Awhile ago, Roger Mugs started a ‘Big Sin Meme‘, asking bloggers: ‘If you were to be taken out by one sin (or a couple, whatever) what would it be?’
Not surprisingly, the big three (money, sex, power) showed up frequently in the responses of various bloggers. However, as I’ve thought about this question on-and-off for the last few weeks, I think those answers are a bit of a cop-out.
I mean, sure, most anybody has the potential to be taken out by any combination of these three things, but I’m more interested in asking what sin is there in my life that is already acting as an obstacle and has the potential to do future damage? Thus, rather than positing some hypothetical scenario that may or may not occur in the future, I’m more interested in asking myself, ‘What is the big sin in my life that is already ‘taking me out’?’
The answer? I am convinced that my desire for recognition from others is the ‘big sin’ in my life that does take me out, and has the potential to totally do me in, in the future. That is to say, it is the search for (increased) status that I think could be very devastating in my own life.
Now, I don’t think that I’m alone in my struggle with this sin. In fact, in a world dominated by capitalism, in what Guy Debord refers to the ‘Society of the Spectacle’, the ubiquity and force of brands, and the process of branding, tends to reduce us to self-disciplining, self-branding individuals. Hence, each one of us is driven to advance our own personal brand status. There are many seemingly contradictory ways of pursuing this — increasing my own brand status as a competent businessperson, increasingly my own brand status as a committed clergy member, increasingly my own brand status as a radical Christian — but the contradictions between these paths are often more apparent than actual. In one way or another, we become enmeshed in the pursuit of status and the marketing of Me™.
Now, there are a few things that make this search for status especially insidious. First of all, is the observation that branding is primarily about image. We advance our own brands not by being a certain way, or by doing certain things but, first and foremost, by appearing in certain ways. Hence, I affirm Debord’s observation that in the Society of the Spectacle — wherein social relationships between people are mediated by images — social being has devolved from being (pre-capitalism), through having (early capitalism), to appearing (contemporary or ‘late’ capitalism). This means that we are all inclined to desire to appear to be a certain way, and are not accustomed to thinking about whether or not who we actually are aligns with this appearance — or, rather, we are used to thinking that we are who we appear to be, when this is usually not the case. (This, by the way, is why Žižek can refer to ‘culture’ as ‘the name for all those things we practice without really believing in them, without “taking them seriously.”‘  This then, Žižek argues, is why we treat fundamentalists as a barbaric threat to our culture — ‘they dare to take their beliefs seriously’.)
Thus, I can’t help but ask myself: am I truly living as a person committed to the Way of Jesus Christ, or am I simply manifesting a simulacrum thereof (NB: the notion of simulacra is how Jean Baudrillard develops Debord’s reflections on the Spectacle)? The simulacrum part comes fairly easily — it’s low-cost and carries a high pay-off. Let me give a few examples:

1. I work with street-involved youth and have spent quite a bit of time with sex workers. This gains me a lot of ‘Christian radical’ respect dollars. But, really, it’s a job, and I get paid to do it. It’s a far cry from solidarity with the marginalised or that sort of thing.
2. I spent a couple of years living in the poorest urban neighbourhood in Canada (Oooo! Ahhh!) in an ‘intentional community’. However, I found it very easy to live in that neighbourhood but not really engage the community or become known by our neighbours. Again, I gain a lot of ‘Christian radical’ respect dollars, but the cost, for me, is quite low — a far cry from the costly discipleship we are called to in Christ.
3. I have a blog (with a picture of one of the alleys in Vancouver’s downtown eastside!) which I use to talk about issues of justice, solidarity, cruciformity and so on. This also gains me ‘Christian radical’ respect dollars, but it costs me pretty much nothing. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about things like solidarity, but that talk is a far cry from actually practising solidarity.

So, I don’t know if the search for (brand) status will take me out in the future, but it’s already doing a number on me now!
Secondly, this search for status is insidious because it necessarily produces hypocrisy. Here it is important to precisely define what the bible means when it speaks of ‘hypocrisy’. In particular, the bible doesn’t usually mean what we think it means — people who just play a role and ‘fake’ being good or whatever. Rather, according the the bible, ‘hypocrisy’ describes ‘a person whose conduct is not determined by God and is thus ‘godless.” (I’m indebted to Joel B. Green’s commentary on Luke for this understanding). Hence, hypocrites are not ‘play-actors’ but those who are ‘misdirected in their fundamental understanding of God’s purpose and, therefore, incapable of discerning the authentic meaning of Scripture and, therefore, unable to present anything other than the impression of piety’ (Green again).
Therefore, when we act out of the desire to advance our own brand status, we are acting as hypocrites because our focus is on ourselves, not upon God’s purposes (even if we talk a lot about those). We are acting as godless people and all of our (highly praised!) actions are simply impressions of piety — simulacra of piety.
Again, applying this to myself and to the whole notion of ‘Christian radicals’, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus’ criticisms of the Pharisees are more directly aimed at me, and others in this bracket, and not at the figureheads of the type of Christianity that dominated modernity (I reckon Jesus’ words to the Sadducees are more convicting for that lot!).
Thirdly, this search for status is insidious because it is self-destructive. This is true across the board but is, perhaps, most easily observed in the search for respect one finds in street-culture. ‘Respect’ (i.e. status) is one of the dominant themes in street-culture. Thus, for example, people are willing to beat, torture, and kill others, if they feel disrespected — even in very small ways (say you look at a person wrong, you make the wrong joke at the wrong time, etc.). Yet this desire for respect then develops into a downward spiral, as Philippe Bourgois notes in In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio: ‘although street culture emerges from a personal search for dignity and a rejection of racism and subjugation, it ultimately becomes an active agent in personal degradation and community ruin’. The same is true of other more acceptable or middle-class efforts to attain respect and status.
Thus, to once again apply this to myself, by simply posing as a person who loves others in ‘radical’ ways, I am in fact doing no good and thereby contribute to the ongoing oppression of the poor and the maintenance of the status quo wherein all of us are dehumanised.
In conclusion, I find it particularly interesting that the New Testament voices, especially the voices of Jesus and Paul, are united in an unrelenting campaign against social ways of being that are driven by the notion of status. It is interesting how, in the world of contemporary capitalism (wherein social relationships are mediated by the process of branding) we find ourselves in a situation that has some amazing parallels to the Graeco-Roman world in the first-century CE. Both of these cultures were and are dominated by the desire for status, and both of these cultures were and are confronted with a Gospel that overthrows this desire and replaces it with a call to show unconditional hospitality, serve all people, and (tangibly) love even our enemies. Rather than being motivated by notions of status, we are called to disregard such issues and humiliate ourselves in the service of others.

I’ve noticed that more and more manifestos are being published these days.  We have an ‘evangelical manifesto‘, an ‘emergent manifesto‘, a ‘new Christian manifesto‘ and I’m sure I could multiply examples (heck, one of the blogs I link to is called ‘Jesus Manifesto‘).
Now, by definition, a ‘manifesto’ is ‘a public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature’ but I think our recent love of manifestos goes beyond the dictionary definition of the word.  Indeed, in contemporary discourse, I believe that this term carries ‘radical’ or ‘counter-cultural’ connotations, largely because of the work we must commonly associate with the notion of manifestos — The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.
Thus, by publishing this range of manifestos, I believe that the various authors are might be appealing to these connotations, in order to brand themselves as radicals, or counter-cultural, or cutting-edge, or whatever.  This, of course, is just another way of pro/claiming an higher status than others.  To be radical is, primarily, to be more radical than others.  To be counter-cultural is, primarily, to be more cool than others.  To be cutting-edge is, primarily, to be more advanced than others.  It’s a move made in comparison to others — it’s a power-play.
Furthermore, this use of language is often both a symptom and a cause of the drift from living genuinely different lives, to claiming ‘radical’ language while continuing to live lives that are little different than others.  Hence, the use of ‘radical’ language becomes of means of claiming higher status, while not actually changing one’s own life.
It’s a sweet deal, no?
Unfortunately, even those who are genuinely attempting to integrate what they say with how they live, still often fall into this brand-status trap, by continuing to use language that has been so thoroughly co-opted.  It is not necessary to call ourselves ‘radicals’, it is not necessary to call our publications ‘manifestos’ and yet we continue to use this language and by doing so — whether we intend to our not — we engage in an act of self-branding that carries repercussions related to our own status and, particularly, how others perceive our status.
It’s a sticky situation, eh?

One Gypsy Punk band playing live + several drinks + good friends + dancing = one seriously broken ankle + one major surgery + several prescription painkillers. Damn.

Not that I know anything about this stuff, but I reckon that, if the global markets were to crash and we were to be heading for some sort of Great Depression at some point in the future then… well… then it makes sense for the Spirit to begin stirring now-ish in order to create communities of Christians who are learning how to share the basic elements of life, who are economically dependent upon one another, who are making connections across national boundaries, and who are trying to bridge the gap between the West and the Rest of the world.

The deeper we root Jesus’ actions, and his embrace of powerlessness and suffering, at the heart of God’s character, the harder it becomes to posit a Jesus who returns triumphantly to judge the world and make all things new.
That is to say, if Jesus reveals to us a cruciform God, and if Jesus’ act on the cross are an act of “family resemblance” to a God defined by suffering, humble love (as Michael Gorman argues), then returning to impose the kingdom of God upon the world (rather than inviting others to participate in the kingdom, like Jesus did the first time around) seems somewhat problematical.
After all, it seems to me that this notion of God’s humility and cruciformity has been one of the foundations for our acceptance of this whole terribly messy history of the world.  If God is humble, suffering, and ever inviting — if God is like Jesus — then it makes sense that God hasn’t simply put an end to all of this already.  If God is revealed as a suffering servant, then it makes sense that God hasn’t rushed in to knock some heads together and sort things out.  However, the question then becomes this: if God hasn’t sorted things out by now, if God is committed to inviting us, and working with us, then what is the foundation for God to return to us in order to finally make all things new?  Doesn’t the return of Jesus seem like exactly the type of forceful act that Jesus refused to practice in the first place?
So, I would be curious to hear how others might resolve this apparent contradiction.  How does a triumphant and forceful return fit with a cruciform God?
I mean, maybe this explains the so-called ‘delay of the Parousia’ — maybe Jesus left thinking, ‘I’ll be back soon!’ and then, once he had time to think about things, he realised that returning with force would be to contradict his own character and commitments.  Maybe he’s been sitting in heaven the last two thousand years thinking, ‘hot damn, how do I get out of this one?!’

In the dominion of death, the agents of life may often appear to be grotesque or terrifying.  Those whom we fear, may be the agents of our salvation.

Having completed the review of Mobsby, I will now review and reflect upon The emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin.  I will then conclude with some comments upon the ’emerging church’ movement more broadly.
Review of Sanguin
Sanguin’s book has a different objective than Mobsby’s.  While Mobsby was primarily interested in applying a form of social trinitarianism to Christian living, Sanguin is interested in helping pastors to engage in a culture-shift in order to find the abundant life promised by Jesus.  Thus, Sanguin wishes to see traditional mainline churches evolve  in centres of Spirit-animated creativity within the culture of postmodernity.
The language of ‘evolving’ is important to Sanguin, because he bases his understanding of ‘creative emergence’ upon the evolutionary model of nature.  So, he writes, ‘We are meant to evolve.  If the Spirit is involved in the evolutionary process — as I believe is the case — then we need to start thinking about our lives in Christ through an evolutionary lens’.  Thus Sanguin wishes to find churches meeting the challenges of postmodernity by shifting from a ‘redemption-centred theological model’ to a ‘creation-centred, evolutionary Christian theology’.  This is accomplished  by embracing the evolutionary principles of novelty, self-organisation, and a combination of transcendence and inclusion (by which Sanguin means that the new transcends the old, but includes everything that was good in the old — ‘everything that has worked in the past is brought forward’).  Hence, embracing an evolution and engaging in culture-shift is the way in which be become more truly our own selves.
Key to this shift is a movement from a ‘redemption-centred theological model’, which leaves people as passive recipients of otherworldly salvation, to a ‘creation-centred, evolutionary Christian theology’, which emphasises the grace found in nature, and emphasises our role as creative actors within the world.  From within this model, redemption is understood as that which liberates us to becomes ‘centres of creative emergence’, for ‘our problem is not innate sinfulness.  It’s foolishness.  We’ve lost our way… What we need is spiritual wisdom, not the removal of original sin.’
Okay, that takes us to the end of Chapter One.  I will spend less time on the other chapters because the key principles are laid out at the beginning, and the following chapters go on to function as a road map for those engaging in a culture shift.  Thus, Chapter Two speaks of the importance of hand-picking a ‘think tank’ to initiate this process, Chapter Three speaks of establishing non-negotiables , Chapter Four he speaks of engaging in self-definition by establishing a vision and a mission, Chapter Five speaks of establishing a value statement to guide the ethos of the congregation, and Chapter Six speaks of understanding the various ways in which people in your congregation understand Christ.
Chapter Seven is definitely the oddest chapter, and it speaks of ‘morphic fields’ which cause space to function as a ‘generative matrix’ for our own becoming.  Our own congregational morphic field is understood as the corporate personality of the congregation, or, as Sanguin also calls it, ‘the angle’ of the congregation.
Chapter Eight then lays out the psychological foundation for leadership stressing the importance of counseling psychology, and personal therapy, in order to develop four key interior conditions: self-definition, connections across differences, emotional intelligence, and an awareness of our (Jungian) ‘shadow’ side.  From the psychological, Sanguin moves to spiritual foundations for leadership in Chapter Nine, stressing the importance of stillness, theological reflection, compassion, and creativity.
From foundations for leaders, Sanguin moves to pitfalls for leaders in Chapter 10, and especially criticises models that require the pastor to be the care-giver for the entire congregation.  Noting that most people can only effectively care for ten to twelve people, Sanguin argues that the pastor should be more of a spiritual leader than a personal caregiver, and that other networks of care should be affirmed and developed within the congregation  Chapter Eleven then goes on to speak of how to care for those external to the congregation, like new comers.  He speaks of the importance of having good music, exciting and encouraging sermons, employing various forms of media and so on.
Finally, in Chapter Twelve Sanguin speaks of how to establish a board.  He then concludes by stressing the importance of approaching congregations as centres of creative emergence, and includes a postscript mapping out some of the mistakes he has made along the way.
This, then, is how Sanguin summarises what he is trying to do:

culture-shifting — moving from a membership paradigm to a discipleship paradigm; from a redemption focus to a creation-centred focus; from a pastoral care model that demands that clergy function as personal chaplains to a model based on small group ministry; from seeing the role of the laity as helping out the minister to implementing the spiritual principle of ministry anywhere, anytime, by anybody; from asking people to serve on committees, to inviting them to participate in spiritual-gifts-based ministry; from a bureaucracy of mistrust to a bureaucracy of trust.

Reflection
Again, as with Mobsby, I am glad to see Sanguin seeking a living, vibrant expression of faith that engages with the world in which we live.  However, I do have a number of concerns.
First of all, Sanguin’s evolutionary model strikes me as naively optimistic.  Stated simply, it appears to assert that ‘every day in every way we are getting better and better’ (to quote Coué ).  Yet this fails to account for how evolution actually plays out in nature.  Evolution has been a violent process — survival of the fittest — wherein the strong prey on the weak, the healthy devour the sick, and where the strengths of the defeated are not necessarily taken over and further developed by the victors.  Thus, to use a social development example (since Sanguin’s evolutionary model applies to these situations), perhaps the Romans in the late Empire thought that they were the most evolved of all Romans… yet they were overwhelmed by the Goths and Europe was plunged into the ‘dark ages’ as many of the insights of Antiquity were lost for hundreds of years.  Consequently, I don’t think we can be as certain as Sanguin that all development is good development.  Instead, we need some sort of criteria to guide our development, but these criteria seem to be most absent in Sanguin’s book, since he simply asserts that our process of development is guided by Spirit, whom we can trust to take us where we need to go.
Furthermore, I found this evolutionary model to be an odd starting place for what Sanguin wants to do.  However, I think (but am not sure) that Sanguin starts here because he is operating from a paradigm that prioritises nature, and wishes to see us as all connected, and as all part of one big process.
This leads me to my second point.  I have some questions about the Christ affirmed by Sanguin.  Sanguin posits that people at various stages of their own evolutionary development understand Christ in different ways.  Thus, those on the lower levels understand Christ as a warrior.  Move a little higher and we have the traditional Christ as a divine scapegoat, a little higher still and we get the demythologised Christ as a CEO.  Then, in the upper stages of evolutionary development, we have people who affirm an egalitarian postmodern Christ, an ecological cosmic Christ and, ultimately, ‘the Mystical Christ.’  This is how Sanguin describes those at this most recent stage:

At this level, the world is experienced — not merely conceptualized — as one.  A follower of Christ does not merely perceive this universe as an integrated whole.  She knows herself to be a form of the integrated whole, the part in whom the whole is manifest.  The great diversity of life is also an expression of the Holy One.

This perspective is then supported by appeals to the Christ of John’s Gospel (who prays that we may be one, etc.) and to Paul’s understanding of our being ‘in Christ’.
Now, apart from the fact that Sanguin is doing violence to the texts at hand (more on that in a minute), what this actually looks like is a Christian gloss over an amalgamation of New Age spirituality, pantheism, and Westernised Buddhism.  What we have here is actually an affirmation of unity-within-diversity that puts an end to any real (or metaphysical) difference.  Now, this may work in some religious traditions, but to some how connect this thinking to Christianity (even in an ‘evolved’ form) suggests to me that this evolved form of Christianity is so different than that which came before, that perhaps it is best not to call this Christianity at all.  Maybe that just confuses the issue.  (But, then again, this raises the question of who has the right to define what is truly ‘Christian’ so maybe I’d rather not open up that can of worms.)
However, it is worth pointing out that this abolition of any real difference then leads to a negation of difference between religious systems.  Thus, for example, Sanguin speaks of how his church is populated by progressive Muslims as Muslims, Sikhs as Sikhs, Christians as Christians, Buddhists as Buddhists, and so on.  Sanguin sees this as a practice of ‘radical hospitality’ (which is why he also continually stresses that pastors should only speak ‘good news’ from the pulpit) and which, I suspect, is why Sanguin’s favourite name for God is Spirit.  The term is sufficiently vague and broad for Sanguin’s purposes.  Unfortunately, I do have questions about this type of hospitality.  To begin with, I think that it is self-defeating.  As Vinoth Ramachandra has noted recently, communities that downplay difference are often more traumatised, and react more violently, when something truly different appears; whereas communities that recognise the genuine depth of differences are more likely to respond peaceably to traumatic situations.  Furthermore, I question the liberating potential of this approach as it seems to be one that staunchly affirms the status quo.  While it may welcome slaves as slaves (without requiring them to change), it also appears to welcome Pharaoh as Pharaoh (without requiring him to change).  Thus, I think we need to listen to those like Miroslav Volf who remind us that sometimes exclusion must precede embrace.
Third, as I mentioned above, I have some concerns about how Sanguin reads Scripture.  Although Sanguin affirms ‘the whole of Scripture’ as a part of his non-negotiables, he continually stresses a metaphorical reading of the texts… which basically allows him to do what he wants with whatever he reads.  Thus, we have the ‘Mystical Christ’ of John and Paul, we have Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness understood as an internal psychological struggle (‘Satan’ being Jesus’ own internal ‘shadow’ side), and we have a reading of Lk 9.62 which suggests Jesus’ homelessness isn’t so much real as a metaphor for how he is ‘caught up in an evolutionary momentum’.  All of these readings simply slot Scripture into a previously established paradigm, which it then affirms.  What is lost is the truly transformative potential of Scripture, for Scripture is denied the ability to challenge our paradigms or, for that matter, to confront us with things that we do not wish to hear.
Conclusion
Bruce Sanguin and the place where he serves (Canadian Memorial Church & Centre for Peace), are located in a fairly wealthy and especially trendy neighbourhood in Vancouver (the city in which I live).  So, if Mobsby’s target audience appeared to be the hipsters, Sanguin neighbourhood is mostly composed of young business professionals — ‘yuppies’ who wear yoga pants, and spend a lot of time doing their hair before they go to the beach, the gym, or the spa.  So, if Mobsby is writing on behalf of the bohemian bourgeoisie, Sanguin is writing on behalf of the bohemian bourgeoisie.
However, let me add two provisos to this last comment.  First of all, I don’t think that this is anything wrong with ministering to, and with, hipsters or yuppies — far from it, all people should be invited to embody the good news of the lordship of Jesus Christ.  So my reason for raising this point is not to invalidate ministries to these populations.  Instead, I mention this because I believe that there is nothing particularly ‘radical’ about what Mobsby and Sanguin are doing.  It seems to me that they are both seeking ways of living as Christians and as members of the dominant culture in which they find themselves.  Ironically, this means that both Mobsby and Sanguin are participating in the same process that their predecessors did in the early to mid twentieth century.  That ‘traditional church’, against which both Mobsby and Sanguin are reacting, was simply the type of church that fit well with ‘modern’ culture.  Now, the ’emerging church’ is simply the type of church that fits well with ‘postmodern’ culture.  So, for all their talk about being ‘radical’ or ‘subversive’ the main thing that Mobsby and Sanguin are subverting is the culturally conditioned church of modernity.  This strikes me as a rather superficial form of subversion which fails to account for the power structures that have emerged or evolved in postmodernity itself.  So, given another forty or so years, I wouldn’t be surprised if these models of ’emergence’ pass away, along with this stage of postmodernity.
Secondly, by comparing Mobsby and Sanguin in this way, it is not my intention to say that they are approaching God, the church, and society in the same way.  As I noted in my introduction, there are major differences between their approaches.  Indeed, given Mobsby’s emphasis upon the Trinity, and Sanguin’s emphasis upon Spirit, I wouldn’t be too surprised if they had fairly negative reactions to each other.  (But, then again, hipsters and yuppies have always had fairly negative reactions to each other — even though they both perpetuate the system as it is.)
Now, by raising these criticisms, I am not saying that there is nothing good or admirable in the approaches taken by these authors.  Far from it, both should be commended for their focus upon valuing all of creation, engaging in acts of social justice, and welcoming those who are on the margins.  Sometimes I take these things so much for granted that I forget that a good many Christians need to hear about how important these things are, and how integral they are for Christian living.  But, yet again, I do get concerned that the forms of charity they represent are simply part of the means of ensuring that things continue to run as they are.  However, this need not be the case.  I reckon all of us began our charitable endeavours in fairly superficial ways — giving money at church, handing out bag lunches, buy a Christmas turkey for a poor family, etc. — so it’s just a question of following this trajectory and not just setting up camp at the place where we already are.  So, in this regard, let’s hope that the emergent folk continue to emerge and evolve!

In ‘Unbehagen in der Natur’, the final chapter of In Defense of Lost Causes, Slavoj Žižek begins by pointing to the contemporary crisis related to classical Marxism.  He then highlights some of the antagonisms inherent to contemporary global capitalism, and suggests that our way forward is found within these antagonisms, especially if all of those antagonisms remain rooted within the central struggle between the Excluded and the Included.
In this post I wish to explain, and expound upon, this argument in a little more detail as I find it intriguing and would be very interested in hearing what others think of it.
Žižek opens ‘Unbehagen in der Natur’ (‘Uneasiness in Nature’) with Gerald A. Cohen’s cogent presentation of the classical Marxist understanding of the ‘working class’.  Cohen argues that this working class is defined by four features which, when combined together, produce an additional two features.  These features are as follows.  The working class:

1. constitutes the majority of society;
2. produces the wealth of society;
3. consists of the exploited members of society;
4. and its members are the needy people in society.
5. Therefore, the working class has nothing to lose from revolution;
6. and it can and will engage in a revolutionary transformation of society.

The problem, Žižek notes, is that none of the first four features apply to the contemporary working class, and so features five and six cannot be generated.  Further, even when these elements are present, they are no longer united in a single agent — the needy are no longer the workers and so on.
Therefore, Žižek goes on to ask one of the pivotal questions undergirding much post-Marxist research today:

The underlying problem is: how are we to think the singular universality of the emancipatory subject as not purely formal, that is, as objectively-materially determined, but without the working class as its substantial base?

That is to say, given that the working class was the basis of salvation within classical Marxism, where can salvation be found now that the working class is gone?  Žižek answers this question in the following way:

The solution is a negative one: it is capitalism itself which offers a negative substantial determination, for the global capitalist system is the substantial “base” which mediates and generates excesses (slums, ecological threats, and so on) that open up sites of resistance.

Thus, Žižek reworks the classical Marxist thesis that the negation of capitalism is inherent to capitalism itself.  However, this negation does not occur by means of the (now absent) working class; rather, it occurs be means of four antagonisms that Žižek sees within contemporary global capitalism.  These antagonisms are related to:

1. Ecology: Although capitalism treats ecology as a field of investment and competition, a looming ecological catastrophe threatens to bring radical change.
2. The inadequacy of private property: Although the concept of private property may have functioned well at earlier stages of capitalism, this notion is no longer sufficient to address the increasing importance of ‘intellectual property’–knowledge.  This new form of property increasingly challenges the old boundaries of capitalism.
3. The socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments: New developments, especially in the realm of biogenetics, hold the potential to create significant changes within human nature itself, which could result in a genuine Novum, the results of which are difficult to anticipate, but which likely would not fit within the world-as-it-is.
4. New forms of apartheid: Even though some old boundaries are collapsing, some new boundaries are being created.  This is most evident in the rise of new and massive slums within the megalopolises of the world.  Hence, ‘the new proletarian position is that of the inhabitants of slums’; but note that the primary form of exploitation experienced by these slum dwellers is no longer economic, but socio-political (i.e. it is not that they generate a surplus that is appropriated by the powerful, rather they themselves are a surplus that is accorded no place within the world).

Now, in a particular interesting move, Žižek maps the four features of the classical Marxist understanding of the working class, onto these four antagonisms:

the “majority” principle appears as ecology, a topic which concerns us all; “poverty” characterizes those who are excluded and live in slums; “wealth production” is more and more something which depends on scientific and technological developments like biogenetics; and, finally, “exploitation” reappears in the impasses of intellectual property, where the owner exploits the result of collective labor.

However, and this is where we get to the core of the matter, Žižek argues that, within these antagonisms, we must privilege the proletarian position — ‘the position of the “part of no-part”‘.  Hence, he asserts:

it is the antagonism between the Excluded and the Included which is the zero-level antagonism, coloring the entire terrain of struggle… [It is] the point of reference for the others; without it, all others lose their subversive edge: ecology turns into a “problem of sustainable development,” intellectual property into a “complex legal challenge,” biogenetics into an “ethical” issue.  One can sincerely fight for ecology, defend a broader notion of intellectual property, oppose the copyrighting of genes, while not questioning the antagonism between the Included and the Excluded — what is more, one can even formulate some of these struggles in terms of the Included threatened by the polluting Excluded… Corporations such as Whole Foods and Starbucks continue to enjoy favor among liberals even though they both engage in anti-union activities; the trick is that they sell products that claim to be politically progressive acts in and of themselves… Political action and consumption become fully merged.  In short, without the antagonism between the Included and the Excluded, we may well find ourselves in a world in which Bill Gates is the greatest humanitarian fighting against poverty and diseases, and Rupert Murdoch the greatest environmentalist mobilizing hundreds of millions through his media empire.

And, might be quick to add the likes of Oprah, Bono, and the ‘Red’ campaign, to this list.  Or, for that matter, the pursuits of most of the so-called ‘counter-cultural,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ ‘radicals’ found within the Church and the world today.  Žižek reminds us that these pursuits — from ‘going Green’ to buying fair trade coffee, to paying attention to where and how one’s clothes are manufactured — are largely impotent pseudo-acts, which simply ease the conscience of consumers, rather than bringing about any significant social change.  These actions only gain force and meaning, when they are related to the central antagonism between the Excluded and the Included.  Thus, for example, I as a member of the Included, can afford to pay $5 for a fair trade coffee, and I can afford to shop at local food markets… but these actions, in and of themselves, do nothing for members of the Excluded who can only afford cheap coffee and fast food.  I as a member of the Included, can afford to buy clothes that are made without violence, and I can afford to pay what those articles of clothing are worth… but this does nothing for families of the Excluded who rely on places like Wal-Mart for affordable clothing.  Finally, I as a member of the Included, can contribute to the multi-million dollar building campaign that recently occurred at my school.  Yet the result of this was an environmentally friendly wind-tower that helps our school ‘go Green’… but also new, smaller, and less comfortable couches intended to discourage homeless people from coming in and sleeping in our Atrium.
Consequently, if we are genuinely pursuing social change, and not simply embracing ‘virtue’ or ‘righteousness’ as an aspect of our privilege, we must bring these divided elements into relationship with one another.  We may be wealthy enough to live morally (or at least to gain the moral approval of our society) but this does nothing for those who are not wealthy enough to live this way and it does nothing to change society itself.
Therefore, in agreement with Žižek, I think that most of our ‘counter-cultural,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ and ‘radical’ acts, are self-serving and impotent unless they are related to the central antagonism between the Excluded and the Included.  When we not only buy fair trade coffee, but also feed the hungry, when we not only buy local-made clothes, but also clothe the naked; when we not only ‘Green’ our homes, but also invite the homeless into our homes, then we will be getting somewhere.

Theodor Adorno once argued that ‘writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’ and this line of thought has profoundly marked many — how can we sing, how can we compose, how can we engage in art, or the performance of beauty, after something so terrible, so dark, so full of death?  This type of thought has not only challenged the humanities and the more ‘artistic’ expressions of human creativity, it has also challenged our core beliefs: belief in God after Auschwitz is barbaric.  Or so the saying goes.
Now, personally, I have always found it a little odd that Auschwitz should challenge us to this degree.  After all, death-dealing tragedies, even massive genocides that claim millions of lives, are nothing new.  Therefore, to assert that Auschwitz overthrows all of our faith in beauty or goodness or a god who is both beautiful and God, suggests to me that we never truly confronted the issue of suffering and death.  This is further verified by the observation that those who have encountered terrible sufferings are often some of the most artistic and faith-filled people in the world.
Be that as it may, I want to go somewhere else with this post.  Keeping in mind the words from Adorno, read the following quotation from Vinoth Ramachandra’s book, Subverting Global Myths.  While discussing the flight to science — chemistry and physics — practiced by Primo Levi and others who were seeking an escape from the ideology of fascism (circa WWII), Ramachandra writes the following:

what Levi and his friends underestimated was the power of fascism and other political ideologies to co-opt the “clear, distinct and verifiable” methods of chemistry and physics.  Scientists played a leading part in the initiation, administration and execution of Nazi racial policy.  The Wannsee Conference, which decided the final solution of the Jewish problem, was attended by many scientists, and the extermination of Jews in the death camps was largely carried out by medically trained personnel.
Consequently, perceptive writers such as George Orwell sharply criticized the fashionable postwar denigration of the arts and humanities in favor of a “scientific education”.

Therefore, it seems to me that, after Auschwitz, WWII, and the rest of the 20th-century, the question we must ask ourselves is strictly related to the value of science.  On the German side, WWII gave us the scientific and medical technology necessary to wipe out an entire category of people.  On the American side, WWII gave us the scientific and military technology necessary to wipe out life as we know it.
If anything, Auschwitz teaches us the importance of faith, poetry, and art, because it reveals to us the result of an unchecked scientific mentality.  Odd, then, that references to Auschwitz should be used to challenge our faith in God, when Auschwitz itself was the result of a techno-scientific paradigm.
Consequently, we should be a little more than cautious around those who wish to argue that scientific advance holds the way out of our current sufferings.  We have seen the end result of this struggle (Kampf), and should have no desire to replicate it.