Tuesday 28th March 2006
by christo
The free market imperative: “Innovate!” [1]
Communist China’s political idea: “Continuous revolution”. [2]
The Presbyterian motto: “Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda” [3]
Within all three of these statements is contained a force of iconoclasm reconciled with a force of reconstruction.
The innovator takes on set methods with a new method – one more cost effective, more efficient, and more thrilling. The communist storms illegitimate bases of authority to open up space for more principled engineering. The reformer hammers institutionalized diversions from the truth to open a space for the return of truth.
While Calvin opposed claims that he was an innovator, I’d argue that the sense of the word is different than the one used today. Innovation, continuous revolution, and continuous reformation share in a sense of moderation. Well done they navigate between the past and the future, between the way things just are and the new that is better.
The relationship of the three concepts, each coming from different spheres – political, economic, religious – contribute an interesting figure to consider, because the three concepts are potentially so similar.
Upon the reconciled grounds of these three concepts, could the three spheres be reconciled?
I really appreciated all the comments.
Amber, I’ll take a peek at that book some time. You definitely will have something far different from what each originally were. Mao’s (or whoever’s) continuous revolution idea is fascinating – but its rigour as an idea will be lost if we merely consider it for its legacy – even though divorced from that legacy it becomes something significantly different. I’m sure Kenny can speak to that.
Dave V, that’s the interesting thing – why does the word “Reformed” still live on – surely it is more than mere non roman catholicism.
Dave P, I think the reconciliation will require “internal”/personal and “external”/institutional/corpus/polis attention. I don’t believe I will ever reconcile myself to a system – there will have to be work on both sides – alarm clocks and airplanes are not merely the invention of lazy people.
Kenny – FYI I’ve already got a patent pending on the name.
Hey… my idol! (no… just kidding… he is a very bad man.)
This blog very difficult to understand…(what’s iconoclasm?)
Reconcil? They are different?
oh btw… christo… I changed my MSN name to Chronic Idiot.
I think the problems with all three, and with any idea or tradition come from the people within, and changing the system will not solve anything. everyone always thinks the problem is with something other than themselves. “I am lazy, if I get a daytimer, I will be less lazy” taking on an inner struggle with an outside solution. I don’t buy it. (ha) If we are conscious to examine ourselves and continue to grow in whatever system we are in (because we can’t help but be in some kind of system) that will allow the system to work. granted, I think some systems work better than others for showing us the things we need to root out of ourselves. like orthodoxy. this lent thing, dammit, I see so many things I need to work out of myself, or pray out, or shut up about, or something, that I couldn’t even begin ot point fingers. though I do that too.
All I am saying is that I think to question the system is actually an avoidance of the reality of life, that ultimately, we are responsible for our actions.
Nice question, Christo . . . Perhaps from an iconoclastic situatedness that you find yourself in–it would be possible to navigate some sort of reconciliation among the three. However, I wonder if the three different vantage points would be willing to deal such amalgamation. Considering that each carries its own Barthian-esque myth about the other, it would take a lot of iconoclasm for each to make room for the other, and in the end—I think you would have a far different “thing” that the three sets that originally started. I’m not saying this would be a “bad thing” per se, but I don’t think that the integrity of each could be maintained to the degree it has been—not that integrity of each is necessarily a desirable achievement, anyhow. I’m reading a book right now that I think you would find really fascinating in light of your question—Chakraberty’s Provincializing Europe, in which C. tries to create a dialectic between Marx’s notion of history and Heidegger’s notion of history, in which history holds itself in tension as being both a plural, disjointed narrative of subaltern and dominant narratives, while simultaneously finding commonality in that disjointedness as been a “truth” across time.
This question hurts my brain. I have a protestant (Dutch?) work ethic. I idealize the Communist approach to wealth. I think I might be a free thinking
Calvinist. -All these are reconciled in me! Ahahahahha! After all doesn’t the reconciliation come through the subversive nature of embodied traditions? If I wear a suit I’m respecting God, right? Even if I’m in a bathtub? Scratch that. The tradition of lent is subverting the affects of the fleshly culture on our relationship with God. I only wish I was observing lent… Won’t the subverting affects of a contextualized and genuine religion necessitate the reconciliation with the other two? I guess not…
PS Any ideas on what it means to be Reformed? I can’t really figure it out.