{"id":11773,"date":"2013-08-18T21:14:20","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T02:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=11773"},"modified":"2013-08-18T21:31:42","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T02:31:42","slug":"mcgowan-god-contingency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/08\/18\/mcgowan-god-contingency\/","title":{"rendered":"mcgowan god contingency the other"},"content":{"rendered":"

The key to fighting against the nefarious effects of belief involves promulgating the recognition that<\/strong> we cannot but believe<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Armed with this recognition that God is a structural necessity rather than a being in whom we might opt to believe, we transform the believer\u2019s conception of God.<\/p>\n

Though in one sense widespread acceptance of the necessity of belief wouldn\u2019t change much, it would allow this transformation in the nature of what is believed. The subject who grasps belief as a necessity and God as a structural entity recognizes that even God doesn\u2019t know \u2013 and this is the fundamental recognition inherent in every politicization.<\/p>\n

If psychoanalysis is atheistic, it is atheistic in the sense that it insists that even though there is God qua gap in the signifying order, there is no knowledge in this gap. Or as Lacan puts it in Seminar XI<\/em> \u201cThe true formula of atheism is God is unconscious<\/em>.\u201d 253<\/p>\n

To know that the other in the gap doesn\u2019t know or that God is unconscious<\/span> <\/strong>is to understand that nothing grounds human existence. The recognition that nothing grounds human existence founds any genuinely emancipatory political project. 254<\/p>\n

Recognizing belief as necessary or God as unconscious requires an ability to see contingency at the point were explanations break down and where one typically posits the mysterious power of God.<\/p>\n

The place where the binary signifier <\/span>is missing represents the place where the contingent resides. 254<\/p>\n

Rather than stressing the godless nature of the universe or the inutility of faith, his film shows the contingency operating at the point of the absent signifier, where believers would locate God. <\/p>\n

Instead of God connecting everyone to each other, Babel<\/em> shows the contingent nature of the social bond. Contingency becomes the source of the link between disparate worlds, and the contingent encounter provides a possibility for the realization of this link. <\/p>\n

The contingent encounter forces the subject to confront a lack of knowledge concerning the other. One has no assurance about what the other desires, and no one can provide this assurance \u2013 not even the other itself. 257<\/p>\n

As Babel<\/em> shows, the contingent encounter offers the subject the opportunity to act \u2013 to thrust itself toward the other without any guarantee concerning how the other might respond. <\/p>\n

In doing so, it brings the subject back to the moment of its entry into symbolization and the point at which belief first manifests itself. 258<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The key to fighting against the nefarious effects of belief involves promulgating the recognition that we cannot but believe. Armed with this recognition that God is a structural necessity rather than a being in whom we might opt to believe, we transform the believer\u2019s conception of God. Though in one sense widespread acceptance of the … Continue reading “mcgowan god contingency the other”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jouissance","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11773"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11779,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773\/revisions\/11779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}