Fallen Into Knowledge

I have again picked up Zizek’s Parallax View, in hopes of finishing it this time ’round, and also because this passage has been on my mind since I first encountered it months ago:

So what is the Master-Signifier?  Let us imagine a confused situation of social disintegration, in which the cohesive power of ideology loses its efficiency: in such a situation, the Master is the one who invents a new signifier, the famous “quilting point,” which stabilizes the situation again and makes it readable; the university discourse which then elaborates the network of Knowledge which sustains this readability by definition presupposes and relies on the initial gesture of the Master.  The Master adds no new positive content - he merely adds a signifier which, all of a sudden, turns disorder into order, into “new harmony” as Rimbaud would have put it. […] all fears are exchanged for one fear; that is to say, it is the very fear of God which makes me fearless in all worldly matters.  The same reversal that gives rise to a new Master-Signifier is at work in ideology: in anti-Semitism, all fears (of economic crisis, or moral degradation…) are exchanged for the fear of the Jew…. And is this same logic also discernible in a horror film like Spielberg’s Jaws?  I fear the shark, my friend, and have no other fears…. -Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View, pg 37

it would be easy to see the Master-SIgnifier as relating only to ideologies we don’t like - political ideologies - democracy, freedom, terrorist all have approached the status of Master Signifier in recent memory. We fear the terrorist in large part because he (presumably) is unknown, a shadowy figure.  This is the genius of the horror film; the monster we don’t see is scarier than the monster we do see because we can project all sorts of anxieties on the unseen and unknown.

I wonder, however, if it is nearsighted to see the master-signifier as only a way to criticize political ideologies we don’t like.  Nearsighted firstly because such use tempts us pretend that there are areas of life that external to ideology - the objectivity temptation.  But nearsighted also because Christian Theology spends much of its time explicating the meaningfulness (readability) Christian Discourse in light of its Master Signifier, and that crises in Theology are most often crises in the content of the Master-Signifier.  It is just this content which at once is so important and is normally treated as a given (what is the definition of terrorist - or of freedom?).  To be a heretic, also, is to be differently disposed as to the content of the Master-Signifier - Jesus was not wholly Man, etc.

What other areas can be explicated by means if this Master-Signifier, and what are the limits of this idea?

I have been thrilled to find theo-bloggers discussing contemporary European Philosophy, if for no other reason than because I comfort myself saying, “you’re not crazy afterall.”  Agamben, Zizek, Badiou, Schmitt: just jumping right in to these can present a challenge to someone whose education has been primarily theological; heck, they are challenging for anyone!  At the request of Adam, and because I have been too long absent from this blog, Here is a reading list for those theology students I know who are getting interested in Cultural Studies / Frankfurt School / Leftist Literature / Theory / Whatever We Call This Body of Literature:

Start With Marx!  Really this whole thing builds upon Marx (and Freud). Even those who think Marx is wrong are disagreeing with Marx. He provides the framework that the discipline of Cultural Studies is based. So where it start? Start with the earlier works, especially the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Grundrisse. Norton’s Marx-Engels Reader (edited by Robert Tucker) is the preferred text.

Next Up, Some essays:

Antonio Gramsci, “The Formation of the Intellectuals”

This is the first chapter of his Prison Notebooks

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of art in the Age of Mechanical Representation”

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception”

Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

Some More Books:

Michel Foucault: If you haven’t read anything by Foucault, start by reading The Foucault Reader (Pantheon), and then move to these: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Power/Knowedge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, and The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences.

Jean Baudrillard, Simulations. This slim volume provides for us a definition of his term, Simulacrum

Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

What have I missed? What books and essays are essential for theology students trying to grapple with the current body of literature on Paul and Christianity by philosophers? I know Lacan is missing, but alas, I haven’t read any of his work.

I’m a bit late to the game, but am also a sucker for Book-related memes. Which books do I find myself constantly recommending?

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament.
This is theology done right, in my opinion. When I want to show that biblical studies and theology can speak to each other, or when I want to show theology to be engaging I recommend this book.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
I have found this a profoundly moving novel, and each time I read it I want to shout from the hills how great it is.

David James Duncan, The River Why
I recommend this because it is laugh-out-loud funny. Don’t read it in public unless you want people to give you more funny looks than they normally do.

Neil Postman, Conscientious Objections : Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education
If I had three wishes, I might use one of them wishing to write like Postman did. This is his best book because in it he gets to talk about all of his pet subjects in essay form.

The Saga of the Volsungs
Periodically, people ask about my studies, and every once in a while I am asked to recommend a medieval text for which to read. I always start people with the Volsunga Saga. Its a great story, everything one would hope for in a medieval adventure tale. Also, it was a primary source for Wagner’s Ring Cycle and for another guy who wrote a book about a Ring. I also might recommend the other Icelandic Sagas, or The Tain

Because I cannot resist a book meme, and because responding to the meme gives me occasion to link to Faith and Theology - which is a great site and the location of many others’ responses to this meme, (because of all of that) here is my response:

1. One book that changed your life:

Jesus and the Victory of God, N.T. Wright

2. One book you’ve read more than once:

The Iliad, Homer

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust (its really long!)

4. One book that made you laugh:

The River Why, David James Duncan

5. One book that made you cry:

Silence, Shusaku Endo

6. One book you wish had been written:

The Matrix of Christian Theology, Volume 3(-6), Stanley Grenz

7. One book you wish had never been written:

Millard Erickson, Christian Theology

8. One book your currently reading:

Exclusion and Embrace, Miroslav Volf

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

Theopolitical Imagination, William T. Cavanaugh

10. Now tag five people:

No. If you’ve been meaning to update your blog, here is your opportunity. If you don’t have a blog, and want to respond, leave a comment

David, who I tagged (once upon a time, in a land far far away), has tagged me back. Apparently he thinks that after two years my list might have changed. Quite so.

Actually, over the last couple of years I have spent less time in theology and more time studying literature and philosophy: though, it must be said, I am ready to return to theology. However, my revised list may not be the “most influential books ever,” but these are some books (and thinkers) that I am mulling over right now.

1. John Milton: “Paradise Lost.”

When I first read this (over two years ago) I did not like it. But Milton is dealing with some serious theological ideas. Specifically, I have thinking about the role of language after the Fall and how that Fallen language changes the ways we relate to each other.

2. Louis Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

Perhaps Althusser stands in here for a whole school of thought that I have been thinking about: The Frankfurt School. This text is particularly pessimistic about “culture,” but Althusser most clearly describes the process in which we are shaped by “culture:” we are “always already interpolated as subjects.” That is, and to borrow from Heidegger, we find ourselves thrown into a culture, and find ourselves as having been shaped by it.

3. Dick Hebdige: “Subculture: The Meaning of Style”

Along similar lines as above, I have been thinking about how sub- and counter-cultures interact with the “mainstream” culture. The reason should be clear: on the whole, the church functions like a sub-/counter-culture in the societies in which it find itself. Hebdige thinks about how artifacts of a culture are re-invested with meaning by a counter culture, thus allowing a counterculture to distance itself from the “mainstream.” It seems to me that Christianity in America has been largely been overwhelmed by the values of the “mainstream,” and if we are to distance ourselves we have to act thoughtfully in order to make that distancing representative of our beliefs to those from which we are distancing ourselves.

4. Giorgio Agamben: “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life”

So, part of being “Post-whatever” is distancing ourselves from the Enlightenment. One of the most enduring legacies of the Enlightenment is Humanism: the belief that humans have intrinsic values, are fundamentally equal, and have “inalienable rights.” Much good has come from this belief, to be sure. But, strictly speaking, its not quite biblical. Agamben is wrestling with just how we are to think about humans as we leave Humanism behind. And we are, like it or not. Much of Christian theology, also, in the last couple of centuries have assumed Humanism: they did not need to defent their humanism, nor, probably, even thought much about it. But now, a Christian Anthropology needs to cease riding on the coattails of the enlightenment.

5. Wendell Berry: “Home Economics”

This book pretty much stands in for all of Wendell Berry’s work. As you may know, I have been concerned about “ecology:” How we live on God’s earth. My concern, partly thanks to Wendell Berry, has been widened beyond simply “conservation;” it has been widened toward sustainable communities.

What I am reading now:

I am reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” somewhat half-heartedly, and also De Lubac’s “Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture.”

Critical: (a continuation of my hermeneutic story)

Having wetted my appetite for things hermeneutical during my first year at PSU, for unrelated reasons I left there for Multnomah Bible College: having read Homer and Plato, I wanted to learn greek and at that time PSU did not offer the language. While I wasted no time jumping into my greek studies, all Multnomah students take Bible and Theology classes, and so I soon found myself in a class called, “Bible Study Methods.” Bible Study Methods was, and is, an embodiment of the New Critical approach to texts which I had been attracted to at PSU. While the class was chiefly directed at teaching students specific tools, I particularly relished the times when the class discussion turned philosophical - having been pre-prepared for such discussions at PSU. I soon found out that the New Critical approach was not the only hermeneutical approach represented on campus: in fact, there seemed to be two factions. There were those who followed the ‘cutting edge’ (sic) “text-centered” approach” and those who retained the more traditional “authorial intent” (hisorical/literal/grammatical) approach. Functionally, at Multnomah, this meant that those who favored the “text-centered” approach eschewed any “historical background” material or research, which the “authorial intent” folks embraced it.
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Okay, so OS X has a set of “services” which allows users to perform a bunch of different actions on text and what-have-you. One of the services is called “Summarize,” which summarizes text. What’s the first thing I wanted a summary of? The whole New Testament, of course. Conclusion? Perhaps the feature works better on genres that are not “narrative”
Seriously, though. I have been thinking about the uses of technology in analyzing the text of the Bible. There are certainly dangers here: see John Updike’s novel, “Roger’s Version” as one example and a whole slew of whacky number based mumbo jumbo as more examples. But, even still, there may be some good reasons for using technology as a tool.
Technology can isolate word clusters as a way of pointing toward authorial emphasis. A machine doesn’t approach a text with a pre-understanding of what a text “means.” A machine isn’t cognizant at all of “meaning,” only analysis. This is both our strength, and a big weakness: we think we know what it means and therefore subconsciously filter out anything that doesn’t conform to our expectations. A computer does no such thing.
The sort of analysis I am thinking a computer could do well have to do with finding instances of intratextuality - places where the bible alludes to itself.
Anyhow, here are the (less than) glorious results of the “summarize” tool in OS X:

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One of the joys of digital photography is that it doesn’t cost anything (after the purchase of the camera, of course) to take pictures. So I take pictures, crazy pictures, pictures I know won’t be any good - just to see what happens. Tonight I was playing with the different flash modes on my camera.

Let the Hype begin. As has been widely reported, the title of the seventh, and final, Harry Potter book has been released, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” I didn’t start reading the series until it well under way, and I was well past the target demographic. I read the first four books, and ever since have bought each new release and read it on its release day.

One of the wonderful things about novels is their ability to present not just a story but a world. Quite often, when the story is over, I still want to keep reading about that world. I think this is the draw that the Harry Potter series has for me, I can come back periodically. This is also why I don’t mind when the book’s page count threatens to outrun the attention span of those kids who are the target demographic.

I have been less a fan of the movies that have corresponded with the books, though I have seen them all. The next movie adaptation, “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix” will be out in the summer (alas, likely before the seventh book), and the trailer is online.

If you’ve been to my place, you already know I have a penchant for the written work - there are books everywhere.  But behind the books are also old magazines that I can’t seem to recycle.  Today in my search for jesus (in popular culture) I entered the magazine store on Hawthorne for the first time.  It was glorious, as you can see from the picture taken with my phone, above.
In other news, this site has crossed the two hundred page mark.  That’s right, there are two hundred separate pages to see here. Yeah.