Foxes + Birds + ‘one’

Itinerancy sucks.

It is exhausting. Physically. Psychologically.

Yet to be honest, I have no proper concept of it. Upon stepping out the door I know that I have the same door to enter through.

I cannot imagine ‘no place to lay my head’—such a thing lies beyond comprehension.

Foxes have holes, birds have nests . . . this, is most. And I believe far too many (most?) of us who fall within this binary unconsciously disavow the excremental remainder—that is, the ‘one’. We suppose the ‘two’ form a totality (‘foxes/birds’, ‘rich/poor’, ‘bourgeoisie/proletariat’, etc. . . ).

However, with every oppositional binary, the totality of the ‘two’ must account for that what is ‘leftover’: the ‘one’ (in Lacanian terms: 1 + 1 + a, or 1 + 1 = 3).

Foxes have holes, birds have nests—but the son of man has no place to lay his head. 

Christ is the universal singular. He signifies the excremental remainder—he lies outside ‘the count’.

I hear many speak of the ‘kingdom of god’, yet very few speak of the kingdom of God.    

I have become convinced that the reason for this is this unconscious disavowal of the remainder. Most wish (at least in word) to improve society proper, rather than join those outside ‘the count’ to form a society outside society proper.

However, revolutions do not improve Establishments—they smash them to make way for the New.  

Let there be no misunderstanding: the kingdom of God is not ‘capitalism with a human face’.

Most assuredly, I cannot at all tell you what ‘it’ (i.e. the kingdom of God) ‘is’—but I can tell you what ‘it’ is not: it is not the (relatively safe) symbolic ecosystem of Western capitalism.

The kingdom of God is not ‘holes’, nor ‘nests’. It resides in the ‘one’.

And to seek such a space one must not seek differentiation from ‘the other’, but rather differentiation from one’s own self.

This is the seed of Universal Revolution. This is the Idea.

Have You Passed Through This Night?

This great evil—where does it come from?

How did it steal into the world?

What seed, what root did it grow from?

Who’s doing this?

Who’s killing us?—robbing us of life and light, mocking us with the sight of what we might of known?

Does our ruin benefit the earth?—does it help the grass to grow, or the sun to shine?

Is this darkness in you, too?

Have you passed through this night?

—Explosions In The Sky, “Have You Passed Through This Night?” (a sample of the narration from the film The Thin Red Line)

Universal Revolution

As those familiar with this page may know, there was a separation between my place of work and I roughly seven weeks ago. Since then I have set some fairly ambitious writing goals (at least for me, anyway). So I started writing, and yesterday I finished (the first draft of) the first of a pseudo-series of books.

The title is: Universal Revolution: A Manifesto for Egalitarians.

For some background information, it is enough to say that I have studied a fair amount of radical theology. And I love it. But something essential is missing from it. It is too intellectual, too ‘conversational’, etc.—hence its general lack of appeal outside ‘academia’ (of which I am not a part).

Billions live amongst the destruction of global capitalism.

‘Wage slavery’ has as much meaning today as it did a century ago.  

And it is because of this that I absolutely agree with James Cone that the ‘death of God’ notion is irrelevant when dealing with the liberation of oppressed people; for radical theology is not conceptual—it is a revolutionary expression of life.

True radical theology is ethical action deprived of any support from the Big Other.

In short: the liberation of oppressed people is radical theology in praxis.

All the great revolutions have ultimately failed, not because they were too ‘atheist’, but because they were not ‘atheist’ enough. 

Thus my central argument in Universal Revolution is why revolutionary mass movement must pass through Christianity.

Apart from the Christian project revolution is not.    

As for the book itself, it is a pocket edition (roughly 30,000 words) and is thus a very approachable read. But that does not mean it is ‘light’. The above photo is the source material for the book (as well as web content, scriptures, etc.).

As of today, I am not certain on a release date, as there are rounds of edits, artwork, etc. to be done. When fully completed it will be available in paperback and eBook.  

In the meantime, here is a sample from section one . . .

“Regardless of Botox-injected commentators’ thoughts on the matter, to simply give those at the bottom the same ‘opportunity’ as those at the top is precisely what sustains the status quo, ensuring the system’s continued smooth functioning. What a contemporary system of oppression needs is equal rights to cloak the reality that social domination is already inscribed into the system itself. Of course this truth is never properly excavated, for Western people typically do not even want actual equality, as its supposed official project (Communism) was such a catastrophic failure. Is it any wonder why the American pastor is so eager to sing the praises, not of equality, but of our precious inalienable equal rights duly protecting us from the Marxist utopia of equality?—when any political program is associated with fascism churchgoers tend to frown upon it, regardless if it ever actually has been . . . Equality is vilified thus, the desired effect of which is: the most pandemic utopian idea today is not equality, but the notion that the current order of things is indefinitely sustainable. Assuredly this utopian idea is never acknowledged as such, so if I may, I shall now turn the hegemonic ideology on its head, and put forth the following: those scrupulous naysayers who oft assure us that radical social change is impossible—they are the utopians; for you need not necessarily look forward to qualify as a utopian—revivalists are utopian: their utopia lies in the past rather than the future. So it is not which direction one looks that determines whether or not a view is utopian (utopians do of course look both ways)—‘utopian’ simply names the ideological mystification of thinking the impossible is possible while remaining within the confines of current possibilities. From the very beginning of civilization through today and into tomorrow this has been and forever will be: the hegemonic ideology is the ultimate utopianism. As for egalitarianism, it is only a utopian idea when equality is thought possible tomorrow without creating the possibility for tomorrow’s equality today.”

The Abstraction of Capitalist Consumerism

I find it curious how many ‘Christians’ today (notably the ‘Christian youth’) who find it necessary to express their ‘Christian identity’ by wearing strange clothing—clothing that supposedly represents their ‘radical’ devotion to God per a display of outward otherness.

While I am not any sort of fashion police, it seems to me that it is quite possible that such self-expression is nothing more than a defense against an innermost identification, a wardrobe ‘escape hatch’ if you will, whose hidden logic is: ‘Lets look as subversive and radically different as we can so that we won’t have to actually be subversive or radically different’!

But I digress—what one wears is their business.

What is important to remember is that if one truly desires revolutionary mass movement they must be somewhat presentable to the masses.

This is a lesson I myself am still learning . . .  

In sum, the appearance of difference simply for the sake of appearing different is not something that we should waste any time cultivating.

For as far as revolution is concerned, consumerist difference is sameness.

The only difference that is different is difference from difference . . .

I.e. pure difference is not the gap separating two objects, but the gap separating one object from itself.