from the site : An und für sich When I hear the word “radical center,” I reach for my gun Wednesday, September 29, 2010 — Adam Kotsko I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if someone is trying to sell you a solution that purports to be “beyond Left and Right” and is anything other than plain old liberalism, what they’re trying to sell is _fascism_ (http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2010/09/28/3023727.htm?topic1=&topic2= ) . Indeed, I eagerly await the Milbank article that will lament the fact that the laudable legacy of Italian fascism has been tarred through its unfortunate association with Nazism. (His dissociation of Schmitt from the authentic Catholic political tradition is a nice step down this path already, though.) Another highlight of this article is its strange emphasis on Methodism. Excluded from the good kinds of Christianity, though not explicitly mentioned: Lutheran and Reformed traditions, presumably because of their voluntarist (i.e., nihilist) foundations. Weirdly, though, Islam, which is surely the ultimate in voluntarism in Milbank’s mind, gets a couple positive references — continuing the pattern of opportunism in his recent articles, where he’ ll happily take up an alliance with, for example, Enlightenment values when it serves his immediate rhetorical purposes. In addition, his desire to reform the House of Lords, presumably to make it more aristocratic, might help him to find an audience in Tea Party circles, where it’s become something of a trend to try to roll back the popular election of senators and go back to an appointment system. I could also definitely see the “Big Society” idea catching on among Tea Partiers, above all because it sounds really principled but doesn’t come anywhere close to representing an actual political program. ---------------------------- Selected Comments : I have no immediate love for Millbank, but I can’t help thinking that there is an option ‘beyond left or right’ that is not tired liberalism or fascism. Perhaps this possibility is not politically viable at this time, but I wouldn’t put limits on the possibility of changing the coordinates of the political spectrum in the future. --- So I guess we won’t be getting funding for a Center for Radical Theology anytime soon…? --- “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if someone is trying to sell you a solution that purports to be ‘beyond Left and Right’ and is anything other than plain old liberalism, what they’re trying to sell is fascism.” I think you may have jumped the shark with that one. The statement is just begging for either qualification or deconstruction. --- There seems to be a conflation here between the British left-liberals of a, yes, admittedly secularist bent (Johann Hari springs to mind and obviously Dawkins) who maybe support New Labour (? – seems they have been incredibly critical of it, and the market in Hari’s case) and the kind of radical philosophy and theory in academia that uses Nietzsche, Heidegger and Schmitt, which the Sokal shouting left-liberals in Britain despise as ‘postmodern claptrap’ and in its academic register write the kind of books defending liberalism against Schmitt. I think its kind of odd to think left-wingers tout court whole-heartedly embrace Heidegger, Nietzsche and Schmitt when things such as the De Man affair and Emmanuel Faye’s work happen. Indeed, the scholarship attacking Nietzsche which Milbank draws upon (see the new Introduction to the second edition of TST) to remind that he was very right-wing in his nineteenth century context was published as _an overview in_ (http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2548) the New Left Review and was completed by a Marxists (Domenico Losurdo and Jan Rehmann). --- No offense to the currently present British folk, but phrases like “the growing hostility to the Crown” just rubs this atheistic Marxist the wrong way – makes me want to chant “Down with Monarchy!” but it feels so 19th century, doesn’t it? Plus, the opening of the piece – “For some time I have noticed a curious phenomenon amongst [insert a group]” – is such a classic condescendo-assholish move that it’s hard to move past it to the actual content, whatever it is. --- I am relieved that Milbank has made it possible, through his use of “ radical centre,” to return to a serious consideration of the collected works of David Held, Tony Giddens, and that Blair guy. I feel they were neglected through the mid-nineties and into the start of the new millennium.
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