Early Christianity might have correctly predicted the end of the world. It really was the end of a world. Could be they just had difficulty putting into a new language what that might mean.
Agreed on Zizek. That essay is largely (possibly entirely, haven't checked) reproduced in FAITH OF THE FAITHLESS, which also includes an excellent discussion of Rousseau and "civic religion." The whole book is political theology for anarchic and academic leftists, and I don't like the way that he seems to presume where he's going to end before he's gotten there, nor the very un-serious way that he deals with certain players on the designated other team, like Schmitt and Strauss, but it's still useful. It's nice to have a fine upstanding academic like Critchley also hitting Zizek for his "overproduction" and calling it symptomatic of what Zizek is taken to stand against, or wants to be taken to stand against, or that his fans want him to be taken to stand against, but which he comes to exemplify, and with his own attention-grabbing statements often seems to be encouraging.
Exactly, or anyway: I think we're in the same chapter approaching the same page.
Simon Critchley handles this question very delicately and usefully in his most recent book, where he advances the idea of non-violent violence, the violence undertaken with full recognition of responsibility and acceptance of consequences in the interest of the good. He happens to suggest that "Thou shalt not kill" strongly implies a silent "but you will," as borne out by history. That he handles the problem delicately and usefully in my opinion doesn't mean that I would call it satisfactory or, a different thing, easy to explicate. I don't think you can move in a straight line from it to a handbook for interrogators of bad guys, a right-sized defense budget, and intrinsically good rules of sexual conduct, too.
Haven't read Romola, but, since it's available for free for Kindle, have just downloaded it, and will take a look at it sometime soonish.
There is an argument I recently encountered that even the Inquisition wasn't for the most part the Inquisition as we think of it today. We remember the parts that shock the senses and were commemorated in Gothic novels or the Gothic moments of historical adventures, and we vaguely associate it with other historical evils, but some argue that, over the course of most of its existence, it was "the most humane court in Europe."
I'm kinda wondering what led you to this connection. My first reaction was to wonder if you meant the comment for a different thread. Not saying there is no connection to this form of Catholic thinking or legislation and Voegelin's theologically informed political philosophy, though getting to it might take some work.
It will be difficult for many to get their minds around the notion that torture and contraception are somehow on the same level or similar in being "intrinsically evil," and both different in the same way from whatever lesser evils that may be "lawful"-ly tolerated for greater purposes. You may have to be a Pope legislating to understand why any evil tolerated for whatever reason doesn't remain intrinsically evil to the extent it is evil at all.
Think about the vast difference between the two phenomena as commonly understood. Torture and contraception occur in completely different and separate spheres of life. For most anti-torture activists attempting to change or strengthen anti-torture opinion in the U.S., the comparison to contraception would be ridiculously useless or worse. The torture they're worried about directly involved a handful of people. If I'm not mistaken, contraception is used frequently by the majority of adults, and the vast majority of "sexually active" adults. ...You could write a book trying to explain why torture and contraception don't belong in the same book, yet somehow can be seen to.
Hardly even warmed up, but until we know "what god would be," we don't know what any of the other terms mean, or whether "level" - or altitude - isn't an inadequate and misleading metaphor for the relationship we want to describe, since even at a "higher" level this being like no other would be a physical thing, brought to "our" ontological level or the ontological level of objects.
ask Benedict
Early Christianity might have correctly predicted the end of the world. It really was the end of a world. Could be they just had difficulty putting into a new language what that might mean.
Agreed on Zizek. That essay is largely (possibly entirely, haven't checked) reproduced in FAITH OF THE FAITHLESS, which also includes an excellent discussion of Rousseau and "civic religion." The whole book is political theology for anarchic and academic leftists, and I don't like the way that he seems to presume where he's going to end before he's gotten there, nor the very un-serious way that he deals with certain players on the designated other team, like Schmitt and Strauss, but it's still useful. It's nice to have a fine upstanding academic like Critchley also hitting Zizek for his "overproduction" and calling it symptomatic of what Zizek is taken to stand against, or wants to be taken to stand against, or that his fans want him to be taken to stand against, but which he comes to exemplify, and with his own attention-grabbing statements often seems to be encouraging.
Exactly, or anyway: I think we're in the same chapter approaching the same page.
Simon Critchley handles this question very delicately and usefully in his most recent book, where he advances the idea of non-violent violence, the violence undertaken with full recognition of responsibility and acceptance of consequences in the interest of the good. He happens to suggest that "Thou shalt not kill" strongly implies a silent "but you will," as borne out by history. That he handles the problem delicately and usefully in my opinion doesn't mean that I would call it satisfactory or, a different thing, easy to explicate. I don't think you can move in a straight line from it to a handbook for interrogators of bad guys, a right-sized defense budget, and intrinsically good rules of sexual conduct, too.
Nope. Only everywhere, including where we like to pretend it's different.
Does he forget or does he "actively forget" - in other words seek to make amends without quite admitting that's what he's doing?
Haven't read Romola, but, since it's available for free for Kindle, have just downloaded it, and will take a look at it sometime soonish.
There is an argument I recently encountered that even the Inquisition wasn't for the most part the Inquisition as we think of it today. We remember the parts that shock the senses and were commemorated in Gothic novels or the Gothic moments of historical adventures, and we vaguely associate it with other historical evils, but some argue that, over the course of most of its existence, it was "the most humane court in Europe."
I'm kinda wondering what led you to this connection. My first reaction was to wonder if you meant the comment for a different thread. Not saying there is no connection to this form of Catholic thinking or legislation and Voegelin's theologically informed political philosophy, though getting to it might take some work.
It will be difficult for many to get their minds around the notion that torture and contraception are somehow on the same level or similar in being "intrinsically evil," and both different in the same way from whatever lesser evils that may be "lawful"-ly tolerated for greater purposes. You may have to be a Pope legislating to understand why any evil tolerated for whatever reason doesn't remain intrinsically evil to the extent it is evil at all.
Think about the vast difference between the two phenomena as commonly understood. Torture and contraception occur in completely different and separate spheres of life. For most anti-torture activists attempting to change or strengthen anti-torture opinion in the U.S., the comparison to contraception would be ridiculously useless or worse. The torture they're worried about directly involved a handful of people. If I'm not mistaken, contraception is used frequently by the majority of adults, and the vast majority of "sexually active" adults. ...You could write a book trying to explain why torture and contraception don't belong in the same book, yet somehow can be seen to.
Hardly even warmed up, but until we know "what god would be," we don't know what any of the other terms mean, or whether "level" - or altitude - isn't an inadequate and misleading metaphor for the relationship we want to describe, since even at a "higher" level this being like no other would be a physical thing, brought to "our" ontological level or the ontological level of objects.