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Философия в XXI веке: Международный сборник научных трудов / под общей ред. Проф. О.И.Кирикова. – Выпуск 19. – Воронеж: ВГПУ, 2009. – 133 с.  стр. 48-72     ISBN 978-5-88519-517-1

Савченков А.В.

ОАНО «Академия философии и права»

ГОУ ВПО «Челябинский государственный педагогический университет»;

г. Челябинск, Россия.

This work is devoted to research of an issue relating to formation of social space under the influence of a religious tradition. It explains how the religious tradition strengthens in the form of cultural and social practices in the social universe. It studies phenomenological aspects as tools of the religious tradition; process of leaving of the field of faith by the transcendental subject and its seizure by the field of corporal practices; beneficence of the subject of social interaction in the process of its interactions with the Other; language of the religious tradition as a tool for redivision of social existence.

"Social and Phenomenological Analysis of Topology of the Other

as the Object of Religious Tradition”

A. Savchenkov, 2009 director «Philosophy and right academy»

(Chelyabinsk, Russia)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was

with God, and the Word was God. The same was in

the beginning with God. All things were made by

Him; and without Him was not any thing made that

was made.

John 1:1-3

Honorable Nietzsche was speaking truth – God "was killed”. But the question is when? how? and with what? I think that killing of the Almighty happened at the moment of birth of the language; with the language; through writing and speaking about Him. But it is not simple talking or meditation about God by an object of social being made public. It is speaking the language of religious tradition. Notification of interaction objects within a cultural paradigm. When religion acquires distinct features and settles in a social area it encroaches right for God and tries to transmit its worldview and its relationship with the Creator into the society. Religion develops communication media for cooperation with agents and gives preference to language. The language is not a speech form and is rather a system of symbols assigned with symbolic meaning. This phenomenon is interesting by the fact that it finds corporality in society, thus becoming a social phenomenon. Language, being spiritual by nature, acquires corporality due to religious tradition. Act of cognition of the living through the lifeless, of the spiritual through the material is done through it. Cultural traditions and historical memory are supported through corporal practice of the religious language. The fundamental bases of religion become stable due to the appeal to God, in the claim for similarity of the religious language to the language of the God. In Christianity we turn our eyes to the authority of the Holy Scripture.

I will repeat that the basic idea of the Christian religious paradigm is love to God and to the neighbor. Love which should be compared to God’s love to people. The Scripture speaks about it in the following way: "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” (Luke 6:27). Sacrificial love. As, in His time, God sacrificed His Son Jesus Christ so the believers should make sacrifices for the sake of God and the neighbors.

But these sacrifices should be made without constraint, but free, voluntarily. Religious tradition insists that the person becomes himself, as similar to God in character, only where he reaches the extreme excess – at the moment of sacrifice. The Other (in our case God) is the necessary condition for fulfillment of sacrifice. An individual destroys something belonging to himself to give it to the Other. "The Other of a person is being of the human sacrificial world. Sacrifice, thus, is sacrifice of a person to the Other because of the Other”. (3) 

Church practices prescribe achievement of Kingdom of God as the final instance of the human life. This Kingdom is total unattainability; a phantasm flickering in emptiness of the fold formed by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Since the phantasm threatens the sacrificer with unattainability, there is a stimulus for a new sacrifice. In a pursuit for the phantasm human sacrifice becomes inexhaustible, and its dynamics growing. The phantasm is not achievable, it is a limit in relation to which world things are organized, that’s why it keeps the transcendental Ego of the individual in the sacrifice process. Achievement of Kingdom of God, through sacrificial corporal practices, becomes a daily norm, a way of life and loses excessiveness. Deep value of the sacrifice as an experience is lost together with its meaning.

This way we see obligations which are imposed by the church on the flock. They are manifested in the form of reading prayers, regular fasting, acquiring and worshiping of sacred objects (icons), obligatory attendance of a temple during services. Everything that I listed is a corporal manifestation of fathfulness to God, actions for the sake of achievement of the Kingdom of God. Falsification of sacrifice is seen in the church corporality, its meaning in the multitude of daily sacrifices is lost. We move away from the transcendental sacrifice of Jesus Christ which assumes individuality of sacrifice. Generality depersonalizes, deprives of any meaning, makes the sacrifice ordinary.

In this meaning it’s worth quoting Baudrillard: «As to impossibility to spread meaning here, the best example of that would be the example of God. The masses took into consideration only his image, but not the idea. They have never been touched by the idea of the Divine which remained a matter of care for clergymen, or by problems of sin and personal salvation. What attracted them is an enchanting spectacle of martyrs and saints, enchanting spectacles of the Last Judgment and death dances, it is miracles, these are the church dramatized shows and ceremonial, it is immanence of the ritual contrary to transcendentality of the idea. They were pagans – faithful to themselves, they remained to be pagans, in no way worried by thoughts of the Highest Authority and being content with icons, superstitions and the devil. Practice of descent in comparison with spiritual exaltation in faith? Perhaps even so. Plane rituality and profaning imitation destroying the categorical imperative of morals and faith, the grand imperative of the meaning rejected by them forever - is in their manner. And it is not that they could not come out to the highest light of religion - they ignored it. They wouldn’t mind dying for belief, - for holy cause, for an idol. But transcendence, but intense expectation, deferral, austerity connected with it, - the sublime that religion begins with is not recognized by them. The Kingdom of God for the masses has always already existed in advance here, on earth – in pagan immanence of icons, in a show which the Church has made from it. Amazing diversion from the religious. The masses dissolved religion in experience of miracles and performances – it is their sole religious experience”. (4)

Experience of corporal church practices shows us substitution of true religiousness which consists of sacrifice and transcendentality, religiousness of fetish and ceremonies. If sacrifice in the transcendental impulse was once a conversation of a person with God, then the language of religious practices becomes the language by which a person talks about God with himself. Moreover, this language is offered by the religious tradition to the person for conversation about God with himself, stating the convention accepted by community of believers with the church blessing. The corporal language of religious practice makes the unprecedented sacrifice – it sacrifices God to the Church. Having killed God in the language, the Church buried him deeply and erected a tombstone on which it offers to make sacrifices, for the sake of the Sacrificed. "They also say that on this very day the madman managed to get into many temples and to sing a requiem there: "Memory eternal to God”. He was sent away and called to account, but he only repeated one thing: "Aren’t these temples not tombs and tombstones of God?” (5)

But let’s go back to the sacrifice. The sacrifice of Jesus, His cross - is the point which collects components of reality, connecting it with the Other. In this reality an individual takes the primary place, he is the center of the universe, in the context of social life. Therefore the statement that the sacrifice of the Savior was called to close reality on the person is pertinent. The Christ as the object for imitation may not be uncomprehended by the human mind, unreached by exercises in sacrifice. The Christ on the Cross constantly slips away from being approachable, inducing the individual to continuous sacrifice, to improvement of quality of the sacrifice, to formation of transcendentality of the sacrifice. Comprehension of transcendentality of the Other is inexhaustible, that is why human sacrifice is also inexhaustible. "The Other as otherness, due to its inexhaustibility, is given the person always only in a form of otherness of its otherness – as a phantom of the Other which, nevertheless, is the Other himself. The Other covers himself with himself, he is invariably hidden, but this hiddenness is the unique form of his openness to the person”. (3)

Sacrifice takes place in the language, it is not important what denotatives of this language are: a fetish (iconography, church attributes), gestures (in public worship service practice), sounds (in hymns), characters (texts). Since "whatever gives life to a word dies in speech” and since "the word embodies this death”, (6) the language is necessary for sacrificial activity. The language is communicative and consequently transfers sacrifice from a subject to the Other. The thing which for the subject is simply destroyed is a sacrifice for the Other. Sacrificial destructiveness of the language depends on subjectifying power of a language sphere. The language destroys because it prescribes subjectification. In such subjectification the language of religious tradition destroys God Himself, trying to transform Him into a subject of belief, through a number of conventions on sacrifices. Therefore the Other becomes for us the Other somewhere, instead of the Other here, now and for us. And as a consequence acquires signs of extraneity.

The language as the sacrifice tool belongs to a person. The Other is silent, that is why speech of a person it not speech of the Other. The Other only listens and in silence accepts everything that the person offers to Him. But since sacrifice of the person occurs due to the Other, then language finds being only in the Other. Speaking of the Other [God] in the language of religion takes the Other out of His natural being, being in Himself and for Himself, forcing to live in the language. Therefore the Other is doomed to deprivation of otherness and in a speech act acquires properties and qualities which the individual assigns to Him. Otherness of the Other depends on how they speak about the Other and what they say. The Other killed in the language is not the Other anymore, but in some way our own. His lifeless affinity is obvious, since He no more lives beyond, but lives in a cultural tradition prescribed by the Church. The Scripture is now perceived not as the Word of God about Himself, but as a text created by the person and narrating about God.

On the other hand sacrificial language, killing the Other, does creative work. It gives us the Other in the new form which is more accessible to understanding; in the form which although moves us away from transcendental essence of the Other, but makes Him more accessible as a corporal substance expressed in the form of cultural tradition, making direct impact on social practice. Looking at the things belonging to religious tradition, we find that once they the words written down, and now act as interpretants; "For a thought about a thing as about the fact that it exists, already is already mixed with experience of a pure word, and in its turn it is mixed with experience as it is”. (7) The accessible Other appropriates experience of material language and writes down the acquired body on a plane of social life.

Let's return to the fact that in the beginning of conversation I stated the assertion about killing of God through writing and speaking about Him in language. Killing of God takes place in the language, by depriving Him of transcendental essence which is a real face of God. And it is not by accident. Since my appeals are also directed to J. Derrida as to the philosopher who closely approached to the given point of view while he caimed the following: "To write is not simply to know that the Book does not exist and that there are always just books in which meaning of the world [of the Other] is broken before being uniform, the meaning which has not become the thought of the absolute subject; To write is also not to have possibility to premise to the letter its meaning: that is to reduce meaning, but also at the same time to elevate the record. Brotherhood of theological optimism and pessimism is in it; To write is to know that what has not been made in a letter has no any other dwelling, does not expect us as an instruction in some topos uranios or in Divine mind. The meaning should expect to be said or written to live itself and to become what it is, differing with itself – the meaning; It is necessary that we lose need in writing so that our life would appear so pure that the grace of the Spirit would replace books in our soul of and would be written in our hearts. Having pushed away the grace, we are forced to use letters, this second planning ». (7)

Writing is a tool of deprivation of initial meaning of the Other. Writing is establishment of language, in which and by which sacrifice to the Other and of the Other is made. Writing is latching in language of sacrifice of the Other to Himself. We see how the Church acts as a writer, it has in its hands the language of religious tradition by means of which it leaves letters on the platform of social life, with the help of fetish and worship services. It establishes rules of play everywhere between social agents. Church canons are called to service of tradition and participate in formation of a habit of social practices agents. Through this the Church fulfills its self-interest as the social institute pursuing the goal to secure in society as widely and strongly as it is possible.  For this purpose structures within church practices are created which influence structures within social practices. In these structures the unity of form and meaning is shown which is laid in the basis of cultural practice. Examples of this may be, for example, iconography, behavior etiquette, etc. The traditional women’s clothing: long skirt, headscarf, long hair, one-color clothes, all of it underlines womanhood in character and supports gender gap. It is the form of writing which prescribes a way of life and a manner of behavior of the individual in society. "I will give the name "structures” to those formal constants, those copulas which are invented by each writer according to his needs». (7) In our case the Church acts as the writer.

Since we can recognize that connection between language structures and structures of social life is indissoluble, then the language of religious tradition claims for some essential role in all spheres of social life. It forms a harmonious and organic system out of variety of signs in which all elements are interconnected with one another. Each element in such system exists as an independent one and at the same time interacts with others, forming representation about the Other and about the world of cultural tradition. This language exists irrespective of our understanding. It exists in the form of this tradition generated by religious practices.

            Drawing attention to relations between social life and language of religious tradition, it will be pertinent to recall Heidegger and his statements "language is a house of being”; "demonstration" of being; "dissection" of being. Further I suggest to put aside what I consider the language of religious tradition and to simply talk about language, as a substantial-empty form ready to accept the properties which we will assign to it, including properties of religious tradition.

            The concept of "dissection” shows how unity of language and the world can take place. Heidegger reveals in his philosophy that, in his opinion, [social] being has a structure which coincides with the structure of dissection of language, since the language is exactly what structures, rules the being, therefore the concept of "dissection” gives an opportunity for understanding unity of language and the world. Проделывая определенную работу по фетишизации и окультуриванию социума, религиозная традиция, которая на поверхности социального бытия выступает как язык трансляции религиозных догм и канонов, покрывает социальный универсум сеткой, которая образует карту социального мира.  Doing certain work on worshipping and cultivation of the society, the religious tradition which on a surface of social life acts as language of translation of religious dogmas and canons, covers a social universum with a grid which forms a card of the social world. A landscape according to which the things we perceive are outlined is marked on this map. The tradition snaps out the individual out of outer world and turns him into an agent of its practice.

            I will quote the words of D.V. Kotelevsky in this context: "Things, bodies in the worlds created by dissection create new figures which are imperceptible for eyes of those who are not in these worlds. [As peculiarities of spiritual perception of a fetish or fasting by believers are imperceptible for those who are not church-going] A group of bodies may form a figure which will exist according to its laws different from the laws of separate bodies included into figures. These bodies disappear from space of the figures; they disappear from the visibility zone for the "eye” of the figure, fall out of observation as separate bodies. Bounds of figures may not even coincide with bounds of physical bodies creating new spaces of existence, existence of not a person, but of some figures accessible to an eye only from a point created by a certain language. We propose to name the separate language which creates a definite space of dissection of existence with its specific characteristics and features, a local discourse, and to name the dissection of space of [social] existence itself in the indicated above sense – "territorization”. (8) For example, the figure of a separate individual disappears in the mass of believers when they gather for a collective prayer in a temple, during a worship service. The language of tradition prescribes them to gather for performance of certain actions during certain time of the day (because there is a symbolical aspect in it coordinated with Evangelical events). Thus we witness occurrence of a new body assembled of several individuals. This body exists due to pronouncing about it as about the Church body, its formation is speaking about it in the language of tradition. This body, figure, has and creates inside and around itself a new social space, with topological properties different from habitual ones. Territorization of the place on which a new practice was formed occurred.

            Language, in the process of dissection and structurization of social being creates new local spaces which did not exist so far. In our case these are spaces filled with practices synthesized by means of church tradition. For example, a figure of relations bureaucrat-worker is filled with a directive – "There is no power not from the God” and realizes space of obedience; a figure man-woman realizes space of love as continuation of family. The social space quite often consists of such figures which actually let it be realized as social. For this reason things and bodies, passing into other dissections of social being, change, may disappear and appear, lose its definiteness which they possess only virtually.

The continuation...