Per Caritatem

Oliver O’Donovan lays out an extremely helpful overview of the structure of City of God 19, which includes an explanation of why Augustine must wait until book 19 to return to themes discussed in book 2.[1] As he observes, Augustine used the “space” to develop and to make clear his distinction between true, perfect peace attainable only in eschatological fulfillment and earthly, imperfect peace attainable in part in the present age.[2] More specifically, O’Donovan contends that from the start, it was Augustine’s intention “to develop his discussion of the social coherence of the two cities around their respective ideas of peace into thoughts on the status of the earthly commonwealth.”[3] Regarding the imperfect earthly peace, Augustine instructs the “pilgrims” of the “Heavenly City” living in this world not to destroy the particular “customs, laws, and institutions by which earthly peace is achieved or maintained,” but to uphold these so long as they do not hinder the Christian’s ability to worship God.[4] In fact, Augustine acknowledges, and by implication affirms, the Heavenly City’s employment of “earthly peace” and the co-laboring with likeminded others “in the attaining of those things which belong to the mortal nature of man.”[5] Once again, the only caveat given is that these joint efforts and common pursuits do not harm the pilgrim’s pursuit of “true godliness and religion.”[6] Whether we have in view Augustine’s political setting or our own, this striving toward “earthly peace” involves working together with like-minded others (both inside and outside the Christian tradition) to promote human flourishing. In a contemporary setting, such shared activity might include deliberating about current and future legislation on important issues such as healthcare, education, racial profiling, affirmative action, child welfare, incarceration, social assistance programs for the poor, underprivileged, and undereducated, and so forth. Augustine’s own affirmation of the value of those “customs, laws, and institutions by which earthly peace is achieved or maintained” suggests that he also recognizes that non-Christian others possess intellectual and moral virtues and have something worthwhile to contribute to the public good.

O’Donovan continues his analysis and cautions against overemphasizing idealist and realist interpretations of Augustine. The former tend to place too much stress on the Augustinian impulse regarding the impossibility of a perfectly just society in this world. The latter tend to accent the Augustinian impulse regarding the possibility of cooperation between the two cities constituted by different and competing ultimate loves.[7] When either position is pushed to its extreme, O’Donovan argues, Augustine is misrepresented. My own impulse desires a third way, comprised of elements of both views and which upholds, as Eric Gregory puts it, “the dialectical relation between love and sin.”[8] That is, even if Augustine does not advocate for a purely “neutral” public square, I see no reason why a contemporary Augustinian could not appeal to areas of ethical and socio-political overlap between those whose hold different and even conflicting comprehensive views of the world and humanity. For example, both the secular humanist and the Christian may share common views about a civic right to marry, universal human rights, and the need to protect exploited and marginalized groups. Even if their ultimate, rock-bottom reasons for their views are motivated differently, nonetheless, they can and do work together in common pursuits advancing human flourishing and freedom.[9]

Notes

[1] See, Oliver O’Donovan, “The Political Thought of City of God,” in Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics Past and Present, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004): pp. 48–72, esp. pp. 52-9.

[2] Ibid., p. 54.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Augustine, City of God, pp. 946–47 [De civ. Dei,19.17].

[5] Ibid., p. 947 [De civ. Dei,19.17].

[6] Ibid.

[7] Oliver O’Donovan, “The Political Thought of City of God,” 55–6.

[8] Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love, p. 21. See also, James Wetzel, “Splendid Vices and Secular Virtues: Variations on Milbank’s Augustine,” Journal of Religious Ethics 32 (2004): pp. 271–300. I resonate with Wetzel’s aim, “to transform a dramatic choice—pagan or Christian—into a common hope for better wisdom” (ibid., p. 283).

[9] John Duns Scotus, an heir of the Augustinian tradition, continues and develops this Augustinian motif. That is, Scotus articulates a robust, multidimensional view of freedom, which not only promotes human flourishing but also condemns oppressive practices that hinder one’s ability to develop one’s moral and intellectual capacities. In particular, in Ordinatio IV.36.1 Scotus argues that slavery as described by Aristotle in book I of the Politics is incompatible with natural law (see Wolter, Will and Morality, 325; Scotus, Ord. IV, d. 36, q. 1. [Wolter’s translation is based on his transcription of the authoritative Codex A; the critical edition for this text is not yet available]. Scotus’s position is not without its problems—particularly his statements toward the end of the article in which he affirms the status quo based his interpretation of certain biblical texts—nonetheless, it is a Christian position within the Augustinian line voicing clear moral and intellectual dissatisfaction with its own tradition’s, as well as previously held (Aristotle et al.) dominant discourses on slavery.

In Michael Krausz’s article, The Tonal and The Foundational:  Ansermet on Stravinsky, Krausz argues against Ansermet’s claim that Stravinsky’s atonal music is both sub-standard and unnatural.  Krausz approaches the issue from a non-foundationalist epistemology, “which assumes that there are no uninterpreted facts of the matter and no single ahistorical Archimedean interpretive framework from which we can make our cultural entities intelligible” (383).  To illustrate his point, Kraus cites Peter Kivy’s example of the “Bach-bird,” whose song brings to Kivy’s mind, Bach’s Little Organ Fugue in C.

While my musical consciousness is busy fitting the Bach-bird’s song into a possible Western notation, based on major and minor seconds, the Indian’s musical psyche is just as busy accommodating it to the world of microtones.  Does he hear the cheerfulness of the Bach-bird’s song?  Why should he?  He doesn’t hear the same ‘music’ in it that I do.  I should no more expect him to hear the cheerfulness in the Bach-bird’s song than the cheerfulness of Bach’s fugue.  For he would need my musical culture to hear both of them; and that, by hypothesis, he does not have” (Peter Kivy, The Corded Shell, p. 92, as cited in Krausz, 383).

Kivy’s point is that in light of the fact that scales in the Western musical tradition are based on sequential patterns either alternating between major and minor seconds or composed of either major seconds (whole-tone scale) or minor seconds (chromatic scale), we in the West are accustomed to hearing music whose harmonies and melodies are based on these particular scales.  In Indian and other non-Western music, the scales themselves are different and contain, as Kivy observes, “microtones,” that is, intervals smaller than minor seconds.  Consequently, the harmonies and melodies derived from non-Western scales sound very different from those based on major and minor seconds.  For many musically socialized in the West, Indian music sounds dissonant or out of tune; however, to those having grown-up listening to Indian or non-Western music whose scales contain microtones, the same music is considered consonant and beautiful. 

Kivy’s observations seem analogous to Ferdinand de Saussure’s claims regarding language.  That is, according to de Saussure, every meaningful sound is immediately connected with a certain concept. When I say the word “tree” to a community of English language speakers, this word/sign doesn’t somehow connect with a distinct universal concept “tree” shared by human beings. Rather, when I say tree to my fellow competent English-speakers, the sign is already meaningful—it already signifies.  This is the point de Saussure makes when he claims that the sign is composed of two parts: the signifier (the “sound-image”) and the signified (the concept). By itself, the signifier signifies nothing.  Stated otherwise, the signifier (“sound-image”) always signifies in connection with the signified (concept). This is markedly different from an Aristotelian view of language.  For Aristotle, concepts are shared by all human beings and can be arrived at through a process of abstraction.  Aristotle does acknowledge that the particular word that one might attach to a universal concept is conventional and depends upon one’s culture and language community.  Thus, if I am Russian, I will attach the word “дерево” to the concept, tree; if I am Czech, I will attach the word “strom,” to the same concept. This view suggests that there is a kind of universal language of concepts that maps on at a later stage to particular, spoken languages.  De Saussure finds this untenable, as we think in particular languages, whose words derive their meanings from within or internal to the language system itself. Moreover, de Saussure highlights the non-necessary connection between the mental image of an object and a particular word in a spoken language.  In other words, to the question, “why is the mental image of this object possessing leaves and a trunk associated with the word “tree” in English?”, de Saussure answers, “it is a social convention.” This is not to say that one individual within a particular language community can call an object whatever he or she decides to call it. As Heidegger might put it, we are, after all, thrown into our language communities and find ourselves already immersed within a language that, as it were, has us. Similarly, de Saussure’s point is once you are “in” a particular language community, the arbitrary origin of the connection becomes stable and even something to which I, as an individual member of that community, must submit.

I have been reading Eric Gregory’s excellent book, Politics & the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship.  Although I do not have time to give a full review of the book, I want to summarize and highlight some of the themes that I have found intriguing and noteworthy. First, besides chapters devoted to Augustine and modern liberalism, Arendt’s Augustine, and Augustine’s relation to the Platonists and the Stoics, Gregory devotes an entire chapter to Augustine and feminist political theory (chapter 3). Augustine, of course, was not a feminist, and his views on women have been criticized on multiple occasions.  Nonetheless, Gregory shows how his variant of Augustinian liberalism and certain emphases in feminist theory are compatible and how bringing the two into conversation offers significant advances to current socio-political theory. In particular, Gregory believes that a feminist “ethic of care” provides needed correctives to deficiencies in liberal political theory, especially those social contract theories which tend reduce politics to mere (self-serving) interests.

Gregory engages several feminist theorists; however, I shall focus on his treatment of Joan C. Tronto. Rather than dismiss liberalism as yet another failed modern project, Tronto seeks to complete and correct its shortcomings. While Tronto advocates for care as a moral ideal for citizens, she does not argue for some naïve, overly sentimentalist notion of care blind to the evils and injustices of our concrete existence. As a feminist theorist, Tronto is acutely aware of the various asymmetrical power relations constituting the body politic and how dominant groups employ “race,” class, and “gender” for oppressive purposes. Her awareness of an ongoing interplay between, as Gregory would put it, love and sin is “relevant  for Augustinian civic liberals who draw upon Christian love and keep realist observations about power and sin in full view” (167). Unlike antiliberal critics, Tronto does not disparage rights-talk and the importance of political equality, nor does she promote a political theory that flattens all diversity and otherness. Rather, her ethic of care “emphasizes the values of attachment, community, and social responsibility,” while condemning the fictive main character of liberal theories, namely, man as autonomous, detached, and (purely) rational.  Like other feminists, Tronto criticizes

this fiction in terms of a hypermasculine understanding of autonomy linked to an abstract account of freedom as sheer power to initiate action. But, for Tronto, this fiction already is premised on a false choice between autonomy and dependence within the liberal imagination. The need for care does not fit into liberal models that see only autonomy or dependence. In reality, she claims “since people are sometimes autonomous, sometimes dependent, sometimes providing care for those who are dependent, humans are best described as interdependent” (Moral Boundaries, 162).[1]

In short, Tronto brings to the fore failures in the liberal imagination, yet her solution is not to give up on liberalism as a viable political theory or condemn it as somehow inherently flawed and destined to produce nihilism. Rather, she unmasks the false dichotomies and choices liberalism creates—either pure self-interest or social responsibility—and argues for a non-naïve political theory that values cooperation, solidarity, and interdependence. In other words, she argues for an ethic of care with the potential to transform liberal thought and praxis; a care that “can help change the way we see the political world” (171). Even so, like many Augustinians, Tronto recognizes that an ethic of care can be abused, misused, and employed for unjust purposes. This should come as no surprise to Augustinian liberals, who, following the lead of the North African saint, hold no utopian views regarding political regimes, democratic or otherwise. That a rhetoric of care can be used for exploitative purposes “should not mean that liberal democracies can proceed as if care is not necessary for a political practice responsive to injustice, persons in need, and the social conditions that frustrate human flourishing” (171).

Tronto’s focus on care and creating new values for democratic citizens is consonant with Gregory’s larger project of promoting “an Augustinian ethic of citizenship for the morally ambivalent conditions of liberal democracy”(13)—an ethic which takes seriously the need to cultivate virtuous citizens whose various loves respect the dignity and difference of others.

I hope to blog more on Gregory’s insightful book in the months to come, as it has given me much food for thought.

Lately, I have been re-reading Plato’s dialogue, the Symposium, in conjunction with T.S. Eliot’s poem, Four Quartets.  In addition to numerous themes that I hope to develop into a full length article in the near future, I have been musing over the different panegyrics to Love presented by the males assembled for this festive occasion. (One female voice is, however, permitted to speak at this gathering, namely, Diotima, the philosopher-priest who serves as Socrates’ mouthpiece, or keeping with the Dionysian themes animating the drama, Socarates’ mask.  I shall have more to say in the days to come about her all important leading role in this typcal male-only event.).  Of the speeches prior to Socrates’/Diotima’s, I find Aristophanes’s account the most captivating.  With his discourse, we encounter a myth about human origins in a primordial past when all was well or significantly better than the present.  As Aristophanes explains, there were originally three kinds of humans—male/male, female/female, and female/male. These originary pairs had a spherical shape, four arms, four legs, two sets of genitalia, and so forth.  More importantly, they were in perfect relational unity with their, as it were, soul mate.  However, for some inexplicable reason they became proud and plotted to usurp the gods. The gods, needy beings as they were, opted to punish them rather than obliterate them.  Why so? The gods required their sacrifices and worship. After some deliberation, it was decided that Zeus would cut them in half, thus producing their current embodied state, their experience of love now as lack—a kind of inner emptiness, a swirling always-there longing for the intimacy that was.

 What I find incredibly interesting about this ancient Platonic account of humanity’s “fall” and present restless condition is how well it resonates with the Christian account as articulated by T.S. Eliot in his poem, Four Quartets.[1] Listen to Eliot’s hauntingly beautiful word imagery in part I of the first movement of the poem entitled, “Burnt Norton.” Having introduced his first major theme, time—or better the problem we have with time and the dismal thought that our time (our past, for example) might be unredeemable, which of course is not his position at all—Eliot sets before us our telos, our end, which he says is ever-present. Just as we find time and memory closely linked in St. Augustine’s Confessions, so too in Eliot’s account.

“Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.”

Somehow we are drawn in by echoes sounding in our memory.  But echoes of what? The lines immediately following this first mention of echoes suggest something lost, more specifically potential opportunities lost because not taken. Perhaps we failed to act when we should have, or perhaps the opportunities were lost simply by virtue of our having chosen an alternative path.  A hint of sadness seems to inhabit these faint sounds.

So what about the “other echoes?” Of these, Eliot writes,

“Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.”

Here we are given more details, as these echoes recall a garden, that is, the Garden of Eden, “our first world.” But this is precisely the place where we cannot go, as a sword marks our expulsion and bars our re-entry.  In this particular echo, we recognize our exiled state.  Stated slightly differently, our Edenic yearnings confirm our exilic state. For us banished peregrinators, this “unheard music,” to which the bird summoning us can somehow respond, falls upon tone-deaf ears. Or so it seems most of the time.  Yet, when those tragic moments in life unhinge us, those times bringing intense and rigorously focused soul-reflections, our sense of hearing, like a brief but all too needed interlude from the daily grind, returns. Changing metaphors, we are given a kind a vision of what we were and of what we could have been. In this vision we see pools “filled with water out of sunlight, and the lotos rose,” reposing quietly atop the water whose “surface glittered out of heart of light.” In the water, we see a reflection of them—but of whom we ask? Adam and Eve in their pristine state? Humanity as it once was? Suddenly, the vision ends.  A cloud clouds our vision, and we can no longer see the pool—“and the pool was empty.” Why, we ask?

“Go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”

As Howard observes in his excellent little book, Dove Descending, Eliot, of course, is not calling us to live in some illusionary nostalgia. Eliot is far too much of a realist (colloquially speaking) for that.  Quite the opposite is the case.  That is, like the authors of Scripture recounting what happens to prophets who experience theophanies—i.e., they fall prostrate—Eliot understands how fragile we truly are, how quickly we become undone when confronted with Reality. We can’t bear it. Thus, it is a good thing—even an act of divine mercy—that our clashes with Reality occur over time, periodically and purposed with our telos in view—a telos that Eliot this early in the poem is happy to leave ambiguous.

In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno make an interesting and somewhat unexpected connection between the structure of Kantian philosophy and culture industry. According to Kant, the transcendental subject constitutes objects of experience. This means that we provide the laws structuring reality. In other words, given that we bring a priori the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding to the chaos “out there”and thus constitute the objects of possible experience, it turns out that the experience of the transcendental subject is in a sense circular. Here Horkheimer and Adorno see a parallel with culture industry.  For example,Hollywood film producers present us with images bestowing meaning. That is, the producer endows the images with certain structures, thus constituting them as does the Kantian subject. Prior to the film being made, the producer and his colleagues get together and decide what precisely people will want to see. Thus, in our movie experience, we encounter objects of experience pre-constituted by the director and his/her team based on perceived cultural values (in this case, cultural values/interests that sell). So the system of the Enlightenment (a system of theoretical thought) and the “system” of culture come to be self-contained. Consider how this cultural constitution or, in more poststructuralist language, construction of social reality and subjectivities impacts our daily life. From the construction of the “terrorist-other” whom we are supposed to fear and hate to what it is to be “feminine” or “masculine,” we are constantly bombarded with competing discourses, social customs, and practices, all of which shape our perceptions of ourselves, our relation to the other, our roles, the “place” of others, and so forth.

Revisiting the theme of enlightenment rationality as “purely functional,” Horkheimer and Adorno explain that this is a logical end.  Why? Because with the de(con)struction, dismissal and death of a telos connected to rationality, reason becomes functional or instrumental.  As a result, enlightenment does away with difference or alterity. Interestingly, Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s analyses and conclusions are very much in harmony with insights foregrounded by postmodern thinkers like Foucault and Heidegger. Because reason no longer has any goals outside itself, pure reason moves increasingly toward unreason as there is nothing regulating this “emptied out” rationality. (Of course, Foucault would not claim that this is a necessary movement). This is part of the dialectic of enlightenment; it drives its self-critique such that the basis of its own rationality is destroyed. Only after enlightenment has eliminated all, then (according to enlightenment theory), we have acceptable meaning. This is reminiscent of certain—not all of course—expressions of analytic philosophy, wherein philosophy becomes completely irrelevant to human existence.  Here thought is meaningful only after the sacrifice of meaning. The result of this formalization of reason means that since there are no external criteria (but only internal criteria), this hollowed-out rationality can then be used positively or negatively. According to Horkheimer and Adorno, this is the kind of rationality employed for example, in fascism, as well as Marquis de Sade. De Sade, as Horkheimer and Adorno would be quick to emphasize, is not illogical, but rather thinks with amazing clarity and has understood that enlightenment thinking accepts no tradition or external values; thus, it can come up with its own rationality and can eliminate pity, compassion, and the like. So de Sade can set up narratives of dissoluteness, engage in violence against women and others, and at the same time can present a “coherent” system. Examples such as these support the authors’ thesis that with the ushering in of instrumental, hollow enlightened rationality, “pure reason becomes unreason.”

To all in the D/FW area interested in the topic, I would like to extend an invitation to participate in my dissertation lecture. My dissertation is entitled, “Constructed Subjectivities and a ‘Thick’ Account of Agency: A Foucauldian Dialogue with Douglass, Fanon, and the Augustinian-Franciscan Tradition.” The lecture shall begin at 6:30pm at the University of Dallas, Gorman Faculty Lounge (#6 on the campus map) on Monday, August 29th. A brief question and answer period and a reception shall follow the lecture. If you are interested, promise that you won’t throw tomatoes or any other objects, and can make it, I would love to see you there! You may read the dissertation abstract here.