Not an Original, New Observation
“Today everything is theology, with the exception of what the theologians talk about.” - Carl Schmitt
None of this is new, but it becomes ambiguous.
One theme I firmly instill in my students is that for every personal belief there is a corresponding tribal background. I try my hardest to give the benefit of a doubt to the genuinness of convictions, but the truth behind that genuinness can be opaque. Belief either ossifies or reacts against a particular social arrangement (there is no neutral ground here), and an idea doesn’t need to be concrete (or coherent) in order to do something. My working theory of religion is that it is a world with two poles: 1) personal meaning/explanation and 2) tribal cohesion. It’s one small way I try to incorporate the Imaginary and Symbolic as interlocked layers of depth.
In my religious studies class, I put it this way: isn't it interesting that your thoughts on Genesis 1 might tell me whether or not you support the Supreme Court's ruling for marriage equality? Tell me how you understand the virtue of charity, and I can roughly infer your stance on wealth redistribution, taxation, entitlements, etc. Isn't it interesting that what you make of the word "sin" can help me guess your reaction to "black lives matter"?
You take a wrong turn in interpretation when you judge a belief as nothing more than the ridiculous delusion of a dull mind. Even when is no clear use value, the nebulous or apparently irrelevant belief is either supporting a social affiliation or—in the case where secondary ideas are created to protect a primary value—supporting another personal identity marker.
In God Is Unconscious, I use the famous chess match example:
Walter Benjamin wrote of a chess game in which every move was countered with a perfect move by an automaton. The automaton puppet puffed on its water pipe in the intervals between moves, creating the illusion of contemplation even though its calculated moves assured its eschatological victory. A system of mirrors created the illusion that one could see right through the table, but in fact a hunchbacked dwarf [a chessmaster] sat inside the puppet to control the game. One could imagine, Benjamin continued, that this is precisely our situation today, where the politics of historical materialism are merely a puppet controlled by a hidden theology. We suppose the material order will win the game, producing a revolutionary event or a messianic time, but what we get instead is a well-regulated technocracy supported by a theology.
. . .
In The Puppet and the Dwarf, ��i��ek reverses Benjamin’s chess match to observe that in an age where radical thought is prohibited, we now play chess against explicitly theological matters that conceal the political agendas controlling its moves. Imaginary ideologies directed by the big Other are proscribed from our awareness by illusions of secularity.
Ideas hide themselves among others. If someone tells me with great certainty that a Bible is copied verbatim from God’s lips and perfectly preserved down through the ages, I can infer further possible connections: likely a Protestant, almost certainly a creationist (which isn't exactly a long shot when 42% of Americans are), higher than average familiarity with the text, believes in miracles, etc. But if I guessed correctly thus far (granting that at the political level, creationism works as a front for climate science denial), I may be able to push further and list specific lobbies funding the politicians for whom he votes. Depending on age or college experience, I might even surmise something about the nature of his family structure and friendships. I know he could loose important social connections should his paradigm shift. Since he vaguely knows this too, I know he feels anxiety when studying religion in a classroom. His anxiety produces doubts which he, in turn, represses via a small handful of common strategies. I know I should recalculate my teaching style based on this knowledge in order to avoid provoking more defensive barriers. The personal belief is genuine; its utility and social background are opaque.
Which pole is the puppet, and which is the Master? It isn’t always clear. A dominant religion clearly has a vested interest in keeping personal meaning in the foreground and collective dynamics secluded in the background. Whereas Islam and Judaism do a better job keeping these two purposes together and out in the open, American Protestantism usually prefers to imagine its theology is apolitical. Wherever a belief deceives itself into imagining it is apolitical, it aggressively preserves a status quo.
None of this is a new idea. The belief is a signifier that is doing something, and its actions are deceptive.
"Such is the signifier’s answer, beyond all significations: ' You believe you are taking action when I am the one making you stir at the bidding of the bonds with which I weave your desires. Thus do the latter grow in strength and multiply in objects, bringing you back to the fragmentation of your rent childhood. That will be your feast until the return of the stone guest whom I shall be for you since you call me forth.'" - Jacques Lacan
