Pick an enemy, make community.
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 | Posted in unity, unrest
“It is only out of a community forged by the recognition of a shared danger that a common readiness for responsible action can come into being.” - Moltmann, C of G, 211)
Which is the most legitimate enemy and why? Despots, Democrats, Death, Deities or Global Warming? Any other suggestions? Is ethics dependent on the recognition of a shared danger?
March 21st, 2007 at 1:24 am
Hell? The Evil? Drugs? Poverty and inequality? I am affected by Christ into a redeemed sort of ethic no? It vexes me greatly.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:06 pm
So, which enemies have you picked lately?
March 21st, 2007 at 10:25 pm
At what point is individual autonomy subsumed by the community in pursuit of this legitimate enemy?
March 21st, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I see yours are Obama and Envirofascism. Or are they?
My enemy is the not knowing what the shared danger is or who it is. I call my penultimate enemy (the not knowing), quite arbitrarily you see, The Happy Belly. The Happy Belly shakes its stuff to the beat of the jackhammers. While the roads are re-tarred with disposed hard candies, down there at the end is the Happy Belly, in the house of appliances, dancing as the fridges buzz about. Once the road is complete, I’ll take the sidewalk with Satan to the house. We shall knock under the guise of religious inquirers. And when the Happy Belly answers. And when the fridges pause for the masses to open their doors. Satan and I will pull out our surprises! And the masses will again see for the first time what is in those fridges. And the Happy Belly will fall. The Enemy rises!
This is my plan. So help me out. Dispose of all your candy.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Individual autonomy is a beneficent illusion to normalize the behaviours of the living dead to the “common good.” To will the common good, the greatest proof of ones’ autonomy, is the highest good and the highest good is willing the common good. So you see, it is circular and vacuous. Useful only as a mechanism by which to ensure that the living not be a bother and bury themselves rather than leave their cadaver on the curb. That is, I’m presupposing that by community you mean the state and its lessers.
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:45 pm
The most legitimate enemy, I think, is ourselves, because we are who and what we know the best, and we continuously find ourselves in the state where we are doing what we hate to do, and not what we want to do - “I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out” - we all have this ability to create evil and disaster even against our best wishes. While it is tempting to recognize dangers outside of the common hospitality of the community and thereby establish borders and boundaries on the outer limits of our bonds where our acts of violence are justified, the failure to recognize the danger that is our own self actually undermines our sense of responsibility; we then become simply reactionaries against those outside our borders rather than actually responsibly entering into an engagement and interaction with the dangers we encounter. By recognizing that our ultimate limit (our boundary, separating the safe from the dangerous, the good from the evil) lies not on some outer periphery, but in the core of our being, we become less certain; the ground upon which we build our community becomes much more shaky and open to question, but, in my view, this increases our sense of responsibility and active ethical engagement. This recognition of one’s own propensity towards evil (amongst the good we desire) and (hopefully) the corresponding lack of self-righteousness and the eventual growth of responsibility due to the fact that we must act even if the ground is a little shakier than we would like and the borders more porous than we supposed - actually yields a more positive view of community in that rather than forming on the basis of what we are against, we come together for one another, rather than seeking to escape from each other.
Now, I’m thinking about this in terms of how we think about the church. Is the church and it’s ability to act responsibly primarily formed by its opposition to [insert danger here - the world, the demonic, Republicans/Democrats etc], or is it primarily a community formed for one another, on behalf of one another. I think the key is that if we recognize that we live in a world where our limit and boundary is within ourself, and in doing so we recognize the uncertain position this places us in, it turns us from ourselves to grant the boundary-making privelage (sp?) to someone else - and grounding our community in Christ I don’t think is an abdication of responsibility, but really the beginning of it. But, I must leave this thought unfinished as I drive to the airport…
March 24th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Explain your enemy a bit more.
As for my enemy of Obama and Envirofacism, I would probably prefer to say that the latter, at least, is a manifestation of the enemy of the closed mind. You see, to many, science cannot be argued with, since it is supposedly factual. This is a problem for me, since people would rather roll the dice gagged and blindfolded rather than actually “dialogue” about the issues.
As for Obama, are you a big fan? I am pretty agnostic about him, besides the whole stock thing. He uses a lot of flowery language, which, I am not so sure, really means a whole lot.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Thomas: You are at war. You and another combatant come face to face inside in the lounge of an abandoned house. At that very moment, you know that you are your own greatest enemy, but are nonetheless confronted with another also called The Enemy. What do you do? How do you reconcile the two notions?
One of my favourite books is entitled, The Handbook of the Militant Christian. Erasmus writes the work during a time of plague and Christendom insecurity at the threat of the Turks and heretics. But the militancy he writes about is that of the individual against himself. What you wrote really reminded me of that work.
Jonathan: I don’t do explanations. I love how snarky that sounds, but honestly it is more that I simply can’t without falling into the same trap of being one of the accused accusing. I’m not following American politics all that much. I’ve only read up about Mitt Romney, because I’m interested in what he managed to accomplish in MA concerning healthcare. What’s Obama done, I don’t know. What’s Hillary done, I don’t know. What’s McCain done, I don’t know. What’s Bush done, I don’t know.
Yeah, as a faction, envirofascists can be a little bothersome, but rather than try annihilate their enthusiasm, I think it more constructive to deepen understanding and the commitment that they say they have made to living attentively to the environment. A common enemy unites people, right? Let’s truly make it our own actions against the environment. I think for a lot of people, their environmentalism is really a guise for another end - to gain power of others, to gain power in congress, to gain power in relationships - another conflict then is the end. That’s where envirofascism begins and where doctrines are solidified.
I was just talking to a friend of mine today who pointed out that one person walking a long distance will consume more energy than if he drove. That kind of thinking is anathema maranatha to the envirofascist, I’m sure, but it is that kind of self-awareness that I think will refine purposes, ends, and the facts.
March 25th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Unfortunately, I feel you have already fallen into a trap of a different sort. You were quite willing to label my enemies for me, of envirofascism and obama (the former term I have never used myself). But I don’t really feel you are displaying the requisite personality required when you avoid having to answer simple query. I
s it really possible you don’t have any opinions on anything? You don’t have to follow politics to understand or answer the question. It would be more fair to hear you say have declared war on meat than for you to hear you say “I don’t know.” Surely if you have expectations of dialogue, you must make a position and answer your own query. Otherwise, it just appears evasive and afraid of being pinned on believing in or being a part of anything.
As to your second comment, I do not think I am trying to annihilate envirofascist enthusiasm in the least. If anything, I would think that the whole premise of your line from Moltmann is that people come together over a shared enemy. If me (and the greedy corporations) raise doubts about the “truth” in global warming science, wouldn’t that strengthen their resolve and tighten the bonds of their community? I should point out that I do agree that there are often other ends to environmentalism, such as power.
Finally, I wish to comment on Moltmann’s thesis. In some practice, it seems applicable. Yes, we are united by dangers. But, in my opinion, “a common readiness for responsibility for responsible action” comes not from communities against an enemy, but a community in dialogue with that enemy. In other words, the most responsible community transcends differences and is tied together by their common pursuit of truth. When someone disagrees with me over the environment in honest pursuit of the truth, it is through this common pursuit that responsible action takes place.
If there is a common enemy, it is either apathy or falsehoods, not each other.
March 25th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Jonathan: on the common pursuit of truth there remains the problem of language. Who gets to define the language of dialogue, the rules and idiom of discourse? Is there a civilization test? A test of who gets to join in at the table and who doesn’t? What you call a simple query may be to me completely unintelligible. May I not be granted by you the permission to be at your table of dialogue even if I opt to seek out different forms of expression? See, I’m again, falling into a trap as you rightly pointed out, because I’m asking questions about questions - its terribly inconsistent, I know. But please don’t shun me from your table… from the table of acceptable personalities.
I think you raise a good question, albeit that I’m nervous that you don’t like me any longer; the question: what do we expect from dialogue? I don’t know if I do expect the truth to come out of you positing something, me positing a counter argument, us then arriving at some synthesis which we for the time being will call truth. I think that every time I do that, I walk off nervous that I’ve just helped create an idol.
Rather, I think I expect out of dialogue the strengthening of friendships, of loyalty, of personalities expressing themselves in creative, curious, and challenging ways. For example, I’ve enjoyed it when you and I would in the past get rallied up against each other and then come about to realizing that we fundamentally agree - I think an unconditional commitment to each other was at the centre.
March 26th, 2007 at 1:31 am
“What the world needs now, is love, sweet love; and not just for some people, but for everyone… ” B.B.
Am I saved from an enemy or not? The theology I’m supposed to believe in tells me that I am saved from the wrath of God. But, would the immutable God save me from himself? Is that forgiveness? As I once was an enemy of God, now I am not; I am redeemed. And it even feels like it on occasion. And on that note, my experience tells me that I am in process of salvation from myself. If I am saved from myself, I am my own enemy. If I am my own enemy, than I am absurdity embodied; a suicidal lemming. But alas, is this not systematically incongruous? We act according to what we believe flitting from moment to moment. So the human never acts contrary to what they believe is just. The human is systematically incongruous.
So one acts for the betterment of others. This is some momentary relief from the torment of inner factions. Hardly a good ethic yet.
Christo: Your response to Thomas has pinned me to the wall. I might breath soon.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Christo: I am at war, my combatant and I face off in the lounge of an abandoned house, sweating and scared, what do I do?
I hestitate, and then do my best to kill him before he kills me.
Now this may seem incongruous with the concept of myself as my own worst enemy, but there is a lot in that hesitation. The ones in community who can only see enemies outside of their own borders do not hesitate at all. Now, one might argue that the end result of my action in that abandoned lounge in wartime would be the same as those who act out of a fundamental orientation of opposition to oustiders, but I would argue that my hesitation is crucial, it is openness, it is an opportunity, it is a fighting chance for the other, and it just might mean the death of me if he proves to be the better fighter.
I do not want to argue that our communities are boundless but that their fundamental orientation ought not to be one of opposition to others and the outside but one of responsibility and love for each other. I fight for my family at home, for those that give my free action its value. My fundamental orientation as a divided self does not mean I will not have to transgress my own moral and ethical categories when faced with the extreme limit situations that sometimes occur in life. This is something along the lines what Bonhoeffer argues in his Ethics. The key really is, as Dave is hitting upon, the fact that in the church the divided self is the crucified self. If my limit rests not on some outside boundary but within myself then justifiable violence occurs within myself. The violence I commit against my combatant in the extreme limit situation we encounter each other in is not justified by myself or the eyes of the other, and in the end I am unsure and will always be unsure if it is justified in the eyes of God, but I must act anyway as the reality of the situation I find myself in demands it. To recognize one’s own division is not to stop acting, forever trapped in the uncertainty of oneself, but to act from one’s own division and identification with the crucified and divided One himself. It is to take full responsibility, with no comfort of moral certainty.
Now this is much more contradictory and not nearly as nuanced or clear as I would like it, and I would like to comment on both yours and Jonathan’s comments, but I once again have to run, so it shall do for now.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Christo: I don’t quite follow where you are going with the problem of language argument. My query is not with some abstract person who doesn’t share my langauge. It is with you, the person. Call it existential or direct or whatever, but the fact is, you speak my language- English. Therefore, this talk of some “other” person answering my simple query is moot. At the end of the smokescreens of positing what one “may” or may not find an unintelligible query is pretty much, at base, something you do not want to face up to - even with all its uncertainties of language, or intelligence. This is precisely what I am referring to when I said “requisite personality.” Take a risk. Put yourself on the line. If not, then I don’t buy the fact that you are completely detached from belonging to any community or having any “enemies” as Moltmann defines it.
As for your idea of idols…I am not sure what you are afraid of. In essence, if we both dialogue back and forth, the automatic result is not an idol. Why can’t dialogue between two people, of two people sharing in their passions, teach us to have greater reference to the ultimate of those idols, the golden rules (love god, love thy neighbour). Even if the only end is a deeper understanding of our humanity, is that not worthy enough?
I am not opposed to people expressing themselves differently…sure, its welcome. But if there isn’t any piece of your self that is put out there, i.e., your belief, how is one supposed to be edified? It may just be like a painting reacting to the person admiring it.
And of course I don’t like you. I miss you deeply. I wish you were here.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Dave & Thomas: Interesting answer, I’d probably do the same. Or maybe start playing the piano in the lounge … badly - i.e. if we happened to not have seen each other yet. Worked for that guy in The Pianist.
This line interests me greatly; it is well put: “To recognize one’s own division is not to stop acting, forever trapped in the uncertainty of oneself, but to act from one’s own division and identification with the crucified and divided One himself. It is to take full responsibility, with no comfort of moral certainty.” Concerning the relationship between actioning/signing the divided One (what would that be called - not transfiguration would it? - sounds right, but wrong event) and full responsibility, what do you make of: “Why have you forsaken me?” It almost sounds like the crucified may be taking full responsibility in an act of protest against the Abandoner.
If action is meted out by dying everyday (in division) and picking up one’s cross (action), would the plea for “the immutable God save me from himself” (the why have you forsaken me?) be part of the routine?
Every time I use the word “routine”, I want to eat poutine. Anyone want to eat poutine with me? We’ll eat poutine and watch Stalker, because in there is a little of the divided man seeking/living the right rite to life.
Jonathan: I recant the tags I placed on you. You are a good challenger of closed minds (I mean this tag). I wish I had a mind, but today I have only body and soul. Tomorrow: Geist and Stoff. I apologize for saying that I don’t do explanations. That doesn’t help, but I am committed to my little story. I think it and my little question concerning questions are closer representations to me of my hope and commitments to others and myself than retreats into abstraction.
Explanations can be a retreat into abstraction too. Even existentialists appear pretty abstract, despite being commonly against all that detachment to the universals. Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling could be construed as an obfuscation of his failure to confront his fear of, may I say, the trimmed hedge, of his lady friend, and subsequent castration anxiety symbolized by Hegel’s totem which he must fell. But you and I would likely agree that there is something to his obfuscation (I can’t even call it that) - a transformation or transfiguration of his passion along a new line of discourse - along the line of the dialectical lyric.
“Brave, brave Sir Robin, went off to Camelot!” Scratch Stalker, we’ll watch that film filled with knights of faith and resignation instead. Just call me, it is much easier to get in contact that way than to recall me.
What is a person who has taken the risk and failed? What options are open to them after they have failed?
March 27th, 2007 at 8:13 am
Its raining outside and I
like lollypops more
than you
do.
March 27th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Though I don’t have the time to fully engage your many many many thoughts and comments here, wanted to say that the dialogue was a good read and you both (Jono & CdK) bring up some excellent points about the nature of dialogue and debate in community and between friends. I feel like I’ve been at a coffeeshop table listening to an honest discussion.
As far as enemies and communities go, I think I argued this one ages ago in Toronto with you. My personal experience (and I’m thinking of a few different communities of people I’ve been a part of) is that, while gearing up collectively against some perceived enemy may lend a short time of momentum to a community, in the long term it does precisely what you are afraid of the point-and-counterpoint doing — it sets up an idol in its black-and-white “we vs. them/it” and fosters a blindness. And thus many members of many communities feel that they’ve woken up afterwards and that their sight was far too limited at the time. I like Jonothan’s idea of dialogue with the enemy. I think there’s something to this that looks a little more like balance and wisdom. And dialogue, obviously, can mean engagement, where the “they” is an idea.
However, we need contrast to define ourselves, and contrast to create community. As white space defines a stroke on a page, dark-light, silence-word (I can’t get away from negative-positive but I more mean simply the necessity contrast in definition). This need for the other to recognize what is “us” or “I” does not necessarily have to mean “enemy.” It can simply mean other.
But I have skimmed most of this, not read it, so I leave my comments with a big salt shaker. Season appropriately.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:03 am
The greatest enemy is irresponsibility.
And, if I was faced with The War, I wouldn’t go. And if I was confronted by him, I would sing Him a lament, and then later, a song.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. (Revelation 6:9-11)
(I didn’t read everybody’s comments: I apologize: typically, I like eavesdropping)
Responsibility to the call, for He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
- Don’t ask me to tell you.
- Why not?
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- Oh.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:12 am
In the depths of anxiety and semi-depression, dialogue with the enemy is Promethean prayer. That is, wrestling the fire/life/existence from God. Tragic, because one debases oneself, defaces the Imago Dei, by stealing a gift out of its givers hands.
The options of a failure: Go into a trade and start a band. Come to the realization that he is the two things he hated most, a flaming existentialist and a phoney. Quietly wander the sidewalks / sing on the bus. Smoke cigarettes and scribble poetry. Live vicariously through his children. And… advance the Kingdom of God somehow: find an enemy to kill him for defending the word of God. Easy enough; obey the One with ferocious zeal. But if he had done that in the first place, he might just have been responsible enough not to fail… “husha! husha! we all fall down.”
March 28th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I read this post. I wish I could say I had something profound to add. I do not. Veronica makes a good point about the danger of focusing community on a common enemy. There has to come a point where community exists for the purpose of bringing people together because they were made to live together.
I agree with Christo in that environmental fanatics can be help us to confront our apathy. I am not sure whether the knowledge of a “shared danger” is always necessary. However, that said, it is essential to have the awareness and commitment to action in order to create real community. I am not a fan of the question which “is the most pressing danger?” In certain cases, one threat is greater than another. It is important to have a willingness and desire to see dangers and act to correct or avoid issues.
This doesn’t add too much to the dialogue. But I thought i should make my presence known.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am
On whether an enemy is optional in forging a union of people, two european ladies have suggested quite strongly to me of the primacy of violence in human behaviour - rather they put it more like this: The history of violence is a necessary history. Violence, they argue, is not something contingent on the will of some class of people over the rest, rather it comes “from below.” Since I think I’m somewhat honest with myself - I dare say I may indeed have it in me (worse than I’m sure I can imagine) to “act” in “community” with others and that meat is needed upon which to celebrate our sense of each other.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
true. but I rememeber Hans Boersma defining violence as more than that of a reaction to a threat or enemy or inflicting some sort of harm. Violence can be of other emotions or actions and not simply a reaction AGAINST something can’t it? The violence of love perhaps? Just trying to get my head around why I don’t see an enemy as necessary. But perhaps we are aiming at the same thing because even when there is a violence of say, love, there is also a forcible attempt at keeping out say, isolation or alienation. But it is more a forcible attempt to gain or keep something. And perhaps that in itself can cement a community. Something to strive for, not necessarily against. But if you’re for something are you automatically against something else? Perhaps.
Ramblings.