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Bernstein
Is Politics "Practicable"
without Religion?
The good Lord did not create religion: He created the world.
Franz Rosenzweig
34 social research
Critchley has been a sharp critic of Schmitt and the new Schmittians,
whether on the right or the left. And Critchley is a champion of the
type of anarchistic politics that Schmitt detested. So it may seem that
both the letter and the spirit of Schmitt and Critchley are absolutely
antithetical to each other. And they truly are. But as any careful reader
of Hegel (or Derrida) knows, what initially appears to be antithetical
has a curious and devious way of coming close to its opposite. Stating
my thesis more judiciously, I think that there is a deep stmcture that
Schmitt and Critchley sharea common framework that needs to be
exposed and challenged.
These are strong and controversial claims. They are not incidental to
Critchley's project: they are central. Initially, the claim that politics
requires political theology, that if politics is to become effective it must
have a religious dimension, appears to sound more like Schmitt than
any radical political thinkerespecially one who champions anar-
chism. But Critchley retorts: "It seems to me that the left has all too
easily ceded the religious ground to the right and it is this ground that
needs to be regained in a coherent, long-term, and tenacious war of
position, as Gramsci would say" (Critchley 2012, 25). In short, with-
out an appeal to rehgion, faith, transcendence and the sacred, politics
todaya radical leftist pohticsis not "practicable."^
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To properly appreciate what Critchley is saying and doing, I want
to make two prehminary comments. The first deals v^ath what I take to
be his primary concern, worry, and anxiety. It is a deep concern with
the possibihty of pohtics in the face of the "motivational deficit" that
is so pervasive and stifiing in liberal democratic societies. This motiva-
tional deficit leaves us vwth two completely unsatisfactory alternatives:
passive and active nihilism. The passive nihilist looks at the world and
finds it meaningless. He concludes that humans are simply rapacious
animals and he advocates that we should cultivate our own personal
projects and try to achieve a type of calm superior contemplation rather
than trying to change the world^we should be "pohtical realists." The
active nihihst believes that much of the modern world of capitalism,
liberal democracy, and secular humanism is meaningless and that "the
only way to remake meaning is through acts of spectacular destruc-
tion" (Critchley 2008, 5).
Critchley not only strongly resists both forms of nihilism; he
understands philosophical activity"the free movement of thought
and critical reflection" (2008, 2)to be defined by its militant resis-
tance to nihilism. In his earlier book. Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of
Commitment, Politics of Resistance, Critchley focused on current political
disappointment rather than religious disappointment, although he
acknowledged that these forms of disappointment are closely related.
But he has come to realize that these two forms of disappointment are
even more intimately related than he previously suggestedthat his
ethics of commitment and politics of resistance require a confronta-
tion with the religious dimension of politics and a proper political
theology. One of the deepest reasons Critchley turns to political theol-
ogy is because he is convinced that faiththe faith of the faithlessis
absolutely necessary if one is to honestly face the question of what
can "motivate a subject to act in concert with others." "[R]ationality
alone is insufficient" (2012,19).
My second conunent is that if we are to grasp what Critchley is
saying and doing, we have to fully appreciate how deeply paradoxical
his stance isand he is fully self-conscious about this. This is, of course.
38 social research
that dictatorship is the only way to confront the radical evil of human
beings, whereas the anarchists assume that man is essentially good and
therefore all govemmentthe source of evilis to be opposed.
Schmitt concludes his Political Theology with a grand rhetorical
flourish:
There is little doubt about where Schmitt stands in this grand battle.
When he describes Donoso Corts' belief that "the moral vanished v^dth
the theological, the political idea with the moral, and all moral and
political decisions are thus paralyzed in a paradisiacal worldhness of
immediate natural life and unproblematic concreteness" (1985, 65), he
is revealing his ovwi deepest convicons."*
The point that Schmitt is making here corresponds to one that is
also central to The Concept of the Political when he asserts that "all genu-
ine political theories presuppose man to be evil" (Schmitt 1996, 61).
There is an intimate connection between (genuine) political theories
and the theological dogma of original sin. "A theologian ceases to be a
theologian when he no longer considers man to be sinful" (1996, 64).
Schmitt's animus toward liberalism as well as anarchism is based on
his firm conviction that these doctrines do not really grasp the depth of
original sin and the evilness of human beings. They presuppose a naive
(and ultimately unpohtical) optimism that man is essentially "good."
Now what is striking about Critchley's experiments with political
theology is that he basically accepts the Schmittian frameworkthe
Schmittian way of posing the fundamental issue. Here are his words:
40 social research
It seems equally applicable to those passionately committed to the
most nefarious political causes as well as those committed to positive
Utopian ideals. Both may accept that the demand on them is an infinite
one. Furthermore, there is deep tension between this subjective strain
in this conception of faith and the political or communal strain. When
Critchley stresses that faith is the "enactment of self," this is an existen-
tial condition that makes sense in regard to a subject who is responsive
to an infinite calling. But politicscertainly the politics that Critchley
favorsinvolves collective action. There is a gap here between the
personal faith of an individual subject and the shared communal moti-
vation that is required for pohtical intervention. Although Critchley's
politics is antithetical to Schmitt's, there is nevertheless a Schmittian
element in the call for existential decisiveness in his characterization
of faith.
Critchley's characterization of faith seems to be at once too
narrow and too broad. It is too narrow because it is only applicable
to those who experience "the lived subjective commitment to an infi-
nite demand." This would certainly exclude most of those who profess
religious faith. But it is too broad because it is difficult to see what is
the difference that makes a difference between "faith" and a passion-
ate commitment to a cause or ideal to which one is vwlHng to dedicate
oneselfperhaps even die for. The concept of faith is in danger of being
banalized if it is used to encompass all forms of passionate commit-
ment to an ideal that one knows cannot be fully realizeda banaliza-
tion similar to the way in which Paul Tillich came close to identifying
religion with any "ultimate commitment." Why do we need political
theology to explain or account for this fundamental existential experi-
ence that is a defining trait of many dedicated activists, social reform-
ers, and revolutionaries?
We find similar problemsdcalagesin his analysis of "the
metaphorphoses of sacralization." Serious students of religion have
illuminated how the historical understanding of any of the great reli-
gions shows that they have undergone metaphorphoses of sacraliza-
tion. This is a dominant theme in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. But
This shift from the divine right of kings to the sovereignty of the
people is a metamorphosis of the sacred. But note how Critchley char-
acterizes this development: one fiction historically succeeds another
fiction. Here we touch upon a dcalage that stands at the very center of
Critchley's apologia for political theology and at the same time threat-
ens to explode it. The history of political forms can be approached by
the category of fictions. "Fiction" is not a negative term in Critchley's
vocabulary; it is not contrasted with fact. Indeed, fiction can be the high-
est expression of imaginative creativity. The appeal to political fictions
is intended to be a diagnostic tool for demythologizing those political
fictions that obscure the rottenness of political reahties. But Critchley
also wants to make a strong speculative claim when he advances his
idea of a "supreme fiction." Borrovwng from Wallace Stevens, Critchley
defines a supreme fiction in pohtics as a "fiction that we know to be a
fiction, but in which we nevertheless beheve" (2012, 91).^ This supreme
fiction allegedly enables us "to approach the problem of political legiti-
macy through poetic categories."
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Critchley's speculative hypothesis about supreme fictions
opens a Pandora's box of paradoxesand I think he knows this.
Suppose, for the moment, we grant Critchley's claims that "in the
realms of politics, law and religion there are only fictions" (2012, 91;
emphasis in original). The really hard questionthe political ques-
tionbecomes: How is one to evaluate competing supreme fictions?
Fictions, as Critchley understands them, have real-life consequences
frequently disastrous, violent consequences. Whether we are dealing
with a diagnosis of the succession of political fictions or proposing
some new supreme fiction, the cmcial issue becomes why we should
adopt one fiction rather than another. This is not an abstract issue.
Hannah Arendt emphasized that the "success" of totalitarianism is in
part due to the fictional world that it creates. But if we are to critique
totalitarianism or any other political fiction, then we must ask: What
is the basis for such a critique? How are we to distinguish, evaluate,
and judge "good" supreme fictions from nefarious supreme fictions?
Critchley comes dangerously close to Schmittian decisionismdecid-
ing for or against a supreme fiction is ultimately groundlessit is "an
absolute decision created out of nothingness."
I want to make it clear that I am not calling into question
Critchley's project of demythologizing political fictions. This is what
he takes to be a primary task of the philosopher concerned vwth real
politics. But I am questioning the grounds, if any, for choosing among
fictions. It is not sufficient to tell us that this involves a poetic task of
creative imagination. For this is just as tme of the political fictions that
Critchley condemns. If dem5^hologizing is a form of critique, then one
can always ask: Critique in the name of what? And if one is proposing
an alternative political fiction to one that is well entrenched, then it
must be defended and supported by argumentsnot simply passion-
ately affirmed.
There is an even more serious problem with Critchley's apologia
for an antitheistic political theology. We can discern this in his analy-
sis of Rousseau, but it is equally applicable to Critchley's own stance.
Critchley tells us that "Rousseau's thinking enacts a series of contradic-
[I]f the only law that I can follow is the law that I give
myselfa law that is the expression of the general v^dll, a
law that is consistent with my autonomy yet binding on all
members ofthe social groupthen by virtue of what does
this law have authority? The obvious answer is that if law is
nothing else but the act ofthe general vwU, then authority
becomes self-authorship. That is, there can be no higher
court of legal authority than autonomy. Yet, if authority
becomes self-authorship, then doesn't a legitimate polity
end up as a collective narcissus? Despite the immanen-
tist logic of Rousseau's argument, isn't there a need for a
moment of transcendent authority in law in order to bind
subjects to the law, a moment of radical externality or
heteronomy, like the function ofthe monarch in Hobbes? If
that is the case, if Rousseau also seems to need a mortal god
to animate his politics, then is such an authority conceiv-
able vwthout religion? (2012, 60)
The questions that Critchley raises at the end of this passage are not
merely "rhetorical." Leaving asidebracketinghis interpretation of
Rousseau, Critchley does think there is a need for the fiction of a tran-
scendent authority and that such authority is inconceivable v\dthout
rehgion. I think that Critchley puts his finger on a problem that stands
at the heart of modem political thinking: how to account for the way
in which a people can create an authority that binds themselves and
future subjects to the law. This problem is at the heart of explaining
the creation of modem constitutions, explaining the pouvoir constituant
of a people. For the creation of a constitution is intended to bind future
subjects to its law.
But I am skeptical ofthe claim that we need a political theology
to confront the paradox of sovereignty. And my reason for being skep-
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tical is itself based on Critchley's own reasoning. If we take seriously
his sketch of a theory of political fictions, then we must realize that it
is "we" human beings who write poetry and create fictionsinclud-
ing political fictions. It is "we" human beings who create our gods
and postulate a transcendent source for legitimation. Fictions do not
WTite or invent themselves; "we" create them. Presumably Critchley's
appeal to religion and political theology is to find a motivating source
of political legitimation and authority. But what he is actually show-
ing is that this legitimation and authority is created by human beings.
This is not political theology but rather its antithesis. I can easily
imagine Carl Schmitt claiming that when we dem3rthologize what
Critchley means by political theology it turns out to be a version of
the humanism that Schmitt ridiculed and despised.
One of the reasons for the current seductive fascination vdth Carl
Schmitt is the sharpness with which he draws his dichotomies. Even
his severest critics have to admire his rhetorical ability in condemn-
ing an3^hing that tries to escape these either/ors. The most famous
dichotomy is the friend/enemy distinction, which he claims is "the
specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can
be reduced" (1996, 26). This dichotomy is shaped by Schmitt's views
on original sin and his belief that all state and political ideas can be
tested by whether "they consciously or unconsciously presuppose man
to be by nature evil or by nature good." Schmitt's stance is even stron-
ger because he claims "all genuine pohtical theories presuppose man to
be evil" (1996, 61). Consequently, any political theory that presupposes
human beings to be good is not a "genuine political theory"and this
includes both liberalism and anarchism. Furthermore, this dichotomy
between competing anthropologies is closely related to the antagonism
between authoritarian and anarchist theories. Strictly speaking, there
is no liberal politics, only a liberal critique of politics.
Critchley basically accepts these Schmittian dichotomies. His
animus against existing liberal democraciesalthough coming from
the leftis as strong as Schmitt's. Critchley wants to turn the tables
on Schmitt. Secularized or naturahzed doctrines of original sin are still
46 social research
relates in Eichmann injemslem. Anton Schmitt was a German soldier
who secretly helped Jewish partisans in Poland by supplying them vwth
forged papers and trucks. He was apprehended by the Germans and
executed. When the story of Anton Schmitt was told in the Jerusalem
court it was as if those present observed a two minute silence. Arendt's
comment beautifully captures its significance.
48 social research
acteristic of liberalism. His most famous "put dovioi" of deliberation
is when he tells us that for Donoso Corts liberalism "answers the
question 'Christ or Barabbas?' with a proposal to adjourn or appoint a
commission of investigation" (1985, 62). More basically, the very way
in which Schmitt structures his discussion of "the political" leaves us
with only two possibilities: either we falsely think that law and politics
can be based on norms or we recognize the primacy of the event of
decision. Remember that Schmitt speaks of "a pure decision not based
on reason and discussion and not justifying itself, that is, to an absolute
decision created out of nothingness" (1985, 66). This is what my student
Santiago Rey has labeled "the Mjrth ofthe Presuppositionless Decision."
What gets excluded here is any serious consideration of the type of
deliberation and judgment required for making political decisions.
50 social research
presence of others 'in whose place' it must think, whose perspectives
it must take into consideration, and v^dthout whom it never has the
opportunity to operate at all Judgment, to be valid, depends on the
presence of others" (Arendt 2006, 217).
It strikes me that the type of deliberation and formation of judg-
ment that I am emphasizing is in fact integral to the very type of pohtics
of resistance that Critchley favors. Of course there are no algorithms for
making such judgments and we have to face the possibility that our best
judgments may lead to disastrous consequences. Critchley is extremely
sensitive to the type of judgment that I am sketching even though he
does not thematize its centrality. As I have already indicated, this is
especially clear where he speaks of nonviolence as a guiding principle
but one that can never completely rule out those exceptional circum-
stances in which violence is demanded. My concern is that Critchley
(like Schmitt) fails to elucidate the type of political judgment that is
needed to make sense of our political decisionsand that he fails to
show us how religion or pohtical theology is required for understand-
ing and making political judgments. And like many thinkers today who
have become fascinated with the "Event," Critchley succumbs to the
temptation to focus almost exclusively on the event of decision rather
than how we judgmentally reach our decisions.
Introducing the theme of political judgment also has conse-
quences for Critchley's understanding of faith and fiction. I certainly
want to affirm that a politics of resistance requires a refusal to submit
to the seductions of a "political realism." Critique demands that we
emphasize the gap between the ugly political realities we confront and
the ideals that we seek to realize or approximate. This is the tension
that is required to keep open the space for effective political action. And
this requires a faith in a defensible ideal of justice, equality, and free-
dom that stands opposed to what presently exists and that can provide
a motivating force for political action. This conception of faith is close
to what William James described when he argued that such a faith that
goes beyond the facts plays a vital role in bringing about a new reahty.
But this type of faiththe passionate commitment to ideals that guide
52 social research
thought experiments, satire, humor, telling likely stories, and using
rhetorical devices to make a "fiction" as motivationally attractive as
possiblebut it also involves argumentation and judgment. And this
is what Critchley really practices. I sometimes dream of the day when
philosophers are no longer obsessed with the Cartesian Anxiety, learn
the lessons that Nietzsche tried to teach us, and honestly face up to the
bricolage of what we actually do when we seek to "justify" our most
cherished and central convictions and commitments.
One final comment. In the preface to his classic, Spinoza and
Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason, Yimiyahu Yovel declares, "Above
all [Spinoza] put forward a radically new philosophical principle that I
call the philosophy of immanence. It views this-worldly existence as all
there is, as the only actual being and the sole source of ethical value"
(1989, ix). Yovel seeks to show how the philosophy of immanence is
developed and deepened in Goethe, Heine, Marx, and Freud. And, of
course, one can add many other thinkers committed to this philoso-
phy of immanence, including Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. But we are
living in a time when this philosophy of immanence is under attack
by political theologya political theology that argues that immanence
is not enough, that we must appeal to transcendence. And this "tran-
scendence" is not a horizontal transcendence whereby we strive to
transcend what is given in order to realize our ideals, but a vertical,
"exterior" transcendence that presumably grounds our immanence
our "this worldly existence."
Where does Critchley stand in the opposition between a philoso-
phy of immanence and political theology of transcendence? I suspect
he might say that he rejects this dichotomy or that, in a paradoxical
sense, he stands on both sides. The faith of the faithless is the faith of
"this worldly existence as all there is, as the only actual being and the
sole source of ethical value." Yet he also wants to maintain that the
faith of the faithless must believe in the supreme fiction of a transcen-
dent realm that is "exterior" to our immanence. I do not believe that
he has justified this central thesis. I actually believe thatdespite his
explicit intentionshis political theology really amounts to a sophisti-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper was originally presented at a conference on political theol-
ogy at the New School for Social Research in November 2011.
NOTES
1. For the purposes of this paper I am not making a sharp distinction
between "rehgion" and "pohtical theology." I am extremely skepti-
cal about the meaning and use ofthe generic expression "rehgion"
because it explicitly or implicitly suggests that there is something
commonor even that there are strong family resemblances
among the phenomena that we frequently call "religions." I doubt
this. "Political theology" has come to mean reflection on the political
significance of such "rehgious" phenomena as faith, revelation, the
sacred, original sin, etc. But given the vagueness of both terms, it is
difficult to draw a careful distinction between them.
2. Critchley makes it perfectly clear that he has come to this conclusion
"with no particular joy":
54 social research
"an avowedly immanent conception of pohtical autonomy requires
an appeal to franscendence and heteronomy that appears to under-
mine it." But, as Critchley makes clear, this does not simply charac-
terize the intricacies of Rousseau's texts, but "can be used to cast
hght on the intrication of pohtical and rehgion in the contemporary
world" (2012, 9).
4. The German pohtical theorist Heinrich Meier has argued tenaciously
and persistently that the unifying center of Schmitt's thought is
political theology, specifically his faith in revelation. I agree vwth
those critics who argue that Meier exaggerates the role of politi-
cal theology for understanding all of Schmitt's jurispmdential and
pohtical thinking. I also reject the stark alternative that Meier pres-
ents between pohtical theology (Carl Schmitt) and pohtical philos-
ophy (Leo Strauss). Nevertheless, a close reading of Schmitt's texts
reveal the depth of Schmitt's commitment to a distinctive version of
Christian pohtical theology. For a more detailed critique of Schmitt
see Bemstein (2011).
5. Critchley borrows this idea of a supreme fiction from Wallace
Stevens' poem "Notes toward a Supreme Fiction." He quotes Stevens;
"The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a
fiction, there is nothing else. The exquisite tmth is to know that it is
a fiction and that you believe it v^dllingly" (2012; 91).
6. There is a dazzhng discussion of mystical anarchism in his book; a
revolutionary eschatology at the basis of millenarian belief that
gained great popularify in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Although Critchley is skeptical of eschatological behef, he seeks to
show that what animates it "is a form of faith-based communism that
draws its strength from the poor, the marginal and the dispossessed"
(2012,11).
REFERENCES
Arendt, Hannah. 1965. Eichmann inJerusalem: The Banality ofEvil. New York;
Viking Press.
. 2006. Between Past and Future. New York; Penguin.
56 social research
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