Night Waves
Well it’s a good thing I listen to Night Waves occasionally, or I never would have known about this – which makes me think I really ought to shout at I mean remonstrate with Julian for not telling me, because I can hardly imagine anything more directly up B&W’s street. Well I ask you – two of the four panelists have contributed to B&W, and one of those two contributes on a regular basis, often, every two weeks, or thereabouts. So listen to it – it’s as interesting as it sounds.
The only trouble is, Nighwaves makes the usual tedious stupid mistake and has a theologian join in, and he does way too much of the talking, and says fatuous things (as theologians do). Really, it is irritating. He says a lot of things that aren’t true, for one thing – the usual guff about science thinking it knows everything and scientists thinking they should run everythng blah blah blah. It’s all crap; scientists don’t think that. Straw man stuff, and a waste of time, when they could have had more of the interesting stuff from Norman Levitt and Julian and A S Byatt. (Julian got a dig in, when he said ethics panels are not run by scientists but by other people, philosophers, a lot of them – and also theologians, for no particularly good reason. Yeah, thought I.) They are such a waste of time and attention, and yet they keep being asked. It is annoying. He did the ‘why’ thing, too, of course – you know – ‘science can’t answer the why questions.’ Oh right and you can?! How do you answer them, you blathering git? By making it up, that’s how! Why does that count?! Your answer is completely worthless, it’s just what you want to believe, and we’re supposed to think that makes theology better able to answer than science is because science just says it doesn’t know and the question is probably not answerable? Making up a weak silly wish-fulfilling answer is not better than saying ‘Dunno’! It’s not! God I hate theologians.
But apart from Philip Blond it’s very good indeed. Check it out.
Just listened. Byatt, Baggini and Levitt let Philip Blond get away with far too much. I know they were being careful not to come over as shrill, but once again I was left with the sinking feeling that the god squad had successfully peddled its snake oil.
I know, I know, I had the same feeling of frustration, that they were too polite and gentle. Of course as you say they couldn’t help it. In fact they didn’t really let Blond do anything; it’s the show itself, the way it was set up, and the moderator, who did that. He had Blond speak first, he called on him too often, he let him interrupt way too much. The others couldn’t really counter that without sounding like thugs. Typical. Don’t know if it’s post-Jerry Springer BBC-timidity, or permanent BBC-religion-pampering (Thought for the Day type thing) or just the structure of this particular show – which was premised on the question, ‘is there a problem with science?’. Without Blond, no one would have said yes, so then where would they have been?
Philip Blond – a name that makes me shudder. I read some of his work during my BA. He’s a part of a loose movement of theologians gathered under the banner ‘radical orthodoxy’. They are the theological equivalent of the kind of postmodern writers exposed in Fashionable Nonsense. Here’s a quote from Blond’s introduction to the book Post-Secular Philosophy: ‘the secular gaze objectifies the visible world into its ontic possession’. Essentially meaningless.
Ah – thanks for that, Edmund. I’d never heard of him before.
Not only essentially meaningless, but likely to sound deeply meaningful and meaningfully deep to the uninitiated – which is no doubt why he gets invited on Night Waves.
Edmund Standing:
Actually, all the proffered quotation is saying is that the “secular mentality” is covetous. What else would you expect a theologian to say?
John: So why didn’t he just say that? Seriously?
catherinej:
He did say that, only in jargon. Academic reputation to keep up, you see.
On the other hand, I only was treated to one sentence of prestidigitation, so it’s beyond my telepathic powers to understand the whole context and any implications.
JH, why are you pointing out the obvious as if that’s helpful? We know he’s a theologian and therefore says what theologians say, we know academic jargon props up reputation – that’s what we’re criticising. Just saying ‘well that’s how these things are’ is not interesting. We’re bent on criticising how things are, here – so don’t bother telling us that’s what we’re doing, okay? It’s obvious and tedious.
Thanks for that, I needed the break from round the clock coverage of this major royal wedding postponement disaster!
Now I didn’t even know the royal do had been postponed…
Oh, I see – because of the pope. That’s why I’m avoiding the news: to avoid endless pope-slobbering. He was a murderous reactionary (cf. Vatican condom policy), not the greatest thing since the invention of the zipper.
Emm…I was asked a question and answered it honestly, without malice aforethought.
So Phillip Blond is some sort of neo-neo-Barthesian and not a porno star. But the trope itself is Augustinian and has been long since endlessly repeated. No matter how tedious, it still bears consideration, precisely because of its repetitive reiteration. Consider, e.g., how Kant, that arch-rationalist, stigmatized mere reasoning, using the French import-word “Raesonieren”. That’s entirely in line with the said tradition. But dogmatic objection to dogmatism,- (for all that one would rather “fight” than understand),- is hardly the best tactic, since it risks reproducing what it claims to oppose. If the undoing of dogmatism is tedious, it’s hard to see that as more than a stylistic objection.
Oh is that what you’re doing – you’re undoing dogmatism. I didn’t realize. No, of course, you’re right, the undoing of dogmatism is not necessarily tedious, and calling it such is also mostly a stylistic objection (which is pretty obvious because of the word ‘tedious’ – kind of a giveaway, that, which is why I chose it). But then sometimes stylistic objections can have substantive overtones and/or implications.
As for the fact that the trope bears consideration – well that’s what we’re doing: considering it.