Secularism and Cosmopolitanism: Critical Hypotheses on Religion and Politics

by Étienne Balibar

What is the relationship between cosmopolitanism and secularism—the worldwide and the worldly? While cosmopolitan politics may seem inherently secular, existing forms of secularism risk undermining the universality of cosmopolitanism because they privilege the European tradition over all others and transform particular historical norms into enunciations of truth, valid for all cultures and all epochs. In this book, the noted philosopher Étienne Balibar explores the tensions lurking at this troubled nexus in order to advance a truly democratic and emancipatory cosmopolitanism, which requires a secularization of secularism itself.

Balibar argues for the idea of the universal against its particular dominant institutions. He questions the assumptions that underlie popular ideas of secularism and religion and outlines the importance of a new critique for the contemporary world. Balibar holds that conflicts between religious and secular discourses need to be reframed from a point of view that takes into account the cultural hybridization, migration and mobility, and transformation of borders that have reshaped the postcolonial age. Among the topics discussed are the uses and misuses of the category of religion and the religious, the paradoxical genealogy of monotheism, French laïcité’s identitarian turn, and the implications of the responses to the Charlie Hebdo attacks for an extended definition of free speech. Going beyond circumscribed notions of religion and the public sphere, Secularism and Cosmopolitanism is a profound rethinking of identity and difference that seeks to make room for a renewed political imagination.

Genres: Politics

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 19, 2018

About the author

Étienne Balibar is emeritus professor of philosophy at Paris X Nanterre and emeritus professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is also professor of modern European philosophy at Kingston University, London, and professor of French and comparative literature at Columbia University. His books include Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy (Columbia, 2015).

Reviews

[Avery · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's check in on the "postmodernist neo-Marxists" and see how they're doing... oh dear, not very well, apparently. Balibar is certainly cognizant of the contradiction between French liberalism and multiculturalism (his past writings show that he has been clued in since the 1980s), and attempts to critique it from the left, but what sort of "new secularism" is he really imagining? We don't live in Trotsky's or Gramsci's world anymore and theory seems unable to handle new realities.

Balibar elucidates the power structures at play in the current debate over laïcité in France, but he evades a proposal for a direct response. By far the most interesting bit in the book is when he admits that a common civil religion of freedom, in the sense desired by the revolutionaries of 1789 and observed by Tocqueville in America, works only in America and "cannot exist in France." He seems a bit flummoxed about the reemergence of European nationalism in the form of political theology.

This book was most useful to me as a literature survey of pre-21st century writing. Balibar is smart but he doesn't have much by way of a suggestion for the future of Europe.

[Jooseppi Räikkönen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Multa joskus kysytään – toisinaan vittuillen, toisinaan vakavissaan – "filosofin mielipidettä" eri asioihin. Oon aina vähän vieraksunut pyyntöä, etenkin kun en pidä itseäni kamalan kypsyneenä filosofina (tai ehkä filosofina ensialkuunkaan!) Ja jos olisinkin mielestäni filosofina valmis, en silti uskoisi, että filosofia tarjoaa asioihin jotain tiettyä näkökulmaa, jonka minä ystävilleni suunsoitollani tai kynänvingutuksellani voisin paljastaa.

Balibar on kuitenkin muistutus siitä, että ehkä tuollainen kategoria on ihan toimiva – niin mukaansatempaava ajattelua näiltä sivuilta löytyi. Charmantin sivistyneitä, harkittuja ja monisarkaisia huomioita on jo itse päätekstissä kymmeniä ja ne jatkuvat myös lyhyiden esseiden puolella, jotka käsittelevät aiheita Ranskan huivikiellosta Charlie Hebdo -murhiin. Mukaan mahtuu viimeaikaisen historiankirjoituksen pohtimista kuten myös Balibarin tuotantoa tunteville ennestään tuttua eurooppalaisen filosofian aatehistorian kattavalla ja täsmällisellä tuntemuksella briljeerausta. Minuspisteitä ajoittaisesta (ah niin ranskalaisesta!) obskyrantismista, jonka olisi voinut korjata ihan pienellä chillauksella. Mutta tosi magee paketti. Muistutti mitä tällä turhalla urallani voi parhaimmillaan saavuttaa.

[Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate this! I want to go home.