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Karl E. SmithReligion and the Project of Autonomy

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RELIGION AND THE PROJECT

OF AUTONOMYKarl E. Smith

ABSTRACT Despite his own observations that autonomy is never complete,never once-and-for-all in short, that autonomy is always relatively more-or-less; or rather, human subjects, institutions and societies can only ever bemore-or-less autonomous, and thus more-or-less heteronomous Castoriadisnevertheless polarizes autonomy and heteronomy. From the polarized perspec-tive, then, he maintains that religion is intrinsically heteronomous, and thusintrinsically antithetical to the project of autonomy. By exploring Taylors morenuanced understanding of the varieties of religious experience, I argue in thisarticle that there must be room for religious belief within an autonomous society,and that religiosity per se is not incompatible with the project of creating an

autonomous society.KEYWORDS Charles Taylor Cornelius Castoriadis project of autonomy relative autonomy religious experience

Castoriadiss project of autonomy aims to institute an autonomoussociety: one that clearly and lucidly posits its own nomoi(laws, norms, insti-tutions) in the clear knowledge that these nomoi have no foundations outsideof the fact that society has clearly and lucidly adopted these particularnomoi. From this point of view, he maintains that religion is intrinsically anti-thetical to the project of autonomy: religion is always and everywhere themanifestation of societys refusal to accept that it is itself the ultimate groundsfor nomos. That is, for Castoriadis, religion arises from the attempt to groundnomos in some extra-social authority such as God or the gods, the ancestors,tradition or nature.

According to Agnes Heller, Castoriadis once said that if she had beenbrought up in the Greek Orthodox Church she would share his allergy toreligion.1Although Heller understood the comment to be made in jest, shealso recognized more than a kernel of truth in the confession. Regardless of

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his reasoning as to whyhe is allergic to religion, religion constitutes not anabsence but a field of social inquiry about which his mind was already madeup before he commenced any analysis. Castoriadis recognizes, following

Durkheim, that religion is more than simply the glue that binds societytogether; it is society (1997b: 31819).2 This understanding is central to hisargument that only two societies in history have broken free of a hetero-nomous institution. At the same time, his rejection of religion and refusal toallow any place for religion within his project of autonomy clearly indicatesthat although religion is society in religious societies, this is not the only

way that society can be instituted. Nor, for him, is it an acceptable way (see1997b: 223).

Taylors claim that modern society may require a certain deity if it is

to avoid collapsing in the face of its ongoing crises (1989: 5201) contrastssharply with Castoriadiss position. We can roughly characterize these twopositions as: a humanist who has no room and will make no place for agod, and a theist who believes that human beings and society have a deep-seated need for a god of some sort. My aim is to play these two perspec-tives off against one another to find a middle ground. To do so, it is necessaryto move back and forth across the individual and social levels of analysis, toascertain the extent to which religious expression may be seen to be autono-mous and hence what space there is for religious expression within an

autonomous society. I do not intend any challenge, however, to Castoriadissclaim that a religious society is intrinsically not autonomous. In other words,a religiously instituted society is clearly a heteronomously instituted society.I argue, however, that an autonomously instituted society not only need notbut cannot exclude all forms of religious expression.

It is worth beginning with an examination of Castoriadiss and Taylorscompeting views of religious experience. Castoriadis refuses to accept anydistinction between something like the essential teaching or core messageof a religion and its historical institution. He says he cannot overlook theatrocities of the Inquisition or the pogroms on the basis that they are nottrue to the essential core values of Christianity (1987: 10; 1997a: 25). Thus,for Castoriadis, Christianity, Islam and other religions are reducible to theirsocial institutions, the church or Ummah, for example. In contrast, Tayloraccepts, with qualifications, William Jamess distinction between primaryreligious experience and the secondary accounts that are instituted andenshrined in the church (2002: ch. 1).3 His reservations on this score amountto similarly splitting the difference with James, whose highly individualisticaccount of religious experience discounts and rejects the importance orefficacy of the church the collective in transmitting the direct experience

of the divine. In Taylors representation of James, Jamess depiction of thechurch has similarities to Castoriadiss view. But James accepts the veracityof direct (individual) religious experience, thereby radically departing fromCastoriadiss more narrow view that such accounts are never more than

28 Thesis Eleven (Number 91 2007)




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(delusional) imaginary significations that serve to cover over the Abyss ofBeing.

Taylors account of Jamess grappling with the tension between ratio-

nalistic agnosticism and religious belief is valuable in the search for a middleground. Taylor describes James as our great philosopher of the cusp, theone who tells us more than anyone what its like to stand in that open space[between agnosticism and faith] and feel the winds pulling you now here,now there (2002: 59). Whether James tells us more than anyone is neitherhere nor there for present purposes what is important is that neither Casto-riadis nor Taylor stand on this cusp. Taylor, however, continuously attemptsto understand the other side acknowledging its strengths and merits tounderstand what makes it compelling to those who dwell there, while Casto-

riadis dismisses the other as intrinsically erroneous.According to Taylor, for James this is an epistemological problem, which

rationalistic agnostics can see only one way out of: suspend belief until thereis sufficient evidence of the deitys existence (2002: 445). This is the naturalscientists (positivists) approach, which Taylor puts dramatically as: We can

win the right to believe a hypothesis only by first treating it with maximumsuspicion and hostility (2002: 46).

Despite his staunch opposition to Jamess/Taylors alternative, it wouldbe mistaken to align Castoriadis with this view. To begin with, his justifi-

cation for advocating the project of autonomy as a revolutionary projecthinges on his epistemology, which entails the impossibility of knowledgeadequate to the task of justifying any such project (1987: 98; 1991: 168,172). From this perspective he cannot object in principle to Jamess/Taylorscounter position to the scientific agnostic:

there are some domains in which truths will be hidden from us unless we goat least halfway toward them. Do you like me or not? If I am determined totest this by adopting a stance of maximum distance and suspicion, the chancesare that I will forfeit the chance of a positive answer. An analogous phenom-

enon on the scale of the whole society is social trust: doubt it root and branch,and you will destroy it. (Taylor, 2002: 46)

Similar concerns about social trust are reflected in Castoriadiss lamentsthat in contemporary society the people see themselves as set against thegovernment in an us-and-them relationship, which typically entails alien-ation from the law. Since, in principle, in a democratic society the law is ourlaw, not their law, being alienated in this fashion is to be heteronomouslyinstituted (1987: 103), and hence, undemocratic.4 It is also reflected in hisrepeated refrain that the crisis of contemporary Western societies stems from

a loss of shared values, where the only value shared is the desire for moreand more things (1993: 109), and in his observation that opinion polls inrecent decades indicate a deep distrust and cynicism regarding all institutedpowers (1997b: 40). Hence, when James argues that the agnostics argument

Smith: Religion and the Project of Autonomy 29




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for dispassionate certainty is not dispassionate at all, but is in fact overriddenby fear the fear of being mistaken, the fear of looking foolish for believ-ing in unfounded things, etc. Castoriadis would agree that their reasoned

arguments against belief are, and will forever remain, inadequate. In short,Castoriadis is not agnostic, but atheist. He does believe but, contra Taylorand James, what he believes is that there is no god and no source of foun-dations for nomos beyond society itself. To the extent that this belief canhave any rational foundations, it is derived from his ontology of radical self-creation, which is in turn linked to his reduction of religion to institutionalforms. This is a different problem from the one that James teases out in hisexamination of the relative merits of the debate between agnostic scepticismand belief. Before we look more closely at this, however, it is worth follow-

ing Taylors account of James a bit further.According to Taylor, James caricatures the materialist sceptics ethical

view that:

it is wrong, uncourageous, unmanly, a kind of self-indulgent cheating, to haverecourse to this kind of interpretation, which we know appeals to something inus, offers comfort, or meaning, and which we should therefore fend off, unlessabsolutely driven to them by the evidence, which is manifestly not the case.The position holds firm because it locks together a scientific-epistemologicalview with a moral one. (Taylor, 2002: 54)

It is tempting to credit a similar view to Castoriadis, but that wouldalso be mistaken. It is clearly the view of Nietzsche, and is characteristic ofneo-Nietzscheans (Taylor, 1999: 279). But it is not Castoriadiss view. Hiscontention is that belief in a deity (or any other religious source of socialnorms) is wrong, but his concern is not moral so much as epistemological,ontological and pragmatic; for him, it is fallacious, and therefore delusional/dysfunctional, to locate the source of nomos in anything outside of societyitself. Like Nietzsche, Castoriadis contends that we need to have the courageto face up to living on the brink of the Abyss, living in the Chaos, ground-ing our nomos on the Groundless not because it is unmanly or uncour-ageous or that we are in some way less noble for not doing so, but becauseit is the only true state of being once we strip away the mystifications andocclusions that have been instituted to give meaning to this situation. Never-theless, his militant atheist position leads him to a polemical and narrow-sighted rejection of religion which seems in principle to deny the right tobelieve (see Taylor, 2002: 58) in various things that are, in his view, anti-thetical to autonomy (1997b: 223).

My point here is that although Castoriadis polarizes autonomy and

heteronomy as absolute opposites, there always is and always will be somelingering heteronomy within autonomy it cannot be eradicated wholly orfinally or once-and-for-all (Smith, 2006: 193ff.). Despite its many shortcom-ings, one of the founding principles of actually existing democratic society





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is religious tolerance and despite Castoriadiss view of religion, he sharesthe view that the freedom that the project of autonomy seeks is above allfreedom for those who think otherwise (1997b: 78). Furthermore, despite

his repeated arguments that religion is intrinsically incompatible with theproject of autonomy, as we will see, his analysis of Sophocles Antigoneeluci-dates a way of thinking that weaves together Castoriadiss sense of autonomyas radical self-creation with a belief in the gods and their laws (2006: 356)

and this precisely through the radical distinction ofnomosandphysis thathe attributes to the Greeks, a separation of the self-created laws of anthro-pos from the cosmic, divine or natural laws of the physical universe (2006:289, 324).

At the same time we must be clear that although Castoriadis over-

generalizes his overly restrictive view of religion, it is indisputable that atleast somereligious orientations areintrinsically incompatible with the projectof autonomy. Any attempt to institute social norms on the grounds/authorityof revealed scriptures, divine law or the like is heteronomous. But if, as Ihave argued elsewhere (Smith, 2006; cf. Adams, 2006), heteronomy is never

wholly absent from any social institution, then clearly we must find someway to weave together heteronomous and autonomous norms and values.Here Taylors more considered view of the matter can help us to makeimportant distinctions when considering the varieties of religious experience/

expression, and which of these might be compatible with an autonomoussociety.Castoriadis defines the modern world as constituted in the tension

between the competing projects of autonomy and rational-mastery (1997b:43). Although both projects have premodern antecedents, modernity is typi-cally defined by the radically new ways in which these projects come to beexpressed in Europe from about the 15th century. Castoriadis tends to creditboth of these outlooks to the Enlightenment, disregarding the Romanticistdimensions in each. More importantly, though, in treating modernity as aradical break from the past, Castoriadis is hostile towards those lingeringpremodern tendencies that continue to be constitutive of modernity. Themanifestations of this hostility in his work occasionally seem to imply some-thing like Habermass notion of an unfinished project in the sense ofhaving not yet completely thrown off its premodern heritage even thoughCastoriadis rejects this notion as both monological and implying that theproject might be finishable (Arnason, 1991; 1997b: 43).

Here, Taylors analysis is more nuanced and thus adds richness to ourunderstanding. Taylor identifies three main constituents of the modern world:a Christian theism that grounds moral standards; disengaged reason and natu-

ralism (which have taken primarily scientific form); and Romanticist expres-sivism (1989: 495). Some sort of autonomy is a necessary condition for thelast two of these. There is undoubtedly an inherent contradiction as Casto-riadis maintains between autonomy and certain historical tendencies of the





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Christian churches. But Taylors position suggests that it is mistaken toconclude from this that autonomy is incompatible with religion per se. It isalso clear, as many have argued, that religion was not supplanted by the rise

of scientific reason or romantic expressivism, but has been complemented/supplemented in a more-or-less conflictual relationship.

Taylor takes several different approaches to understanding religionslingering impact and its various manifestations. In one approach, the threeconstituents of modernity outlined above translate into a three-corneredbattle that characterizes modern culture: There are secular humanists, thereare neo-Nietzscheans, and there are those who acknowledge some goodbeyond life (1999: 29).5 In another, he analyses varieties of modern religiousculture according to a tripartite Durkheimian scheme, giving us paleo-

Durkheimian, neo-Durkheimian and post-Durkheimian orientations to therelationship between religion and the state/society (Taylor, 2002). Each ofthese approaches to the problem is deserving of extended consideration, foreach sheds different light on both our modern predicament and the relation-ship between autonomy and religion.

The three corners of the battle do not directly correspond with thethree constitutive sources of modern values (Christianity, disengaged reason,expressivism): each party may derive certain values from each of the threesets of sources outlined even when they explicitly deny drawing on one

or another of the said sources. For the purposes of Taylors argument, secularhumanists are those who maintain that human life itself is the highest good,thereby rejecting or denying any transcendental goods any goods beyondlife itself. Taylor repeatedly explores the ways in which this outlook is self-contradictory, if not self-defeating, but those details need not concern ushere (see Taylor, 1989, 1991, 1999, 2002, 2005). What does concern us hereis Taylors argument that, despite protestations to the contrary, the greatachievements of secular humanist society most notably the culture of affir-mative universal human rights are firmly grounded in the Christian heritageof the modern world (1999: 16ff.). Taylors concern is that modern culturesself-identified grounding in humanism is inadequate to its purpose. Part of

what he sees as problematic here is that without some higher good, some-thing beyond life itself, humanism is reduced to the pursuit of human flour-ishing without limit (1999: 212), thus lending itself to the project ofrational-mastery and its accompanying hubris.

While the secular humanists are, according to Taylor, inclined to over-look, deny or downplay the lingering impact of their Christian heritage, theneo-Nietzscheans do not make this mistake. Indeed, they reject both thehumanist and theistic alternatives on the grounds that their culture of benev-

olence is life- or vitality-denying in myriad ways. Suffice to say that Taylordoes not accept their view that life does not have value in-itself (1999: 27).

Finally, there are those who believe that there is something beyondlife that is of ultimate value. Here Taylor is very specific about where he





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stands. Noting that for many the idea of something beyond life refers to anafterlife, or eternal life in one of its various guises, he means somethingmore like the point of things isnt exhausted by life, the fullness of life, even

the goodness of life (1999: 20). He refers to something that matters beyondlife, on which life itself originally draws, but which is good in-itself, not justbecause it sustains life (for then it wouldnt actually be beyond) (1999: 20).

Taylor observes that the effect of this understanding is a radical decen-tring of the self, in relation to God (1999: 21). Here, Taylors personal biasis more pronounced than usual, for he makes this statement in drawingparallels between the beyond life attitudes of Buddhism and Christianity(cf. Connolly, 2004: 174). Since there is no god in Buddhism,6 it would bemore generally correct to speak of a radical decentring of the self in relation

to that which is beyond life.7This becomes more pronounced when, having discussed the pitfalls of

both ungrounded ideals (secular humanist) and strongly grounded ideals (adeity) i.e., the propensity for both to slide into something trivial, ugly, ordownright dangerous and destructive (1999: 34) Taylor describes one ofthe ways that Christian spirituality points to a way out of these dilemmas.

It can be described in two ways: either as a love or compassion which is uncon-ditional that is, not based on what you, the recipient, have made of yourself or as one based on what you are most profoundly, a being in the image of

God. They obviously amount to the same thing. (1999: 35)

Clearly these only amount to the same thing from a very particulartheistic perspective. Again, Buddhism espouses unconditional compassion ofthe first type while denying the existence of a god.8We need go no furtherthan Taylors lecture A Catholic Modernity? (1999) to discern that uncondi-tional love can also be found among humanists at least among those whohave embraced and advanced the culture of universal human rights.9 Henceit remains unclear, and thus unconvincing, how grounding this love in afaith in God is in anyway more adequate than the alternative.

But to be clear about this, we must also consider the (again very real)possibility of grounding the exclusive humanist position in something beyondlife without introducing a deity for the purpose. Or rather, of grounding ourposition in life itself, rather than a more narrowly defined anthropocentric

view of life, or an even more narrowly defined atomistic individualist attitudeto the sanctity ofmy life.10Arguably, Castoriadiss project of autonomy mightalso be cast in terms of unconditional love for (at least) human life withits primary concern being for the collective life of humanity, rather than theparticular life of any individual (2006: 36 n.31). Castoriadis, however, does

not use the language of love, and rejects the transcendent as having anyexistence beyond imaginary signification but his project clearly points tothe importance of something beyond any particular human life. This is implicitin his discussions of the current ecological crisis (e.g. 1997a: 239ff.), as well





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as his understanding that the autonomous society will not be realized in hislifetime that is, he pursues this project for the good of future generations,a good beyond himself and his life (2006: 29, 36 n.31). Granted, others who

have followed a similar approach, as Taylor rightly notes, have producedsome of the most horrific life-denying totalitarian regimes that have everexisted but again, this is also true of the more extreme manifestations of

various religions, as Taylor also recognizes (1999: 35).Returning to the tension between human flourishing and the good

beyond life, those who believe in some deity beyond life can, followingWeber, be divided into two groups, which, roughly speaking, we might termworld-rejecting and world-embracing (1977 [1948]: 323ff.).11 Taylor distin-guishes them in terms of whether they embrace human flourishing in this

world, or see it as an obstacle to flourishing in the after-life. He roughly definesthese two poles according to whether they see any good to have come fromthe increasing secularization of modern society. It almost goes without sayingthat the world-rejecting believers see modernity humanism, materialism,consumerism, liberalism as a slide towards evil, as moving ever furtheraway from the good. Taylor locates himself in the other category.

This is an important positioning, but it depends on the recognition ofthe category distinction between human flourishing as good or obstacle, forotherwise we are left with little option but to accept something like Ferraras

depiction of Taylor as seeking to return us to some sort of premodern ortho-doxy (1998: 4). But Taylors position is far too complex and nuanced to bereduced to any simple monological conception of religion. For example, heargues that modernity has in fact advanced the gospels (i.e. Christian values)in ways that were probably not possible under Christendom (1999: 18), andsuggests that secularization might perhaps have been a necessary conditionto more fully realizing these values. That is, under the domain of one unifyingchurch, Christianity became increasingly exclusive and didactic. The ruptureof the Reformation and ensuing multiplication of Christian faiths can be seenas freeing up modes of religious expression as well as extending the universalmessage of the gospels in various ways.

Yet Taylor is concerned that this pluralization risks going too far, if ithas not already done so. Here his concerns overlap once again with Casto-riadiss. For example, his reservations about the fragmentation of religiousorientations seem to be driven by the same concerns about the effects onsocial solidarity and the social order. But they differ completely on whatshould be done about it: for Castoriadis we should set aside all thingsbeyond society and accept that we are the only ones who can posit thenomos that structures our world. He is adamant that there is no foundation

for nomos outside of us, its creators. On the first point, Taylor seems to belargely in agreement, although he never directly says so. At the same time,to my knowledge, he never suggests that his deity is a lawgiver it is ratherloveor agape(1999: 35). And thisis the principle upon which he thinks we





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should found nomos a universal love as enshrined in the gospels and inthe universal declaration of human rights, rather than an exclusive love ofour clan or fellow Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, etc., or the pursuit of valour

and glory through conquest, or other similar dispensations as practicedthroughout most of human history (cf. Castoriadis, 1997b: 24ff. on self-affirmation and othering). There may be something else in Taylors position

which renders it incompatible with Castoriadiss project of autonomy, but tothe extent that he has clearly expressed his view of God and his belief thatsuch a God might provide the social glue for modern society, it does notseem to be incompatible with Castoriadiss project (although Castoriadis

would argue that it is). Let me explain.Castoriadiss analyses ofAntigone points to the necessity of weaving

together competing laws (such as gods, natures and societys) and compet-ing visions of what is right or just (as in Antigones and Creons) in orderto move towards the good (2006: 247). He outlines how, for Sophocles, tobelieve that you are the only one who thinks right in any situation is hubris.In the conflict between Antigone and Creon, neither is prepared to, or ableto, appreciate the others perspective they cannot weave together theirdiffering views. Creons attachment to what he holds as right is hubris, butso too is Antigones defiance of the law in defence of her right [good]. Inhis discussion of Sophocles portrayal of the essence of human being, Casto-

riadis is clearly sensitive to the tragedy of the human condition, to the factwe are both mortal and self-creating. The latter means that we are free totransform ourselves; and the former that we are not free to do just whatever

we will.12 Castoriadis rejects all religious and other extra-social (explanatory/determining) sources of nomos because they occlude this self-creative dimen-sion; under their influence we are unable to act in the clear and lucid knowl-edge that the laws we live under are the ones we choose. Yet at the sametime he is clear that there are other laws at work in the world which we donot create, including (at least some of) those that have variously been calledthe laws of the gods and the laws of nature (2006: 35). In this respect, mortal-ity might fall under the broader law of creation and destruction. At the indi-

vidual level, the social law has similar characteristics. Notwithstanding theargument that in an autonomous society each individual would have a sayin the formulation and institution of laws each would be entitled to callthese laws into question (1987: 101ff.) once debated and decided, it wouldthen be incumbent on each individual citizen to comply with them (as

Antigone apparently should have) until they are changed.We should note here that there are two different ways we might inter-

pret this moment in history/Greek tragedy. One is to see it as a transitional

moment marked by a clash between the newly created autonomous polisand the earlier traditions of gods and heroes. The other is that this is a priv-ileged moment for bringing out certain timeless truths about the humancondition and its ontological framework. Castoriadiss treatment can be read





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sometimes one way, sometimes the other. Clearly, his carte blanche rejec-tion of all things religious would suggest the former interpretation, a clashbetween the radically new autonomy and the traditional heteronomies. Yet

his account ofAntigone also strongly suggests the timeless truths andprovides an opening for arguing with Castoriadis against himself. Thisperspective of timeless truths provides an opening to a more pluralistic viewof the world than we find in Castoriadiss more restrictive interpretations ofautonomy and religion, allowing for the permanent coexistence of funda-mentally different world-views, anthropologies, etc. Castoriadiss analysis ofAntigonesuggests that it is possible to maintain an ontology of radical self-creation and that nomos is therefore radically ungrounded even whilebelieving that there is a God or gods who may or may not strike us down

once in a while for hubris.13Let us now turn to Taylors second approach to understanding the vari-

eties of modern religious culture; the three Durkheimian stages (Taylor,2002). In my earlier discussion of Taylors presentation of James, the focus

was on differentiating religious experience from religious institutions. Whilethis provides important insights into the tension between science and faith,and into the nature of religious experience itself, Taylor contends that Jamesgets certain things wrong. Jamess embeddedness in a Protestant world ofunderstanding leaves him unable to come to terms with the devotional nature

of Catholicism, and his individualism obstructs his view of the corporate orcollective dimensions of religious experience (2002: 23). It is the significanthistorical changes that have occurred in this domain that lend themselves toTaylors characterization of three types of relationship between religion andsociety: paleo-, neo-, and post-Durkheimian. We can loosely position theseon a spectrum of historical change from greater unity (a society organized ona unifying principle) to greater plurality (and a corresponding principle ofpluralism).

It must be stressed that while there is a chronological dimension to thedevelopment of these three perspectives, Taylors point is that all threecontinue to animate the contemporary landscape (2002: 89). There is never-theless a rough correlation between these and what we might more commonlyrefer to as premodern, modern, and postmodern orientations with the qual-ifier that the latter distinctions are typically associated with the move awayfrom religion, whereas Taylors point is precisely that these Durkheimianreligious orientations remain deeply embedded in and are significantly consti-tutive of modernity.

Premodern religion typically refers to an enchanted world, to societiesin which the presence of God was unavoidable; authority itself was bound

up with the divine, and various invocations of God were inseparable frompublic life (Taylor, 2002: 64). This is the straight Durkheimian situation, in

which religion is society. Taylor notes that this form was not singular; butfor the purposes of understanding the development of Western modernity





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what is of importance is an overall change in the orientation that occurredbetween the 16th and 19th centuries that change which Weber identifiedas disenchantment, where the strong contrast between sacred and profane

began to weaken (Taylor, 2002: 65; 1991: 46, 14). Jamess position is arrivedat in an already disenchanted Protestant world, with increasing individualism(that is, a weaker collective) and greater separation between the church andstate. When Taylor (2002: 69) comments that James couldnt comprehendCatholicism, his point is that these relationships were not yet as disenchantedin Catholic societies the collective was not yet as weakened nor the church

yet divorced from the state. These societies were certainly also affected bythe Reformation and the Enlightenment, and in such a way that the old hier-archical order was increasingly compromised; but there was nevertheless a

sense of the sacredness of the collective and its relationship to the monarchthat endured long after the dehierarchization and equalization of Protestant(Anglophone) societies (2002: 701). Taylor refers to this as a baroquecompromise, which is central to the paleo-Durkheimian view. What is mostimportant here is that even as the world became less enchanted and certainfacets of the relationship between the church and state were increasinglycalled into question, it was still understood that the people were united inone church, as the people of one God, and thus it still made sense to demandthat people be forcibly integrated to the church, to be rightly connected to

God (2002: 94).The paleo phase corresponds to a situation in which a sense of theontic dependence of the state on God and higher times is still alive, eventhough it may be weakened by disenchantment and an instrumental spirit(2002: 76). We need not elaborate this position further; suffice to note thatthis forcible integration is the attitude that underpinned the Inquisition, the

witch hunts, etc.14 and is an attitude that continues today in various formsof religious literalism.15 But in secular or materialist guises, it also drove thetotalitarian projects of the early 20th century. This mode of religious belief,

with its ontic dependence on God, is clearly incompatible with Castoriadissproject of autonomy as ungrounded self-institution; but as Taylor demon-strates, it is erroneous to reduce all religion to this form.

The neo-Durkheimian dispensation refers to the denominationalismcharacteristic of the early United States in particular and the Anglophone

world more generally. It involves an important step toward the individualand the right of choice (2002: 94). This is not, though, the radically individ-ualistic and pluralistic choice that we find later in the post-Durkheimiandispensation. It is, rather, sects, schisms and segmentations, within each of

which orthodoxies are enforced. This position retains a sense of belonging

to an overarching church and thus a unifying faith but allows differentpaths towards living this faith. In fact, it goes further than allowing andbegins to demand that one find ones own path towards spirituality, andelect to worship with those who have chosen the same path. Here Webers





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notion of a calling to a particular vocation takes on broader dimensions,manifesting now as a calling to the spiritual path that best expresses onesown sense of the divine. Hence whereas the paleo-Durkheimian church was

monological, the neo-Durkheimian church begins to open towards increas-ing plurality of religious practice and adherence. Importantly, however, those

who live under this schema remain somewhat exclusive or rather, the rangeof what is deemed acceptable here, although far broader than under itspredecessor, is still limited; in the particular context in question, limited to

various forms of Christian worship and for much of its history, this excludedRoman Catholic and Orthodox versions.

This is the context in which the pre-eminently American phenomenonthat Bellah et al. called civil religion arises (Taylor, 2002: 68) the people

continue to be united under God, and the site of the sacred shifts from anyparticular religious group to the institutions of the collective. While there isa de jure separation of church and state, the sense of belonging to groupand confession are fused, and the moral issues of the groups history tendto be coded in religious categories (2002: 78). At the same time, ones (confes-sional) faith is no longer inherited or inscribed in the same way as before

each member of the society is nowexpected to choose their own beliefsand practices for themselves, to search out and adopt that set of practicesand beliefs that rings truest for the individual. The advent of this neo-

Durkheimian orientation clearly marks a rupture with prevailing norms, arupture which was then instituted as perpetual rupture. That is, each indi-vidual comes to be expected to affect their own rupture with the past in theprocess of creating their own institutions for their own lives. Here, then,except for the fact that these individuals continue to institute heteronomies,the practice and orientation is strongly suggestive of Castoriadiss project ofautonomy as interrogation of social imaginary significations (1991: 163). Thegreatest obstacle to full compatibility, perhaps, lies in the continuing exclusionof those who choose radically different (i.e. non-Christian) orientations butthis seems little different from a project of autonomy that would exclude those

who choose to cultivate extra-social sources of the good.According to Taylor, resistance to a paleo-Durkheimian order as in

France and Ireland (Taylor, 2002: 78), for example tended to take the formof radical unbelief (or better, radical atheism) while in those Anglophonesocieties where the churchs grip on the practitioners beliefs and practicesloosened, resistance to particular manifestations of religious belief was morelikely to take the form of subtle reinterpretations. He suggests that in societies

where the demand for adherence to a singular doctrine weakened, thedecline in belief and practice witnessed in more orthodox societies was not

as prominent (Taylor, 2002: 78). In other words, where a monological formof adherence is dominant, resistance is more likely to find expression inabsolute rejection, whereas when a plurality of forms is accepted as thenorm, alternatives can more readily continue to be expressed from withinthe fold, so to speak.





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Taylor not only recognizes the centrality of individualism to the neo-Durkheimian outlook, he also sees the influence of expressivism (1985: 223),

which promoted the notion that each must seek their own path toward the

divine, in order to better express their own sense of spirituality and thesacred (Taylor, 2002: 80), though this was permitted only within a delimitedsphere of expressions. Similarly, on another register, while each was free toforge their own road to happiness (specifically in the US context), a patri-otic devotion to the collective, the nation, was largely non-negotiable. Wecan foreshadow discussion of the post-Durkheimian by observing that even

with the loosening of the limits of acceptable modes of expression, andacceptable pursuits of happiness, in the US (and not only the US) today,unqualified devotion to the nation remains an overriding (albeit not uncon-

tested) hypergood.While individualist and expressivist forces ruptured the paleo-

Durkheimian and shaped the neo-Durkheimian worlds, they became evenmore central as the driving forces of the post-Durkheimian world. Theboundaries and limits maintained in the neo- orientation were graduallypushed back, loosened up, and in many ways collapsed altogether. Thegrowth of non-Christian spiritualities and the ever-expanding pool of non-believers (including both atheists and agnostics) would become but a smallpart of the plethora of practices, orientations and outlooks that are common-

place today. What Taylor referred to as a three- or four-cornered battle ofmodernity grew in magnitude during the neo- phase, and exploded into amany-sided contest in the late 20th century the post-Durkheimian period.

It is impossible to pin down the precise point of transition from theneo- to post-Durkheimian orientations. Taylor cites Virginia Woolfs famousobservation that the world changed around December 1910 (2002: 84), butalso suggests that the hinge moment in this particular shift came aboutduring the individuating revolution of the 1960s (2002: 80). We might bestunderstand the process as an uneven development sometimes gradual,sometimes occurring in fits and starts in which the new coexists with theold (2002: 89). The first ruptures of modernity inaugurate an individuatingprocess which gradually develops and disseminates both theoreticallyand concretely. It takes on new impetus and new directions with the firstformulation of expressivism, and further disseminates, becoming moredeeply enshrined in the social imaginary, gradually displacing older interpret-ations of the human place in the universe. Social institutions transform inaccordance with new orientations and understandings, providing furtherimpetus for change and the deeper entanglement of new dispensations ineveryday life.

Taylor repeatedly argues that this development should not be seen tobe in any way inevitable (1989: 189), and Castoriadis is adamant that theprocess was not determined (1987: 184; 1997a: 2012; 1997b: 75, 79, 3268).

We can nevertheless imagine this unfolding as a series of explosive ruptures(some larger than others, some having more enduring impact than others)





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spreading out from an inaugural rupture in the social imaginary, eachproducing shockwaves that spark new ruptures.

The post-Durkheimian dispensation thus refers to this ruptured or frac-

tured world; or to put a more positive spin on it, a world of increasingpluralism. Taylor sees this as a direct result of the invention of exclusivehumanism in the 18th century which fractured Western culture betweenreligion and areligion (2002: 105). The reactions to this fracture multipliedthe options in all directions (2002: 105). Amongst the drivers of this multi-plying fragmentation is the (Jamesianesque) critique of institutionalizedreligion, from both inside and outside of the religious community, such thatfor those oriented towards an ultimate good beyond life, what comes to be

valued is personal experience, feeling or insight (2002: 100). While this

initially fed denominationalism (or neo-Durkheimianism), its multiplicationand continual diffusion became ever more individualizing. As Taylor puts it:

Just as in the neo-Durkheimian world, joining a church you dont believe inseems not just wrong but absurd, contradictory, so in the post-Durkheimianage seems the idea of adhering to a spirituality that does not present itself asyour path, the one that moves and inspires you. (2002: 101)

In a sense what has happened here is simply a loosening of theparameters within which one can choose and act and remain a member of

the larger community. In another sense we might also see a redrawing ofthe boundaries of the community. That is, whereas the paleo-Durkheimianssaw themselves as members of a community defined by the church, and theneo-Durkheimians as members of a looser but broader church (in somecases correlated with a nation, as in the US), for a substantial set of post-Durkheimians the only sensible community to identify with is the communityof humanity itself. Another set extends this community to all living beings.

Taylors focus on fragmentation as a malaise seems to obscure his visionof this development, even though it is implied by his observation that thedevelopment of secular society has seen a greater realization of the valuesof the gospels (1999; cf. 1989: 313). In this sense he appears to be trying tohave it both ways: his God appears to be of the loving universalizing sortthat would approve of this widening of inclusion, but Taylor seems to beconcerned that the post-Durkheimian dispensation goes too far towardsatomism, which seems then to leave him favouring something like the neoposition, in which adherence to a Christian faith within the broader church

was expected and provided a unifying magma of significations. Interestingly,Castoriadis absolutely rejects the paleo- dispensation as well as the post-Durkheimian dispensation. Does this leave him, too, in the neo zone? He

appears to favour the cultural creativity of the neo era,16 seeing the era inwhich the post-Durkheimian orientation comes to the fore as a slide intoconformity (1997b: 32ff.; Smith, 2006: 222ff.). Before we address this in moredetail, though, it is worth briefly fleshing out Taylors views of how these





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changing religious orientations have filtered through and reshaped modernsociety.

Noting that the shift from paleo to neo relates to a transformation in

the social imaginary of the sacred a process Taylor refers to as the greatdisembedding of individuals from the cosmic/social order (2004: 49) heidentifies a corresponding emergence of new (non-sacred) public spaces orentities, the three most widely recognized being the economy, the publicsphere and the sovereign people (2002: 845; 2004: 69). Each of these, atleast in early efforts to articulate their specific characteristics, were under-stood in terms of the obligations of mutual benefit and formed the basesof the neo-Durkheimian world of classical modernity. Importantly, though,

while the differentiation of public and private is clearly a prerequisite to the

formulation of the public sphere, it is not until after the Second World Warthat we find reforms to criminal law that sanctified individual privacy, limitingthe extent to which the state (or any other body) may interfere in the affairsof the individual (Taylor, 2002: 92). Taylor notes, though, that this increasingindividualism has not displaced the understanding of ourselves as sovereignpersons, and takes this as evidence that the moral order of mutual benefithas in fact been strengthened by the advance of the post-Durkheimianorientation, as the ethic of authenticity and its underlying soft relativismdemands that we shouldnt criticize each others values, because they have

a[s much] right to live their own life as you do. The sin that is not toleratedis intolerance (2002: 89).17

Like the realm of acceptable religious belief itself, what is to be toler-ated has also been extended far beyond anything that Locke could haveimagined (or tolerated) when he first introduced this idea to modern philoso-phy. As Taylor puts it, this injunction now stands alone, whereas it used tobe surrounded and contained by others (2002: 89). While it may now standalone, Castoriadis points to an antinomy between this soft relativist ethicsand the universal human rights position, in that the cultural relativism entailedin the former undermines any position from which to take a stand in pursuitof the latter (1997b: 19, 30). While Taylor acknowledges that this soft rela-tivism has indeed produced some positive social results such as strength-ening the moral order of mutual benefit he more generally sees it asproblematic, weakening the social fabric and undermining the grounds fora strong identity. For both authors, this soft relativism evidences a loss of(strong) shared values; and both view this as politically disempowering andsymptomatic of a crisis in modern society. While this may be so, it seems amistake to credit this modern malaise solely to what Taylor calls disengagedreason and Castoriadis the project of rational-mastery. My investigations

(Smith, 2006) into the positive contributions of the trend towards increasingindividualism indicate that its sources include a quest for the unlimitedexpansion of personal freedom, and hence it is driven by a certain versionof the will to autonomy (Castoriadis, 1997b: 192).





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Taylors discussion of consumerism and its relationship to individual-ism and new public spaces suggests that fashion amounts to a new socialstructure along the lines of economy, the public sphere and sovereignty

(2002: 85). Here it is worth noting that the causal arrow of history goesboth ways (Taylor, 1989: 2056; 2004: 31, 63), for consumerism and indi-

vidualism clearly fuel each other. In the realm of fashion we also find strongevidence of conformity, as people dress (and conspicuously consume) bothto stand out and to fit in. More importantly, whereas the sacred and publicspaces of the paleo-Durkheimian world amounted to topical spaces wherepeople could meet and correspond, in contemporary mass societies thesetypes of spaces have multiplied, and have been complemented by meta-topical spaces: the televisual media, cyberspace, etc. (Taylor, 2002: 87).

Hence, where once we might attend church or the public square to takepart in public activity, today this can also be done in the privacy of onesown home Taylor cites watching the Olympics or Princess Dianas funeralon television, knowing that there are a billion people watching with you.Not all viewers are conscious, or concerned, about the public dimension ofthis activity, rendering it a potentially diminished mode of public partici-pation. But the huge number of discussions in work places, schools andcafes that are about particular television programmes or news events suggeststhat this metatopical space fuels a great deal of contemporary social dialogue

and hence, collective meaning-making.From a different perspective, Taylor notes how a crowd of individualscan flip-over into a singular mass for common action. Here his example isa crowd at a hockey match rising as one to cheer a goal late in the game(2002: 87). In this and similar settings he identifies the potential for a socialfusion of the sort that was once the objective of Carnival and similar socialevents. And Taylor notes the presence of what Durkheim defined as collec-tive effervescence in these (secular) spaces (2002: 88; cf. Carroll, 1998). Asimilar social fusion or collective effervescence can be experienced at aprotest rally or a football match an experience of being at one with thegroup, of being intimately and intricately enmeshed with the others present.In a more abstract way, this can also be experienced on polling day, arisingfrom the knowledge that all around the country, at the same moment (andall day long), people are queuing peacefully to have their input into theelectoral process.

Such togetherness is not necessarily heteronomous, even though it isa fusion of self and other, of individual and collective (or rather, a collapseof these distinctions in the formation of a collective unity). To better see theautonomous dimensions that may be present in the search for a fusion of

oneself with something beyond oneself, let us look briefly at a concrete socialfield by considering the dynamics of the increasing consumerization of spir-ituality. Without denying complaints that such consumerization degrades thespirituality it peddles, it is fruitful to consider the phenomena from the





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perspective of autonomous choice. In this market or field of social activity,people make choices about how to honour the sacred. Castoriadis clearlyinvalidates those choices, even though, unlike Taylor, he has no position from

which to argue that choice is not a valid good in-itself.18As I have argued, provided the separation ofnomosandphysisis main-

tained, there is no intrinsic incompatibility between spiritual or religious faithand a project of autonomy. Hence, unless we accept that Castoriadiss (or anyother) ontology is the one and only clear and lucid (i.e. true) belief system,

we cannot dismiss all of these choices as less than clear and lucid. In whichcase, even though the norms in question are extrasocial, we are dealing withinstances where individuals are making these discourses their own, and henceadvancing their individual/personal subjective autonomy. Here Castoriadis

sometimes appears to be guilty of the same sort ofmonos phronein (beingthe only one to think right) that defined Creons particular mode of hubris(2006: 267). That modern consumers are choosing to follow different meta-physics and theologies than Castoriadis does is only a problem for the projectof autonomy when the sacred is construed in such a fashion as to deter-mine social nomos (see, for example, 1991: 162). This, of course, remains a

very real problem in the contemporary world, especially troubling where wesee increasing religiosity in national governments. But it does not seem tobe a very common characteristic of commodified spiritualities.

In this sense, governments/societies that invoke some sort of deity asthe source of authority for their oppressive regimes and actions would seemto be of far greater concern than the increasing fragmentation of national,cultural and religious identities and their corresponding values. Yet at thesame time, I wonder if Taylor does not have a point about a unifying deity . . .

Here it is worth briefly considering the longer overview of some ofthese trends in modernity. Castoriadis and Taylor both seem to favour theneo-Durkheimian period of modernity, albeit for different reasons. Taylor seesa more stable and secure society built upon strong sources of the good, whileCastoriadis sees greater cultural creation deriving from a loosening of theshackles of heteronomous society. But by disaggregating autonomy, obliquemodes of autonomy can more clearly come into view. We can see the unfold-ing of the logic of the quest for autonomy in myriad expressions and mani-festations that were occluded by Castoriadiss more narrow view. From thisperspective, we can see people acting out of their drive for autonomy evenas they shop around for a meaningful connection to the spiritual or divine.

The point of this discussion has been to demonstrate that there is roomfor religious belief within an autonomous society, and that religiosity per seis not intrinsically incompatible with a project of creating an autonomous

society. The monological implications of excluding all religious beliefs andpractices from our society are antithetical to the notion of an inclusivedemocracy. While there is no doubt that various churches throughout historyhave turned this type of exclusion into a highly refined practice, we cannot





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conclude from this that such exclusion is intrinsic to religion itself (and evenif it were, we could not justify being exclusive ourselves on this basis). Prag-matically, the practice of politics as the art of the possible demands that we

recognize that this perennial yearning for some meaning beyond human lifeitself is not likely to go away, hence making its eradication a preconditionfor the construction of an autonomous society ensures that no such society

will ever be realized.To advance the project of autonomy we must recognize and create

conditions conducive to oblique and partial expressions of autonomyas wellas pursuing the clear and lucid explication of a project of autonomy. Wecan identify a wide range of social institutions that are more-or-less auton-omous, and greater degrees of autonomy can be sought within existing social

institutions. But we must accept that we can only advance the cause ofautonomy within existing social institutions with and through people whodo not clearly and lucidly accept our own particular world-view(s).

Karl E. Smithis Lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology at La Trobe Universitywhere he recently completed a PhD comparing the thought of Castoriadis and Tayloron questions of subjectivity and modernity. [email: [email protected]]

Notes1. Heller reported this during a conference on Castoriadis at Columbia Universityin December 2000.

2. Importantly, Castoriadis distinguishes between mysticism and instituted religion:there never was and never will be mystical religion or a religion of mystics.The true mystic can only exist in separation from society. He goes on to explainthat mysticism is of little interest to him because it is not (cannot be) sociallyeffective (1997b: 325). In the process he brackets out any form of non-instituted religion, and thus simply ignores the heterodox dimensions ofreligious experience. Thus, he can only partially see the interplay between the

instituting and interpretative dimensions of religion. We might instead seemysticism in terms of interpretative free-play. His refusal to engage with thesignificance of mysticism is but one aspect of his overemphasis on institutionalforms.

3. Taylors more balanced approach to this problem also allows him to acknowl-edge and embrace the positive contributions of the people of Christian andother faiths (e.g. as leaders in the abolition of slavery, the campaign for nucleardisarmament, advancing the cause of universal human rights, etc.), whereasCastoriadiss allergy apparently prevents him from seeing anything beyondthe atrocities committed under religious banners.

4. See Cohen (2005) for a discussion of how, contra Castoriadis, the project ofautonomy might be advanced within a representative democracy. Note too thatCastoriadis also understands the state to be intrinsically alienated from thecollectivity (1991: 156), which would thus make the term democratic state anoxymoron from his perspective.





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5. Taylor also comments that it might be better to understand this as a four-cornered battle as the acknowledgers of transcendence are divided (1999: 29).But as I discuss shortly, once we start unpacking these categories it becomes

apparent that it is an oversimplification to count the corners at all, for the fieldof tensions in question is far more diverse than such a representation allows.

6. It would be formally more correct to say here that historical Buddhism doesnot take a stand one way or another on the existence of gods but it is clearthat if they exist, they have no role to play in human affairs (although laterBuddhism reintroduced godlike figures; see Rahula, 1974)

7. In a similar vein, William Connolly takes issue with Taylors propensity to reducethe belief in something beyond life to God, professing a nontheistic source.One of the things that Connolly points to is the complex relationship betweenwords and the fugitive sources they touch (2004: 167). He agrees with Taylor

that ultimate sources cannot be fully articulated, but for quite different reasons:not because its intelligence transcends us but because its energies have acomplexity that does not correspond entirely with human capacities forconceptual thought (2004: 169). Connollys position suggests the possibility ofvaluing life itselfanddecentring the self by acknowledging some good beyondlife without understanding this ultimate value to be god-like. I think we cansee a similar value in something beyond (individual) life in Castoriadiss focuson the social dimension of human flourishing (2006: 29, 36 n.31) and on thecreation of enduring cultural works (1991: 219ff.); i.e. for us to flourish asindividuals we must flourish as a society and therefore need to focus our efforts

on a good beyond ourselves, the collective anonymous.8. This is not to deny the strong parallels between this notion of what you aremost profoundly and the idea of an essential Buddha nature.

9. Taylors argument that exclusive humanism does not provide adequate groundsfor this culture, thereby opening it to the (very real and too frequently realized)possibility of sliding into destructive forms is important, as is his observationthat theists and other religious adherents have just as often slid into the samequagmire (1999: 345).

10. Some environmentalist movements, for example, believe that all living beingsare entitled to the same rights as enshrined in the universal human rights

position (Hasegawa, 2004: 204). Some go further, treating human life as a riskto other life forms, and thereby of lesser value in the overall scheme of things:this is the deep ecology position (for example, see Soda, 2006: 267), but suchan attitude renders the love more-or-less conditional. This represents anothercorner of the battlefield, presenting a non-anthropocentric ethic in contra-distinction to the anthropocentrism of both exclusive humanism and Taylorstheism.

11. We should probably think instead though, of a continuum between these twopoles (Smith, 2006: 81 n.43).

12. There are of course a myriad of other obstacles/limitations to this freedom,

such as the culture we are born into, the particularities of embodiment, the lawof creation/destruction, etc. I simply employ mortality here as shorthand forthat entire range of things.

13. Note, though, that there is no evidence that Taylors is a vengeful, smiteful god,either. Taylor rejects the notion that once you accept God (or the Absolute/Ideal





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Good) as the ultimate authority you will know what to do in any circumstances(1989: 73), as well as the associated cosmological and metaphysical foundations.This suggests that he might be open to Castoriadiss ontology of radical self-

creation.14. Of course, integration also assumes far more benign forms, including the social-

ization of children into the church through baptism, confirmation, etc.15. Although fundamentalism is the term commonly used today to refer to this set

of phenomena, it is more appropriately labelled literalism, for what unites thesediverse groups is a literalist interpretation of their respective scriptures.

16. Using the term era loosely, for, as mentioned, Taylor argues that all threedispensations continue to coexist in the contemporary world: My claim is notthat any of these provides a total description, but that our history has movedthrough these dispensations, and that the latter has come more and more to

color our age (Taylor, 2002: 97).17. Bauman and others have criticized this tolerance principle, which lies at the

heart of modern liberalism, noting the difference between tolerance andacceptance (see, for example, Bauman, 1993: 235ff.; 2001: 135). For Bauman,to tolerate one need neither accept nor approve simply put up with it. Andtolerance can be withdrawn at any moment. He suggests we need to work ondeveloping a culture of acceptance of difference. In terms of the tensionbetween unity and plurality, tolerance implies a unity (a dominant majority/norm) that puts up with deviance from the norm (within limits, of course);Baumans preferred alternative might then be seen as a plurality that is unified

through mutual acceptance of each others differences.18. Taylor contends that choice alone cannot provide an adequate moral horizon:unless some options are more significant than others, the very idea of self-choice falls into triviality and hence incoherence (1991: 39). The freedom ofchoice is only of value because some choices are more significant (noble, valued,authentic) than others; and this significance is independent of the choosingsubjects will. Indeed, according to Taylor, the ideal of self-determining self-fulfillment presupposes that independent of my will, there is something noble,courageous, and hence significant in giving shape to my own life (1991: 39,emphasis in original). Without this requirement, the ethos of self-fulfillment

becomes shallow and trivialized and those who pursue it suffer flattened andnarrowed lives (1991: 40). This is perhaps most obvious in those narcissisticmodes of the culture of authenticity wherein self-fulfillment is sought in oppo-sition to the demands of society or nature (1991: 40, emphasis in original).

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Bauman, Z. (1993) Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press.Bauman, Z. (2001) Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity

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