Archive for the ‘ religion ’ Category
The rationale for statements of evolutionary truth is moral. It gives permission to say: had not this or that adaptation taken place, your species would have died out long ago, which is to say, your existence depends on our logic, which is to say, you must not think for yourself. This may be the form [ READ MORE ]
Evolution and computing can be described as counter-poles in contemporary American culture, as though that which transforms very fast required, to maintain some cosmic balance, a partner that changed correspondingly slowly. This is not just a felicitous figure: there are deeper grounds. Homo faber, in realizing the power to shape the experience of fellow producers [ READ MORE ]
One way in which religion is more rational than science. It says simply “because” and offers no further reasons for submitting to its code. The arbitrariness of the content of God’s will coincides with a historical view. These habits, customs, names, and — even — reasons have no other ground than the demand to submit [ READ MORE ]
Whoever next writes a dictionary of critical theory should remember to worry a little in print about distance, and how it is used. Marcel Gauchet writes convincingly about it. Religion is, for Gauchet, that which places its founding moment far away, so that no one will realize it was originally a decision and get the [ READ MORE ]
The oddest effect of the internet has been to restore a conjuring power to the name. Thus the name “Martin Hägglund” has brought many comers, and perhaps a few revenants as well, to Wozu. Why is this? Certainly, more would have been interested in Paris Hilton, Tyra Banks, Sarah Palin (if not what was said [ READ MORE ]