| Title | Occupying God's Shadow |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Nietzsche’s Eirōneia |
| Contributor | Julian Reid (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0149.1.07 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/digital-dionysus/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Reid, Julian |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2016-09-12 |
| Long abstract | It is a truism, after Schmitt, to say that all modern political con-cepts are secularized theological ones. Politically speaking we have yet to emancipate ourselves from the tyranny of theologi-cal reason. Never less so than in this current era in which we remain subjected to what Schmitt called “liberal metaphysics.”1And so it is the case that the struggle with neoliberalism must be a struggle against the continuities of its theology. Contrary to Nietz sche, God is far from dead: we haven’t quite finished the job of killing him — nor perhaps could we, were we up to the task. In actual fact, to be true to Nietz sche, his proclama-tion that “God is dead” was followed directly by a claim as to the “shadow” that God continues to cast over us in spite of his “death” and a warning that, in spite of his death, “we still have to vanquish his shadow.”2 That “God is dead” merely means that he continues to live in a different way, as a shadow of himself. The problem Nietz sche posed for us has subsequently been understood as that of how to vanquish that shadow; how to secure the demise of God such that we might escape the many ways in which that shadow continues to be thrown over us, preventing us from realizing our emancipation from religion. How, in other words, to sever the relation of religion to the modern, ridding us of the scourge of religion that continues to afflict our thinking and practices. |
| Page range | pp. 96–106 |
| Print length | 11 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |