In class on Friday I tried to connect my reading of Cambell's "Agency: Promiscuous and Protean" to concepts being discussed in my Religious Studies class. Sorry if that very broad look at agency threw or put anyone off. The relationship between the two conversations simply seemed unavoidable and massively important to my understanding of each. So here I will try to explain myself better in text.
My class has stressed the importance of the concept of the "self." The class began with a lecture which laid out the ecological crises our planet faces today which have been caused by the exponential increase in population and consumption over the last couple of centuries. It was pretty depressing. As the title of this L371 course suggests, we live in uncertain times. Two books we read for this class after that first lecture explored concepts of the self and the impact the various concepts of reality have had on the problems we now face. We concluded that the egocentric worldview mainstream Western society has promoted is a source of the issues we face.
An alternative concept of the self has been offered up in my class which views the individual as a unique manifestation of life which is inextricably connected to the stuff of the universe and subsequently the history of the universe. Here is where the connection to our class comes in. On page five of her article, Campbell draws from Chani Marchiselli to describe authors as not "originators" but as "points of articulation" which highlights the connection of an author to the society which produced and continually surrounds him. The concept of the self discussed in REL-D250 is thus very similar to the concept of authorship provided by Campbell: both view the individual as merely a unique point on the whole which has the ability to impact the whole.
1 comment:
While you do not specify in your text, I am lead to the assumption that the ‘egocentric worldview’ you are discussing in class is a product of Christianity. I infer this on the premise that you are in a religion course at a university discussing ‘various concepts of reality’ in western society, whose non-secular majority practice Christianity. It seems to me, and correct me if I am wrong, that the class is linking the “egocentric worldview mainstream Western society is promoting” to Christianity’s role in giving people a sense of ‘self’. The ‘enthymeme’ I have extracted from your text is this: that Christianity has caused an “egocentric worldview [in] mainstream Western society [that] has promoted a… [a rise in population] and [rise in pollution from consumption].”
While the ‘unsoundness’ of the argument I believe your class is making may be stem from my own misunderstanding of how the concept of ‘self’ you are referring to is related to religion, I will make an counter argument just for the sake of creating a dialectic. You state your class views “the individual as a unique manifestation of life which is inextricably connected to the stuff of the universe and subsequently the history of the universe.” I am assuming by ‘stuff’ you mean matter and by ‘history of the universe’ you mean time; therefore, for a human to be inextricably tied to space/time as matter seems to an empirical statement. This seems odd for a course in religion; which leads me to my next point of discussion.
A connection between Christianity and an ‘egocentric worldview’ seems to be antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ. I will use a quote from the King James Version of The New Testament, Luke 18:14. Christ tells a parable about those who are self- righteous and despise others, two traits I believe those who are ‘egocentric’ would have. The scripture tells of a Pharisee and a tax collector who go to a temple to pray. The scripture reads:
“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself ‘God I thank you I am not like the other men- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I pray twice a week and give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
This parable teaches the Christian virtue of humility, a characteristic that, by definition, would not be found in someone who is egocentric. Whether or not you believe this Author to be an ‘originator’ or a ‘point of articulation’ is beyond the realm of this post, but the moral at hand seems to be a cure for the ‘egocentric worldview’ that your class has found problematic.
Campbell puts the author’s autonomy nicely when he states, “agency is material as well as symbolic, which is true precisely because agency is constitutive of collectivities, whether temporary or persistent, fragile or powerful, just as collectivities are constitutive of agency, however paradoxical that may seem.”
While the agency of religion can constrict the individual’s material self in the sense that his choices are under judgment, it can provide hope in ‘uncertain times’ that certainty exists, while also providing symbolic agents for social reform.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.