Catholicity Under Heaven (1): The politics of the world
In Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), an unnamed hero - played by Jet Li - goes to the Emperor of China (pictured) and announces he has successfully killed two warriors, Broken Sword and Flying Snow, who attempted an assassination attempt on the Emperor. The unnamed hero, however, was really an incredibly skilled swordsman who was sent to assassinate the Emperor. But Broken Sword was a skilled calligrapher, and as he practiced his craft-cum-philosophy, he had a change of heart, and so sought to persuade the unnamed hero to abandon his assassination attempt by simply "gifting" him with two words: 天下. (tian xia)
天下 is notoriously difficult to translate as a philosophical concept. In Western philosophy, the closest philosophical analogue is cosmopolitanism, which in a way is a "philosophy of the world." At the basis of cosmopolitan is the argument that there are precepts that are universal across cultures and contexts. For instance, a general prohibition against murder is a cosmopolitan precept, one I gather is almost unquestionable in most contexts. But murder is an easy example. More difficult and contentious are possible cosmopolitan concepts such as democracy, Western values, liberty, etc.
Several questions beckon. Is it possible for a person to be at home in the world? What is the world? Of course, many worlds exist, depending on how wide we are willing to expand the orbit of world. Consider how many usages exist regarding the word world: the world of books, the world of thought, the suburban world, the Chinese world, the world of Berkeley, World of Warcraft, etc. Furthermore, one important question must be asked: what makes the world? I don't answer these questions yet - not now, at least. I leave them to stew in your minds as we move on to address the philosophy itself.
Several questions beckon. Is it possible for a person to be at home in the world? What is the world? Of course, many worlds exist, depending on how wide we are willing to expand the orbit of world. Consider how many usages exist regarding the word world: the world of books, the world of thought, the suburban world, the Chinese world, the world of Berkeley, World of Warcraft, etc. Furthermore, one important question must be asked: what makes the world? I don't answer these questions yet - not now, at least. I leave them to stew in your minds as we move on to address the philosophy itself.
World is a tension between the unity of a political entity amidst its diversity. Be aware that by political, I am not referring to a party, or a governing system, or anything that is commonly associated with the word. Politics at its very foundational is a reflection on human organization. Thus, when Jesus says that "where two or three are gather in my name, there I am with them" (Matt. 18:20), Jesus was making a political statement. A family is a political entity. Churches are political entity. Any statement that makes a claim upon the organizing nature of such entities is, by definition, political. I will therefore agree with Johann Baptist Metz that all theology is political. Theology makes truth claims that, in turn, make demands of organization. That's political. One can read the issue of race in America as a tension between Black and White worlds. But again, what is the world? Are worlds that easily delineated? Are there not Blacks who do not recognize the inherent unjust existential agonism that is imposed upon those with darker skin colors? Are there not Whites who courageously place themselves in dangerous solidarity with Black peoples? Are there not Asians who occupy the limen of both worlds? Admittedly, world is fluid, plastic.
It is political.
Political reflections always begin with anthropology. If we had a world of Borgs, then politics would be very different than if we had a world of libertines. But even more basic is the question of what lies at the foundation of human identity. (For Christians, let us not rush into a shallow Christology and simply say, 'Christ'.) More specifically, where does the center of the political subject lie? Does it lie in the individual? Does it lie in the collective? Does it lie in the interstices between the two? Who determines the cosmopolitic? In the West, the individual is the locus of subjectivity. I determine the world I inhabit. Now, of course, most probably have a slightly broader subjective locus. The family is a logical locus of subjectivity, for instance. But in the purview of cosmopolitanism, what this results is a natural move towards anti-cosmopolitanism. That is, a fracturing of society into cliques.
I have two responses to that. First, I have lately come to understand individual faith as a "privatization" of Christianity. In a way, it is a very neoliberal way of understanding faith. My belief and your belief are each our own worlds. That is, I don't have to hold you accountable to your beliefs, so long as they do not involve the deprivation my physical life. I seriously disagree with that paradigm, one that is nowhere found in Scripture, or even in Christian tradition until maybe around the 1800s. Second, I do not agree that anti-cosmopolitanism is the solution. What happened in Paris, Beirut, San Bernardino, and others, is a pushback against cosmopolitanism. It is a rejection of a Western dominated view of cosmopolitanism in which my subjectivity is rooted within a specific culture. Thus, ISIS's response is to push their own limited view of cosmopolitanism, which is their subjectivity rooted within their specific "culture". Of course, subjectivity is possible only for men under the ISIS paradigm.
We can see, then, how such a strain of thought has led to an impasse. When the locus of decision-making or subjectivity is rooted in the individual, we will have power issues. Namely, people with wealth and political connections will have subjectivities that matter more than those who don't. This is evidenced in the direction in which political arrangements are moving. We have observed a polarization of political ideologies in the past years. One one side, there are those arguing for a universality of one ideology, be it conservative or liberal. As one will easily notice, the electorate usually refrains from overt critique of structures and corruption when leaders who share their ideology are in power. But this is not so much a universality as it is an imposition. If 60% of the electorate choose a conservative leader, then 40% did not. Thus, conservatism is imposed on the 40%. Such is the agonism that democratic systems afford; there will always be losers. On the other hand, there are those arguing for a plurality. But this is not so much a plurality of ideologies as it is a building up of walls separating ideologies from each other. It is a political cliquism. The philosopher Robert Nozick has no problem with this; as he notes in The Examined Life, this back-and-forth between ideologies is not disadvantageous in that it hones the ideology to fit with the people. Thus, in the 2008 election, when the Democrats took the White House, the Republicans were presented with the opportunity to reshape their message and present them in 2012. I don't disagree, but there is always the risk - ever present now, in my view - that what we get is more polarization. Thus, for political progressives, the way forward is to hard-tack more left; for political liberals, the way forward it so hard-tack more right. What we get is more political extremism. And yet, such extremism is complicated by the fact that it is beyond moral reproach; the electorate has voted, and we must trust the electorate! To lose trust in the electorate is to lose democracy.
Cosmopolitanism is precisely this problem magnified. The world is polarized. The "kum ba ya" of the sixties and seventies have given way to a generalized cosmopolitanism of fear, one that creates contradictions. Countries engage in war to preserve peace; governments claw back on basic rights and freedoms in the name of securing those rights and freedoms. America and China are competing against each other in securing alliances with regions of the world. Of course, without a "world government" or "world institution", there is no way to adjudicate between competing interests. What will result, if the game theory of John Nash could be taken seriously (which I think it should be), is a permanent polarization.
At stake is the process of world-making. The world is not static, as I've mentioned before, because what it means to be human is not static. World-making is, in many ways, a making of a world that is suitable for human flourishing. Note the key word: flourishing. Worlds pass away and are remade, and with each new change to the global situation, people naturally adjust to their surroundings, negotiating newness of categories and such in order to remake the world anew. An immigrant to a new country, for instance, is a stranger in a new land. Now, the host country could be hostile to the immigrant, thereby creating an un-world (anti-world?) for the immigrants. But would that not be a restatement of the polarization? As I've argued briefly, polarization begets polarization. Thus the fear of homegrown terrorists - migrants and refugees who have found un-world in their new "homes" and, so, rebel and seek to subvert it through armed resistance. The alternative is for the host country to practice hospitality. But then, the world of the host country would no doubt change. There is no guarantee of course that such world-changes would be welcome.
One solution would be a world government that could command change to be accepted. But this would mean that the change (or lack of change) must be forcibly imposed upon the masses. Notice that the governing entity does not have to be, say, a parliamentary body or even an absolute dictator. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have argued in their book, Empire (2000) that Empire is not necessarily an imperial political entity (think of the British Empire, with the center in London) but comprising of a cultural center, with its nodes spreading throughout the world. The United States is a good example of that; American culture is spread far and wide, with KFC, McDonald's, TGI Fridays spread throughout the world. People across the world come to the United States to study; the American degree is still more valuable than whatever indigenous degree one may have. One might say Empires have such a mentality as well. (The British do not entirely trust American degrees, preferring those who have earned doctorates within its universities.) But the results are the same. With the globalization of "Made in USA", comes the pushback from those who resent American dominance, either through isolated terroristic events, or through other Empire, such as China.
Therefore, we need a new paradigm to work with, one that does not entail competition. I realize that this would place me in a more socialistic strand of thought, but if one thinks about it, the logic of the market gravitates not in the direction of diversity but uniformity. That's because corporations command market share, and with market share, the incentive is present for them to rig the politics in their favor. Here, theological anthropology must enter. If one's theological anthropology is positive - people are inherently good, sin is essentially an "off the main road" issue, then we can indeed trust that political entities would restrict such corporate incursions into politics. The assumption is that humans are principled and do aim towards the common good. (Of course, it is more complicated; the structures must be present for it to happen, such as laws, good education, etc.) Here, capitalism may very well work. But if one's theological anthropology is negative - that is, good eludes people - then the market will gravitate towards an absolutism of one culture, one mindset. Capitalism will give way to authoritarianism, even fascism. And yet, the system cannot be at fault. Consider how capitalism, built upon a neoliberal worldview, assumes that everyone acts rationally in their own interests! In a way, everyone has no choice but to want fascism because the alternative is worse.
What we need is a paradigm that switches subjectivity from being solely located in the individual. I do not mean to denigrate the individual. But as I've demonstrated, the individual being a locus for world-making can have disastrous consequences. What we need is a more dynamic understanding of world, one rooted epistemologically in something other than the individual. For that, we turn to the philosophy of 天下.
It is political.
Political reflections always begin with anthropology. If we had a world of Borgs, then politics would be very different than if we had a world of libertines. But even more basic is the question of what lies at the foundation of human identity. (For Christians, let us not rush into a shallow Christology and simply say, 'Christ'.) More specifically, where does the center of the political subject lie? Does it lie in the individual? Does it lie in the collective? Does it lie in the interstices between the two? Who determines the cosmopolitic? In the West, the individual is the locus of subjectivity. I determine the world I inhabit. Now, of course, most probably have a slightly broader subjective locus. The family is a logical locus of subjectivity, for instance. But in the purview of cosmopolitanism, what this results is a natural move towards anti-cosmopolitanism. That is, a fracturing of society into cliques.
I have two responses to that. First, I have lately come to understand individual faith as a "privatization" of Christianity. In a way, it is a very neoliberal way of understanding faith. My belief and your belief are each our own worlds. That is, I don't have to hold you accountable to your beliefs, so long as they do not involve the deprivation my physical life. I seriously disagree with that paradigm, one that is nowhere found in Scripture, or even in Christian tradition until maybe around the 1800s. Second, I do not agree that anti-cosmopolitanism is the solution. What happened in Paris, Beirut, San Bernardino, and others, is a pushback against cosmopolitanism. It is a rejection of a Western dominated view of cosmopolitanism in which my subjectivity is rooted within a specific culture. Thus, ISIS's response is to push their own limited view of cosmopolitanism, which is their subjectivity rooted within their specific "culture". Of course, subjectivity is possible only for men under the ISIS paradigm.
We can see, then, how such a strain of thought has led to an impasse. When the locus of decision-making or subjectivity is rooted in the individual, we will have power issues. Namely, people with wealth and political connections will have subjectivities that matter more than those who don't. This is evidenced in the direction in which political arrangements are moving. We have observed a polarization of political ideologies in the past years. One one side, there are those arguing for a universality of one ideology, be it conservative or liberal. As one will easily notice, the electorate usually refrains from overt critique of structures and corruption when leaders who share their ideology are in power. But this is not so much a universality as it is an imposition. If 60% of the electorate choose a conservative leader, then 40% did not. Thus, conservatism is imposed on the 40%. Such is the agonism that democratic systems afford; there will always be losers. On the other hand, there are those arguing for a plurality. But this is not so much a plurality of ideologies as it is a building up of walls separating ideologies from each other. It is a political cliquism. The philosopher Robert Nozick has no problem with this; as he notes in The Examined Life, this back-and-forth between ideologies is not disadvantageous in that it hones the ideology to fit with the people. Thus, in the 2008 election, when the Democrats took the White House, the Republicans were presented with the opportunity to reshape their message and present them in 2012. I don't disagree, but there is always the risk - ever present now, in my view - that what we get is more polarization. Thus, for political progressives, the way forward is to hard-tack more left; for political liberals, the way forward it so hard-tack more right. What we get is more political extremism. And yet, such extremism is complicated by the fact that it is beyond moral reproach; the electorate has voted, and we must trust the electorate! To lose trust in the electorate is to lose democracy.
Cosmopolitanism is precisely this problem magnified. The world is polarized. The "kum ba ya" of the sixties and seventies have given way to a generalized cosmopolitanism of fear, one that creates contradictions. Countries engage in war to preserve peace; governments claw back on basic rights and freedoms in the name of securing those rights and freedoms. America and China are competing against each other in securing alliances with regions of the world. Of course, without a "world government" or "world institution", there is no way to adjudicate between competing interests. What will result, if the game theory of John Nash could be taken seriously (which I think it should be), is a permanent polarization.
At stake is the process of world-making. The world is not static, as I've mentioned before, because what it means to be human is not static. World-making is, in many ways, a making of a world that is suitable for human flourishing. Note the key word: flourishing. Worlds pass away and are remade, and with each new change to the global situation, people naturally adjust to their surroundings, negotiating newness of categories and such in order to remake the world anew. An immigrant to a new country, for instance, is a stranger in a new land. Now, the host country could be hostile to the immigrant, thereby creating an un-world (anti-world?) for the immigrants. But would that not be a restatement of the polarization? As I've argued briefly, polarization begets polarization. Thus the fear of homegrown terrorists - migrants and refugees who have found un-world in their new "homes" and, so, rebel and seek to subvert it through armed resistance. The alternative is for the host country to practice hospitality. But then, the world of the host country would no doubt change. There is no guarantee of course that such world-changes would be welcome.
One solution would be a world government that could command change to be accepted. But this would mean that the change (or lack of change) must be forcibly imposed upon the masses. Notice that the governing entity does not have to be, say, a parliamentary body or even an absolute dictator. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have argued in their book, Empire (2000) that Empire is not necessarily an imperial political entity (think of the British Empire, with the center in London) but comprising of a cultural center, with its nodes spreading throughout the world. The United States is a good example of that; American culture is spread far and wide, with KFC, McDonald's, TGI Fridays spread throughout the world. People across the world come to the United States to study; the American degree is still more valuable than whatever indigenous degree one may have. One might say Empires have such a mentality as well. (The British do not entirely trust American degrees, preferring those who have earned doctorates within its universities.) But the results are the same. With the globalization of "Made in USA", comes the pushback from those who resent American dominance, either through isolated terroristic events, or through other Empire, such as China.
Therefore, we need a new paradigm to work with, one that does not entail competition. I realize that this would place me in a more socialistic strand of thought, but if one thinks about it, the logic of the market gravitates not in the direction of diversity but uniformity. That's because corporations command market share, and with market share, the incentive is present for them to rig the politics in their favor. Here, theological anthropology must enter. If one's theological anthropology is positive - people are inherently good, sin is essentially an "off the main road" issue, then we can indeed trust that political entities would restrict such corporate incursions into politics. The assumption is that humans are principled and do aim towards the common good. (Of course, it is more complicated; the structures must be present for it to happen, such as laws, good education, etc.) Here, capitalism may very well work. But if one's theological anthropology is negative - that is, good eludes people - then the market will gravitate towards an absolutism of one culture, one mindset. Capitalism will give way to authoritarianism, even fascism. And yet, the system cannot be at fault. Consider how capitalism, built upon a neoliberal worldview, assumes that everyone acts rationally in their own interests! In a way, everyone has no choice but to want fascism because the alternative is worse.
What we need is a paradigm that switches subjectivity from being solely located in the individual. I do not mean to denigrate the individual. But as I've demonstrated, the individual being a locus for world-making can have disastrous consequences. What we need is a more dynamic understanding of world, one rooted epistemologically in something other than the individual. For that, we turn to the philosophy of 天下.
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