Secularity as Sacrifice. Notes on the Dialectical Logic in Modernity and its Monotheistic Prefigurations
Laurens ten Kate
In religiousstudies,sacrifice is usually considered as atype of rituality.Inthis article,to this approach acultural-philosophical investigation is added. Can sacrifice be analyzed as agenerallogic underlying Western culture?Theauthor proposes to analyze dialectics as a “movement” typical of Western self-understanding,rooted in sacrifice.Next to examples from Judaism and Christianity,Hegel s secular phenomenologyofhuman life will be the focus here.Indialogue with Jean-Luc Nancy,the consequences of this analysis will be developed. If dialectics is sacrificial,secularmodernityisconnected in an intricate way with the monotheistic legacy:secularization starts well before modernity.Western history has brought about atransformation of sacrifice in whichitisnolonger confined within religious practice,but expanded to human“secular” life.
Laurensten Kate is Associate Professor of Philosophy of religion,Religious studies, Theology and Political ethics,and Endowed ProfessorofLiberal Religion and Humanism at the University of Humanistic Studies,Utrecht (UvH).
0. Spectres
“A spectre is haunting…” Marx s famousopeningphrase in the Communist Manifesto has been repeated endlessly in many variations ever since.Where the Manifesto ascribes the presumed spectral force and threat to nineteenth century communism in Europe,numerous philosophers,scientists,writers,journalists and artists have followed Marx sdictum while re-identifying the spectre.Lately,Peter Sloterdijk has opened his book Du mußtdein Leben ändern with adescriptionof the “spectre of religion” and of its claimed “return” that would haunt the western world in the 21st century. 1 In the economic and political sciences one has en- countered severalspectres “hauntingAmerica”, eitherinaleftist-progressive or in arightist-neoliberal disguise.2 Even in contemporary music the phrase proves
1Sloterdijk 2009, p. 9. 2See e. g. Stone s influential study “A Spectre is Haunting America:AnInter- pretation of Progressivism”;and more recently Mogan 2009, who warns the then new president Obama of “ghosts of neoliberalism”that would undermine the political in- novations he d promised.
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Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND Secularity as Sacrifice its fascination and attraction:in2002, aVancouver post-punkor“death rock” band was formed that changed its name to “A SpectreisHaunting Europe”afew years later, eschewing variations of the spectre and simply goingback to the Manifesto s literal opening statement. Themost fundamentalanalytical account of Marx s phrase and of its “spectral” impactinour timehas been delivered by Jacques Derrida, in his SpectersofMarx.3 As apreamble to this article (section1), Iwill introduce yet another spectre: the spectre of growth. As Iwill demonstrate in the analysis succeeding thispre- amble,the spectre of growth has alot to do with its Marxist archetype,since it leads us back to the theoretical basis of Marx s political theory:Hegelian dia- lectics.Itisthe dialecticalmovementasacentral “subject” driving force and À object matter of Hegel s thought,that Iwill articulate as a sacrificial logic À (section2). But Sloterdijk, maybe inadvertently,isright too:the spectre Marx has set free is at the same time the spectre of religion. Forthe sacrificial logic active in the dialectical movement in turn leads us back to monotheism and its complexviews on and experiences of sacrifice. Themonotheistic legacy still active in our time entailsaspecific transformation of sacrifice:atransformationthat is in fact a dialecticization (and from there,auniversalization, ethicization and spirituali- zation)ofsacrifice,converging in Hegel s thought(section 3). However, if the spectre of growthisinfact the spectre of dialectical sacrifice, one will have to raise the question whether it is possible to think beyond this spectral logic: beyond dialectics,and maybe even beyond sacrifice.Such an immense question can only be suggested “between the lines” of this article,limited in volume as it needs to be, and in afinal coda.
1. Growth
Growth and growing appear to be anon-negotiabletruthand foundation of moderntimes. This becomes apparent above all in modern economy and eco- nomic thinking,and its system of an ever expanding free market ruled by com- petition betweenowners of capital. In this system called, as well all know,capi- talism,growth is the equivalent of the never ending accumulation of capital, strived for by the owners of this capital. Capital can accumulate itself only whenit engenders profit, gain, interest, surplus value:these words,that have creptinto modern languages as signifiers everybody immediately can handle and under- stand, are just afew of the many denominators and indicators of growth.Capital, in other words,isonly meaningful when it increases:when it is on the move constantly,making huge profits that enable even huger re-investments,sothat it will never stopaccumulating. It increases whenitlaunches new technologies for
3Derrida 1994, esp.Ch. I.
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