Action and Reflection

Though this is ultimately a blog about Christian radical politics, we have been spending a lot of time so far on conceptual issues, and will continue to do so. This brief post will explain why we think this is a necessary task, and how we perceive this task.

It is common in left-leaning circles, theological or non, to insist that action is primary, with reflection coming afterward and leading back to action. In this view, presumably, right action is something we know about a priori, and reflection is to be understood and judged based on this already existing knowledge. Jesus' statement that "you will know them by their fruit" (cf. Matt. 7:16) is taken as confirmation of this view.

Along these lines, one never ceases to hear complaints about Karl Barth's theology that charge this "Red Pastor of Safenwil" with being too conceptual and not practical enough in his ethics (for a recent example, see here).

Finally, it is common today to find theologians espousing what has been called "strategic essentialism" on issues of sex and race. This method, while accepting the philosophical criticism of all "essentialisms," nevertheless makes use of essentialist thinking to advance (what is thought to be) liberating practice.

However, I think it not only possible but preferable to problematize, if not completely reverse this ordering. Reflection (theory, etc.), it seems clear to me,  accompanies, if it does not always preexist, all action worthy of the name. Of course, in our individual and corporate lives we tend to do a lot of things without thinking about them critically, from bodily functions such as breathing, to the use of language and symbols, to a whole host of more or less significant activities like engaging in commerce and the arts. But is this the kind of "action" that accords with liberation? I think not. Rather, that kind of action is done under a conscious interpretation, some sort of reflective construal of events and their significance.

Admittedly, and as a matter of simple fact, we are always already acting in our social lives under an interpretation, whether we are aware of it or not. But that would make the presciptive call to begin with action unnecessary. What is needed is always careful and perspicacious reflection. Only then can true action take place.

This is by no means to demean or belittle action, nor is it to minimize its importance or make it unnecessary. Rather, it understands action in such a way that reflection cannot be minimized or made unnecessary.

In the case of Barth, he was active in leftist politics before he was a professional theologian. The case of the philosopher Badiou is very similar: he, too, has been involved in political action about as long as he has been a philosopher. In both cases, these thinkers recognized more and more in their work that reflection and theory are absolutely necessary tasks to be undertaken in their own right. Otherwise, we lack the tools to see how it is that action so often goes astray, and we begin to lose any self-critical consciousness of our own goals and methods.

The Christian faith, interestingly enough, is in my view an idea about an action, specifically the action of God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. But even this action was done under an interpretation; it was a willfully chosen act. Here I think one can split the difference, as it were, between Hegelian and more traditional theology (for a discussion, see here). Hegelian theology sees the second person of the Trinity as the man Jesus, simply. Traditional theology sees the divine Son not only in the man Jesus (the logos incarnantus) but also always standing behind and to be understood in abstraction from the life of this man (the logos asarkos, defined as that which is neither incarnatus nor incarnandus). The middle way, and preferable to both of these alternatives, is to see the divine Son as always incarnandus. That means the divine Son as God's Word to the world is completely given in God's act of reconciliation in the man Jesus, but never to be reduced to this man. The Word is only in the humanity, relating to it in a way that is analogous (and more than analogous) to the relation between text and interpretation.

If, on the other hand, we think action is to be taken as absolutely primary, the inevitable result, I think, is that we assume a certain interpretation of events that will control both the action and the subsequent reflection, and never in such a way that it can be self-critical. I see this again and again in political and religious discussions. It is always assumed that what "we" (Americans, Presbyterians, etc.) did in the (recent or distant) past was obviously the right thing to do, so that further action must always be along the same lines and done under the same interpretation. Unfortunately, what appears again and again in these discussions is a battle over who gets to interpret the interpretation; that is, all seem eager to foist onto the past their preferred interpretation for the present and future. So whether we like it or not, we are always brought back to reflection.

Therefore we will continue on this blog to deal with the conceptual framework in its own right, working from that to the actions, political and otherwise, that are called for by that framework.