an inauspicious, unrose-like name. However, not every scent is a Romeo, a pleasant fragrance that we may call “but love.” Which is precisely the disturbing problem presently being fanned about on the wings of Politically Correct Speak in the cities and nations of Western Europe. Politically Correct Speak, or Newspeak, as was made abundantly clear in George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, is not interested in expressing truth about things, but rather in mis-naming and mis-taking things, in controlling words first, in order then to control the flow of ideas. It is the specific intent of Politically Correct Speak to create partisan narratives; it is the Will to Lie.
So what happens when our mayors and governors, our various elected officials and their various appointed ‘creatures’, what happens when a society, as a general rule of thumb, refuses to call a thing what it is? What happens when we deliberately fail to call the rose a rose, and instead call the aggressive cancer a summer cold?

A Lesson in Hedging.
Suppose, for example, that a certain, broadly-conceived faction of religiously inspired individuals begins radiating out into the world with their weapons, in order to intimidate through combat, to coerce, to compel, and generally to fill with terror—with the Fear of the Lord, as one might have said in other times—just normal people who may or may not be otherwise interested in that particular religion’s ideas, or doctrines, or cultural attitudes. When our Western societies fail to give ‘the rose’ its proper name, we fail to recognize and therefore to correctly identify an essential reality. So we effectively craft a new, other ‘thing’ in the place of the really real; we mask the real, and ignoring the symbolic (to borrow upon Lacanian phrasing), we invent an imaginary world where we are magically transformed into the guests at the feast of Belshazzar of old. And behold, as in former times, the handwriting shall also appear on our wall: the mene, mene, tekel upharsin that tells us that, by our not-seeing, we must necessarily fail to resolve whatever the real, and very non-magical ‘problems’ are.
This problem of perception, which is at its core hermeneutical, is general in scope. Whether intentional or unintentional, the real is replaced by the imaginary; and yet the ‘real’ does not simply go away, but remains growing like a weed or a cancer under cover of darkness and ignorance. But such changeling phenomena of the mind are commonplace. For example, as enthusiastic devotees of the dogmatic scientism that dominates the modern worldview, we have grown accustomed to speak of ‘addictions’, and have tried every way from Sunday to address the problem of addiction medically, with a view to relieve, to remedy, and to rectify the ill. But more recent thinking in the empirical sciences, which is indeed a thinking and not simply a belief in the epistemological status quo, has begun to resist defining addiction as a ‘disease’, really not an illness at all; and so our previous thinking and argument is beginning to disappear down the rabbit-hole in a flutter and flurry, in order to try to understand the implications of the ‘new’ real that is starting to emerge. Such was the polemic at the heart of a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education
“But even as new insights emerge from both the physical and social sciences, a longstanding argument over whether or not addiction is a disease prevents researchers from identifying effective treatment strategies. The "disease model" remains dominant among medical researchers as well as in the treatment community. But it is not universally embraced, and some researchers think it gets in the way of fresh ideas about how to help people.
"We don’t have very good science yet, […] and a lot of that has to do with issues of conceptualization and politics."”

Cover of CH, January 2016
Now with respect to our above-mentioned illustration of that rubicund faction of religiously exalted and illuminated, weaponized crusaders who are at present radiating out into the world, if our political and national leaders continue to misname this unseasonal ‘malady’, calling it simply fanaticism (instead of religious fanaticism) or simply terrorism (instead of religious terrorism), and qualifying the actions simply as criminal (instead of religious proselytism), then the societies who are being plagued with this unseasonableness will necessarily fall short of developing effective strategies in their attempts to learn how to deal with events in this modern period of unbridled Religion. For the essential element that is being deliberately ignored and therefore over-looked in the naming of this modern rose, is that, at heart, this fanaticism and this terrorism is a movement of the Religious Mind. And yet this movement will not just go away if we ignore it. For the nature of a thing will always eventually make itself known; we need only pay attention to the scent.
There is impediment, however, from the world of Politically Correct Speak. For our aggrieved and suffering societies do not dare to name any particular religion as somehow significant in the rose-like reality of Religious Fanaticism—suppose for the sake of the argument that it were Islam—because this would provoke a hue and cry, and shouts of discrimination, and amalgamation, and profiling would be heard far and near. And of course members and spokespersons of that specifically named religious group, who are perhaps less fanatic and certainly differently weaponized, will take pains to make it clear to All & Sundry that We-the-Secular-People should pedantically avoid confusing and confounding into some sort of homogeneity, and thereby creating the amalgam between, those religious fanatics who are (really, they say,) irreligious, criminal lunatics and terrorists, and true believers who are truthfully and peacefully believers and holders of the true truth of their religion, and therefore truly religious.

Unfortunately, the spirit of the times seems to have remained intellectually unseasonable (ungeistig), and the allure of totalitarianism irresistible. Indeed, it is precisely the out-of-season nature of the magical or religious spirit that constitutes the unbridgeable gap between religious authoritarianism, which is aggressively on the rise and ravenous for new converts, and the Enlightenment foundations of modern Western democracies. In his 1958 interview Jaspers made clear that “Totalitarianism is neither communism, nor fascism, nor Nazism, but has occurred in and through all of these configurations. The terrible threat for the future of mankind, which is universal, is Mass Order, which is a function of the age and divorced from any particular politic whose existence is determined by principles grounded in notions of nation, history, constitution, and rules-of-law. (...) Totalitarianism is like a ghost that drinks the blood of the living and thereby becomes real, while the victims, like a mass of living corpses, continue on with their existence.”
[“Der Totalitarismus ist nicht Kommunismus, nicht Faschismus, nicht Nationalsozialismus, sondern ist in allen diesen Gestalten aufgetreten. Er ist universal die furchtbare Drohung der Zukunft der Menschheit in der Massenordnung. Er ist ein Phänomen des Zeitalters, losgelöst von aller jener Politik, die durch Prinzipien nationalen, geschichtlichen, verfassungsmäßig-rechtsstaatlichen Daseins bestimmt ist. (...) Der Totalitarismus ist wie ein Gespenst, das das Blut der Lebenden trinkt und dadurch wirklich wird, während die Opfer als eine Masse lebender Leichname ihr Dasein fortsetzen.”]

Jaspers reminds us insightfully that the Spirit of Totalitarianism precedes its myriad translations into historical happenstance, one form of which has undeniably been Religion in all of its various permutations. Leaving the history of the question aside for the nonce, it is more pertinent to our immediate historical moment, and so to our purpose here, to note that the Religious Mind has ever been the viper nourishing in the bosom of Enlightenment; and the viper has now turned to strike a blow for its long-awaited emancipation from enlightened Reason and its return homeward in the direction of its obscurantist heritage.
            At the philosophical birthing of enlightened democracies, which we may quite arbitrarily date at 1689 with the English publication of John Locke’s Letter concerning Toleration, he reasons that there needs to be a place for the Religious Mind in the non-religious, non-theocratic state—the secular state. Hence, already with the birth of the democratic ideal the obscurantism of the Religious Mind was accepted into the bosom of enlightened secularism. The Religious Mind must obviously be permitted to continue to thrive, privately, in the secular state, argues Locke, but any notion of Religion playing an authoritative role in the public arenas of that state is to be absolutely curtailed. Locke argues for the comprehensive separation of church authority from civil authority because a civil magistrate is not qualified, either by his civil office and or by his competencies, to make meaningful distinctions between competing religious authorities with competing claims. For example, what possible criteria are there for validating in civil society one religious denomination as worthy of tax exempt status, and yet for refusing this status to another denomination? In civil society, what makes one body of doctrine a religion, but a different and perhaps competing body of doctrine a cult? And in what way is the American IRS (tax service) educationally or intellectually qualified to make such distinctions?
In the present historical moment, it is for exactly this reason that it is impossible not to conclude that the vast number of commentators and interlocutors on this question of religious fanaticism and religious terrorism are talking indefensible, irrational nonsense. We are compelled to say to all of those who pretend, either from inside the religious context or external observers of the phenomenon, that it is somehow possible or meaningful not to amalgamate religious fanatics with co-religionists of lukewarm or indifferent commitment—Stuff & Nonsense.
Here, for example, one reads the oft-repeated claim, which is not even disguised as a justification, but simply delivered up as de facto statement of historical truth, that “the attacks [in Paris’ Bataclan theatre] were not related in any way to Islam.” And here an essayist seems not to recognize what John Locke already clearly understood in 1689, which is to say, the indefensible irrationality behind the litany: “One cannot say it enough: Islamism, no matter how moderate it is, is not Islam, but a theocratic and neo-fascist deviant of Islam.” Such sterile and incompetent claims and assertions are certainly not logical argument, because they contain neither elements of logic nor of argument, but neither are they meaningful forms of reasoning in civil society. The realm of philosophy remains inviolate in this present atmosphere of non-Thought and non-Argument. Locke’s 17th century reasoning, on the other hand, was sufficiently persuasive for the framers of the American Constitution to separate the interests of State from the interests of Religion in the young American republic. And his Thinking remains relevant for us today.
            The following are Phrontisterion translations of two of Riss’ editorials from late summer 2016 editions of Charlie Hebdo. In these editorials Riss develops in his own inimitable style a line of reasoning that is as old as Enlightenment itself.
           
A Prayer for Miscreants
Editorial: Riss
20 July 2016 / Charlie Hebdo No 1252 / 3
From this issue of CH
What can one really say after Nice? In the year 2015 the French discovered Islamic terrorism. We shall not repeat here the different commentaries that have pummeled us since January 2015, like “They will not make us change of way of life,” “They want to destroy our insouciance,” “Their type of Islam is not true Islam,” “These acts are being committed by the mentally unstable.” If we were a bit more cynical, we would add: etc., etc.
            After each terrorist attack, we ask ourselves about the ultimate role of Religion. But then, just as soon as the notion of Religion is evoked, the specialists show up in the various television studios, affirming that the killer was not a practicing Muslim, or even that he was crazy and that Religion had nothing to do with his action. Just like for the soldier Ryan (TN: Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan), we move heaven and earth to get Religion out of the difficult position that it finds itself in just because of one mindless dumbsh#t. And even if it should turn out that the killer was radicalized quite quickly, the specialists will respond that this is not sufficient to make him a true believer and that his crime therefore cannot be blamed on Religion. Keep moving along; there is nothing to see here!
            And yet the history of religions is chock full of quick conversions. “Paris is certainly worth a mass,” used to say the very Protestant Henry IV just before converting to Catholicism for political gain. So why should paradise not be worth a truck going 90 km an hour on the Promenade des Anglais on one July 14th evening? Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in one night just before the battle on Milvius bridge, which he won by slaughtering hundreds of his enemies without the help of refrigerator trucks. As for Paul of Tarsus, prosecutor of the Christians, he converted all at once on the road to Damascus, and became from one day to the next Saint Paul, illuminated Christian. These high-speed conversions never shocked anyone; and they have even been repeatedly recounted for us and marveled at for centuries. So why is it that an inhabitant of Nice would not have the right to convert to Islam in a couple of days? There are a lot of them in History, sad-sacks suddenly converted to a religion in order to give meaning to their pathetic destinies. The case of the killer in Nice is not in the least bit something new.
            What strikes us when we look at these types of crimes, is that they are committed like they were prayers. Prayer does not need lots of trappings. Immense cathedrals, sumptuous mosques, or thousand-year old synagogues are not absolutely necessary for prayer to take place. It is enough just to believe, and with some Psalms and verses at the ready, one can pray at the North Pole, in the desert, or on the summit of Mount Everest. Faith does not have material needs; faith has only spiritual needs.
            It is the same with these terrorist acts. It is not necessary to master really complicated weapons, nor war-time techniques learned in Syria or Iraq. A modest knife, such as in Magnanville, or a common truck will do the trick, like a simple rug oriented toward Mecca, a little Bible in the pocket, or a rolled-up Torah are sufficient for prayer. These people kill like they pray, and they only need a direct connection to God and a handsome new refrigerated truck rented two days earlier to make it happen.
            The police forces and the military will never be able to stop these attacks if they focus too much on the technique; because there are no machines that permit one to delve into souls and minds. It is impossible to know what an individual is hiding in the deep recesses of his consciousness, which he dissimulates even from those closest to him. Like deliberate failures or [Freudian] slips that might happen to reveal something that is slumbering in the unconscious, these terrorist acts surface unexpectedly and cannot be anticipated. It is this that gives us the impression that they are committed by crazy people.
            No police force, no army will ever be able to control this. They can act only and uniquely upon visible things, expressed in conversations transmitted by portable phones or computers. But they cannot act upon the invisible things of the mind. The ways of the Lord are mysterious, goes the saying, and therefore it is difficult for the police to verify their identity. It is the mystery of Religion that gives to religions all their force, and, if a religion drifts too far afield from its mystery, and begins clothing itself with the rationalism that is required by our modern societies, that religion becomes weak and loses its strength. Mysticism is fundamentally anti-democratic, because it is incompatible with the balance of powers and the critical spirit that constitute the foundations of democracy.
            So, what remains for us to do in order to protect ourselves from mysticism? Some additional barriers across the Promenade des Anglais, an app on our smartphones called “Attack Alert,” and additional national guard reserves. It is our turn to have faith.

Summer Reform
Editorial: Riss
10 August 2016 / Charlie Hebdo No 1255 / 3
Front page comic

What an odd idea—to want to reform Islam! It is the new trend ever since the attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. After the assassination of an ecclesiastic from a religion other than Islam by a killer who claims to represent Islam, the home front is in a panic. Muslims are in a panic, because they are afraid that they will become targets of violence. Catholics are in a panic, because they are afraid of a religious war. Politicians are in a panic, because they already know that their security measures have reached their limits.
            And then—why reform Islam? We have been told repeatedly, for months, that the attacks are committed by those who are deranged. But if this were true, it is not Islam that should be reformed, but the psychiatric hospitals, because they have been unable to identify these crazed killers and have not been able to provide effective treatment. Curiously, fifteen days after the attack no one is framing the story anymore in terms of ‘deranged’. Fifteen days later, everyone is talking about Islam.
            If anyone knows how to reform a religion, in three weeks if possible, just before the start of classes, that would be really helpful. Like class dunces who do not do a stitch of work for the entire academic year, and who think they can make it all up in the week prior to the final exams, it is only now that ‘they’ acknowledge the existence of tensions between Islam and our democracy: more and more fundamentalists, more and more veils, more and more beards, more and more mosques that smell of fire and brimstone. ‘They’ wanted to pacify us by pretending that the attacks were a psychiatric problem. ‘They’ already wanted to pacify us in the same way by affirming that the problem with Islam was not Islam, but secularism [laïcité]. There are the intellectuals, if we can call them that, who continue to tell us that it is secularism [laïcité] that needs to be reformed. Every type of manipulation has been attempted by the charlatans of Islamophobia, as Charb used to call them, in an attempt to keep Islam from being criticized and Muslims from having to question their religion.
            Because someone is not exempt from asking questions about the faith just because he is a believer. Quite the opposite. Catholics questioned their faith with Vatican II, which did not make them bad Catholics. If Muslims would do the same, it would not make them bad Muslims. To raise questions about Islam and Muslims is not to stigmatize them; it is the very least one can do when it is a matter of bringing into the public arena questions that are of concern to everyone.
            In a small city in the suburbs where I was doing a news story, ‘they’ explained under what conditions the new mosque had been built. The site had been chosen by local Muslim authorities, and they were adamant that the mosque should be situated right next to the train station. Strange location for a mosque. The spokesman explained to me that this location would permit them to observe which Muslims, when returning home from work, would go straight home without going to the mosque. With their place of worship only fifty meters from the station, they no longer had any excuse for not going there. Local politicians were not shocked by this demand, and accepted it without flinching.
            To reform Islam would first consist in reforming our locally elected politicians. They believed that Muslims were like any other group, like farmers or hunters. That all you needed was to be buddies with them and to satisfy their demands in order to get their vote in the next elections. And because these local politicians know nothing about Islam, they were persuaded by the spiel of those Muslims who are the most militant, which is to say, by the claptrap of those who are the least progressive, because they were convinced that this would be good for their reelection and for social peace. Result: France is on the verge of civil war.
            The massive annual street markets and sidewalk sales that take place in Lille each summer, an event that dates from the Middle Ages and has only ever been interrupted by the Nazi occupation, was just canceled out of fear of attacks by Islamic fundamentalists. One less secular [laïque] festival. On the other hand, even though a priest has just been assassinated, who would dare cancel for security reasons a religious event like the processions of August 15 [NT: The Assumption of Mary]? Likewise, who would dare forbid for security reasons the Muslim Tradeshow or the Muslim Fair, which are annual events.
            How is one to reform Islam? When we see the speed with which those who are secular [laïcs] have already reformed their way of life by adapting themselves to fundamentalist terror, while Muslims have not begun even the slightest bit of work on themselves, we begin to see that the question has perhaps already been answered.

Related Phrontisterion topics:

Further reading:
CH comic