Introducing Christo-Marxism

Vanishing mediator as central concept
The central concept of Christo-Marxism is the vanishing mediator, the medium that brings us together by vanishing between us, thereby establishing what Hegel calls our "mediated immediacy". In Christianity, obviously, this concept is paradigmatically exemplified by Christ, the Mediator par excellence, who died on the Cross to bring forth the Holy Spirit, the reconciliation of human beings with God and thus with each other. It is the contention of Christo-Marxism that this Christological notion of the divine mediator appears rationalized and secularized in Marxism, most notably in the mundane form of money as the primary means of social exchange. Hence the sin of capitalism, where money is not allowed to vanish in exchange but is rather accumulated as private property in capital. Thus the redemptive function of the vanishing mediator is frustrated. The mediator does not reconcile divergent interests but comes rather to stand between them as their stumbling block. Capitalist society is left unreconciled, increasingly torn by inner contradictions. 

Liberal communism
The aim of Christo-Marxism is to re-start the redemptive process by enabling the vanishing mediator to vanish again. In the socio-economic register this implies the necessity of liberal-communist action: breaking the power of capital in order to re-start the flow of money as vanishing mediator. Christo-Marxism, then, is a form of liberal communism: free markets yes, capitalism no. Liberal communism maintains that the level playing field required by the free-market mechanism is incompatible with the unlimited accumulation of capital. Hence the free-market mechanism must be protected against itself, against its tendency to result in antagonism between 'winners' and 'losers', between rich and poor. In other words: a market can only function as truly free market (that is, with a level playing field) in a communist state, where the institution of the market is publicly owned as the shared medium of our economic exchange. Money as vanishing mediator is an integral part of that institution.

 A critique of noise
Christo-Marxism aims to be the critical theory appropriate to the 21st century, where the problematic of social mediation is – through the explosive development of communication and information technology – on the verge of a revolutionary climax. Christo-Marxism, then, is first and foremost a philosophy of communication, its central thesis being the claim that the medium of communication must vanish in the process of communication if the latter is to succeed. Thus one of the reasons why speech constitutes a good medium of communication is the fact that spoken sounds vanish immediately after being uttered. If this were not so, speech would literally become a wall of sound standing between us, directing attention to itself rather than to the notions and feelings of the communicating subjects. This is what the information theoretic concept of noise is all about: the medium that refuses to vanish, drawing attention to its own materiality, thereby obstructing the process of communication. Hence the general failure of communication in our so-called 'network society' due to the increasing capitalization of media, turning them into money making machines instead of consensus making machines. The more a medium is capitalized, the more it draws attention to itself ("Buy me, stay in touch with your friends, be connected to the world..."), the more it constitutes the noise that disturbs communication. Hence the central paradox of our age: a scarcity of true mediation amidst a superabundance of media. Christo-Marxism, then, offers a critique of capitalist noise. 

Third position between autonomy and heteronomy
To repeat: Christo-Marxism aims to be the critical theory appropriate to the 21st century. As such, however, it must rethink the very possibility of critique, given the fact that this possibility has become deeply problematic in our postmodern/neoconservative/fundamentalist age. From the Enlightenment onwards, the critical attitude of modernity has been founded on the autonomy of the subject, who – as the self-legislating source of all normativity – granted itself the right and duty to critically examine every external authority, from the epistemic authority of sense data to the political authority of kings and churches, up to the absolute authority of God himself. The destructive effects of this autonomy of the subject have been pointed out by both postmodernism and neoconservatism, albeit from different angles. Where neoconservatism attacks modernity from above, so to speak, in name of the traditional authorities dethroned by the subject, postmodernism attacks modernity in the flanks, from the side, in the name of the multitude of particular others dominated by the subject's legislating powers. Neoconservatism laments the loss of transcendence, a loss that has left modern society rudderless, in lack of a moral compass, leaving men and women subject to the immediacy of their primitive urges. Postmodernism, on the other hand, laments the 'totalitarian egocentrism' of the subject, its constitutive blindness to the otherness of the other. As its own source of value, the subject simply cannot recognize the intrinsic value of the other as other: it can value the other only insofar as the other fits the subject's project of self-realization (his Entwurf in Heidegger's terminology).

Christo-Marxism is indebted to both the neoconservative and postmodern line of attack on modernity. Yet as an emphatically critical theory it must save a certain measure of subjective autonomy. Having recognized the cogency of the above criticisms of modern autonomy, we cannot simply sacrifice our autonomy and trade it for heteronomy, in favor of the rights of the Other. That, after all, would plunge us right back into the dogmatism of the Middle-Ages, the very thing the Enlightenment hoped to save us from. This is exactly what happens in fundamentalism, where the criticism of modern autonomy – though reasonable in itself – results in the unconditional acceptance of absolute external authority, revealed in the literal truth of Holy Scripture. Here the critique of autonomy results in the very impossibility of critique. So where does this leave us? We can summarize the problem before us by means of the following chiasm: subjective autonomy without respect for the other becomes totalitarian egocentrism, yet respect for the other without a measure of subjective autonomy becomes dogmatic heteronomy. Hence, to save the possibility of critical thought, we must find a third position between autonomy and heteronomy, a reconciling mediation between the divergent interests of self and other. It is the contention of Christo-Marxism that this third position is founded on the principle of the vanishing mediator.  

Christianity crucial to Marxism
Critical thought, then, must occupy a third position between autonomy and heteronomy. Hence the combination of Christianity and Marxism in Christo-Marxism – a combination that will undoubtedly appear oxymoronic given the militant atheism displayed by Marxism right from the start. Didn't Marx write that "the critique of religion is the premise of all critique" in his seminal Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right? The point to appreciate, however, is that Marxist atheism was part and parcel of the modern critical attitude based on the absolute autonomy of the subject – the very shortcoming of modernity which Christo-Marxism aims to overcome. The autonomous subject gave itself the right and duty to criticize every external authority, up to and including the authority of God. Hence the "Death of God" in modernity. If, therefore, we must counterbalance the autonomy of the subject with a measure of heteronomous respect for otherness, then religion must once again become a serious interlocutor for pure reason and the idea of God must be reanimated in philosophy. Religion, as expressing "the feeling of complete dependence" (Schleiermacher) or as the surrender to the "wholly Other" (Rudolf Otto, Levinas), is after all heteronomy par excellence. As such, religion is the necessary antidote to the self-ascribed omnipotence of the modern subject. To repeat: this does emphatically not mean that we should embrace religion tout court, and that the surrender to the Other should be unconditional, for doing so would plunge us into medieval fundamentalism. The critical point is to find a third between autonomy and heteronomy and thus to initiate a dialogue between reason and religion in order to find their common ground. Critical thought must be that dialogue. Thus the hyphen in Christo-Marxism must first of all be read as a double arrow ("Christo↔Marxism") indicating the dialogical exchange between Christianity and Marxism. Christianity, after all, is the religion of the vanishing mediator as such, the religion in which God – through the Crucifixion – reveals Himself as the vanishing mediator of the entire creation in its ultimate, reconciled state. As such, Christianity must be the religious interlocutor of Marxism qua secular critique of capitalism. 

For what is wrong with capitalism is precisely the dysfunction of the vanishing mediator, the fact that it is not allowed to vanish but is rather accumulated as the source of socio-economic power, thus leaving society unreconciled and torn by increasing contradictions. To be more precise: in capitalism the vanishing mediator (in its economic form as the means of economic exchange, i.e. money) is accumulated in capital, in the means of production and – in post-Fordism – in the means of communication. One of the results, as we have noted, is a general crisis of communication due to capitalist noise. Now if – as Marx shows – capitalism is not just an economic system but a complete social formation, structuring society throughout, then shouldn't we conclude that simply watching how concrete media function is not sufficient, since their very functioning is tainted by the capitalist attitude? What if the capitalist dysfunction of the vanishing mediator extends not just to money and capitalized technology but to media tout court (language as such, for example), embedded as these are in a capitalist environment? It would seem, then, that the merely receptive attitude of empirical investigation is not enough to break through the ideological surface-appearance of capitalist society. To give content to the concept of the vanishing mediator, something more is needed than empirical research. We need a meta-physical lever to break open the surface-appearance of capitalism. Here Christianity proves crucial to Marxism, insofar as the Crucifixion reveals the true functioning of the vanishing mediator, which is concealed by the capitalist accumulation of mediators. Only Christianity gives Marxism the tools to crack the ideological surface-appearance of capitalism.
 
The between in postmodernism and neoconservatism  

For Christo-Marxism, reconciliation means: finding a third position between autonomy and heteronomy. We have seen how the urgency of finding this third follows from the dialectic between the postmodern and neoconservative attacks on modern autonomy and the subsequent need to avoid a relapse into fundamentalist heteronomy. In the following I will elaborate on this notion of reconciliation, and how it is made possible by the vanishing mediator, by taking a closer look at the dialectic between postmodernism and neoconservatism. The point is that both ideologies, as critiques of modernity, must posit some notion of this third position in order to avoid fundamentalism. This explains a remarkable and usually ignored convergence between postmodernism and neoconservatism, insofar as both ideologies have produced conceptions of “the (in-)between” (alternatively: das Zwischen, le entre, the inter, the metaxy) as third positions beyond the modern dichotomy of self and other, autonomy and heteronomy. Thus we find notions of the between cropping up in the work of postmodern thinkers like Derrida, Lyotard and Deleuze, but also in neoconservative thinkers like Voegelin, Ortega y Gasset and Christopher Dawkins. We also find thinkers who combine postmodern en neoconservative conceptions of the between, notably Sloterdijk and William Desmond, whose work will be of special importance for the articulation of Christo-Marxism, as will be shown later. For now, however, let us focus on the difference between the postmodern and neoconservative conceptions of the between.

Given the radically different approaches of postmodernism and neoconservatism, their notions of the between vary greatly, which is precisely what makes a dialogue between them so fruitful, notably for Christo-Marxism. We have already remarked on the complementary ‘spatial’ directions of the postmodern and neoconservative attacks on modernity: whereas neoconservatism attacks ‘from above’ in name of the traditional authorities dethroned by the autonomous subject, postmodernism attacks ‘from the side, in the flanks’ in name of the multitude of particular others forced into subaltern positions by the authority of the autonomous subject. As a result, these different ‘spatial’ orientations can also be found in the postmodern and neoconservative conceptions of the between. Schematically we can say that whereas postmodern thinkers like Derrida and Deleuze are forced (by the necessity to avoid fundamentalism) to develop a horizontal between – between self and other, freed from hierarchy and dominance – neoconservative thinkers like Voegelin and Ortega y Gasset are forced to find a vertical between, i.e. a Platonic metaxy, a middle between the earthly and the divine. 

Consider, for example, what Dutch philosopher Antoon van den Braembussche writes in his dictionary of postmodernism: “In-between is a key concept in postmodern thought, which is sometimes called the ‘philosophy of the in-between’. In all cases what is at stake is an […] undecidable moment, where between binary opposites there arises a free floating space that cannot be specified any further. What is at stake is a ‘placeless place’, which is neither A nor B, neither man nor woman, neither body nor spirit, but which at the same time is penetrated by both opposites.” (2007: 158) The horizontal orientation of the postmodern between emerges clearly when Van den Braembussche points out the intercultural consequences of this notion of the between, indicating a free and egalitarian space between cultures. Thus he writes of the “in-between between the native and the foreign culture, a kind of bastard form, which belongs neither to the native nor to the foreign culture […] but which at the same time realizes a hybrid in which both cultures are already integrated.” (Ibidem.) Inasmuch as this intercultural between realizes an integrated hybrid, the alleged superiority of one culture over the other (read: the claim of the modern West to be superior to primitive peoples) is undermined, just like the power of one over the other is undermined, since the hybrid escapes the grasp of either culture, like a demilitarized no man’s land between warring states.

Now consider the vertical between of neoconservatism, between ‘the low’ and ‘the high’, the earthly and the divine, the temporal and the eternal, the finite and the infinite. Referring to this vertical between, neoconservative thinkers often use Plato’s concept of the metaxy, that is, the middle between the temporal world of the sensory flux and the eternal world of the divine Ideas. In the Symposium Plato introduces the metaxy through a myth about the birth of Eros, that is, love as the (semi-)divine force behind man’s desire for beauty and procreation – a love which in the end is aimed at the divine itself. Eros, Plato writes, is the child of Poros (prosperity) and Penia (poverty), and as such Eros lives between the animal and the divine, between extreme ignorance and absolute wisdom. According to Eric Voegelin, this vertical between is the human condition: “Existence has the structure of the In-Between, of the Platonic metaxy, and if anything is constant in the history of mankind it is the language of tension between life and death, immortality and mortality, perfection and imperfection, time and timelessness; between order and disorder, truth and untruth, sense and senselessness of existence; between amor Dei and amor sui […].” (1989: 119-120) Because man lives in the tension between the earthly and the divine, he has “always already” a feeling for the divine order of the cosmos. It is this order which man must approximate in culture, though he can never grasp it completely, since he must live in the tension of the metaxy – a tension which according to Voegelin is eminently expressed in the Greek-Jewish-Christian traditions. This metaxic “tension of existence” must always be kept alive. Otherwise, so Voegelin warns us, catastrophes will ensue. On the one hand, the divine may disappear from view altogether, spelling the ruin of society in nihilism and anarchy. This is what happens in modernity when the critical ideal of autonomy, having cut itself loose from external authority, degenerates into unchecked individualism, egoism and hedonism. On the other hand, when sight of the metaxy is lost, the divine may also come too close, leaving no space for human autonomy, resulting in religious totalitarianism. This, of course, is what happens in fundamentalism, where divine Truth is experienced as immediately given in Holy Scripture, without intermediation by human interpretation. Thus as one Voegelinian puts it: “The seeking of heaven can lead to the establishment of hell once balance in the metaxy is lost, as it is lost […] in religious fundamentalism.” (Morrissey 1999: 22)

Christianity between postmodernism and neoconservatism  
So on the one hand we have the horizontal between of postmodernism, the non-hierarchical interrelation of self and other. On the other we have the vertical between of neoconservatism, the hierarchical metaxy between the earthly and the divine. The complementarity between these positions – between the horizontal and the vertical – is striking. Doesn’t this suggest that the postmodern and neoconservative notions of the between should somehow be seen together in order to see the whole truth, that is to say: to develop a full-fledged third position between autonomy and heteronomy? Don’t we need a third notion of the between here, a between between the horizontal between and the vertical between, so to speak? Notice that if we take this suggestion seriously, we arrive at a cross shaped between, where the non-hierarchical relation between self and other intersects with the vertical orientation of the metaxy. Aren’t we reminded here of the Christian symbolism of the Cross? And doesn’t this reveal something of the importance of Christianity as an answer to our current problem situation, shaped by the dialectic of postmodernism, neoconservatism and fundamentalism?

 Indeed, following Luther, many theologians speak of the horizontal and vertical dimensions of Christianity, where the vertical obviously consists in the human relation to God and the horizontal in the solidarity between humans and with creation as a whole (Kolb 2004). Luther claimed – echoed by theologians like Barth, Tillich, Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer – that in Christianity these horizontal and vertical dimensions are essentially interrelated in a historically unique way. On the one hand the vertical relation to God is actualized only in the agapeic love between human beings and with creation, reconciled in the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, the horizontal dimension of human love is only made possible by the ‘vertical’ sacrifice of God, who becomes man in Christ, suffering and dying to expiate human violence. It has been noted before that the Cross symbolizes not just this divine sacrifice but also this essential interconnection of the horizontal and vertical dimensions of Christianity (Guénon 1975). Something of this symbolism can be found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he speaks of “the breadth and length and height and depth” of Christian love (Ephesians 3,18).

So how does Christianity allow us to synthesize the postmodern and neoconservative notions of the between and thereby to develop a true middle between autonomy and heteronomy? Obviously, the mere analogy between the symbol of the Cross on the one hand and the complementarity of the horizontal and the vertical orientations of the between on the other is insufficient to demonstrate the relevance of Christianity. What we need are philosophical, theological and political arguments. Delivering these arguments is precisely what Christo-Marxism is all about. Thus the central thesis of Christo-Marxism is that the non-hierarchical relation of self and other in the horizontal between is only opened up by a sacrifice in the metaxy, that is to say, by the death of the God-man Christ as the vanishing mediator in the mediated immediacy of reconciliation. In other words: to envisage a non-hierarchical togetherness of self and other, postmodernism needs a measure of neoconservatism: it needs a neoconservative return to the transcendent authority of Christianity. At the same time, however, this authority must be thought of as radically humble, self-effacing, sacrificing itself for the reconciliation of self and other. In that sense, one could say, the perverse power claim of what calls itself neoconservatism in the realm of politics – epitomized by the war mongering and neo-liberal Bush administration – is avoided and indeed criticized on principle grounds. In so far as Christo-Marxism, in its rehabilitation of the authority of Christianity, has neoconservative traits, it proclaims a decidedly leftist neoconservatism, aimed at the critique of existing power structures.  

References
-Guénon, René (1975), The symbolism of the Cross. London: Luzak and Co.
-Kolb, Robert (2004), "Luther on the Two Kinds of Righteousness", in: Wengert, T.J. (eds), Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections on Theology, Ethics, and the Church, pp.38-55. Cambridge, Eerdmans Publishing Company.
-Morrissey, Michael P. (1999), "Voegelin, Religious Experience, and Immortality", in: Hughes, Glenn (ed.), The Politics of the Soul: Eric Voegelin on Religious Experience, pp.11-32. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
-Van den Braembussche, Antoon (2007), Postmodernisme: Een intertekstueel woordenboek. Budel: Damon.

-Voegelin, Eric (1989), “Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History”, in: Sandoz, Ellis (ed.), The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 12. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

The dialectic of postmodernism, neoconservatism and fundamentalism

The following text is part of broader project I am working on, having to do with the postmodern necessity to redefine our notion of freedom. The aim is to get away from the autonomy of the modern subject and move towards a third position between autonomy and heteronomy, where subject and other are engaged in a mutually enforcing reciprocity. The critical importance of such a third position can be glanced from a chiasma which according to me summarizes the current state of critical theory: autonomy without respect for the other degenerates into totalitarian egocentrism, but respect for the other without a measure of autonomy degenerates into dogmatic heteronomy where the other is deified as “The Other” (which happens, for example, in Levinasian ethics).

The dialectic of our time: Postmodernism, neconservatism and fundamentalism

The principle of autonomy underlies the progressive project of Enlightenment and modernity as a critical-emancipatory movement. The autonomous subject is only bound to rules and laws which it self-imposes voluntarily. Thus it has the power, the right and even the duty to critically judge and decide the validity of all external authority. In socio-political terms this means democracy, such that each individual participates in the constitution of the laws of the collective, which is in that sense self-legislative. Despite or perhaps rather because of this progressiveness, modernity has been and still is under attack – an attack aimed at the principle of autonomy itself. This threat manifested itself in three forms, which remarkably enough have all been active since the 1960’s. The attacks range from merely theoretical to political and even military. They are (1) postmodernism, (2) islamic fundamentalism and (3) neoconservatism.

In the following I want to show how the necessity of finding a third between autonomy and heteronomy follows from the dialectical interrelation of these three positions. As attacks on the modern ideal of autonomy, these positions obviously have a lot in common, but at the same time the vehemence of their critique of modernity is paralleled only by their rejection of each other. What this shows, according to me, is that the critique of modern autonomy exhibits a paradoxical dialectic, since critique always presupposes a measure of autonomy ('thinking for yourself), so that any critique of autonomy must somehow bite its own tail. This dialectic inherent in the critical destruction of modern autonomy is exhibited by the paradoxical relations between postmodernism, neoconservatism and fundamentalism. I take these three positions to be the main intellectual stances of this moment, the three forms – one could say – of the spirit of our times. It is from the dynamic of their interrelation that the next development of that spirit must follow, to put it in somewhat Hegelian terms. What I mean is that the future of critical theory depends on the outcome of the debate or struggle between these three positions. In the following I want to set out the coordinates of that debate. In a future post I will deal more extensively with the way this debate can be resolved and how this relates to the necessity of finding a third between autonomy and heteronomy.

The postmodern critique of the autonomous subject

Firstly, there is the theoretical threat posed by postmodern philosophy, attacking modernity’s subject-centrism. This attack takes on two (closely interrelated) forms: ethical and (post-)structuralist. The ethical reproach says that the autonomous subject cannot do justice to the other, since the subject only recognizes values which it itself has instituted (which is, of course, what self-legisaltion means). Hence the intrinsic worth of the other an sich is necessarily lost on the subject. Versions of this ethical critique of modernity can be found in Levinas, Adorno, Lyotard, Bauman and others. The (post-)structuralist critique is aimed at the subject’s alleged independence from the other, which is exposed as false, an illusion concealing a structural heteronomy, a decenteredness of the subject with respect to the irrecupareble otherness inherent in language, the unconscious, social power structures etc. Such (post-)structuralist deconstructions of the subject can be found in thinkers like Althusser, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze. In tandem, the ethical and decentering motives in postmodern thought reveal the irrational and totalitarian tendencies of modernity, which undermine its alleged progressiveness. The modern delusion of autonomy masks and legitimizes the dominance of the (mostly western and masculine) ego over the other (read: nature, women, Jews, blacks, gay, etc.). The other is thereby reduced to a mere non-ego, the negative counterpart of the subject.

Deconstruction and the dialectic

Since my aim is to rehabilitate dialectics as a privileged tool for critical thought, I will elaborate somewhat on the ambiguous role played by dialectics in postmodern theory. In its Hegelian guise, the dialectic is of course the bête noir of postmodern theorists, who see the Hegelian system as the paragon of the subject’s injustice to the other. For Hegel, the other is merely the non-self, the externalized alienation of the self, to be returned to the self through an assimilating synthesis (negation of the negation). Thus Hegel: “for freedom means that the other thing with which you deal is a second self... For freedom it is necessary that we should feel no presence of something else which is not ourselves.” (1975: 39) The post-structuralist move, however, consists in the realization that this apparently dialectical reduction of the other to the self is actually at odds with the basic principle of dialectics itself, namely, the constitutive importance of negativity for identity (ie. something is what it is by differing from what it is not – as Spinoza put it: Every determination is a negation). Because of this principle, the identity of the self requires difference from an other. To reduce the other to the self, as Hegel does, is to leave the self without a contrasting difference and hence without identity. In other words, from a dialectical point of view, the Hegelian negation of the other by the self is really a kind of suicide. In a sense, then, post-structuralism – and Derrida's deconstruction in particular – merely points out this inner paradox of Hegelian dialectis. As one recent commentator put it: “Derrida only assists the suicide of the Hegelian system.” (Baugh 2003: 120) The post-structuralist conclusion is that the identity of the self is essentially dependent on an other who is irreducible to the self. The self is decentered: it has its essential center outside itself, in its relation to an irreducible other. This decenterment constitutes a heteronomy in the identity of the self. In that sense, post-structuralism can be seen as an internal critique of the Hegelian dialectic, a hyper-dialectic, a “Hegelianism without reserve” (Derrida 2002), that is, a dialectic without the imprisonment of otherness within the bounds of identity. Deconstruction can thus been seen as a dialectic run amok, in which the constitutive relation to otherness can no longer be recuperated in synthetic identity but keeps on proliferating in an endless play of differences that subvert established identities. In that sense Derrida situates his thought in “the morning after Hegelianism” (Derrida 1981: 107-8).

Islamic fundamentalism

Secondly, there is the not so theoretical but rather practical threat posed by anti-modern Islamic fundamentalism, which in the name of the heteronomous submission to Allah rejects democracy and autonomy as western illusions. Perversely paraphrasing Marx one could say that Islamic fundamentalism complements the merely theoretical weapon of the postmodern critique with a critique of weapons, ie terror against modernity, aiming at the violent establishment of religious heteronomy, constitutionally embodied in Sharia. Although the threat of Islamic fundamentalism seems to have lost much of its punch due to the democratic movement of the recent Arab Awakening (which goes to show that Islam is not in and of itself anti-democratic), there are still many fundamentalist factions active in Islamist circles, with extremist attacks still taking place in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia and other muslim countries. After 9/11 and the subsequent security crackdown, Islamist violence has now more or less ceased in Western countries. Yet, the threat is still real. Much probably depends on how the recent democratization movement in the Middle East will work out. As nearly happened in Algeria in the 1990s, it could very well be that elections will bring fundamentalist parties to state power (a very real possibility with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt), especially if pro-western parties fail to bring stability and prosperity. In the West, the worsening economic crisis could intensify scapegoat mechanisms, leading to increasing islamophopia, exploited by right-wing politicians with populist agenda’s. Their rhetoric of a “Clash of Civilizations” (Samuel Huntington) could easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, resulting in increased violence between the modern West and Islamic factions.

The neoconservative critique of postmodern theory

One way to understand the third threat to modernity’s principle of autonomy is from the dialectic between the first two, postmodernism and Islamic fundamentalism, which may seem to necessitate a certain conservatism with respect to Western modernity ityself. For the fact is that the theoretical, postmodern attack on modernity is seriously weakened or undermined by the practical, Islamic-fundamentalist attack. With critics such as Habermas one may take postmodernism to task for doing away with the autonomy of the subject, for thereby postmodernism has seemingly done away with the possibility of critical emancipation as such, undermining itself as a critical theory. In Habermasian terms, postmodernism’s rejection of autonomy amounts to a performative self-contradiction, since as a critical theory (critical of modernity) postmodernism still presupposes a measure of autonomy, an ability for independent thought and (self-)critique. By rejecting the autonomy of the subject, postmodern philosophy delivers us again to the violence of heteronomy from which the Enlightenment tried to save us. Ethics as “unconditional responsibility for the Other” (Levinas) seems noble, but what if the other has evil intentions and may be in possession of WOMD? What if the Levinasian “Face of the Other” is hidden by a balaclava? Wouldn’t it be wise then to retain some form of autonomy, some critical distance to and independence from the other? It probably goes too far to say that postmodern philosophy paved the way for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Still it is a fact that, because of its rejection of modern autonomy, postmodernism is ill equiped to fight fundamentalism. Thus it may appear that for the critical-emancipatory potential of modernity to be saved, modernity must be protected against its postmodern critics, those who weaken it from within. For neoconservatives, Islamic fundamentalism is the perfect stick with which to beat postmodernism: in order to protect the West against fundamentalism, postmodernism must be silenced. Neoconservatism stresses that the progressiveness of modernity can only be pulled from the swamp of multicultural relativism by means of a dogmatic assertion of modernity’s superiority over other cultures, notably the Islamic ones (and the neocon politics of Bush c.s. towards the Arab world should be understood in light of this western self-assertion). The critical attitude of the Enlightenment can only be saved by immunizing it to all criticism, or so the neoconservatives claim. Thus they profile themselves as the real progressives, the heirs of the Enlightenment: a conservatism of modernity as the best guarantee for its critical-emancipatory potential.

The neoconservative plea for Bildung

The flipside of this immunization of the core of modernity is the neoconservative rehabilitation of authority and traditional values. The Judeo-Christian emphasis on individual responsibility must – according to neoconservative intellectuals like Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Allan Bloom, Roger Scruton and Theodor Dalrymple – be rehabilitated as the traditional basis of the Enlightenment and the modern principle of autonomy. According to neoconservatism, modernity must itself become conservative (must conserve its traditional core) in order to resist Islamic fundamentalism. In this way neoconservatism differs from the original conservatism of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This original conservatism, developed by intellectuals like Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre, was a reaction to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It argued that the modern advocacy of individual freedom would result in the anarchic dissolution of society. In contrast, neoconservatism accepts the progressiveness of the Enlightenment and modernity, arguing instead that to save that progressiveness from the fundamentalist threat we must conserve its traditional foundation. Thus neoconservatism can be described as a dialectical synthesis of Enlightenment and conservatism.

Neoconservative thinkers point out that if individual freedom is taken as absolute, without external constraints, it degenerates into arbitrary individualism, where the individual is left to the immediacy of his primitive urges (which is – from a Kantian viewpoint – heteronomy instead of autonomy). According to neoconservatism, the advocacy of this arbitrary individualism (“anything goes”, “it is forbidden to forbid”) is the mistake of the liberal left and its permissive society that developed in the West since the 1960’s. To turn individual freedom into true autonomy, where the individual is able to control his immediate urges through self-imposed laws, those laws must be instilled in the individual through upbringing and education. It is dangerously naïve to think that such ethical laws are inborn, part of the natural endowment of humans, such that the moral character of man comes to flourish only in a state of nature, uncorrupted by culture: this is the myth of the ‘noble savage’ – often ascribed to Rousseau and essential to the hippie counter-culture that inaugurated the permissive society. In contrast, neoconservatism argues that immersion in a pre-given culture is necessary for the development of autonomous selves. Autonomy requires what the Germans call Bildung: the formation of the self through absorption of the cultural classics. Hence the neoconservative emphasis on the authority of traditional values.

The paradox of neoconservatism
As we have seen, neoconservatism rejects the postmodern critique of modernity in order to save the modern critical attitude from fundamentalism. Thus to save that critical attitude, neoconservatism wants to limit its range by a degree of dogmatism (the subjection to tradition) – an obvious paradox, which is mirrored by the oxymoronic character of the label “neoconservatism”. The focus on newness and progress implied in the prefix “neo-” doesn’t sit well with the conservatism. Neoconservatives have described themselves as the real revolutionaries of our time (as opposed to the revolutionaries of the left), but their revolution is retrograde, a step forward by taking two steps back. Earlier I described neoconservatism as the synthesis of Enlightenment and conservatism. But exactly how the contradiction between these two can be overcome remains unclear. It may indeed be the case that individual freedom is transformed from arbitrary willfulness to self-legislation through the internalization of traditional, culturally transmitted values. But does this culturally mediated self-legislation constitute a true autonomy? Or is it rather a heteronomy in disguise, a slavish subjection to traditional culture? Doesn’t autonomy also require an ability to criticize the tradition and culture in which one stands? This critical distance to the past was part and parcel of the Enlightenment, as it asserted itself against the powers of religion and feudalism. Yet in neoconservatism this critical distance to tradition seems lost. Autonomous self-legislation may require internalization of pre-given values, but how do we prevent this internalization from resulting in complete heteronomy? How do we reach a third, a balance between autonomy and heteronomy? This problem is more or less overlooked by neoconservative thinkers. They are insufficiently aware of the paradox involved in basing autonomy on heteronomy.

Postmodern theory as the self-critique of modernity

The position of neonconservatism is all the more paradoxical in light of the fact that the postmodern critique – which neconservatism wishes to veto in order to save modernity – actually arose from the self-critical turn of modernity as such. That is to say, postmodernism is the self-critique of the autonomous subject. The neoconservative rejection of postmodernism is therefore a rejection of the very same critical attitude which neoconservatism wishes to save. To see how postmodern theory arose from the self-critical turn of modern thought, we have to take a closer look at Kant and his impact on philosophy.

Kant’s (self-)critique of pure reason can rightfully be seen as both the high point of modern thought and the beginning of postmodern theory. Kant’s central question – how is pure reason possible? – is precisely the question of the possibility of autonomy, ie of the ability for self-legislation (free from external input and in that sense “pure”) in the areas of knowledge, ethics and beauty. According to Kant, “Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must submit.” (KdrV, AXI, Anm.) As Kant realized, however, this requirement – in its universality – turns back on itself: the legitimacy of the tribunal of pure reason itself must first be determined before the other defendants (religious and worldly authorities) can receive a fair trial. The self-critique of pure reason must therefore precede the criticism of others. It is this self-reflexivity inherent in the modern critical attitude which ultimately resulted in the postmodern critique of the subject. As Frederick Beiser notes: “Paradoxically, the crisis of the Enlightenment arose from within, and indeed from its most cherished principle. The problem is that this principle is self-reflexive. If reason must subject all beliefs to criticism, it must also subject its own tribunal to criticism. To exempt its tribunal from scrutiny would be nothing less than ‘dogmatism’, accepting beliefs on authority, which is the very opposite of reason. The criticism of reason therefore inevitably became the meta-criticism of reason.” (Beiser 2005, p.23)

Following Kant, subsequent philosophers searched for the foundations of human autonomy, thereby discovering its weaknesses, the places where the subject is dependent on something other than itself. From Kant onwards, there runs a continuous line, mediated notably by Hegel and Schopenhauer, to the “Masters of Suspicion” (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) and from there to the (post-)structuralist critique of the subject (Althusser, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, Deleuze). As we have seen in a previous section, this self-critique of modern thought crucially involved the internal critique of Hegelian dialectics, resulting in deconstruction as a “Hegelianism without reserve” (Derrida).

The shared dialectic of Islamic fundamentalism and modernity

But what, then, about Islamic fundamentalism? Doesn’t it show the weakness of postmodern theory, as neoconservatives say? Doesn’t the threat of Islamism force us to rehabilitate a form of autonomy as a bulwark against fundamentalism? And doesn’t this mean the bankruptcy of postmodern theory after all? Well, yes and no. In one way, Islamic fundamentalism does indeed put postmodern theory in a difficult spot, since it underscores the critical importance of a measure of autonomy. In another way, however, Islamic fundamentalism also confirms the postmodern critique of the autonomous subject as a dangerous, totalitarian illusion. For the crucial point to be appreciated is that Islamic fundamentalism is not so alien to western modernity as the rhetoric of a “Clash of Civilizations” wants us to believe. As I will argue in the following paragraphs, both exemplify a dialectic of self-determination through negation of the other.

On the one hand, Islamic fundamentalism is obviously opposed to the modern West in that it rejects individual autonomy and democracy in the name of Islam. This rejection is constitutive of Islamic fundamentalism insofar as the fundamentalist must negate or exclude modernity in order to assert himself as a true muslim. Religious heteronomy requires the active and sometimes violent negation of autonomy. The suicide bombing, in which not only western (or westernized) individuals are killed but also the bomber himself, constitutes the ultimate proof of the fundamentalist’s utter disregard for individual autonomy and hence his total commitment to Islam. This social function of terror against others as a means of self-affirmation has been noted before, especially with regard to Islamic fundamentalism. As Benjamin Barber remarks about the latter in his book Jihad vs. McWorld: “Self-determination has at times amounted to little more than other-extermination.” (1995: 11) But what is seldom noted – also not by Barber – is that fundamentalism is in that respect not alien to modernity at all. Rather, Islamic-fundamentalist terrorism repeats the basic pattern of modern autonomy, namely, the dialectic of self-determination through negation of the other. As remarked above, this dialectic received its paradigm expression in the Hegelian system, where the other is reduced to the negative counterpart of the subject, its alien externalization, to be reintegrated by means of a synthesizing negation of the negation. Thus Barber's criticism of Islamic fundamentalism mirrors the postmodern critique of the Hegelian dialectic and the broader logic of modern autonomy which that dialectic exemplifies.

Modernity’s terror against otherness

In its negative relation to otherness, then, Islamic fundamentalism is not foreign to the West. Islamist terrorism merely makes explicit what usually remains hidden, the dark side of modern autonomy, its dialectic of self-determination through negation of otherness. Terrorism is the bare form of modernity’s inherent ‘terror against otherness’– which is not merely a dramatizing metaphor, but something concretely felt in modernity’s material practices of exclusion, domination, extermination and exploitation. When confronted by Islamist terrorism, then, we should never forget that terrorism is essentially a western invention. To be precise, terrorism is an invention of the French Revolution (in which, of course, modern democracy and autonomy were taught for the first time as universal human ideals) when it degenerated into the Jacobin Reign of Terror, which – to protect the Revolution against “counterrevolutionary forces” – killed 40,000 people in the name of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

The fact that revolutionary terrorism is linked to the modern ideal of autonomy was already noted by Hegel in his analysis of the French Revolution in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In the section titled Absolute Freedom and the Terror (1986 [1807]: BB, III), Hegel argues that absolute collective autonomy (the democratic expression of many particular volitions into the state’s universal will, Rousseau’s volonté general) necessarily leads to tension between the universal and the particular, because particular individuals can never fully identify with the universality of the state, since each individual is unique. The state as ‘executor’ of the universal will is therefore always – at least latently – at war with its own citizens: it can see the various particular departures from the universal will only as threats to be eliminated by reason of state, especially in times of crisis. Thus collective autonomy produces in its own body politic the Fremdkörper which it must exclude, through a Girardian scapegoat mechanism, in order to be itself.

Ever since the French Revolution, terrorism is a proven tactic of left-wing radicals advocating absolute (individual or collective) autonomy. See the “individual terrorism” of the anarchists, the Red Terror of the Bolsheviks, the attacks of the German RAF and the Italian Red Brigades. In recent Dutch history (which is my background in writing this piece), there is the murder of the right-wing populist politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002, committed by the left-wing animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf. In this respect, left-wing terrorism is no different from its right-wing counterpart, the xenophobic violence of virulent nationalists. As Zygmunt Bauman argued in Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), the modern ideal of autonomy – the foundation of the Enlightenment’s critical attitude – led in its collective form not just to democracy but also to nationalism as the historical self-determination of a people. Here, that is to say: in Auschwitz, Barber’s dictum – “Self-determination has at times amounted to little more than other-extermination” – has found its paradigmatic vindication.

Modern morbidity
In light of the parallel between collective and individual subjectivity, something analogous to this internal production of Fremdkörper must also be found in individual autonomy. Hence Hegel’s argument with respect to absolute democracy has its counterpart in his analysis of individual freedom. Following Kant, Hegel understands the autonomous subject as standing above his biological existence: the subject must not be controlled by immediate urges, it must govern itself through reason, to which all natural instincts must be subjected, including the organic life instinct. Hegel’s conclusion is therefore that the subject can only prove his freedom – to others and to himself – by demonstrating his independence from life, by risking his life in mortal combat: “The absolute proof of freedom in the struggle for recognition is death. Already by the fact that both combatants risk the danger of death, they posit their shared natural being as something negative and thus they prove that take it to be a nothing.” (Hegel 1986 [1830]: §432, Zus., 221) For Hegel, then, dying is the highest form of freedom. The prevalence of this absurd contempt for death in modern philosophy reflects the dominance of Kantian autonomy. Firstly, of course, in Kant himself, the prophet of perpetual peace, for whom nevertheless a little war now and then was needed to impress on people the inferiority of their empirical existence. Cut from the same black cloth is Heidegger’s analysis of Being-unto-Death as authentic Dasein, trivialized into the existentialist fancy of suicide as the free act par excellence. But – so we may ask – is there not something fundamentally wrong with a conception of freedom for which death is the ultimate proof? Freedom must be an affirmation of life, not its negation. “A free man thinks of nothing less than of death”, Spinoza says: “his wisdom is not to meditate on death, but life.” (Ethics: IVP67)

This modern morbidity underscores the fact that the otherness, which the subject must exclude in order to be autonomous, comes not just from outside but is produced within, as through an internalization of the scapegoat mechanism. In order to achieve total self-control, the subject produces in himself the unruly nature to be conquered, cultivated and exploited. To the extent that people are social beings and their self-legislation arises from the internalization of group norms (embodied by the authority of the father), the meaning of modern autonomy is ultimately giving your life for the fatherland in the war with inferior others. In that sense, the Islamic terrorist blowing himself up in an attack on infidels is a truly modern autonomous subject. To repeat: Islamic fundamentalism is not alien to modernity, rather it holds up a mirror to the West: we may be shocked by what we see, but what we see is merely the balaclava face of our own culture, the reflection of autonomy’s inherent terror against otherness.

The epochal meaning of the “Clash of Civilizations”

In short, the so-called “Clash of Civilizations” between modernity and Islam is basically a conflict within modernity. Due to modern colonialism and subsequent capitalist globalization, modernity has now more or less conquered the globe and begins to bite its own tail. The modern subject has fallen prey to its own terror against otherness, to which it can only respond with counter terror: terror against modernity and its ideals of autonomy and democracy. Here lies the philosophical, even epochal significance of the “Clash of Civilizations”, in the self-dissolution of modernity, as it reverts into its own opposite. Western violence against otherness, usually hidden under an ideology of universal freedom and equality, appears nakedly in Islamic fundamentalism, stripped of its veil and exposed in suicide bombings. The religious heteronomy of the inviolable belief in the literal truth of the Koran is a manifestation of the dogmatism of the modern autonomous subject, his uncompromising belief in himself. It now becomes apparent to what extent the dialectic of the “Clash of Civilizations” is a self-reinforcing process, a negative feedback of orientalism and occidentalism, of terror and counter terror. If Islamic-fundamentalist terror increases, the West will be confirmed in its neoconservative distrust of Islam, thus increasing its islamophobic violence – resulting in a further alienation of modern muslims and their increased attraction by Islamic fundamentalism as a theology of anti-modern resistance and liberation. Caught in the maelstrom of a suspicious reflection, orientalism and occidentalism will increasingly meet each other’s fears. We have already seen this happen in the run-up to 9/11 and especially during its aftermath: Al Qaeda was the ghost raised by American imperialism, Bush was dialectical doppelgänger of Bin Laden – thesis and antithesis in a deadly dialectic, seemingly without any prospect of reconciliation.

References
-Barber, Benjamin (1995), Jihad vs. McWorld: How globalism and tribalism are reshaping the world. New York: Ballantine Books.

-Baugh, Bruce (2003), French Hegel: From surrealism to postmodernism. New York and London: Routledge.

-Beiser, Frederick (2005), Hegel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

-Derrida, Jacques (1981), Dissemination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

-Derrida, Jacques (2002), ´From restricted to general economy: A Hegelianism without reserve`, in: Derrida, Writing and difference. London and New York: Routledge.
-Hegel, G.W.F. (1986 [1807]), Phänomenologie des Geistes. Franfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
-Hegel, G.W.F. (1975), Encyclopedia Logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.