A question entered my mind as we were discussing “The History of Sexuality” by Michel Foucault in my Modern Criticism class. Our teacher was answering my question about the necessity of Foucault’s formulation of power. Essentially, power is not centralized, but has become a process, by which “force relations” operate within a specific framework or “strategy.” Thus, it is neither centralized nor law-centered, but is essentially diffuse (a point made by Spinoza previously, as my teacher pointed out). “Power is everywhere” and yet localized. And even “points of resistance” function within the bounds of the over-arching “strategy” of discourse, as toothpicks dropped into a bathtub might only make minor tears.
“Discourse transmits power” (although it also can lead to resistance), and this power is seen in discursive situations of all kinds: the confessor to penitent, parent to child, state to citizen, etc. Power is not transferred tangibly, nor is it lost in any sense — it is, in a sense, Monistic, because it exists at “innumerable points” and in countless “relations.” These points revolve around a particular “strategic objective,” or paradigm, which dictates their “tactical efficacy,” or ability to get something done.
To be honest, Foucault’s formulation of power does seem to be a fair observation of the ebb and flow of power in every day discourse, with its assertions and concessions. But the question I jotted down quickly in my paperback copy was “does prosylitization make humility impossible?”
And so I ask, in light of Foucault’s understanding of power as being chiefly extant in “force relations” between individuals in relation to an over-arching paradigm, can we remain humble and yet evangelize? When we attempt to evangelize, we immediately introduce a discourse of have and have-not; “I have the truth, and you do not.” Or, “I understand the truth we both know, while you do not.” This relation seems to have an intrinsic element of power over powerless, and yet, I think this may be a superficial assessment. Many respond as though this were the case, however, when approached by a religious individual. The common response is something like “who are you to tell me that? What right do you have? How is it that you have the truth?” We almost instanteously react as though a “force relation” was being instituted without our knowledge — I know I’ve reacted this way in response to some rather persistent Jehovah’s Witnesses (who actually came to my home). This same reaction is clearly seen in the audience of St. Matthew, who purports to show the Jews just how their Scriptures are fulfilled in Christ. This reaction to perceived condescension, this revulsion at the institution of an involutnary relation, is a ubiquitous response in the West (I cannot speak for the Orient). Nevertheless, does this mean that the Have cannot be humble in relation to the Have-Not?
I don’t believe this is so. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, humility of a true and virtuous sort is willful “self-abasement” based on a man’s awareness of his own limitations. Thomas Merton wrote in “New Seeds of Contemplation” that true humility was equal to true self-knowledge. It is by no means humble for a man to lie about himself — this “false humility” which feigns perpetual inability is neither Christian nor sane. Christ was never so humble that he couldn’t practice his carpentry. In the same respect, it can never be humble for one to feign a lack of knowledge. If I know Latin, it is not humble for me to say that I’ve no knowledge of Latin, being too dumb to acquire it. This is lying, and is a perversion of an otherwise crowning virtue. It is humble (honest) to tell you that I can teach you Latin, but not physics.
Having giving a cursive definition of humility, we can see that the evangelist is in no wise forced into pride by his institution of a “force relation” with another. While it does presume a sense of power, this power does not take a negative form, but a very positive form, as the one who loans you $20 has the power. Love, and subsequently humility, presumes an inequal distribution coupled with a desire to make it more equal. In the case of religious truth, which a religious individual would consider a great Good (leading to the greatest Good), it is not prideful for him to suppose that he holds a valuable good which he wants to diffuse to the masses. One would certainly not accuse Louis Pasteur of pride if he wanted every dairy farmer to understand and utilize Pasteurization!
Therefore, while the evanglist-evangelical does involve a transmission or surfacing of power in the context of a discursive relationship, it does follow that such a relationship would be necessarily negative or, in terms of virtues, prideful. In fact, a humble individual, being intimately acquainted with the truth of his own limitations, is in a much better position to transfer truth to other individuals. The individual who sees his own lack and the lack of his brother, and yet believes that he has the good which slakes that lack, would do his best to diffuse it as widely as possible. And in no sense does this involve an abuse of a “force relation” or pride.
[This is where the joy of having a blog really comes in handy -- because, I didn't really plan to write all this. But because I have a medium, I can follow these thoughts as far as I wish and be as absolutely nebulous and abstract as I so desire. Where else could someone write so badly? Because if I didn't make a firm decision to risk failure, that is, write poorly, I would never write at all. As Chesterton said, "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly."]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: a canticle for leibowitz, anarchism, John XXIII, nuclear war, Pacem in Terris, thrice
“Man has the right the live” — John XXIII, Pacem in Terris
In “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” mankind has committed the unpardonable sin, the “Flame Deluge,” leaving “a billion corpses” lying dead, unmourned and unburied — men, through nuclear arms, obliterated nearly all of creation and all of culture. The book itself traces about 2000 years of history through the eyes of The Albertian Order of Saint Lebowitz. St. Leibowitz is a 20th century physicist who survives the nuclear war, becomes an ordained priest after his wife dies, and spends his life organizing collections of the “memorabilia” (written documents of all kinds) during the “Simplification.” While the book stresses the importance of the Church in the preservation of culture in a newly barbarian world, a deeper message perhaps comes through — the incredible, impossible madness of man.
One particular Abbot of the Order of St. Leibowitz, incensed at man’s insistent inclination toward destruction, cries out to God:
“Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing?”
One can’t help but feel this way when one considers the mountains of caked blood and flesh which buried the earth in the past 100 years. What could bring man to obliterate his brother so senselessly, so maddeningly?
Last semester I was quite involved in studying peace and conflict — the history of war, the history of weaponry, the reasons for war, the inside and out of nuclear war, etc. I had to leave it for a while, because it became somewhat of an obsession for me, such that it began to encroach upon my spiritual life. But, to this day, I’m not convinced that encroachment wasn’t necessary. When we consider that there are enough nuclear weapons on earth to destroy it entirely seven times over, why aren’t more of us concerned?
My guess is that, for most of us, its not real. Abstractly there are these machines out there somewhere which, if utilized, would nullify a lot of other abstractions (namely, the people we can’t see). It seems that we — myself included — have a hard time going to our knees over abstractions. I can’t truly fathom what it must be like to be huddled in my living room, as the birds of hell drop bombs of fire on everyone I love. I can’t imagine a city, at once bustling, at once destroyed, peopled only by shadows and men with their flesh dangling from their bones as they walk. Can we imagine this? A billion hands furled in the dirt? A billion mouths melted shut, or two billion eyes turned to water?
Dustin Kensrue (one of my favorite Catholic artists) wrote a sonnet entitled “The Flame Deluge” (he presumably read “A Canticle for Leibowitz”), in which the final couplet is this:
Who will stand to greet the blinding light?
Its lonely when there’s no one left to fight.
I think about this often, and I consider what drove the world to madness in the 20th century. No doubt that it was a mad thirst for power, a demonic thirst slaked by blood — but afterwards. What drove us mad? Had man ever had to cope with the death of a billion of his brothers? Had man ever been asked to see so much horror, and yet remain good? It is no wonder that so little faith remains in man. It is a wonder that he remains complicit with the cause of his madness — or at least, its material cause.
In fact, this might be a situation in which the anarchist — or rather, the radical personalist — has the ethical upper-hand. Who could obey a power which, in the same breath, constantly threatens entire nations with destruction? How could such a power be just? Such a power’s existence would be a “contravention to the moral order.” The Christian anarchist says “Let the nation be dissolved, only do not strike the masses with fire.” There is never a moral justification for the purposeful incineration of nations. Not the preservation of one’s own nation, one’s own family, one’s own life. A nation which purports to be Christian would, in my mind, lay down its life on the altar of its brother’s madness as a prayer to the Lord.
But still, the idea boils down to personal responsibility doesn’t it? We take the easy way out — we say “nothing will stop them unless we stop them — unless we bomb their hospitals and schools, unless we poison their land and raid their homes, unless we make them burn until they surrender.” But this is the way of the coward, not the way of the Christian. The Christian is, above all, too brave for nuclear weaponry, or conventional means of destruction. He is noble and hopeful, he has the whole host of Heaven in his defense, the Creator Omnis is His Father. What has he to fear?
Before all else, the Christian is called to something more noble and courageous than war — he is called to be a witness and a pilgrim, a sane man in a world of wolves. He does not threaten men and women and children with death, but dies to himself in order to save them. This is the only sanity that remains, in an age of atomic power — the white martyrdom of the saints themselves, instead of the cup of wrath which man forces himself to drink. Only the sane man could stand amongst the barbarians and profess: man has a right to live.
