I was particularly taken by a part of the conversation that happened just under an hour in (if you look the podcast up and want to dive in then it starts at 58:33). It starts with Josef, the interviewer and the gist of what they said went like this…
Josef: Just the other week we talked to Richard Kearney, I know you know about Richard’s work. You know he talks a lot about the stranger, or the other, can you give a Deleuzian understanding about who the other is, talking about possible worlds perhaps and place that in a contextual situation because that’s something we are trying to do with the podcast. To always take the idea and to put it in a place where we can relate to it as something we can actually practice, so that it doesn’t become this abstract idea competing with another idea.
LeRon: Sure. The whole idea of ‘the other’ is in some sense important for Deleuze because the difference itself is really the court for him. When it comes to the practical issues we are discussing now, psychologically and culturally, it’s the ‘in-group’ or ‘out-group other’ that is the key. So just to stick with racism, or nationalism, or theism. One believes that one’s own group is the, so to speak, ideal or starting place and then the other group is ‘the different’. And we have evolved, sorry to keep repeating the same point but I think it’s important to give ourselves some grace to realise that we’ve evolved. The only reason we’re here is because our ancestors were xenophobic, right. That the ones who survived were the ones who lived in small hunter gatherer groups and then later in sedentary agricultural groups who were willing to not-share with other groups and to kill them. All the people in the in-group would follow the rules because they believe that if they didn’t the animal spirits or ancestor ghosts would punish them. So the cognitive defaults are deep in what it means to be human today which means that when we are suddenly confronted by ‘others’, people who aren’t part of our in-groups, we have to figure out new ways to live together that don’t appeal to those naturally evolved defaults.
So it’s not just that religion is the only problem, or religion as I’m defining it: theism – the tendency to explain things that happen in the world by appealing to supernatural causes and the attempt to organise a social field by appealing to supernatural authorities – that in my view is no longer helpful. Even, or especially, in countries like Sweden and Norway. I mean this is going to sound really radical to you Josef, but as long as you keep so called ecumenical dialog or inter-religious dialog it doesn’t help. It makes things worse because you’re priming people to think about their supernatural agent and how it’s different from their interpretation of someone else’s supernatural agent. You are priming people to think about a future in which they may or may not have an eternal life around those they love, you’re agitating them to think about their mortality which automatically activates their out-group antagonism so the issue of ‘the other’ in my view can’t only be addressed or solved by attending to psychological or sociological or even philosophical kinds of insights all of which are helpful. Ecumenical dialog in my view only makes things worst because it creates an ‘un-other’ which is ambiguous and hidden just like any other supernatural agent but it is ‘all powerful’ or ‘all week’ or whatever – ‘all relevant’ at least – and this activates peoples biases which blocks the successful creation of new modes of social production that are not organised around alienation or constructing ‘the other’ and keeping oneself safe from him or her.
Josef: To be honest I don’t think that sounds very radical to me, because you know how Deleuze and Guattari talk about invoking one dualism in order to challenge another. That’s basically what we are doing with the podcast and blog and everything else when we make the distinction between the catacombs and the cathedral. So the classical image of ecumenicalism would mean to have conversations between various cathedrals – this is what we believe, these are our boundaries, how can we find a common denominator, how can we move forward? But there’s always this sort of exclusion that is going on and although you might have two cathedrals working together there is going to be a third one that is being excluded. So that dualism we are invoking with the catacombs and the cathedral would mean that the catacombs are a kind of third space, or third compound as we were talking about before, and that would perhaps change the understating about ecumenicalism or ecumenical conversation. To have that space where you do not look at differences as separation for example.
LeRon: Right, I like this, and if I can take that cathedral and catacombs metaphor: even if the cathedrals are getting together and talking about what they “believe” and the similarities between what they “believe”, this has very little to do with what is going on in the catacombs, very little, because people are living their daily lives not thinking about the cloud of unknowing or a kind of ‘week god’ or whatever, they can’t really understand all this stuff. They may find it fascinating or interesting but then they go about their daily lives and they want Jesus to help their family, they want to experience a supernatural agent who heals their children or the gets rid of evil that they are facing. So the real world of trying to connect in the catacombs, so to speak, really continues and is far more important in my view than the discussions that go on between or within cathedrals.
Josef: Yeah, I think that we mentioned Peter Rollins before. When I talked to him he was talking about various ways of looking at things from a cathedral perspective where you try to find ways of relating to people believing other things. Where you might end saying, you know, “its various roads up the same mountain” or something like that, but in all cases you are always putting yourself in the camp where you are right. Either I’m right and you’re wrong or we are both right but it’s always yourself. If you are in the cathedral you are always putting yourself in a position where everyone else needs to become like you because it’s a despotic machine.
LeRon. Yes, well said.
What I like about this exchange, and what came out of it for me, is that there is a recognition that we need to move beyond an us/them model. We need to recognise that it’s not that ‘us’ is right and ‘them’ is wrong. Probably ‘us’ has some stuff right and some stuff wrong. Probably ‘them’ has some stuff right and some stuff wrong too. But most of all we need to creatively seek out new models of social interaction between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Hopefully we are already finding new ways that promote social cohesion and peace in our relationships with others.
LeRon: Sure. The whole idea of ‘the other’ is in some sense important for Deleuze because the difference itself is really the court for him. When it comes to the practical issues we are discussing now, psychologically and culturally, it’s the ‘in-group’ or ‘out-group other’ that is the key. So just to stick with racism, or nationalism, or theism. One believes that one’s own group is the, so to speak, ideal or starting place and then the other group is ‘the different’. And we have evolved, sorry to keep repeating the same point but I think it’s important to give ourselves some grace to realise that we’ve evolved. The only reason we’re here is because our ancestors were xenophobic, right. That the ones who survived were the ones who lived in small hunter gatherer groups and then later in sedentary agricultural groups who were willing to not-share with other groups and to kill them. All the people in the in-group would follow the rules because they believe that if they didn’t the animal spirits or ancestor ghosts would punish them. So the cognitive defaults are deep in what it means to be human today which means that when we are suddenly confronted by ‘others’, people who aren’t part of our in-groups, we have to figure out new ways to live together that don’t appeal to those naturally evolved defaults.
So it’s not just that religion is the only problem, or religion as I’m defining it: theism – the tendency to explain things that happen in the world by appealing to supernatural causes and the attempt to organise a social field by appealing to supernatural authorities – that in my view is no longer helpful. Even, or especially, in countries like Sweden and Norway. I mean this is going to sound really radical to you Josef, but as long as you keep so called ecumenical dialog or inter-religious dialog it doesn’t help. It makes things worse because you’re priming people to think about their supernatural agent and how it’s different from their interpretation of someone else’s supernatural agent. You are priming people to think about a future in which they may or may not have an eternal life around those they love, you’re agitating them to think about their mortality which automatically activates their out-group antagonism so the issue of ‘the other’ in my view can’t only be addressed or solved by attending to psychological or sociological or even philosophical kinds of insights all of which are helpful. Ecumenical dialog in my view only makes things worst because it creates an ‘un-other’ which is ambiguous and hidden just like any other supernatural agent but it is ‘all powerful’ or ‘all week’ or whatever – ‘all relevant’ at least – and this activates peoples biases which blocks the successful creation of new modes of social production that are not organised around alienation or constructing ‘the other’ and keeping oneself safe from him or her.
Josef: To be honest I don’t think that sounds very radical to me, because you know how Deleuze and Guattari talk about invoking one dualism in order to challenge another. That’s basically what we are doing with the podcast and blog and everything else when we make the distinction between the catacombs and the cathedral. So the classical image of ecumenicalism would mean to have conversations between various cathedrals – this is what we believe, these are our boundaries, how can we find a common denominator, how can we move forward? But there’s always this sort of exclusion that is going on and although you might have two cathedrals working together there is going to be a third one that is being excluded. So that dualism we are invoking with the catacombs and the cathedral would mean that the catacombs are a kind of third space, or third compound as we were talking about before, and that would perhaps change the understating about ecumenicalism or ecumenical conversation. To have that space where you do not look at differences as separation for example.
LeRon: Right, I like this, and if I can take that cathedral and catacombs metaphor: even if the cathedrals are getting together and talking about what they “believe” and the similarities between what they “believe”, this has very little to do with what is going on in the catacombs, very little, because people are living their daily lives not thinking about the cloud of unknowing or a kind of ‘week god’ or whatever, they can’t really understand all this stuff. They may find it fascinating or interesting but then they go about their daily lives and they want Jesus to help their family, they want to experience a supernatural agent who heals their children or the gets rid of evil that they are facing. So the real world of trying to connect in the catacombs, so to speak, really continues and is far more important in my view than the discussions that go on between or within cathedrals.
Josef: Yeah, I think that we mentioned Peter Rollins before. When I talked to him he was talking about various ways of looking at things from a cathedral perspective where you try to find ways of relating to people believing other things. Where you might end saying, you know, “its various roads up the same mountain” or something like that, but in all cases you are always putting yourself in the camp where you are right. Either I’m right and you’re wrong or we are both right but it’s always yourself. If you are in the cathedral you are always putting yourself in a position where everyone else needs to become like you because it’s a despotic machine.
LeRon. Yes, well said.
What I like about this exchange, and what came out of it for me, is that there is a recognition that we need to move beyond an us/them model. We need to recognise that it’s not that ‘us’ is right and ‘them’ is wrong. Probably ‘us’ has some stuff right and some stuff wrong. Probably ‘them’ has some stuff right and some stuff wrong too. But most of all we need to creatively seek out new models of social interaction between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Hopefully we are already finding new ways that promote social cohesion and peace in our relationships with others.
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