Look, a human being! Anthropomorphic solipsism in postsecular thought

Noëlle Vahanian

doi:10.1057/s41599-018-0193-6

Abstract

Adding a woman’s voice to an edited volume, or a person of color on an academic panel, or an ecumenical, universalist message of welcome under a church flag—these may be well intentioned gestures of inclusion, but, even as an unintended result, minority discourses either stand on the margins, as the ‘other,’ or they morph and disappear into the dominant discourse. What is needed instead is a change of ‘being.’ Whatever we call the philosophy of religion, it owes its conception to the European Enlightenment, and the latter, its understanding of the modern subject to Christian imperialism and the colonial enterprise. How can it ever become an inclusive field? This paper reflects on the promise of inclusion of postsecular theological discourses within the Continental philosophy of religion. Can such discourses, coming on the heels of the death of God and the postmodern death of universals, overcome their patriarchal, colonial, and racist cultural archive? Such a possibility glimpses a future worth pursuing. To answer the question, this paper plays on the intersectionality of the human being as such—an imagined abstract condition of possibility of our existence—and human facticity, the embodied lived experience that is historically conditioned, culturally determined, gendered and racialized as we know it today—identities expressing or underwriting white privilege, the economic exploitation of the global south, or hegemonic Western institutions of knowledge and power. The paper analyzes key aspects of well-known postsecular theological discourses (Caputo, Vattimo, Taylor, Levinas) through the intersectional lens of feminist, race, postcolonial, and decolonial critiques (Schutte, Du Bois, Carter, Dussel, Mignolo). Error is human, but today’s sexism, racism, or economic oppression suggest it isn’t human errors we ought to correct so much as our erroneous understanding of what we call a human being. A materialist conception of being (Malabou) and a theology whose God is in and of language open the way to engage the complicity of the philosophy of religion with the dominant and hegemonic ideologies that underwrite, besides the field, today’s world order.

Highlights

A first point is that, at root, these so-called problems are all expressions of the human problem when the human being does not see herself as the problem; when man does not see himself as the source of the woman problem; when White man does not see himself as the source of the Negro problem; when European man does not see himself as the source of the Latin American problem
I want to emphasize that the aim of the secular theology I wish to affirm is to offer more than hope to come: to offer a way to envision real change from within the enigma of the human being, from whose borders none of us can totally escape, but in whose universal shoes none of us earth animals ever walk.[6]
Before we return to the 'resonance factor' and how I understand this issue as pertinent to the question at hand concerning the eclipse of women, gender, and differences in postsecular theological discourse, I want to look at the two trends in Western thought from a postcolonial studies’ standpoint, namely, the peripheral inclusion of minority discourses within the academy and the exportation of Western ideology through colonial/ postcolonial subjects.[9]

Summary

Introduction

I want to emphasize that the aim of the secular theology I wish to affirm is to offer more than hope to come: to offer a way to envision real change from within the enigma of the human being, from whose borders none of us can totally escape, but in whose universal shoes none of us earth animals ever walk.[6] Unitary subject/postcolonial, hybrid subjectivities Before such a way to envision real change within the enigma of the human being can be conceived, we must look at the challenges posed, not by the desire for inclusivity, but by the very nature of hegemony as it affects and is affected by those who stand outside of the major discourses.

Results

Conclusion