Soft power (original) (raw)
The Sources of Religious and Political Power in Thought of
2011
Özet Karşılaştırmalı Yaklaşımla Ebu Mansur el-Maturîdî ve Saint Thomas Aquinas’ta Dinî ve Politik Gücün Kaynakları Bu makale ilahi ve dünyevi güç arasındaki ilişki kaynaklarına dair iki önde gelen kelamcı/teolog Ebu Mansur el-Maturidi ve Saint Thomas Aquinas’ın ortaya koydukları düşünceleri karşılaştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Öncelikle çalışma, bu iki düşünürün yaklaşım tarzlarına dair kısa bir bilgi ile din ile siyaset arasındaki ilişkiye dair temel fikirlerini ortaya koyacaktır. Daha sonra, Maturidi ile Aquinas’ın görüşleri arasında ortak bir zeminin olup olmadığı hususu tespit edilmeye çalışılacaktır. Anahtar Kelimeler: İktidar, Dini İktidar, Maturidi, Aquinas Abstract This paper aims to compare some reflections on relationship between divine and worldly powers and their sources presented by two prominent theologians Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and. First, the paper we will present a brief characteristic of these two theologians and emphasize some of their fundamental ideas concerning the...
2021
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Politicized religion: symbolism and the instrumentalization of the sacred
In the following pages, I support the view of various authors who argue that modern secularization has not produced a definitive separation between religion and politics (Beaman, 2003, 2016; Bellah, 2005; Cristi, 2001; Gentile, 1990, 2003; Mosse, 1991). In doing this, I argue that this separation is ‘blurry’ and ambiguous as both spheres share a common element: the symbolic. To demonstrate this, I outline two processes often characterized as ‘inverse’. I begin by outlining the so-called ‘sacralization of the secular’, primarily relying on the works of Cristi (2001), Gentile (1990, 2003), and Mosse (1991). Secondly, I expand on Beaman's (2003, 2016) analyses on the ‘secularization of the sacred’. To illustrate this, I draw upon the recent case of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. The case in question allows us to see how the sacred and the secular are the result of socio-political processes of meaning; that being, instances of conflict and negotiation about what ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ mean. Ultimately, this unmasks the inherent politicization of the sacred in secular modernity.
The Secular Sacred, 2014
Given the failure of political grand narratives and religious cosmologies to redeem the human suffering and environmental disasters of the twentieth century, it is not surprising that intellectual and artistic circles display a chronic scepticism and disillusionment with either rational or spiritual claims to any kind of universalism – moral or otherwise. The moral universe has lost any traditional or metaphysical ‘givenness’ and has come to be seen as a construct. A construct that is radically and hopelessly contextual and relative. The response to injustice now often seems limited to impotent moralistic indignation. At the secular level this process has been characterised by the seemingly inevitable hegemony of relativism in its various forms. The most virulent of these is, unquestionably, the radical deconstructionism found in postmodernism. Important though postmodernism has been both as a cultural movement and a valued warrior against the monological philosophy of consciousness and grand meta-narratives, it is, in essence, a subclass of relativism. It is this relativism, in its philosophical and cultural appearances, that underpins the current scenario of a pluralism of worldviews, many of which contradict the now questionable ethos of multiculturalism in that they do not simply offer alternative ways of accessing reality, rather they offer competing and mutually exclusive views of the world. Drawing on Habermas (and many others), I believe that it is possible to reconstruct a form of rational universalism without falling into metaphysical illusions – particularly the illusion that rests on the discovery or assumption of some transcendent point beyond history, culture and language. The crucial step that enables this is the move to a communicative concept of rationality. From this basis I argue for the morally motivating power of a rationally based sense of the secular sacred and the identification with such through reflexive mythological narratives.
2012
Interrogating the relationship between religion and nationalism ultimately means interrogating the relationship between culture and politics, or rather what is - in the modernist mindset - considered as the separate fields of culture and politics. Interrogating this relationship is also the predicament in the study of nationalism. Nationalism already posits the relation between culture and politics as fundamental - albeit problematic - for its (re)production and its critique. The historical importance of religious institutions (for our purpose, Christianity in the European context), the analogy between the Church and the institutions of secular states (E. Hobsbawm) points a finger to their elemental correlation. The quasi-religious discourse in E. Renan's "What is nation?" (the notion of sacrifice e.g.) already suggests, for instance, how nationalist myths are closely related to and perhaps of the same nature as religious myths. It is in terms of cultural hierarchies (...
FITZEK SEBASTIAN SACRED AND POLITICAL POWER 26.07.
Sacred and Political Power, Psychosocial Approaches of Collective Imaginary, 2022
The book explores the complex relationship between sacred and political power through psychosocial approaches to the collective imaginary. It analyzes how collective beliefs and myths shape societal structures and influence political dynamics. This work offers valuable perspectives for an in-depth understanding of social, religious, and political phenomena from an academic psychoanalytic perspective.
THE DIALECTICS OF THE SACRED AND THE SECULAR
The Dialectics of The Sacred and The Secular The separation of the sacred (religious) and the profane (secular) occupies a very important place in the secularization debate. This paper claims that there is a dialectical relationship between the sacred and the secular, with Hegelian perspective. This dialectical relationship is based on Durkheim's distinction between sacred and profane. The religion has deep roots in human history has long been known. On the other hand, secularity is also known to have deep roots as religion does. Accordingly, secularity also exists inevitably where religion exists. The more religion is imposed, the more secular disposition emerges, or vice versa. So then, that there is a dialectical relationship between sacred and secular may as well be referred.
The Interplay Between the Contemporary Sacred and Secular
Initially my aim was to bring together the following -the early Hegel (particularly his early theory of spirit in connection to his theory of Fate and his early critique of Kantian morality) the religious thinking of William James 1 and the work of three contemporary philosophers, John McDowell, Charles Taylor and A.W. Moore. I then intended to use this material to rethink secularism, particularly the normative constraints that ground the separation of church and state. It is this division that is the ultimate focus of this paper. Some see that this division is of secondary importance to a more fundamental issue, captured under the Weberian term 'disenchantment of nature.' To an extent I agree with them but through a consideration of Hegel's early theory of spirit my aim is to show that prior to any disenchantment of nature that there exists a problematic conceptual or perhaps an attitudinal relation to self and world and that this is a pre-condition of such disenchantment. At the practical level this problematic relation of self and world manifests in institutional division and at a theoretical level the same relation manifests as disenchantment. So, before we can begin to see the world as the realm of law, 2 devoid of meaning and disenchanted, we have to adopt a certain reactive attitude to it. This attitudinal relation is one that I think is based in a fundamental fracture, a form of self-alienation, whereby the self is held to be something alien to nature yet imprisoned within the natural. This fundamental fracture then manifests in human institutional and intellectual life as seemingly irreconcilable oppositions (Appendix 1.)
International Journal of Philosophy and Theology Religion as a source of evil
The starting point is that there is a structural, although not necessary link between religion and two important expressions of religious evil, religious intolerance and violence. The origin of this link lies in the radicalism that is inherent in all religions. Although this radicalism often has very positive effects, it also can lead to evil. Because religious evil is fueled by eschatological antagonism and the enormous utopian energies that are characteristic of religion, it is often qualified as symbolic. ‘Symbolic’ refers to the fundamental disproportion between the excess of the divine as a groundless ground and the finite capacity of every religion to receive it (Ricoeur). Symbolic violence arises when a religious community yields to the temptation of becoming possessive, forcing the inexhaustible divine mystery to adapt to the limited capacities of this community to grasp this mystery. This leads to the exclusion of internal or external dissenters. The final section examines how the ill-fated bond between religion and evil can be broken. It will be examined if and how a redefinition of tolerance, in particular a disconnection between religious truth and the claim to exclusivism and a commitment to inter-confessional hospitality, can contribute to avoiding that religion becomes evil.
The Sacred and the Secular : Distinct or Separate Entities ?
2013
In the contemporary study of religion there seems to be an exaggeration of the distinction between religion and spirituality, not only to the point of separation, but worse still, in terms of a superiority-inferiority hierarchy that gives rise to a value judgement between spirituality and religion. Could this be a sign of the persisting Western hegemony in the study of religion? This article suggests that the consideration of religion and spirituality as disparate entities may be necessary in some societies but not sufficient for a global perspective. Could there be an integrative model that would lend itself for an inclusive exchange in the study of religion and spirituality? Basing itself particularly within the literature of the psychological study of religion, this essay develops a multidimensional matrix of religion and/or spirituality that attempts to be, at the same time, parsimonious and comprehensive, which includes constructs like ‘religiousspirituality’. Religious-spiritu...
The Implications of Mircea Eliade s Approach on Sacred for Contemporary World
2nd International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences and Arts SGEM2015, 2015
Mircea Eliade's ideas developed in the scientific and literary works had considerable influence over the past century, both among historians of religions, imposing the discipline that he promoted in many prestigious universities from America and from around the world, and among other researchers in related fields of the history of religions. The question today is about what is left of Eliade's work after a careful analysis according to the grids of thought of our century. The question that has not yet found a definitive answer is of special interest, because the themes dealt by the Romanian scientist are universal and permanent. Among them, the problem of the timeliness of myth occupies the essential rank closely related with all the concepts developed by Eliade in his works. In this sense, the relationship between the man of archaic societies, often called homo religious, and the Christian man is also defined by how the myth is perceived by the two of them. Through its exact understanding human religiosity from forever and everywhere can always be redefined.