What is postsecularism?
October 20, 2021 9:42 AM Subscribe
According to Clayton Crockett, postsecularism indicates the breakdown of the modern divide within liberalism that assigns religion to a private sphere of belief that is separate from political-civil reason. Postsecularism attends to the ways that what we call religion exceed their modern frames and become deprivatized and politicized. In this process, spiritual-political forces are liberated from the modern framework of religion. Recent movements called New Materialism and New Animism can be seen as attempts to conceptualize this development.
We're seeing religion or again more broadly spiritual values and practices being tied to various aspects of revolt and these tend to be very tentative and experimental trying to do things different, trying to imagine a different world, trying to imagine a world beyond contemporary neoliberalism and what we can say as violent and savage form of capitalism.—Interview with Clayton Crockett
Books by Clayton Crockett:
-Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics After Liberalism
-Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism
Other works on postsecularism:
-What we talk about when we talk about the postsecular / John D. Boy
-Why Has Postsecularism Become Important in the Study of Global Politics? / Josh Holmes
-The Challenge of Postsecularism / Stanislaw Obirek
We're seeing religion or again more broadly spiritual values and practices being tied to various aspects of revolt and these tend to be very tentative and experimental trying to do things different, trying to imagine a different world, trying to imagine a world beyond contemporary neoliberalism and what we can say as violent and savage form of capitalism.—Interview with Clayton Crockett
Books by Clayton Crockett:
-Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics After Liberalism
-Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism
Other works on postsecularism:
-What we talk about when we talk about the postsecular / John D. Boy
-Why Has Postsecularism Become Important in the Study of Global Politics? / Josh Holmes
-The Challenge of Postsecularism / Stanislaw Obirek
I went to look at TFA before posting, because I was tempted to make a snarky comment based on the fragment in OP.
Crockett appears to be making arguments about "liberalism" and "religion" which define those terms in ways foreign to their common usage. And incidentally presenting an etymology for the latter that obscures some disagreements. While there is much about modern religion that is modern, the concept of a distinctively spiritual understanding of the world with a huge collection of associated memes is not something that arose with modernity. I am not reading beyond the introduction.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:54 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Crockett appears to be making arguments about "liberalism" and "religion" which define those terms in ways foreign to their common usage. And incidentally presenting an etymology for the latter that obscures some disagreements. While there is much about modern religion that is modern, the concept of a distinctively spiritual understanding of the world with a huge collection of associated memes is not something that arose with modernity. I am not reading beyond the introduction.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:54 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
While there is much about modern religion that is modern, the concept of a distinctively spiritual understanding of the world with a huge collection of associated memes is not something that arose with modernity.
Where do you see that being asserted?
As I read it, the point being made here is that modernity cordoned off what we currently call "religion" into a little bubble, separate from the public sphere, but in the current postmodern era, religion isn't going to stay contained in that little bubble.
Nobody is saying that the stuff we categorize as religion didn't exist before modernity. It was just conceptualized differently.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:15 PM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Where do you see that being asserted?
As I read it, the point being made here is that modernity cordoned off what we currently call "religion" into a little bubble, separate from the public sphere, but in the current postmodern era, religion isn't going to stay contained in that little bubble.
Nobody is saying that the stuff we categorize as religion didn't exist before modernity. It was just conceptualized differently.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:15 PM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Where do you see that being asserted?
Aardvark may be seeing it elsewhere, but in the third sentence of the introduction of Crockett's piece, he states: [R]eligion in practice is more of a modern concept derived from Christianity that serves to discipline spiritual forces and subjugate them to modern secular reason.
But the author appears to be focusing on "religion" as it exists in modern European liberalism, or as he perceives it exists there, not any broad common understanding of what religion is.
posted by beagle at 12:31 PM on October 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Aardvark may be seeing it elsewhere, but in the third sentence of the introduction of Crockett's piece, he states: [R]eligion in practice is more of a modern concept derived from Christianity that serves to discipline spiritual forces and subjugate them to modern secular reason.
But the author appears to be focusing on "religion" as it exists in modern European liberalism, or as he perceives it exists there, not any broad common understanding of what religion is.
posted by beagle at 12:31 PM on October 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’d like to coin the term “Numinism” to describe a modern spiritual path based upon cultivating the sense of the divine presence, even though there is no actual divinity.
The primary tenet of numinism: those experiences that, broadly speaking, lead to a sense of the numinous are the experiences that hold deep truth and meaning about the human condition and what has real value. No sacred texts or sermons required.
The sense of watching a human being born.
The overwhelming grandeur of a starry sky, a rolling sea, or sweeping mountain vista.
A moment of deep interpersonal connection with a friend or spouse.
A successful group collaboration to solve a challenging problem.
A moving dramatic performance that touches deep emotions.
The uncomplicated, unconditional affection of a dear animal companion.
Etc.
posted by darkstar at 12:41 PM on October 20, 2021 [12 favorites]
The primary tenet of numinism: those experiences that, broadly speaking, lead to a sense of the numinous are the experiences that hold deep truth and meaning about the human condition and what has real value. No sacred texts or sermons required.
The sense of watching a human being born.
The overwhelming grandeur of a starry sky, a rolling sea, or sweeping mountain vista.
A moment of deep interpersonal connection with a friend or spouse.
A successful group collaboration to solve a challenging problem.
A moving dramatic performance that touches deep emotions.
The uncomplicated, unconditional affection of a dear animal companion.
Etc.
posted by darkstar at 12:41 PM on October 20, 2021 [12 favorites]
The author says this:
Of course, these animisms are not exactly new, because they are in many ways a return to non-modern ways of comprehending the world. Yet, set within what we call the Anthropocene in the twilight of liberal modernity they constitute new formations and offer new possibilities for the future, if there is such a thing.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:44 PM on October 20, 2021
Of course, these animisms are not exactly new, because they are in many ways a return to non-modern ways of comprehending the world. Yet, set within what we call the Anthropocene in the twilight of liberal modernity they constitute new formations and offer new possibilities for the future, if there is such a thing.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:44 PM on October 20, 2021
This post is framed a bit oddly (disproportionately around Crockett's work), but postsecularism and critiques of 'the secular' are fairly mainstream movements in politics (e.g. William Connolly, Habermas), sociology (e.g. Talal Asad), anthropology (e.g. Saba Mahmood), and religious studies (e.g. Wael Hallaq).
The sort of move Crockett makes regarding 'religion' is a fairly common one in that kind of work. The point of that move is to say that 'the secular' as it operates in a lot of politics and law (both within Europe and within legal systems in other nations which were colonized by Europe) is based on certain normative assumptions that stem from taking Protestant Christianity as the paradigmatic form of religion. That then leads to a critique of both how the category of 'religion' and 'secular' work in Europe (subtly privileging and accommodating Christian practice over that of other faiths) and within societies which have Europe-derived legal structures but are filled with people whose understanding of spirituality is radically different from Protestant Christianity.
So, for example, Mahmood argues that part of what happens in arguments about cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammed is that Europeans have characteristically Protestant understandings of the desacralized nature of images (according to her even certain post/Catholic European societies share this tendency to an extent), while other faiths such as Orthodox Christianity and Islam haven't severed that link. A non-Protestant understanding of images can either lead to their veneration or their complete avoidance, but neither allows for their casual and irreverent use. Muslims who object to cartoonish depictions of their Prophet are then branded zealots for not having a properly Protestant understanding of images, but as Mahmood points out that's a fairly arbitrary test based on European understandings of what can count as sacred. The question of a lot of postsecular studies or secularity critique then becomes if can we expand our understanding of faith/spirituality/religious belief so that we can preserve the goods of pluralism that secularism is supposed to maintain without forcing every religious expression to look like modern Protestantism if it wants to be deemed acceptable.
There's a lot to explore and contemplate in this field. I would encourage anyone who is interested to check out one of the big names in it (probably Asad is the place to start) before thinking that it begins and ends with Crockett (who I had never heard of before this post).
posted by nangua at 1:11 PM on October 20, 2021 [18 favorites]
The sort of move Crockett makes regarding 'religion' is a fairly common one in that kind of work. The point of that move is to say that 'the secular' as it operates in a lot of politics and law (both within Europe and within legal systems in other nations which were colonized by Europe) is based on certain normative assumptions that stem from taking Protestant Christianity as the paradigmatic form of religion. That then leads to a critique of both how the category of 'religion' and 'secular' work in Europe (subtly privileging and accommodating Christian practice over that of other faiths) and within societies which have Europe-derived legal structures but are filled with people whose understanding of spirituality is radically different from Protestant Christianity.
So, for example, Mahmood argues that part of what happens in arguments about cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammed is that Europeans have characteristically Protestant understandings of the desacralized nature of images (according to her even certain post/Catholic European societies share this tendency to an extent), while other faiths such as Orthodox Christianity and Islam haven't severed that link. A non-Protestant understanding of images can either lead to their veneration or their complete avoidance, but neither allows for their casual and irreverent use. Muslims who object to cartoonish depictions of their Prophet are then branded zealots for not having a properly Protestant understanding of images, but as Mahmood points out that's a fairly arbitrary test based on European understandings of what can count as sacred. The question of a lot of postsecular studies or secularity critique then becomes if can we expand our understanding of faith/spirituality/religious belief so that we can preserve the goods of pluralism that secularism is supposed to maintain without forcing every religious expression to look like modern Protestantism if it wants to be deemed acceptable.
There's a lot to explore and contemplate in this field. I would encourage anyone who is interested to check out one of the big names in it (probably Asad is the place to start) before thinking that it begins and ends with Crockett (who I had never heard of before this post).
posted by nangua at 1:11 PM on October 20, 2021 [18 favorites]
Thanks for posting this, I haven't read the full article yet but from the abstract it sounds very interesting!
posted by dusty potato at 3:03 PM on October 20, 2021
posted by dusty potato at 3:03 PM on October 20, 2021
So religions are memes, is what I'm reading from this. Quel dommage. Maybe it's time to pay taxes.
posted by metametamind at 5:59 PM on October 20, 2021
posted by metametamind at 5:59 PM on October 20, 2021
@nangua
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 2:31 PM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
The point of that move is to say that 'the secular' as it operates in a lot of politics and law... is based on certain normative assumptions that stem from taking Protestant Christianity as the paradigmatic form of religionBravo. This is precisely my issue with TFA.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 2:31 PM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
It seems that Crockett is well apprised of Asad's work:
This is Asad's point, with which Crockett concurs, that secularism is essentially nothing more than an attenuated and covert form of Liberal protestantism.
posted by No Robots at 7:28 PM on October 26, 2021
For Asad, the political promise held out by the West for emancipation carries with it the religio-cultural significance of normalizing secularization as the proper mode by which religion ought to be practiced, meaning the liberal strategy of containment wherein religion is treated exclusively as a private matter of individual conscience.--"A radical theology for the future: five theses" / Jeffrey W Robbins & Clayton CrockettThe point of that move is to say that 'the secular' as it operates in a lot of politics and law... is based on certain normative assumptions that stem from taking Protestant Christianity as the paradigmatic form of religion
This is Asad's point, with which Crockett concurs, that secularism is essentially nothing more than an attenuated and covert form of Liberal protestantism.
posted by No Robots at 7:28 PM on October 26, 2021
The sort of move Crockett makes regarding 'religion' is a fairly common one in that kind of work. The point of that move is to say that 'the secular' as it operates in a lot of politics and law (both within Europe and within legal systems in other nations which were colonized by Europe) is based on certain normative assumptions that stem from taking Protestant Christianity as the paradigmatic form of religion.
"Christianity", yes; "Protestant", not necessarily (that may be the understanding in the Anglosphere, but much of Europe is historically Catholic).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:04 PM on October 27, 2021
"Christianity", yes; "Protestant", not necessarily (that may be the understanding in the Anglosphere, but much of Europe is historically Catholic).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:04 PM on October 27, 2021
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