Religion and. . . .

["Margaret M Gullette" <mgullette@xxxxxxx>]

       Doug proposes a fascinating theory about the "It" and
religious desire. Yet Katha's view of multiple overlapping reasons
for church-going is also compelling. I would add one: community. We
get it through e-lists like this, I through my feminist and women's
networks, my left study group, etc. If I weren't a proselytizing
atheist, institutionalized religion would assure me more regularity
in this design and might satisfy other esthetic hungers (music,
singing).
        "Religion"--an overdetermined referent.
        All the more reason, with so many motives buried in that
American self-designation, "religiou," to think some of them can be
reached by left/feminist arguments and programs.
        --Margaret


Resident Scholar, Women's Studies, Brandeis
e-mail: mgullette@xxxxxxx
617-965-2164
Home page:www.brandeis.edu/wmns/gullette.html

Declining to Decline judged "best feminist book on American popular
culture" (1998 Emily Toth Award)


-----Original Message-----
From: Katha Pollitt <kpollitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: A place for marxist-feminists to hang out
<M-Fem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sunday, May 02, 1999 12:54 PM
Subject: [Fwd: Re: [Fwd: Re: 7 years old Iranian genius] (fwd)]


>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> As Wallace Stevens said, "sad men made angels of the sun."
>>
>> Pardon me if I wax Zizekian for a moment, but there seems to be a
desire
>> within all of us - who knows how historical or transhistorical it
is? - for
>> some impossible, indescribable fulfillment. Sometimes this
attaches itself
>> to political phenomena - a revolutionary ideal or nationalist
violence -
>> and sometimes it attaches itself to religious or spiritual
content. And
>> sometimes to commodities: as Zizek argues, the slogan "Coke is It"
appeals
>> precisely to this longing for the impossibly fulfilling It. I
think there's
>> something about this desire that's before or beyond symbolization,
which is
>> why it can attach itself, often contradictorily, to earthly or
>> beyond-earthly symbols. Most materialists, Marxist or not, ignore
or even
>> scorn this dimension of psycho-politics, and have a long record of
failures
>> to show for their high-mindedness.
>>
>> Doug
>
>
>eloquently put, doug.  but if "SAD men made angels of the sun," what
>happens when people cheer up (or wise up)? In europe religion is not
a
>big deal -- few go to church in Britain,Scandinavia, France etc.
>Slovenia, Zizek's home, is not at all a religious kind of place.  In
our
>own social fraction -- urban college-ed professional intellectual
types
>-- church going is pretty rare. the people  I know who belong to a
>church or synagogue are basically looking for a place to do their
>charity or politics or theyre going "for the children." Or theyre
>Southern.
>   I'll bet there's a pretty direct correlation between religiosity
and
>income/education  (except maybe in the south). Also gender -- women
are
>much more churchgoing than men -- so does that mean they have more
>longings for the unsayable infinite?  or that they have been
assigned
>the role of tradition-keeper and morals-preserver? and that the
church
>is one of the few public places women can be without exciting
negative
>vibes, and religion one of their ways of taming their menfolk?
> The sociological picture of who goes to church suggests to me that
the
>needs religion satisfies may be more practical than Zizek posits.
and
>that it's not so hard as you think to fulfill them in other ways.
>theoretically.
>  Do YOU miss religion btw? And if so what is it about it that you
miss?
>
>Katha
>