In the Vale of Tears: On Marxism and Theology, V (Historical Materialism Book Series)

Atheism -- Myth -- Ambivalence -- History -- Kairós -- Ethics -- Idols -- On secularism, transcendence and death.;In the Vale of Tears offers the author's own detailed response to the long and rich tradition of Marxism and religion. It deals with the crucial issues of myth, political ambivalence, kairós, ethics, fetishism and death. Contents 7 Preface 11 Introduction 15 Of old timber and lovers 16 On theology 19 Relativising theology 20 Theological suspicion 24 Synopsis 32 Chapter One Atheism 43 Banishing the gods? 44 'New old atheists’ 46 The death of God? 52 Theology versus studies in religion 55 Atheists and theology 58 Marxism and theology 61 Aufhebung 63 Feuerbach and beyond 68 Freedom of conscience? 71 Anti-clericalism 76 Protest atheism and theism 77 Conclusion 80 Chapter Two Myth 83 Prolegomenon 85 Poligony 85 Mythos and logos 89 Political myth 92 Adorno’s wariness 92 Discernment 95 Anticipation, or utopia 99 Adorno once again 100 Fragments: from motivation to analogy 103 Sorel: irrefutable motivation 104 Althusser: a totality which has not yet achieved its concept 104 Ontology 106 Badiou: forcing a mythic truth 107 Deleuze and Guattari: reverse causality 114 Analogy 117 For example . . . 119 Barthes’s denotation 120 Jameson’s apocalyptic 121 Early Christian communism 126 Conclusion 136 Chapter Three Ambivalence 139 Scandal and folly 140 Papal power 140 Heresy 144 Missions, of the Californian variety 146 Folly to the rich 148 Wilhelm Weitling 149 Father Thomas J. Hagerty 154 Norman Gottwald 156 Towards a Marxist theory of political ambivalence 159 The unwitting 160 The implicit 160 Broken connection 161 The fall 163 The witting 166 Glimpses 166 Full throttle 173 By way of conclusion 179 Chapter Four History 185 Method: search for an anti-fulcrum 187 Paul’s shaky transitions 193 Anti- or pro-empire? 194 Multivalence 197 Hesitating on the bridge 203 Between the sacred economy and slavery 205 The fate of Christian communism 212 Conclusion 219 Chapter Five Kairós 221 At the crossroads of time 222 Eschatology 233 Ákairos 241 Measure and immeasure (Negri) 249 By way of conclusion: political grace 254 Chapter Six Ethics 259 Ethics, morality and moralising 261 Care of the self 266 Greasing the other 272 Quailing before the Real: Terry Eagleton 275 The ethics of ethical failure: Judith Butler 281 Blasting away the other 283 Towards ethical insurgency 288 Producing the other 289 Chosen people 291 Good and evil 293 Towards the unethical and the unmoral 296 Conclusion 299 Chapter Seven Idols 301 That hideous pagan idol: Marx and fetishism 303 The idol link 304 In search of a lost treatise 307 Idolatry goes underground 314 In the tinker’s thinking shed 316 Towards political iconoclasm 318 On graven images: from liberation theology to Theodor Adorno 323 Liberation theology 324 Adorno: barricading the fetish transfer 328 Conclusion 332 Conclusion On Secularism, Transcendence and Death 335 Secular and anti-secular 338 Transgressive transcendence 341 Death 344 References 353 Index 381 Winner of the 2014 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize. In the Vale of Tears brings to a culmination the project for a renewed and enlivened debate over the interaction between Marxism and religion. It does so by offering the author's own response to that tradition. It simultaneously draws upon the rich insights of a significant number of Western Marxists and strikes out on its own. Thus, it argues for the crucial role of political myth on the Left; explores the political ambivalence at the heart of Christianity; challenges the bent among many on the Left to favour the unexpected rupture of kairós as a key to revolution; is highly suspicious of the ideological and class alignments of ethics; offers a thorough reassessment of the role of fetishism in the Marxist tradition; and broaches the question of death, unavoidable for any Marxist engagement with religion. While the book is the conclusion to the five-volume series, The Criticism of Heaven and Earth, it also stands alone as a distinct intervention in some burning issues of our time. In the Vale of Tears' brings to a culmination the project for a renewed and enlivened debate over the interaction between Marxism and religion. It does so by offering the author's own response to that tradition. It simultaneously draws upon the rich insights of a significant number of Western Marxists and strikes out on its own. Thus, it argues for the crucial role of political myth on the Left; explores the political ambivalence at the heart of Christianity; challenges the bent among many on the Left to favour the unexpected rupture of kairós as a key to revolution; is highly suspicious of the ideological and class alignments of ethics; offers a thorough reassessment of the role of festishism in the Marxist tradition; and broaches the question of death, unavoidable for any Marxist engagement with religion. While the book is the conclusion to the five-volume series 'The Criticism of Heaven and Earth', it also stands alone as a distinct intervention in some burning issues of our time In the Vale of Tears offers the author's own detailed response to the long and rich tradition of Marxism and religion. It deals with the crucial issues of myth, political ambivalence, kairos, ethics, fetishism and death." Atheism -- Myth -- Ambivalence -- History -- Kairâos -- Ethics -- Idols -- On Secularism, Transcendence And Death. By Roland Boer. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.