Philosophy of Liberation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), So I Want to Thank Linda for All Her Support and Encouragement

03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page i Beyond Philosophy 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page ii New Critical Theory General Editors: Patricia Huntington and Martin J. Beck Matu_tík The aim of New Critical Theory is to broaden the scope of critical theory beyond its two predominant strains, one generated by the research program of Jürgen Habermas and his students, the other by postmodern cultural studies. The series reinvigorates early critical theory—as developed by Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, and others—but from more decisive post-colonial and post-patriarchal vantage points. New Critical Theory represents theoretical and activist concerns about class, gender, and race, seeking to learn from as well as nourish social liberation movements. Phenomenology of Chicana Experience and Identity: Communication and Transformation in Praxis by Jacqueline M. Martinez The Radical Project: Sartrean Investigations by Bill Martin From Yugoslav Praxis to Global Pathos: Anti-Hegemonic Post-post-Marxist Essays by William L. McBride Unjust Legality: A Critique of Habermas’s Philosophy of Law by James L. Marsh New Critical Theory: Essays on Liberation edited by William S. Wilkerson and Jeffrey Paris The Quest for Community and Identity: Critical Essays in Africana Social Philosophy edited by Robert E. Birt After Capitalism by David Schweickart The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy: Karl-Otto Apel’s Semiotics and Discourse Ethics by Eduardo Mendieta Love and Revolution: A Political Memoir: People’s History of the Greensboro Massacre, Its Setting and Aftermath by Signe Waller Beyond Philosophy: Ethics, History, and Liberation Theology by Enrique Dussel edited by Eduardo Mendieta 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page iii Beyond Philosophy Ethics, History, Marxism, and Liberation Theology Enrique Dussel Edited by Eduardo Mendieta ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Oxford 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page iv ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright © 2003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dussel, Enrique D. [Selections. English. 2003] Beyond philosophy : ethics, history, Marxism, and liberation theology / Enrique Dussel ; edited by Eduardo Mendieta. p. cm.—(New critical theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8476-9776-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 0-8476-9777-0 (pbk.) 1. Liberation theology—Latin America—History. 2. Christian ethics—Latin America—History. 3. Social ethics—Latin America—History. 4. Latin America—Church history. I. Mendieta, Eduardo. II. Title. III. Series. B1034.D874A25 2003 199'.82—dc21 2003007759 Printed in the United States of America ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page v Contents Acknowledgments vii Preface Enrique Dussel ix Introduction Eduardo Mendieta 1 Part I: General Hypotheses 1 Domination—Liberation: A New Approach 21 2 The Bread of the Eucharist Celebration As a Sign of Justice in the Community 41 3 The “World-System”: Europe as “Center” and Its “Periphery” beyond Eurocentrism 53 Part II: Liberating Theology 4 The Kingdom of God and the Poor 85 5 “Populus Dei” in Populo Pauperum: From Vatican II to Medellín and Puebla 103 6 Exodus as a Paradigm in Liberation Theology 115 Part III: Ethics and Economics 7 Racism: A Report on the Situation in Latin America 127 8 An Ethics of Liberation: Fundamental Hypotheses 135 v 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page vi vi Contents 9 Theology and Economy: The Theological Paradigm of Communicative Action and the Paradigm of the Community of Life As a Theology of Liberation 149 10 Ethical Sense of the 1994 Maya Rebellion in Chiapas 167 Part IV: History 11 From Secularization to Secularism: Science from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment 187 12 Modern Christianity in Face of the “Other” (from the “Rude” Indian to the “Noble Savage”) 207 13 Was America Discovered or Invaded? 219 Index 227 About the Author 000 About the Editor 000 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page vii Acknowledgments his book would not have been possible without the enthusiasm, Tsupport, and encouragement of Maureen MacGrogan. I simply can- not thank her enough for this and many other books, including those that are not my own, that she has so wisely, generously, and masterfully guided into existence. Enrique Dussel was my teacher at Union Theo- logical Seminary in the late 1980s, that amazing institution of North American Religious Radical Thought (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tillich, James Cone, and Cornel West, taught or were students there). Since then he has never ceased to amaze me both with his inexhaustible cu- riosity and ability to work and produce amazing books, but most im- portantly with his humanity and generosity. This volume is a very small sampling of his prodigious intellectual production, and I want to thank him for this gift as well as his friendship and guidance. I also want to express my gratitude to all the translators who have con- tributed to the dissemination of Dussel’s work; their names are ac- knowledged on the pieces they translated. To the editors of the many journals where Dussel’s essays first appeared, thank you. This book was conceived as a companion to the volume Linda Martín Alcoff and I co-edited under the title Thinking from the Underside of History: Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), so I want to thank Linda for all her support and encouragement. I want to thank John Wehmueller for his diligence and thoroughness, and Eve de Varo for her patience and expert guidance of this manuscript through vii 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page viii viii Acknowledgments production. Finally, I want to thank Pedro Langé-Churion, Louis Ann Lorentzen, Gerardo Marin, and Martin Woessner—who have sup- ported this work with their friendship. Eduardo Mendieta Stony Brook 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page ix Preface s I find myself this fall at Harvard University to give some postgrad- Auate seminars, I think that this book, edited by the “Latino” thinker Eduardo Mendieta, can be helpful in showing part of an unknown Latin- American intellectual production. The advantage of this work is that it gathers a set of works that are very difficult to read because they are ex- tremely dispersed throughout many publications. This collection selects works that deal with theological, economic, and historical themes. They are all from a material and critical Latin-American perspective, and they all form part of an Ethics of Liberation1. This ethics takes into consideration as ultimate criteria of “content” the production and reproduction of human life. These chapters were elaborated in their majority during the eighties,2 a period during which I began to write a complete commentary on Marx’s “Four Redactions of Capital.”3 I think that the discourse developed in this book (theological, economic, historical) shows an explicit awareness of the importance that the reflection and critique carried out by liberation theology has for Latin America, especially given the state of exploitation and poverty. It is an awareness that is articulated from the critical economics that impregnated the entire theological and historical problematic. In this sense, the second chapter (“The Bread of the Eucharist Celebra- tion”) already shows the perspective of the entire volume: a liturgical, religious act such as the Eucharist is essentially and critically related to the unjust economic and historical structures at the beginning of Modernity in the Caribbean, in 1514, before Erfurt’s Luther and way before the fu- ture northern Europe began an epoch properly industrial capitalist. If the ix 03-202 01 Front 6/4/03 7:01 AM Page x x Preface# sacramental bread has been stolen from the poor, the liturgical celebration is idolatrous. Blood is life for the Hebrews (which is value for Marx: coagulation and objectification of life); therefore, to pretend to offer to the “gods” bread stolen from the poor, or not to pay the just wage, “is to kill the son in the presence of the father.” The structure of the biblical– symbolic text is economic, and only Marx has categories to hermeneuti- cally decipher it. Evidently, I belong to the group of thinkers who con- tinue to relate at the beginning of the twenty-first century the theology of liberation to Marx’s thought, because I participated (and still participate to this day) in a critical theoretical community that since the late seven- ties has been rethinking Marx out of other suppositions than those of “Soviet standard Marxism.” I think that this Marx liberated of the Stalin- ist ballast will be the “classic” Marx of the twenty-first century, which is perfectly coherent with the Christian experience. I did not use the “standard Marx” to then apply him “already done” to theology. Instead, I re- constructed Marx after a deconstruction of standard Marxism, which dis- appeared in 1989 with the Soviet Union. What I encountered was the profound, prophetic coherence of Marx with the critical positions of the prophets of Israel, with Jesus, the founder of Christianity, who was cru- cified because of the accusations of the priests of the temple and by sol- diers of the Empire ruling at the moment.

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