duration press has a very cool website. They also offer a great free ebook collection for anyone interested in reading some recent poetry. My friend Emily recommended Rosmarie Waldrop's book Lawn of Excluded Middle which I am currently reading and highly recommend.
I was reading the nytimes the other day and saw this picture of an islamic politician and a christian politician talking at a conference in Iraq on Middle East democracy or something of that nature. Most of you know my conflicted (some would say neurotic) politics but I found something really refreshing in the picture and it has to do with democracy. I don't know what they were saying to each other, it could have been pretty heated, but at least they were talking as different people and trying to forge some sort of functional society out of that. Slavoj Zizek has this lecture called "A Plea for Fundamentalism" that makes the argument that a strong ideological identity is the best way to have a healthy society and I think he's right.
What do I mean by that? The fundamentalism he's talking about here is not the fascistic tinged versions we see in certain branches of islam and christianity. Its the version that says "I am me and you are you, I believe I am right and you are wrong, but you believe the same about me. Now, how are we going to live together?" In acknowledging the difference you are actually free to acknowledge the other as other instead of trying to annex them into some sort of ideological construction. You identify with them and distinguish yourself from them at the same time. And then you can actually start talking.
In this country, and in a place like France as we've seen recently, there has been too much hegemony and not enough Zizekian fundamentalism. That sounds really counterintuitive, but think about it, particularly in the issues that divide us. When's the last time you saw a Christian leader and a gay rights leader actually talking about the issue of same-sex marriage? I think it may only be possible in acknowledging and allowing for those differences while acknowledging that we have to come to some sort of consensus about how to live together.
Of course, there aren't a whole lot of people blowing up themselves over an issue like same-sex marriage, and that's the problem with too much fundamentalism: the other becomes absolute other.
Posted by pjaussen at November 26, 2005 12:56 PM | TrackBackPaul,
Your words on fundementalism are right in line with my thinking as well. One thing I would like to add about current US culture (I cannot speak about others being trapped in middle America ...happily so...as I am). And that is that we seem to be increasingly unable to disagree with someone without hating him/her and then seeking to eliminate them (or their arguement or organization, party). Because we have this malady, I think I perceive people are increasingly unwilling and unable to talk, debate, or even conrfont each other because now the stakes are so high. Ie. it will probably annianlate the relationship. I was very struck by the wisdom of Attikus when I last read Mokinbird when he tried to counsel his children to not turn on and hate the racists because they had history with those people and they were neighbors and in community. Oh that we could learn to hold our convictions and listen and even love those who disagree. Isn't that what Jesus taught and modeled?
Dad
Posted by: Dad at December 8, 2005 10:45 AM