Chantal Mouffe argues that neoliberal “post-politics” has contributed to the rise of a populist moment marked by the re-emergence of collective identifications constitutive of what Carl Schmitt terms “the political.” Although right-wing populism exemplifies one response to post-politics, its xenophobic or exclusivist construction of “the people” represents the flipside of neoliberal globalization’s moralization of Schmitt’s friend/enemy distinction. In her efforts to overcome this stalemate, Mouffe commends the development of an agonistic form of politics that widens democratic debate as well as a left populist movement focused on radicalizing the principles of liberty and equality for all. Drawing on the work of René Girard and Bernard Lonergan in this paper’s final section, I aim to confirm but also complicate Mouffe’s account of the twofold movement from antagonism to agonism and radical democracy. The fruits of this three-way conversation represent a modest first step towards the articulation of an inclusive populism.
The core of Bernard Lonergan’s 1973 lecture entitled ‘Sacralization and Secularization’ is his fourfold distinction between: (a) a sacralization to be dropped; (b) a sacralization to be fostered; (c) a secularization to be welcomed; and (d) a secularization to be resisted. Drawing on elements found in Lonergan’s broader corpus, noted scholars Robert Doran and John Dadosky have presented detailed interpretations of this work. Conversant with both approaches as well as with contemporary debates in political philosophy and theology, my response aims to complicate their insightful albeit relatively heuristic treatments. More specifically, my interpretation of Lonergan’s fourfold distinction culminates with an account of democracy and human rights that clarifies and expands Dadosky’s notion of a fourth stage of meaning and Doran’s conception of social grace.
The doctrine of original sin affirms the coexistence of two contradictory but nonetheless natural orientations of the human spirit: (a) an unrestricted desire for cognitive and moral selftranscendence whose ultimate satisfaction, in Christian terms, is linked to knowledge of, and communion with God and neighbour; 1 and (b) a prevolitional predisposition to seek satisfaction in limited goods -traditionally termed concupiscence or 'moral impotence' 2 -that impedes the realization of humankind's proper telos. Correlative with the anti-Pelagian notion of original sin 3 is the notion of sanctifying grace. 4 Grace alleviates the negative inclinations constitutive of concupiscence -the subject's inborn predispositions to various forms of personal and group egoism -by strengthening her desire for cognitive and moral self-transcendence. 5 Traditionally, these dual components of the doctrine of original sin -(i) the prevolitional and universal character of concupiscence; and (ii) the universality of humankind's need for sanctifying grace -have been accounted for in categories derived from Augustine's classical formulation of the doctrine. 6 Recently, the rise of historical consciousness and the birth of the evolutionary sciences have challenged the veracity of certain purportedly historical aspects of this classical articulation, and by extension, the notion that concupiscence or moral impotence is an inherited effect of Adam's primordial disobedience. 7 Although commitment to the enduring validity of doctrine demands that theologians reaffirm the anti-Pelagian thrust of Augustine's account -those particular essential insights that the doctrine was originally constructed to convey and defend -commitment to doctrinal development demands that historically conscious theologians articulate these enduring 'psychological and theological insights' in categories derived from more credible sources. 8 This paper represents a modest first step in this direction. More specifically, this paper aims to investigate and integrate two complementary attempts to account for what Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan regards as moral impotence, those forms of personal and group egoism -traditionally termed concupiscence -that are central to the classical doctrine of original sin. Whereas proponents of the 'cultural-transmission model' 9 account for the universality of moral impotence in neo-Pelagian terms by stressing the prevolitional inheritance of certain culturally mediated predispositions to commit personal sin, advocates of the 'evolutionary-transmission model' 10 argue that this emphasis is at best only half-correct. From a broader perspective that places personal and cultural development within the context of biological evolution, concupiscence refers not only to certain culturally mediated proclivities to commit personal sin, but also to certain biologically inherited predispositions to disordered forms of self-interest, kin love, reciprocity, and group identification. In the absence of grace, these evolved predis...
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