The pseudo-pious path to secular salvation

The increasingly trendy Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek is no stranger to controversy, championing two ideological and intellectual traditions, each loaded with enough anti-individualist implications to upset the most tolerant of liberal sensibilities. That is of course, Marxism albeit in a somewhat provocative and unconventional approach and the Lacanian tradition to which he adheres to much more seriously. With two films now under his belt, numerous appearances on News programmes discussing everything from the Egyptian revolution in Al-Jazeera to Julian Assange on Russia Today, Zizek has accumulated a large following among the intellectual left (something he claims to despise) and spawned many imitators with amateur Freudians haphazardly coupling psycho-sexual analysis with the crisis of capitalism, suddenly becoming a prominent phenomena among the left. It is no wonder then that Hamid Dabashi's accusation of Orientalist clichés appearing throughout Zizek's work was met with such distain among intellectual leftists. The issue that caused such controversy was Zizek's position on the Tiger economies appropriation of Capitalism, spelling the effective ideological end of any inherent democratic character contained within it.

Zizek is without doubt a profound thinker, and perhaps the only leftist ideologue worth listening to today if for the simple fact alone that he completely disturbs the ideological entrenchment and uncreatively of the current left by arguing primarily from a non-Marxist perspective and one alien to the antiquated Trotskyist-anti-revisionist rivalry. That being said the limitations to it's usefulness become embarrassingly clear when he steps outside his comfort zone and lays out his often reductionist accounts to a theological or cultural phenomena beyond the scope of his anti-metaphysical mission to arrange the world comfortably within framework of his progressive-Lacanian worldview where any local peculiarities, sacred traditions or historical ambiguities are parodied, used as a sort of intellectual canon fodder to further Zizek's own conclusions by perversely arguing that the numerous traditions of the worlds not only serve to prove the supremacy of Zizek's progressive atheistic socialist worldview, but render themselves useless in the process.

Such is the case in Zizek's "A perverts guide to ideology", where in critiquing Scorsese's The last temptation of the Christ he provokes faithful and faithless alike with the statement that in order to become a true Atheist, one must first become Christian. Whether this is to be seen as part of an already existing tradition among outwardly atheist intellectuals warming up to Christian theology  as Habermas did with the Pope, fascinated by the cognitive substance of religion is unclear. Zizek's position is unfortunately more reminiscent of Geert Wilders in his atheistic appropriation of the Christian legacy of Europe. It's no secret that Zizek is pro-European and yet it seems with the lack of any substantial secular unifying force to call upon, Zizek has opted for a Theo-nationalist reading of Europe as the predecessor to a progressive atheist community.

Zizek's position of the ontology of the crucifixion is in contradiction to both a traditional Christian perspective as well as Freud's position on the primordial patricide and the guilt-obedience complex that lingers on in Christian teaching. So while the crucifixion in Zizek's philosophy is an ultimately liberating moment, heralding the death of God as the proof of his love (resolving the problematic old-testament divinity) and imbuing the believer with the holy spirit, it is in psychoanalysis a mere solidification of the primal obedience brought about by the guilt in having murdered ones archetypal father. Zizek is clearly departing from Freud, following Kautsky in his assessment that the crucifixion was not only atheistic in nature but revolutionary. In fact it reminded me of Ahmad Shamlou's poem where he describes Christ forced to carry the cross as an exemplar of revolutionary responsibility and the crucifixion as the archetypal commitment to a revolutionary cause.

He was relieved
By the mercy he found in his soul
And like a proud swan
He looked into his own purity

The problem lies in reading the crucifixion as a resolution to a problematic theology. And here Zizek's orientalism is somewhat more evident as he laments the morbidity of the distant and harsh Semitic monotheistic divinity as somehow harmonious with the irresponsible, emotional faculty within the believer. "If God exists then everything is permitted". Perhaps it is useful that Zizek is in fact disregarding the dubious "Judeo-Christian" character of Europe by regulating the former to it's actual anti-idealised position in pre-modern Europe as a Semitic morbidity but instead of transcending both Euro-centrist and Orientalist discourses of Semitic monotheism, he lapses into both. This premise rests entirely on God's role as the Big-Other, the non-existent father who is oblivious to his own death.

That is he makes no distinction between the genuinely transcendental and the worldly ideological justification for social change. Zizek explains the monstrosity of 20th century Communism by arguing as many have that the whole affair was more or less religious, in a strict literal eschatological sense and the believer had merely been redeemed as an agent of historical progress. Of course, dialectical materialism is just that, materialism worlds apart from an orientation towards an intersectionary sacred dimension. The aims of the first are undoubtedly worldly with the eventual horizon set on the end of totalizing historical narrative. It is a sort of secular millenarianism which even in it's religious variety is utter heresy given the fact that it transposes divine knowledge to a non-messianic or non-prophetic personality. That is, theology only becomes a morbidity when it's ultimate vision is in commanding a change in the earthly dimension.

As far as Zizek is concerned, what Sufis call Fana fillah, extinction in the sacred or the apophatic Theoria of the Eastern orthodox tradition cannot exist and it is a shame that a former Heideggerian cannot recognise the ontological separateness between the two. Unlike Zizek's position whereby God's death is known but unacknowledged, placing a revolutionary responsibility on the believers shoulders "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace but a sword", the metaphysicists responsibility arises from the death of his Ego, the meditation of the thaumatological moments of his tradition (the resurrection, scripture etc.)  and the acknowledgement of the real which is ironically reminiscent of Lacan's own hatred towards Ego psychology and the need to painfully have the patient acknowledge his own helplessness, however damaging it may be.      

 

Apophatic Theology and concealment in the Islamic tradition

 

 

 

It’s revealing that the tired and mundane discourse on Islam, whether in its parental protectionist British variant or as a principled concern in the case of North America revolves entirely around a largely unchallenged dichotomy between a “moderate” and “fundamentalist” Islam. This has no doubt alarmed Muslims that found themselves caught in an imaginary crisis, an inauthentic dialectic alien to what are serious challenges to the Islamic faith as a whole. These essentialist distinctions that the likes of Mahmood Mamdani have beautifully challenged and conscious attempts to fabricate a critical juncture in Islamic history whereby the two irreconcilable poles emerge which unlike Orientalism which can be said to be a misguided obsession with extrapolation, is a more insidious and an explicit messianic imperative to throw the veil over the crumbling legacy of Descartes by subjecting the world’s second largest ( and until recently untouched by this “reformist” tendency) religious tradition to the same destructive fanaticism that has afflicted western Christianity. Some in Western Muslim communities have struck to reclaim the label “fundamentalist”, itself an inapplicable label to Islamic sects, quite rightly defending reactionary theology as the most legitimate mode through which the sacred can be experienced. The problem however lies in refusal to ground the reaction in a traditional Islamic theology, instead championing the literalist and puritanical reformist streak which ironically resembles more closely the imagined “fundamentalism” of the neurotic analysts in the west than it does any fundamental truths within Islam.

 

This week, the Jihadi plague which taints all it bloats into from its host in North Syria have declared a new blasphemy which surpasses even apostasy and heresy. A child was promptly executed for joking about the prophet to whom the perpetrators loudly proclaimed, “he who insults god is given three days to repent, and he who insults the prophet is executed immediately”. This is wholly significant, not only in that it is the now official doctrine of those most in a position to produce Islam in recent times but in that it effectively translates into the mass consciousness of Muslims in the West who as we are all familiar, wholly obsessed with the prophet and not as an ideal, or principle but as threatened idol whose provocation requires a relentlessly hostile defence. Are Muslims playing the “Muhammad card” in the same way Fr. Richard Rohr locates the elevation of Christ from the Trinity to a pseudo-pagan titan as a serious error within Christianity? Indeed, the comparability of the Cross and by token the trinity and the Shahada as the revealing of the celestial hierarchy through the meeting of the eternal with the historical and the association of both symbolisms with the masters of their respective eras (Christ and Muhammad) is no new phenomena. Is this then a Romanisation of Islam? I believe the actual process is far more degenerative and while the distortion of the trinity in Christianity wasn’t enough to vanquish the transfiguring light of the eternal Christ, the segregation and elevation of Muhammad from the Shahada risks collapsing the language of Islam entirely.

 

Two points must be clarified before proceeding, given that Muhammad’s position in the hierarchy isn’t quite comparable to “The Son” in the trinity despite their celestial correspondence to the Universal intellects. The “elevation” of Muhammad from the Shahada is actually degradation given that the prophets while both human (nasut) and spiritual (lasut), is not the latter incardinated into the former. The Shahada operates within the realm of faith and sustains the hududs (horizons) of the celestial realm; therefore a manipulation of any exoteric component of the Shahada disrupts and nullifies its ontological significance. The Heideggerian notion of “World withdrawal” is useful in illuminating the process in which the symbolic prophet is reduced to a totem and robbed of the significance of his recognition. The declaration of faith is catalogued and museumised, and although it is not historical in the sense that it is still projected into present possibilities, it is in danger of losing its function in “opening” or clearing. In removing Muhammad from the two negations and affirmations, they have not removed Islam from Muhammad but instead removed Muhammad from Islam. Within the authenticity of Muhammad within the Shahada, as the master of divine inspiration then the figure is reduced to an aesthetic, an undead apparition, driving men to relish in a highly eroticised violence as offering to this alien intruder of the Islamic tradition.

 

Some Sufi orders in their wisdom recognised the fallacy in presentation of the historical figures of Islam in the literalist tradition as Nasut. The Bektashi’s for example through their upholding of the concept of Haqq-Muhammad-Ali both conceal and clear the space of Gnostic revelation. Though this is often misunderstood as Trinity, it occupies the same space in the realm of faith among similar horizons in the celestial realm. The saying of the Prophet;

 

“Ana madinat al Ilm wa Ali babu’ha (I am the city of knowledge and Ali is the gate)”

 

 Is evidence of the vital importance in recognition and veneration of the hududs in the understanding of concepts and symbolisms pertinent to the realm of faith. Also at the first, this seems a hopeless descriptive endeavour to codify the divine, it is given it’s dualistic revelation a far more conservative a cautious approach than the literalist tradition which disrupts the exoteric manifestation through anthropomorphising the divine without thought to the dimension  of lasut within these phenomena. An opening line in a Bektashi nefes should explain the inseparability of the historical figures of Islam more clearly:

 

“God forbid that anyone should see them as separate from one another. Muhammad is Ali, Ali Muhammad”

 

Curiously the Muhammad of both traditions is the transfiguring light (as is Christ); the relationship between the resurrector (Qa’ism), the prophet (Nur al Nabi) and the gate (Bab) is worth meditating on. Is this however Apophatic? Or is it at least more so than the current dominant trends within Islamic discourse? Perhaps a more general Sufi tradition not exclusive to any particular Sufi sect is more convincing, that of Dhikir (remembrance). As Henry Corbin explains, many forms of Dhikir consist on the repetition and meditation of the first statement of the Shahada, that is the negation (Nullus Deus) both as a guard against the Nafs (ego) by rejecting all claims and pretence to divine authority or immunity. Borrowing again from Heidegger, it is the unconealment of the Shahada which conceals and the exclusive power of the one paradoxically conceals its nature. We cannot simply disclose anything we wish from the Shahada nor can we ignore its esoteric function, what are not present lies in an unimaginable cosmic abyss.

 

It is in this sense that we should perhaps repeat and meditate upon the first principle of the declaration of faith “La ilaha” before we are ready to carry the burden that the affirmation entails.             

The value of traditionalist ethics

 

I’ve become rather obsessed with death recently. Not quite as a morbid musing, nor a lamenting reflection but more as a transcendental state; that is a threshold which recognises no division between truth and its allegorical transcriptions in the realm of perception.  That primordial drive of eternal return, to recognise the self in relation to the seemingly inanimate and to strike forth into the darkness in as every bit of freedom as a corpse. This sentiment is more or less present in most pre-modern cultures, but I’d like to draw attention to two particular cases; that of the Bushi warrior aristocracy of Japan and the deathly aesthetic present in Shia Islamic ethics. In the Hagakure (In the shadow of leaves), the classical of the Japanese warrior classes written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Samurai retainer turned Buddhist Monk; the freedom in death is stressed in the first chapter.

                “If by setting ones heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body is already dead, he gains freedom in the way. His whole life will be without blame and he will succeed in his calling”

Yet far from constituting a rejection of life; or a license for the glorification of misery, murder and morbidity, the deathly aesthetic is nothing more than the unification of the scattered relics of practical existence and the reorientation towards an authentic state. Tsunetomo explains;

                “We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thing dangerous line”

 

The way as death, or the affirmation of life?

An interesting method in which to interpret this seemingly nihilistic statement is perhaps in contrast to Nietzsche’s appeal to noble ethics as life affirming as opposed to the tempting solace found within medieval Christian values. The comparison is problematic given the formers explicit embracing of death and Nietzsche’s hatred of the idealised aesthetic but in negating the materially defined opposition between life and death, the two espouse a similar set of ideals. Nietzsche of course took issue with the slave ethic at the heart of western moralities obsessive need to relegate the cause of suffering to the sufferer himself. The process in which the individuals will is perverted into a regressive, self hating paradigm is in itself a great act of will, or as Tsunetomo might have put it “making our logic according to what we like”. Tsunemtomo’s “frivolous sophisticates” who dream up excuses for cowardice and Nietzsche’s priestly class who champion a perverted order may be seen as one in the same.

                 “One must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while still alive”    

That isn’t to say however, that the Bushi conception of death is identical to the Greek-rooted idealised affirmation of life. The two are qualitatively separate, although both noble in character. The Bushi not only transcends the immediacy of his material existence in the embracing of a warrior morality but forcibly reorganises his existence towards an unknowable horizon rather than a philosophical ideal.

 

                “A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams”

I feel the Japanese gentlemanly ideal is in stark contrast to the western, not in the same sense as classical nobility is to secular mysticism but in its anti-philosophical outlook; and the rejection of binary oppositions, empirical reasoning or even the closest western equivalent of chivalric sentiments. Is there perhaps a middle ground between the Greek and Japanese tradition? I believe there is, and that it is most visible within the ethical discourse and Gnostic philosophy espoused by the first Shi’ite Imam, Ali Ibn Talib, which reflect both pre-Islamic notions of Futuwwa (chivalry) and a philosophical disposition towards a deathly aesthetic.     

Imam Ali's deathly aesthetic

            “Death is more intimate to me than the breast of a mother is to a suckling babe” Imam Ali

I’ve written before on Imam Ali’s philosophy in my Gothic-Ghulat manifesto, and so in the interest of not repeating myself, I’ll briefly summarise the interpretations behind these aesthetic sentiments. The death in this sense, is more explicitly esoteric and has more in conjunction with the Sufi ideal of self obliteration “Al Fana fi Ilah” (extinction in the divine), than the seemingly Bushi conception of death as utterly irrational but necessarily threshold. The two, however are relatable in their rejection of the unauthentic, whether the frivolous concern of the “sophisticate”, or the egotistical attachment to the world and the enslavement of the soul to realm of immediate perception. In Shia theology, there is a prevalent motif which states the believer must die before his death, to walk with one foot firmly in the grave thus partially awakening the sleeping divinity within ones Nafs (soul).

                “The world is an abode for which annihilation is ordained, and for its people departure from it is decreed”

Both discourses are concerned with the awakening of the soul, the setting sites on the horizon of death and in kierkegaardian terms, the recognition of the wholeness of existence in this mortal boundary. Imam Ali’s philosophical orientation towards death had much to do with his very classically Gnostic adoration of the universal intellect as the initial cosmic principle. This should not, however be understood in the post enlightenment sense of the intellect as the capability to logically deduce the real from sensory perception alone. Rather it was more in harmony with the Greek intellectus, which implies the capability to directly contemplate transcendental realities. Thus, the universal intellect is tied to the conception of the soul, which can become a battleground in the struggle towards the total orientation towards the real.

                “The ultimate battle is that of a man against his own soul,

                He who knows his soul, fights it”

 This is remarkably similar to the Bushi ideal of true victory as the victory over the self. Indeed, both the Bushi ideal and the teachings of the Imam stress kindness, restraint, mercy and good character but not for their own sake. Such actions are not of the altruism that the likes of Nietzsche despised, but a strict adherence to the tracedental real. This brings me to the point of this essay, to ascertain whether these values, of the warrior aristocracy are of any use in today’s world.

Rescuing noble values

There is little doubt that the modern world exists within the shadow of Kant. A messianic imperative to bring the world under a certain uniformity, one which upholds positivist logic. The needs to eliminate other alternatives to this vision lie at the heart of Kant’s perpetual peace theory. His successors, particularly John Rawls went on to have significant philosophical influence on American foreign policy, one that has been particularly damaging. This imperative triggers a neurotic need to crusade in the name of the ethics of pity; an unyielding adherence to the consciousness of the masses, and the establishment of eternal truths as justification for these actions. The sovereignty of man is abandoned as are noble ethics in favour of a moral fanaticism. The Bushi code acts as a check against this deontological principle;

 

                “To think that being righteous is the best one can do and to do one’s utmost to be righteous will, on the contrary, bring many mistakes. The way is in a higher place than righteousness.”

 

      Kant’s vision of perpetual peace, is a kind of Imperial morality in its totality, the obsessive need to reconstitute its broken core in the unification of its peripheral extremities, and the relegation of the noble individual to a mere recipient of reason. Nowhere in the aristocratic ideals of the Bushi or the Gnostic chivalry of the Imam can there exist a concept which rejects the sovereignty of man, or regulate a warrior to the realm of the homo sacer.  Indeed, a noble ethics requires the seeking out of similar characteristics in the enemy, necessitating a respect unheard of in modern times.

 

Chivalry

                “The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends”

Returning to the theme of Gnostic chivalry, we see that Imam Ali was one known for his harshness towards his closest allies and respect towards his enemies, a characteristic which eventually cost him his life. At the battle of Siffin during the first Islamic civil war, the forces of Ali had largely overwhelmed the opposing forces led by Muawiyah who had rebelled against Ali’s appointment as Caliph following the murder of the third Caliph, Uthman. The conflict itself had it's origins in the divide between an practically minded Imperialising tendency championed by the pre-Islamic Arab old guard and the belief that the Caliphate must revert to a spiritual order given the non-Arab mawali converts to the religion. Muawiyah had built a support base in Syria and with their backing, refused to give the baya (oath of loyalty) to the new Caliph, forcing Ali into a military confrontation. On the eve of victory, however, Ali’s forces broke off their attack when Muawiyah ordered his troops to hoist Qur’an’s on spears with the message “Let god decide”. Despite personal reservations, Ali agreed to withdraw his forces and enter into negotiations, expecting his opponent to return the honourable gesture as was common in pre-Islamic warfare. Ali’s gallantry had not only spared the opposing force, but by recognising the autonomy of the Syrian elite severely hindered his ability to rule undisputed and without further incident. As we have seen though, Ali's philosophy was based on a noble ethics, guided by transcendental principles as opposed to lust for immediate material gains.        

This is perhaps the ethics that should be of value today; those decisively irrational, recognising the sovereignty in the enemy and fixated upon the unknowable horizon. As opposed to the Imperial philosophy of Kant, in it's totality and uniformity, a feudal or pre-Imperial ethic could be considered. An individualist path which stresses the romantic roots of the warrior aristocracy as a will to power in it's own right while at the same time, recognising the chivalrous potential not in the sense of righteousness for it's own sake, or in service of a ethics of pity but in eternal awareness of the boundless vision.

 

Nowruz in esoteric Shi'ism

From March 19 to the 22nd, the Iranian community, the greater Iranian cultural continent as well as numerous ethno-religious and esoteric communities celebrate the coming of spring and a new year, as epitomised in the observation of Nowruz, that is the Iranian new year. The word is derived from the Persian words Now (New) and  rōz (day, but can sometimes be used to denote light) and marks the beginning of the Iranian calendar. Originally a Zoroastrian festival, the emergence of the commemoration of Nowruz is shrouded in myth, often attributed to the prophet Zoroaster himself, yet it has origins in various Mesopotamian festivals commemorating the arrival of spring and the renewal of nature. These festivals were usually strongly associated with the creation myths pertaining to the culture observing and this was no different in the case of Iran, in which the Zoroastrian creation myth plays an important role as the archetypal religious symbology behind the beginnings of the cycle of life, and the commemoration of the seasons.

 In what is sometimes interpreted as dualistic, the Zoroastrian belief explains the existence of Ahura Mazda (the lord of wisdom), residing in eternal light who evoked the hostility of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), which led to an intrusion into creation (previously within the domain of light) by those residing in eternal darkness. Ahura Mazda created several immortals to protect his creation, to which Ahriman responded to causing the cataclysmic conditions which led to the visage of our world as it is. The cycle of life began as the result of the sacrifice of the three prototypes of life, and this was the first Nowruz. In a cyclical process, several saviours in four periods, one for each 3000 years will descend upon creation until the arrival of Saoshyant, the final messiah. What is interesting is that this figure is strongly associated with the 12th Imam in Twelver Shi'ism, and the process in which he leads the dead across the bridge of Chinvat mirrors the day of resurrection in the Qur'an. How is it that a seemingly secular celebration of spring, with origins in ancient Mesopotamia be infused with such a potent spiritual expression of a religion which came long after it's founding and practice? Let us look to another example for our answer.

Nowruz is celebrated by various esoteric Islamic communities including the Ismailis, Alawites, Alevis and Bektashis. But it is in the Bektashi case where this celebration takes on a particularly mystical form, that is in it's dual association with the beginnings of the cycle of life and the birth of Imam Ali. Baba Rexhab explained the reasons for the celebration to an Albanian audience in New York in 1952:

"It is known that the Arabs did not calculate their months using the sun, but rather by the moon. However, later when we started to calculate months the 13th day of the lunar month of Rajab, which is the lunar birth date of the exalted Imam ‘Ali (may God’s blessings be upon him!), it was found to coincide with the 22nd of March, 600 CE. Thereafter the day of Nevruz received special importance and it remained unforgettable in the memory of generations and generations, not as the “new day” in the old Persian understanding, but as the birthday of this illustrious man, the strongest pillar of Islam, the exalted Imam ‘Ali." 

How is it then that a believer can find such power esoteric resonance in what appears to be coincidence, or look to the saviour of two separate religious traditions as one in the same? We are dealing here with what Henry Corbin termed Imaginal history, that is the history of the mundus imaginilis. It is in Ibn Arabi's division of the imaginative sphere into two forms, the absolute and the captive from which we understanding the metaphysical symbolism being utilised in the above cases. The absolute resides in the world of the soul and exist as manifestations of the pure intellect while the captive are the manifestations of the Imaginal form in mans imaginative consciousness, accessible only by a spiritual faculty.

Access to the imaginary history of the mundus imaginilis is accessible through the process of ta'wil, that is to reinterpret the exoteric by reconducting something towards it's source. Orthodox theology is reversed, the esoteric is not a metaphor of the apparent and literal but vice versa. It is in this sense that we should perhaps seek to understand the above practices, as one dealing entirely with the epoch of the transcendental real, for which the exterior world is merely a shadow.

 For when the Bektashi's speak of divine reality as manifested in Haqq-Muhammad-Ali; or Iranian Shias see the 12th Imam as the final cyclical zorastrian saviour figure, or imagine Fatima as the first principle or the Insan-i-Kamil as the highest spiritual attainment, it is in refrence to a highly complex archetypal realm where the subtle bodies we immediately encounter are merely reflections. That the coming of spring, the presence of the illuiminational presence of the divine and the cyclical beginning of life should be associated with Imam Ali is no mere coincedence. For the archetypal Imam Ali, always irreversibly a part of Muhammad in esoteric Shia mysticism, is nothing more than the Nur of Insan-i-Kamil as embodied in the figure of Muhammad.

It reminds one of a conversation between Kumayl Ibn Zaid and Imam Ali in which Kumayl inquires as to the nature of Al-Haqiqa (the truth) to which the Imam replies in a series of convoluted gnostic explanations which Kumyal demands be further elaborated until the Imam settles for the much simplified answer; "Quench the Lamp, for the dawn has indeed arisen". It is for this reason I light a candle on Nowruz, to Imam Ali, the divine light and it's sacred source.  

Why Nihilism is enough

Our generation is perhaps the first where it is expected and encouraged to be a revolutionary. The tired and inappropriate regurgitation of the supposed dichotomy between establishment and disestablishment is a misleading as that between left and right. Sub-culturally alternating teenage school girls, belching liberal newspaper executives, guilt ridden teenage Trotskyite and failed presidential candidates are all equal in the expectation that their lives should amount to reeling the chaotic forces in the universe under some sort of democratic harmony. The intellectually capable among us will be able to distinguish the mass appeal of some revolutionary goals over others. All but the most gullible know Kony 2012 was a scam. The horrendous marriage of commercial strategy, youth pop culture and post-Victorian ethics should be enough to make even the likes of Bob Geldof nauseous. The less serious the subject matter the more inappropriate the means of mobilisation are. When you’re dealing with niggers it becomes perfectly acceptable to quite literally offer pre-packaged revolutionary solutions, in standard, premium and deluxe means of delivery.



Supporters of the increased tendency of today’s youth to “think about the world”, will often acknowledge the potential for manipulation and opportunism of those who would use further their own geo-political agenda under the guise of altruistic motives, but will regulate such phenomena as the natural expected backlash against the previous all pervasiveness of  post-modern  cynicism. Its detractors such as Badiou and Zizek would challenge the assumption that such a movement represents a clear break from post-modernism at all, merely amounting to the reformulation of disparate failed phenomena, stripped of their contexts and revitalised in a shallow momentary aesthetic. I would not be so dismissive when considering the increasing optimistic (and misplaced) desire among today’s youth to save the world, especially in relation to a very real and conscious retaliation against the remnants of post-modernist ideals which have degenerated into the almost universally lamented hipster movement. Instead, I believe that the emergence of the likes of the “New Sincerity” movement represent nothing more than a militant revitalised positivism that potentially justifies unwarranted transgression against the individual, group and nation in the name of a poorly defined and deliberately simplified humanism.





A call to slavery: In the service of the invisible master   

 

Back in undergraduate Sociology, we were given a lamentable compulsory course on Social and Political enquiry which included a sizable portion on the call for a militant anthropology as a refreshing break from post structuralist cautionary discourses against the very dangerous game of imposing relative values on a subject deemed (on the whim of the researcher) to be anthropologically worth considering. It was interesting that the only justification for this break by the lecturer was that everyone was fed up with all this post-modern crap. Fatigue is a good enough reason as any to assume and experiment with a different strategy for approaching the social world but is it enough as the only reason? And more importantly, can it justify encouraging a potentially historically irresponsible attitude towards social research in general.



 The first thing one should make clear is that social scientists don’t set social trends, and any claim that it is the sociologists/philosophers/anthropologists mandate to change the world should be confronted. While the likes of Zizek rightfully point out the position of a philosopher as the modest interpreter, I don’t exactly believe it’s correct for the social scientist to merely jump on the bandwagon of already existing socially occurring phenomena (Wall street protests, Arab revolution) and speaking at political rallies while at the same time hiding behind the role of the modest observer.  It’s really no wonder than a philosopher of such an impenetrable school as Lacanian psychoanalysis is an international superstar among the student left. You can’t call yourself a communist, flirt with revolutionary movements, attend Marxism 2011 and then complain about misconceptions of the role of the philosopher. Infact, the danger in this fallacy was highlighted by none other than Martin Heidegger who despite (quite unfairly) being strongly associated with the political, refrained from any notion that it was the philosophers duty to bring about change in the world. In his critique of Marx’s famous praxis, “The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it”, Heidegger points out that the call for any change in the world in predicated upon the change in the conception of the world. That is that Marx’s praxis is itself limited to his own interpretation of the world. As Zizek himself points out, “words matter, they matter because they define the contours of what we can do”. What remains modest then in appearing on Al-Jazeera during the Egyptian revolution with that modern embodiment of Islamic banality, Tariq Ramadan and rambling about a region you have little familiarity with?



I have to reaffirm that I’m not against non-experts from expressing their opinion on a region or topic they haven’t been awarded a stamp of approval by the university to dissect, what would be the point since it seems everyone is invited to the theoretical laboratory which houses the mangled, assaulted body of the Middle East. And I would argue there is definite value to Nietzsche’s distaste for the ant-like scholars who are devoid of the lightness in touch and the freedom of spirit in regarding things. But Zizek is moving beyond merely regarding things! Is there not a point when an actively partisan stance betrays the (admittedly post-structuralist) philosophical imperative to read and interpret?    



While social scientists don’t set trends, they have the potential to give an activity a stamp of intellectual approval. Beginning with Nancy Schepur-Hughes and her self-righteous crusade against the injustices she would unravel, there has been a trend for academics to engage in popular activism with little concern for the inferred values unquestionably taken to heart is always existing universal truths, to be imposed on the subjects of academia (and beyond) by pen (and by any logical conclusion, sword). Unlike Erving Goffman’s far more subtle, cynical (a key term in today’s account for the fatigue people have with post-modernism) account of psychiatric institutions in the 1950s, the likes of Hughes abandons the fortress of responsibility and allows herself to be consumed by a movement that respects no distinction between the roles that such a position affords. And like those people who take it upon themselves to save the world, the intellectual quite literally becomes unable to save him/herself. In this very Nietzschean sense, the crusading intellectual and activist is as oppressed as his/her beloved other, utterly imitable and devoid of self.