Re: BHA: On spirituality, the Church and Indigenous Australians

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Gary,

>>"the identity of identity and non-identity"
> >(Hegel) versus "the non-identity of identity and non-identity" (Adorno).

The snip was from Phil, so you better ask him too what he meant. I was
saying that the current Bhaskar possibly straddles both positions. Very
roughly: Bhaskar distinguishes two meta zones of being: 1. Absolute
being - infinite, identical with itself. 2. Relative being - finite,
non-identical with itself (characterised by duality). Within 2. there
has emerged 2a Demi-real relative being (characterised by dualism,
alienation and split, i.e. master-slave-type social structures and
ideology).

2/2a is emergent from 1. and so is suffused and underpinned by it but
not reducible to it. So within 2, there's a sense in which there is both
indentity and non-identity of 1 and 2. Identity and non-identity are
constellationally united or co-present in our zone of being (2).


>Central to both theses is the matter of spirituality.  How though can this
>be understood?

On the trot, I would say that in Roy's current thinking spirituality is,
in its shortest possible definition, the classic search for (alethic)
truth, beauty and goodness. More concretely, spirituality refers to the
non-material needs, and the creative capacities, humans have as a
species (Marx's species being, Roy's core human nature or essential
self, currently referred to as our 'ground state'). For Roy these needs
crucially include non-alienation and the need for recognition and
freedom, which of course are interrelated. Like Australian Aborigines
were experiencing before the great holocaust of indigenous peoples
caught up with them with the arrival of master-slave-type society and
Empire, humans generally need to feel at one with (not alienated or
split off from, and loving and caring towards) nature or the cosmic
whole, the nexus of their social relations, other people and their
essential selves. We can't of course go back to the Aboriginal way of
life, but we can so to speak revisit it in the context of far more
complex and differentiated totality and of all the cultural riches
generated by master-slave-type societies in virtue [sic] of alienation
(and now under dire threat), such that a global eco-sustainable society
practicing a universal care ethic, in which universal self-realisation
or 'the fee development of each as a condition for the free development
of all', becomes possible. The seeds of a movement towards such a
society are of course already growing vigorously in the global movement
for Social Justice [the anti-capitalist or anti-globalisation movement]
(including participatory democracy, peace and eco-sustainability), and
it is not at all surprising to find indigenous peoples the world over at
the forefront of it because they've experienced in the most appalling
way what capitalism does to people and the environment, and their
communities already significantly embody eudaimonian values which are
wholly antithetical to the values generated by capitalism.

>for Aborigines the Christian Church represents something else -
>something not very good either. So I think for this candidate the task is
>to find a way of formulating the spiritual turn which disassociates it from
>the organised religions through an uncompromising commitment to the
>eudaionistic society.   The kingdom of god must be located here on earth.

Well of course some Christians do locate it on earth. I don't think you
should encourage him to break with his church, rather to link up with
progressives and fight for change within it (outside too of course).
While recognising the truth of what you imply: institutionalised
religion (like politics) has historically sided with the oppressors. I
wasn't surprised to find in Roy's latest book a streak of anti-nomianism
or hostility to institutional religion and politics; this is
encapsulated in the concept of the primacy of subject-referentiality,
i.e. don't expect or wait for the institions to act, act yourself. Of
course, one doesn't have to be religious to embrace the spiritual turn.
Roy sees himself as espousing 'a spirituality within the bounds of
secularism, consistent with all faiths and no faith', and argues that
his new philosophy 'shows the scientist to be nothing other than a
(practical) mystic; and shows the mystic to be of necessity engaged in
the most this-worldly concerns'.

> For him the key is the construction of an
>Aboriginal identity that is empowering.

The politics of empowerment and self-esteem (amour de soi) are of course
at the heart of the dialectic of freedom - see esp. the dialectic of the
7 E's in DPF. One achieves them in and through the struggle.

Mervyn



Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx> writes
>I am hoping to be able to persuade some of my graduate students to make the
>trip to Bradford. I think that two of them are currently doing interesting
>work around the question of Aboriginality and Emancipation.  One of the
>candidates is white while the other is an Aborigine.
>
>Central to both theses is the matter of spirituality.  How though can this
>be understood?  For one of the candidates his spirituality comes I think
>out of his Christianity. In my own case how do I relate to this? Well I
>have been a militant atheist who has grown to detest the aggressive
>secularism, which so dominates our epoch and I urged him to come out as a
>Christian in his thesis writing. People have a right to be religious. There
>I said it!
>
>However for Aborigines the Christian Church represents something else -
>something not very good either. So I think for this candidate the task is
>to find a way of formulating the spiritual turn which disassociates it from
>the organised religions through an uncompromising commitment to the
>eudaionistic society.   The kingdom of god must be located here on earth.
>
>What of the other candidate?  I have mentioned him in an earlier post.  His
>is a struggle from within the Aboriginal community.  He is striving to work
>with progressive sectors of the state bureaucracy to bring about a rebirth
>in Aboriginal education.  For him the key is the construction of an
>Aboriginal identity that is empowering. Much to think about here. Not the
>least this which I snipped from Mervyn's post
>
> >"the identity of identity and non-identity"
> >(Hegel) versus "the non-identity of identity and non-identity" (Adorno).
>
>regards
>
>Gary
>
>
>
>
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Mervyn Hartwig
Editor, Journal of Critical Realism (incorporating 'Alethia')
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