{"id":35292,"date":"2016-05-09T11:30:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T16:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=35292"},"modified":"2016-05-09T17:55:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T22:55:05","slug":"modern-sources-of-belonging-secular-age-round-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2016\/05\/modern-sources-of-belonging-secular-age-round-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Sources of Belonging– Secular Age, round 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"secThe changes in construals of the self discussed in the last post were merely the flip side of new construals of sociality. This pairing helps correct narratives about the modern \u201crise of individualism\u201d at the expense of community; individualism is learned, not natural, and \u201cbelonging\u201d is an innate need that does not disappear with modernity. Rather, the sources of belonging become impersonal, direct, and \u201cflattened.\u201d We shift from a pre-modern social model where members are embedded within a hierarchical chain of being\u00a0to one in which members of society perceive their fellow citizens and the political order as instruments to achieve common benefits\u2014 security and prosperity\u2014from a position of (theoretical) equality among free individuals. \u00a0How did we get there?<\/p>\n

Not unlike how we got to the buffered, disengaged \u201cindividual\u201d self in our last post: we develop objectified, instrumentalist ways of understanding the social and political order. \u00a0Changing notions of natural law and moral order, the emerging focus on the economy, and the rise of the public sphere are some of the loci for these transformations of the western social imaginary.<\/p>\n

With Grotius and Locke\u2019s new versions of natural law in the seventeenth century, we see the roots of the modern moral order emerging. Previous conceptions of order understood reality to be shaped by self-realizing Platonic forms or by a correspondence between all levels of nature (micro) and the divine\/Ideal order (macro). Society constituted different hierarchical but complementary orders in which one\u2019s function\u2014and worth\u2014 depended on their intrinsic place within a larger social whole. In contrast,\u00a0Grotius and Locke reject the normative telos<\/em> in the\u00a0Aristotelian-Thomistic version of natural law, as telos was seen as \u201cpotentially circumscribing our freedom to determine our own lives and build our own societies\u201d (184). Rather, they see\u00a0reality as inert and non-normative; it is constructed or reformed through the agency of disciplined, disengaged selves. Society constitutes\u00a0 “individuals [or in later versions, a pre-political \u201cnation\u201d] who come together to form a political entity, against a certain pre-existing moral background and with certain ends in view\u201d (159). Instead of being shaped by pre-existing or transcendent Forms, political society derives its normative order from the nature of its constitutive members and their actions. These free, rational, sociable agents\u2014equal in a State of Nature\u2014 consent to or \u201ccontract” an order (government) that serves as an instrument for the mutual benefit (i.e. prosperity and security) of these individuals, and the defense of their natural rights (chiefly, freedom) [1].<\/p>\n

This understanding of governance starts to become\u00a0expressed in economic terms, where the ruler\/subject relationship is metaphorically recast as a \u201cnecessary and fruitful exchange of service.\u201d Soon, governance shifts from being metaphorically economic to literally economic, where government exists to protect and promote the economy. This new focus on the economy is also caused by other various political, religious, and social factors\u2014chief among them,\u00a0the Weberian insight regarding the economic ramifications of Protestantism\u2019s rejection of Catholic hierarchical modes of spiritual life. Protestants believe \u201call Christians must be 100 percent Christian\u201d in all vocations and all parts of ordinary life. The sanctification of ordinary life, Taylor argues, has had a \u201ctremendous formative effect on our civilization\u201d far beyond its religious variants\u2014which we\u2019ll visit in more detail in later posts. For now, this meant that economic pursuits\u2014previously associated with vices of greed and competition\u2014were recast as morally legitimate and a locus of the ordinary life that is now the \u201csite for the highest forms of Christian life\u201d (178).\u00a0The economy\u00a0exemplifies the focus on harmonizing self-interests for mutual benefit, without any ruling agent or guiding telos.<\/p>\n

Just as the economy achieved an identity that was independent from and legitimated the polity, so with the rise of the public sphere. This crucial feature of modern society is the\u00a0common space in which members of society \u201cmeet” through a variety of media to critically debate matters of common interest in order to elaborate rational views that should guide\u00a0government; now enlightened public opinion, rather than God (at least directly) or the Law of Nature should guide and check power. What sets the modern public sphere apart from older notions of the polis\/public sphere is that this space is self-consciously outside power but is \u201cnevertheless normative for power\u201d because of the legitimacy imbued by its purportedly non-partisan, rational discourse. Another key feature is that the public sphere is not rooted in anything transcendent (God, traditional law, etc.); it is rooted in secular time and contemporary, common action. The secularization of time is crucial to this development of the public sphere and what Taylor calls the \u201cdirect-access\u201d society, in which members have equidistant, unmediated access to the center of power. Citing Benedict Anderson, Taylor explains that the new sense of time as vertical slices linked by simultaneity or sequence, sans contact with or eruptions of \u201chigher time,\u201d facilitates a new sense of belonging to a nation. All events are placed in \u201cunambiguous relations of simultaneity and succession,\u201d flattened and emptied of intrinsic\u00a0significance. This creates a \u201chorizontal\u201d society with no high points or privileged persons or agencies who mediate them; \u201ceach member is immediate to the whole\u201d\u2014at least, normatively, if not in practice. These modes of imagined direct access are different facets of modern equality and individualism\u2014which, as stated at the beginning, is not shorn of belonging, but rather belonging to \u201cever wider and more impersonal entities: the state, the movement, the community of humankind\u201d (211). \u201cNetwork\u201d or \u201crelational\u201d identities\u00a0are placed with \u201ccategorical\u201d ones that are based not on concrete relationships but perceived similarities. Now\u00a0one\u2019s worth or status is no longer dependent on an intrinsic place and function within in a larger social whole; it is self-referential, and normatively equal [2].<\/p>\n

Scaling back, we see that these new notions of political and commercial order as systems of harmonized self-interest are also reflected in new visions of cosmic order and God\u2019s providential rule.\u00a0 Rather than God\u2019s providence creating an entire framework in which the order of our world, stars, planets, is set and then mirrored in the micro-design of all creation, down to human beings (and even their organs), the new cosmic order is one in which things simply \u201ccohere\u201d because they serve each other in their survival and flourishing. God\u2019s providential rule is reduced to \u201cgood engineering design\u201d which, after the \u201canthropocentric shift\u201d of the 17th and 18th centuries, has everything to do with human happiness and flourishing\u2014and nothing more. This is where Taylor takes us in the next chapter.<\/p>\n

Reading this chapter with an eye on Mormon intersections, I find helpful language for understanding certain frictions that some Mormons may experience in their institutional and cultural participation in the Church. On a general level (not specific to Mormonism), those accustomed to the flattening and equalizing nature of direct-access sociopolitical\/commercial society and the public sphere may find it jarring to operate in a religious gear of hierarchical, non-transparent, mediated institutional participation. That religious and sociopolitical orders do not operate the same way is hardly a newsflash, nor is that a bad thing.\u00a0What can make it difficult especially for women, in my experience-and on which\u00a0I’ll focus this riff-, is also shifting moral<\/em> gears; for as Taylor points out, political theory involves moral theory. Modern liberal secular society is based on normative conceptions of freedom and equality. And when some women experience their treatment or participation in Mormonism as a demotion from their secular experience, it\u2019s not about women simply being deprived of or wanting more “power” or control. It\u2019s about finding that certain normative expectations of secular life do not translate clearly in their religious life. And if they are giving up normative expectations to equality and freedom when they switch gears, is there something richer that Mormonism offers them in exchange?** To some women, yes\u2014the gender complementarity of Mormonism offers a place where their womanhood matters on an eternal scale, and whose divine template ensures both equality and difference that far eclipses the flattening equality of secular life. To others, Mormon gender complementarity can feel like an arbitrary inequality, especially in the ugly mathematics of polygamy and the persisting asymmetry of temple rituals, and the overall inconsistency of explanations for a gendered priesthood [3]. The imago dei<\/em> feels fractured unevenly, threatening\u00a0Christianity\u2019s guarantee that we are all fundamentally equal.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying political norms should dictate religious norms (and it would be wrong to separate them, in any case; western liberalism is, in many ways, a product of western religion, as Taylor shows); and the ones undergirding liberal secularism have their own set of problems and shortcomings. And Mormonism does indeed offer rich resources for equality and freedom and other values besides; I\u2019m not sure what other religious faith enshrines autonomy, freedom, and sociality \u2013 the best of Enlightenment values, I think \u2013 the way Mormonism does. The\u00a0ultimate\u00a0telos of a fully independent spiritual self whose agency is undiminished by ‘creaturely’ status and whose full flourishing is nevertheless actualized\u00a0through\u00a0relationships (God’s covenant relationship, marriage, Zion, the kingdom) is, to me, an exquisite theological combination. But in the daily workings of Mormon culture, infrastructure, and doctrine, those values may come through very unevenly or in some ways, not at all. I\u00a0think it\u2019s worth considering the\u00a0deeper moral assumptions that undergird secular and religious life and how they shape the experiences of those inhabiting this western secular age and Mormonism at the same time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

**Edited addendum: In retrospect, it seems important to consider how the\u00a0Atonement upsets all sorts of frameworks of equality and freedom, with the radical asymmetry of the\u00a0sacrificial love and redemptive grace, the unearned invitation into a covenantal relationship. In some ways, trying to compare any such “normative frameworks” or “value trade offs” may be\u00a0the height of apples and oranges. But it also seems\u00a0inappropriate\u00a0to\u00a0conflate\u00a0the frameworks of the Atonement with those of the Church and additional doctrines, just as it is to\u00a0separate those of the Church and those of the secular world from which it is at least partially formed, and in which we dually operate. In short, I don’t want to ignore what for most members is the overriding ‘framework,’ but I don’t think that makes\u00a0these questions moot, either.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

FN 1 – Of course, this is all aspirational before it is realizable, and even then, the establishment of this order unfolds slowly and unevenly, and continues today. (Eighteenth-century thinkers, for example, didn\u2019t even conceive of applying this theory to other basic hierarchical complementarities, like husband\/wife, master\/servant, lord\/peasant, educated elite\/masses).<\/p>\n

FN 2 – As I read more of Taylor\u2019s other work, I start to read Secular Age somewhat differently, so I\u2019ll make an addendum to the last post on the emergence of the buffered, disengaged, self-referential individual. It is easy to assume Taylor is lamenting the development of our secular, modern age, and read into his analysis an implicit sense of loss or nostalgia\u2014but this is not entirely the case. \u00a0Secularism and modernity have produced good fruits, in Taylor\u2019s eyes. For example, in his own political philosophy, Taylor believes that the development of the self-referential self, whose rights and worth are \u201cradically unconditional\u201d and no longer “dependent on such things as gender, cultural belonging, civilizational development, or religious allegiance\u201d is an utterly positive development , and one more in keeping with Christ\u2019s message. Furthermore, this hallmark of modern liberal political culture was not possible until Christendom became separate from civilization\u2014or in other words, until secularism happened.\u00a0On the other hand, Taylor believes that the development of instrumental reason\u2014one of the key features of the disengaged self\u2014has morally crippled the western modern self, as this principle of the \u201cmaximization of the value sought\u201d flattens all problems and pleasures, including higher moral ones, into \u201cinstrumental problems of desire satisfaction.\u201d \u00a0Much of Taylor\u2019s political philosophy is concerned with correcting this problem, which I won\u2019t go into here, but\u00a0I note this as an example of how one should be cautious in reading nostalgia or lament into Taylor\u2019s narrative. Taylor\u2019s own stance is not the main point of this blog series, but I think it\u2019s worth clarifying at certain points. \u00a0[See Maynell, Canadian Idealism<\/em>, for more on Taylor\u2019s political philosophy].<\/p>\n

FN 3 – For some Mormon women, that general friction may feel particularly exacerbated because their access to the institutional center of power is inherently more mediated explicitly by gender (i.e. to God, through Adam, or to decision-making offices, through priesthood leadership). Their mediated access may feel\u00a0more conspicuous because Mormonism straddles different styles; all men have access to priesthood office in a priesthood-of-all-believers style (Protestant) that is nonetheless strictly gendered male (Catholic). The constant rotations of local callings significantly attenuates\u00a0the sense of hierarchy and the threat of fixing one’s intrinsic worth based on one\u2019s function in it, except that women (and single people, for that matter) are barred from many of those callings. Likewise, prayer provides unmediated access to God\u2019s grace and power, but other forms of God\u2019s grace and power (healing, baptizing, sealing) are mediated through gendered priesthood keys. While Mormons, like Catholics, justify male priesthood on the precedent of scripture (Christ\/apostles are male, etc.), Mormonism already has a precedent for overriding scriptural patterns in the case of temple anointings that\u00a0distribute powers and functions gendered male in scripture to women and men alike. That, in my opinion, profoundly undermines the (historically simplistic, at that) scriptural precedent for a gendered priesthood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The changes in construals of the self discussed in the last post were merely the flip side of new construals of sociality. This pairing helps correct narratives about the modern \u201crise of individualism\u201d at the expense of community; individualism is learned, not natural, and \u201cbelonging\u201d is an innate need that does not disappear with modernity. Rather, the sources of belonging become impersonal, direct, and \u201cflattened.\u201d We shift from a pre-modern social model where members are embedded within a hierarchical chain of being\u00a0to one in which members of society perceive their fellow citizens and the political order as instruments to achieve common benefits\u2014 security and prosperity\u2014from a position of (theoretical) equality among free individuals. \u00a0How did we get there? Not unlike how we got to the buffered, disengaged \u201cindividual\u201d self in our last post: we develop objectified, instrumentalist ways of understanding the social and political order. \u00a0Changing notions of natural law and moral order, the emerging focus on the economy, and the rise of the public sphere are some of the loci for these transformations of the western social imaginary. With Grotius and Locke\u2019s new versions of natural law in the seventeenth century, we see the roots of the modern moral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10389,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,1058,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-guest-bloggers","category-philosophy-and-theology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35292"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35299,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35292\/revisions\/35299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}