Summary

• Objects (0 modified, 0 added, 1 removed)
  • Caselist.CitesClass[13]

Details

Caselist.CitesClass[13]

Cites

...	...	@@ -1,66 +1,0 @@
1		-Framework: Ethics is divided between ideal and non-ideal theory. Ideal theory ask what justice demands in a perfect world while non-ideal theory ask what justice demands in a world that is already unjust. Prefer non-ideal theory as a meta-ethical starting point:
2		-
3		-1. Social Ontology: Ideal theory fails to recognize that agency is always political – focusing on a pre-given universal subject ignores our constitutive social relations with others. An ontology that recognizes differentiation in subjectivity is key. BUTLER:
4		-(Judith Butler. 1992. “Continent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of “Postmodernism” Feminists Theorize the Political)
5		-“In a sense, the subject is constituted through an exclusion and differentiation, perhaps a repression, that is subsequently concealed, covered over, by the effect of autonomy. In this sense, autonomy is the logical consequence of a disavowed dependency, which is to say that the autonomous subject can maintain the illusion of its autonomy insofar as it covers over the break out of which it is constituted. This dependency and this break are already social relations, ones which precede and condition the formation of the subject. As a result, this is not a relation in which the subject finds itself, as one of the relations that forms it situation. The subject is constructed through acts of exclusion and differentiation that distinguish the subject from its constitutive outside, a domain of abjected alterity. There is no ontologically intact reflexivity to the subject which is then placed within a cultural context; that cultural context, as it were, is already there as the disarticulated process of that subject’s production, one that is concealed by the frame that would situate a ready-made subject in an external web of cultural relations. We may be tempted to think that to assume the subject in advance is necessary in order to safeguard the agency of the subject. But to claim that the subject is constituted is not to claim that it is determined; on the contrary, the constituted character of the subject is the very precondition of its agency. For what is it that enables a purposive and significant reconfiguration of cultural and political relations, if not a relation that can be turned against itself, reworked, resisted? Do we need to assume theoretically from the start a subject with agency before we can articulate the terms of a significant social and political task of transformation, resistance, radical democratization? If we do not offer in advance the theoretical guarantee of that agent, are we doomed to give up transformation and meaningful political practice? My suggestion is that agency belongs to a way of thinking about persons as instrumental actors who confront an external political field. But if we agree that politics and power exist already at the level at which the subject and its agency are articulated and made possible, then agency can be presumed only at the cost of refusing to inquire into its construction. Consider that “agency” has no formal existence or, if it does, it has no bearing on the question at hand. In a sense, the epistemological model that offers us a pregiven subject or agent is one that refuses to acknowledge that agency is always and only a political prerogative. As such, it seems crucial to question the conditions of its possibility, not to take it for granted as an a priori guarantee. We need instead to ask, what possibilities of mobilization that are produced on the basis of existing configurations of discourse and power? Where are the possibilities of reworking that very matrix of power by which we are constituted, of reconstituting the legacy of that constitution, and of working against each other those processes of regulation at can destabilize existing power regimes? For if the subject is constituted by power, that power does not cease at the moment the subject is constituted, for that subject is never fully constituted, but is subjected and produced time and again. That subject is neither a ground nor a product, but the permanent possibility of a certain resignifying process, one which gets detoured and stalled through other mechanisms of power, but which is power’s own possibility of being reworked. The subject is an accomplishment regulate and produced in advance. And is as such fully political; indeed, perhaps most political at the point in which it is claimed to be prior to politics itself.”
6		-
7		-2. Motivation: Ideal theory cannot guide action since its starting point has diverged from the descriptive model of the real world. Non-ideal theory is key for ethical motivation. MILLS:
8		-Charles W. Mills, “Ideal Theory” as Ideology, 2005
9		-(“Ideal Theory” as Ideology CHARLES W. MILLS 2004 UH-DD)
10		-“A first possible argument might be the simple denial that moral theory should have any concern with making realistic assumptions about human beings, their capacities, and their behavior. Ethics is concerned with the ideal, so it doesn’t have to worry about the actual. But even for mainstream ethics this wouldn’t work, since, of course, ought is supposed to implies can the ideal has to be achievable by humans. Nor could it seriously be cal imed that moral theory is concerned only with mapping beautiful ideals, not their actual implementation. If any ethicist actually said this, it would be an astonishing abdication of the classic goal of ethics, and its link with practical reason. The normative here would then be weirdly detached from the prescriptive: this is the good and the right—but we are not concerned with their actual realization. Even for Plato, a classic example in at least one sense of an ideal theorist, this was not the case: the Form of the Good was supposed to motivate us, and help philosophers transform society. Nor could anyone seriously say that ideal theory is a good way to approach ethics because as a matter of fact (not as a conceptual necessity following from what “model” or “ideal” means), the normative here has come is close to converging with the descriptive: ideal- as-descriptive-model has approximated to ideal-as-idealized-model. Obviously, the dreadful and dismaying course of human history has not remotely been a record of close-to-ideal behavior, but rather of behavior that has usually been quite the polar opposite of the ideal, with oppression and inequitable treatment of the majority of humanity (whether on grounds of gender, or nationality, or class, or religion, or race) being the norm. So the argument cannot be that as a matter of definitional truth, or factual irrelevance, or factual convergence, ideal theory is required. The argument has to be, as in the quote from Rawls above, that this is the best way of doing normative theory, better than all the other contenders. But why on earth should anyone think this? Why should anyone think that abstaining from theorizing about oppression and its consequences is the best way to bring about an end to oppression? Isn’t this, on the face of it, just completely implausible?”
11		-
12		-3. Descriptive Ideality: ideal theory ignores social realities, which in turn contradicts ideals. Normative ideals aren’t created separately from the social norms that govern us because those influence what we can count as an ideal in the first place. MILLS 2:
13		-(“Ideal Theory” as Ideology CHARLES W. MILLS 2004 UH-DD)
14		-“I suggest that this spontaneous reaction, far from being philosophically naïve or jejune, is in fact the correct one. If we start from what is presumably the uncontroversial premise that the ultimate point of ethics is to guide our actions and make ourselves better people and the world a better place, then the framework above will not only be unhelpful, but will in certain respects be deeply antithetical to the proper goal of theoretical ethics as an enterprise. In modeling humans, human capacities, human interaction, human institutions, and human society on ideal-as-idealized-models, in never exploring how deeply different this is from ideal-as-descriptive-models, we are abstracting away from realities crucial to our comprehension of the actual workings of injustice in human interactions and social institutions, and thereby guaranteeing that the ideal-as-idealized-model will never be achieved.” (170)
15		-
16		-4. Standpoint Epistemology: Ideal theory strips away questions of particularities and isolates a universal feature of agents. This normalizes a single experience and epistemically skews ethical theorizing. MILLS 3:
17		-(“Ideal Theory” as Ideology CHARLES W. MILLS 2004 UH-DD)
18		-“The crucial common claim—whether couched in terms of ideology and fetishism, or androcentrism, or white normativity—is that all theorizing, both moral and nonmoral, takes place in an intellectual realm dominated by concepts, assumptions, norms, values, and framing perspectives that reflect the experience and group interests of the privileged group (whether the bourgeoisie, or men, or whites). So a simple empiricism will not work as a cognitive strategy; one has to be self-conscious about the concepts that “spontaneously” occur to one, since many of these concepts will not arise naturally but as the result of social structures and hegemonic ideational patterns. In particular, it will often be the case that dominant concepts will obscure certain crucial realities, blocking them from sight, or naturalizing them, while on the other hand, concepts necessary for accurately mapping these realities will be absent. Whether in terms of concepts of the self, or of humans in general, or in the cartography of the social, it will be necessary to scrutinize the dominant conceptual tools and the way the boundaries are drawn. This is, of course, the burden of standpoint theory—that certain realities tend to be more visible from the perspective of the subordinated than the privileged (Harding 2003). The thesis can be put in a strong and implausible form, but weaker versions do have considerable plausibility, as illustrated by the simple fact that for the most part the crucial conceptual innovation necessary to map nonideal realities has not come from the dominant group. In its ignoring of oppression, ideal theory also ignores the consequences of oppression. If societies are not oppressive, or if in modeling them we can abstract away from oppression and assume moral cognizers of roughly equal skill, then the paradigmatic moral agent can be featureless. No theory is required about the particular group-based obstacles that may block the vision of a particular group. By contrast, nonideal theory recognizes that people will typically be cognitively affected by their social location, so that on both the macro and the more local level, the descriptive concepts arrived at may be misleading.” (175)
19		-
20		-Next, prefer liberation theology as a method for overcoming non-ideal structures of inequality:
21		-
22		-1. Value Inversion: The death of Christ represents a paradox in Christianity where POWER is weakness BORN again through death. Liberation theology inverses the value of power itself in recognition of the cross. CONE:
23		-James Cone highly influential black theologian known for his work on black liberation theology. The Cross and The Lynching Tree. Orbis Books. 2011.
24		-“The paradox of a crucified savior lies at the heart of the Christianity story. That paradox was particularly evident in the first century when crucifixion was recognized as the particular form of execution reserved by the Roman Empire for insurrectionists and rebels. It was a public spectacle accompanied by torture and shame—one of the most humiliating and painful deaths ever devised by human beings. That Jesus died this way required is special explanation. It made no rational or even spiritual sense to say that hope came out of “a place called Golgotha . . . a place of the skull.” For the Jews of Jesus’ time the punishment of crucifixion held special opprobrium, given their belief that “anyone hung on a tree is under Gods curse” (Deut 21:23). Thus, St. Paul said that the “word of the cross is foolishness” to the intellect and a stumbling block to established religion. The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last. That God could “make a way out of no way” In Jesus’ cross was truly absurd to the intellect, yet profoundly real in the souls of black folk. Enslaved blacks who first heard the gospel message seized on the power of the cross. Christ crucified manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black life—that transcendent presence in the lives of black Christians that empowered them to believe that ultimately, in God’s eschatological future, they would not be defeated by the “troubles of this world,” no matter how great and painful their suffering. Believing this paradox, this absurd claim of faith was only possible through God’s “amazing grace” ad the gift of faith, grounded in humility and repentance. There was no place for the proud and the mighty, for people who think that God called them to rule over others. The cross was God’s critique of power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory out of defeat.”
25		-
26		-And, since our agency is not independent and constantly vulnerable towards the other our subjectivity is in a constant state of apophatic negativity. Inverting supremacy through liberation theology is the only way to account for apophatism. DANIELS:
27		-Brandy Daniels. A Poststructuralist Liberation Theology? Queer Theory and Apophaticism. Union Seminary Quarterly Review. Volume 64: 2 and 3.
28		-“Part 3: A Potential Point of Convergence: Queer Theory and Apophati cism Systematic theology is a difficult enterprise to describe. Van A. Harvey, whose A Handbook of Theological Terms appears on many a seminary syllabi, especially on introductory courses in theological studies, writes that “systematic theology is, as the name suggests, the systematic organization and discussion of the problems that arise in Christian faith.”35 Liberation theology has, historically, both situated itself within systematic theological discourse, as well as pushed back against many of its attendant methodological and theoretical presuppositions— drawing attention to the contexts in which we construct meanings and seeking to ground theological reflection both in and from the place of the marginalized, of the poor.36 In this essay, I have highlighted the value of liberation theology to the discipline, but have also sought to ask how it might be more faithful to its aims in light of a poststructuralist critique. Using Butler, I have tried to demonstrate how poststructuralism might provide resources wherein one can envision liberative aims without reifying problematic ontological and epistemological regimes of knowledge-power. In this final section, then, I want to explore how another component of the theological tradition—that of apophaticism, of negative theol ogy—might serve as a rich resource for doing theology that is simultaneously poststructuralist and liberationist. Apophatic theology, Via Negativa, is deeply embedded within the theology cal tradition, associated with the Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th century, Pseudo Dionysius, and Thomas Aquinas. This tradition of “theology by way of negation” stresses the ineffability of God, the inadequacy of human language and concepts to describe Divinity.37 As Mary Jane Rubenstein points out, “apophasis does not oppose cataphasis”—negation is not opposed to the organization and discussion of Christian faith, but rather, perhaps like liberation theology, provides a sort of epistemological frame through which to theologize.38 This epistemological emphasis on the inadequacy of human knowledge and language to describe God shapes also how we speak about ourselves, the human that is made in the imago dei. Thus, one can begin to see how a queer theoretical position is an apophatic one, through its deconstruction and eschewal of categorization and assertion of incoherent sub jectivity. Butler’s account of subversion through an explication of Paris is Burning offers one example of political agency that is enabled by a poststructuralist account of power-knowledge discourse. If knowledge, as Foucault and Butler claim, is key to control and domination, through a production of subjectivity bound to particular categories— then it is perhaps through an unknowing, a silence, that space for political transformation can be envisioned. Boesel and Keller, in their edited volume Apophatic Bodies: Negative Theology, Incarnation, and Relationality, echo Butler’s claim about epistemological imperialism and point out its theological inflections in their assertion that “mastery over divine mystery routinely results in a body count.”39 What might political agency, liberation, and transformation look like when envisioned through an apophatic register? Butler emphasizes this apophatic dimension of her approach to gendered bod ies in greater detail in a later text, aptly titled Undoing Gender. Here, Butler she points out that it is precisely this notion of an autonomous identity that poststructuralism resists (a notion, I might add, that is shared by liberation theology) that is reflected in the body itself. The body does not reify autonomy but evidences its failure. It does not assume independence, but rather signifies and dependence. She explains: Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re miss ing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must), we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is not precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another, or, indeed, by virtue of another.40 Butler demonstrates that the body evidences and speaks to an apophasis, an unknowing, a dispossession. Rather than being the place where liberative aims are abandoned, however, they evidence themselves to be the place where resistance and subversion, and thus liberation, are most accessible. Butler thus provides “an unsaying of the body in the name of the body.”41 In this way, a queer, an apophatic account of the embodied self provided by post structuralism provides a liberative space that resists the mastery and control that pervades an Enlightenment ethos. This is a theme that Chris Boesel and Catherine Keller take up in depth. “Apophaticism,” Boesel and Keller explain, “it does not negate bodies as such. Rather it targets our false knowledge, the idols formed in our confusion of the finite with the infinite.”42 What Butler’s oeuvre both implicitly and explicitly elucidates is how one can recognize and affirm the lived, material, embodied existence of the marginalized and pursue the political aims of justice and liberation without falling prey to the claims of knowledge and mastery that are bound up with modernist epistemologies. This does not, however, negate or resist the aims of liberation theology—rather, it offers a space in which they can be more fully realized.”
29		-
30		-2. Final Critique: Only transcendence in the cross provides the final critique to supremacy by inverting our epistemological understandings of power and designating intrinsic worth towards the oppressed. Sustaining current epistemologies dooms liberation in the long term. GORMAN: Michael J the Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, where he has taught since 1991 . Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2001. Print
31		-“All other claims to or attempts at power are thereby rendered impotent. Hellenistic society, like perhaps all societies, was based on success. Yet Paul asserts that since Jesus, humankind is not intrinsically controlled by competition and success, superiority and inferiority, superordination and subordination. Rather, humanity is controlled by the mutual solidarity of a life born out of a common death. It is for this reason that Paul’s communities transcend gender, class, and racial barriers (Gal. 3:28): life in Christ is grounded in a power that makes somebodies out of nobodies and renders so-called somebodies no more or less significant than their “inferior.” Power in the Pauline communities is not to be found in social power but in social weakness, in those who are weak and despised, just as this power is grounded in the one who manifested God’s power as a weak and cursed “nobody” on a Roman cross. The cross “reveals the way God works now, not just the way he achieved salvation in the past. . . . He works now in conformity with the pattern seen then on the cross: it is the God of the cross with whom the Corinthians and all believers now have to deal.” Furthermore, this shared power is expressed in the Pauline communities in the possession and exercise of spiritual gifts, or gifts of grace (Greek charismata). Although there is a hierarchy to the gifts, based on their perceived ability to benefit the community (1 Cor. 12:28; ch. 14), everyone poses a gift, and each gift—and therefore each member of the community—is important and valued. Indeed, the socially inferior are the communally superior; status is not only transcended but reversed: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. . . . . . . The members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable member do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members ay have the same care for one another. (1 Cor. 12:7, 22-25) While social distinctions remain in the Pauline communities (slaves—at least the salves of nonbelievers—are still slaves), the strongest forces experienced in these communities are not those that distinguish the socially inferior from the socially superior. Rather, these communities experience a power that transcends and reverses social status, a power known only in the cross and in communities shaped by it.”
32		-
33		-3. Pessimism/Optimism Paradox: Pessimism creates a lack of motivation since it engrains the idea that nothing can ever get better because oppression is intrinsic to the very structure of recognition. Optimism fails since it ignores how pervasive oppression is to our structure. Only liberation theology allows us to both say we don’t fit into the world and yet not fall into mere skepticism. CHESTERSON:
34		-Gilbert K Chesterton. Orthodoxy. 1908. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130.html
35		-But the important matter was this, that it entirely reversed the reason for optimism. And the instant the reversal was made it felt like the abrupt ease when a bone is put back in the socket. I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do NOT fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the WRONG place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.
36		-
37		-4. Soul Murder: Social death provides an ontological understanding over how others perceive the subject, but it cannot account for Soul Murder. This refers to the subject psychologically internalizing a fractured conception of the self due to their experience of gratuitous oppression. MASON:
38		-John Edwin Mason PhD from Yale. Current Prof at UAV. teaches African history and the history of photography. He has written extensively on early nineteenth-century South Africa history, especially the history of slavery, South African popular culture, especially the Cape Town New Year's Carnival and jazz. Social death and Resurrection: Slavery and Emancipation in South Africa. University of Virginia Press. 2003. ISBN 0-8139-2178-3
39		-“Patterson acknowledges that social death describes slavery in the ideal. Actually existing slavery was more complex, “laden with tension and contradiction in the dynamics of each of its constituent elements.” Reality was more complex than theory because most slaves refused to believe that they were dead, socially or otherwise. Most were, in Patterson’s words, “desperate for life.” Although slavery crushed some individual slaves, there is, he contends, “absolutely no evidence from the long and dismal annals of slavery to suggest that any group of slaves” internalized their masters’ way of seeing things. Like Aurora and Adonis, slaves evaded and resisted violence and fought to maintain ties of kinship and affection. Like them, slaves struggled to assert their human dignity. Patterson writes that because the slave’s “kin relations were illegitimate, they were all the more cherished. Because he was consider degraded, he was all the more infused with the yearning for dignity. Because of his formal isolation and liminality, he was acutely sensitive to the realities of community.” Slaves wanted nothing more than to become “legitimate members of society, to be socially born again.” They longed for social resurrection. I see social death as more a literary metaphor than a social theory. Metaphors are by nature inexact, both allusive and elusive, and are not to be taken literally. As a metaphor, social death powerfully evokes those aspects of the social order that did the most to shape and define the slaves’ outer lives. It has little to say, however, about the slaves’ inner lives, despite Patterson’s eloquent acknowledgment of slaves’ psychological autonomy. My understanding of the psychology of slavery draws inspiration from the writings of Nell Irvin Painter. Painter has insisted that a “fully loaded cost accounting” of slavery demand an examination of the psychology of slavery. She argues that the violence and sexual abuse that slaves endured, especially during childhood, had damaging psychological consequences. She cite modern studies of those who have suffered repeated beatings and sexual exploitation to show that victims experience “certain fairly predictable effects . . . feelings of degradation and humiliation . . . anger, hatred, and self-hatred.” Since “it is doubtful that slaves possessed an immunity that victims today lack,” they would have exhibited similar symptoms. This, she writes, constitutes “soul murder.” Painter takes the words soul murder literally, arguing that “the beating and raping of enslaved people was neither secret nor metaphorical.” While this was as true of the Cape as it was of the American South about which Painter writes, soul murder can equally well be paired with social death as a complementary metaphor. As with social death, soul murder was not absolute, and it was reversible. How closely the slaves’ psychological condition in a particular time and place approached soul murder depended on how well slaves and slave owners asserted their contradictory interests, as Painter admits. Southern slaves who were imbedded in networks of kin and fictive kin or who had been touched by religious faith survived slavery “in a human and humane manner.” This was sometimes the case at the Cape as well.Things generally turned out badly for the salves; such was the balance of power in slave societies. But things were rarely as bad as they might have been, because, like Aurora and Appollos, most slaves never ceased to fight for life in the face of soul murder and social death.”
40		-And, liberation theology provides the oppressed with meaning beyond unexplainable violence. A mere hope to continue surviving in this messed up world does not provide the conceptual motivation for anything to ever change as long as the goal remains living in this world. CONE 2:
41		-Consumed by a passion to express myself about the liberating power of the black religious experience, I continued to write and speak about this spiritual revolution erupting in the cultural and political contexts of the African American community. This message of liberation was “something like a burning fire shut up in my bones,” to use the language of Jeremiah; “I was weary with holding it in, and I could not” (Jer. 20:9). All fo m work since that first book has involved an effort to relate the gospel and the black experience-the experience of oppression as well as the struggle to find liberation and meaning. Inevitably, it has led to these reflections on the cross and the lynching tree: the essential symbol of Christianity and the quintessential emblem of black suffering. To live meaningfully, we must see light beyond the darkness. As Micea Eliade put it, “Life is not possible without an opening towards the transcendent.” The lynching era was the Heart of Darkness for the African American community. It was a time when fragments of meaning were hard to find. Some found meaning in the blues and others in collective political resistance, but for many people it was religion that helped them to look beyond their tragic situation to a time when they would “cross the river of Jordan,” “lay down dat heavy load, and “walk in Jerusalem just like John.” The Christian gospel is God’s message of liberation in an unredeemed and tortured world. As such it is a transcendent reality that lifts our spirits to a world far removed from the suffering of this one. It is an eschatological vision, an experience of transfiguration, such as Jesus experienced at his baptism (Mk1:9-11) or on Mt. Tabor (Mk 9:2-8), just because he set out on the road to Jerusalem, the road that led to Calvary. Paul had such a vision—“a light from heaven”—as he traveled the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3). Malcolm X, while in prison, had a vision of God, and so too did Martin King hear God speaking to him in his kitchen at a moment of crisis during the Montgomery bus boycott. For all four, the revelatory moment in their lives helped to prepare them to face their deaths, sustained by the conviction that this was not the end but the beginning of a new life of meaning. To paraphrase Eliade, once contact with the transcendent is found, a new existence in the world becomes possible.
42		-
43		-The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater who best methodologically engages in liberation theology. RAVEGE-SEUL:
44		-Revage-Seul, Mike. "Liberation Theology and the Pedagogy of Insurrection." Truthout. N.p., 11 Jan. 2016. Web. 10 Sept. 2016.
45		-“As expressed by McLaren's colleague, Ira Shor, critical pedagogy addresses "Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context and, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media or discourse." (Empowering Education, 129) Put otherwise, McLaren's approach to teaching is about developing modes of reflection and communication that question received wisdom. It uncovers the radical causes (in the etymological sense of "root" origins) defined by social structures, history, and the interplay of ideologies as they appear in texts and public discourse. McLaren himself elaborates: "Critical pedagogy includes relationships between teaching and learning. Its proponents claim critical educational studies underwritten by a social justice agenda will require more than lifestyle changes, but concerted critique and transformation of the unbridled barbarism of capitalist social relations.” In other words, McLaren's version of critical teaching does not pretend to be "neutral." It is about changing the world. Having identified unfettered capitalism as barbaric and destructive, its aim is to provide students with powerful theoretical tools to understand themselves in relation to socio-political and economic structures. (And by the way, Peter does so in an entirely delightful way - his pages overflowing with poetic prose, classical and historical references, and even (in his final chapter) with a wonderful all-encompassing performance manifesto which more than one reviewer has identified as reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's Howl.) Reflections on Liberation Theology But all of that was to be expected from a truly exceptional artist, philosopher, poet, teacher and activist like Peter McLaren. What was unexpected was his focus on liberation theology as itself a critical if not indispensable tool of critical social theory. As understood by McLaren, liberation theology is reflection on the following of Christ from the viewpoint of those committed to positively transforming the reality of the world's poor and oppressed. In adopting this approach, McLaren follows his mentor, Paulo Freire, who inspired the methodology employed in liberation theology's "biblical circles," where unlettered peasants uncovered the socially transformative meanings in the narratives of Jesus' familiar words and deeds. And what did they find? In Jesus, they found a man recognized by the impoverished protagonists of liberation theology as someone like them. He looked like them. According to experts in the field of forensic archeology, he resembled poor mestizos everywhere in Latin America. He probably stood about 5'1'' and weighed about 110 pounds. His skin was brown. He was a laborer, not a scholar; his hands were calloused. Ironically, Jesus also possessed characteristics that mainstream Christians often find repulsive and ungodly but familiar to the poor everywhere. He was the son of an unwed teenage mother. He was homeless at birth. If we are to believe Matthew's account, Jesus was an immigrant in Egypt for a while. The good people of his day called him a drunkard and the companion of prostitutes. They expelled him from his synagogue because he didn't seem to care about the Ten Commandments, especially the most important one - the Sabbath law. (For a Jew such excommunication and the shunning it entailed were like a death sentence.) The religious authorities said he was a heretic and possessed by the devil. The occupying Roman authorities identified him as a terrorist. They arrested him. And he ended up a victim of torture and of capital punishment carried out by crucifixion - a means of execution the Romans reserved specifically for insurgents. He was not the kind of person mainstream Christians usually admire. He was far too radical to merit their approval. Jesus' teachings were radical as well.They centered on social justice. As such they infuriated his opponents but were wildly inspiring to the poor and oppressed. His proclamation was not about himself, but about what he called "The Kingdom of God." That was the highly charged political image he used to refer to what the world would be like if God were king instead of Caesar. In that kingdom everything would be turned upside-down. The first would be last; the last would be first. The rich would be poor; and the poor would be rich. Subsequent reflection by followers of Jesus in the Book of Revelation teased all of that out and drew the conclusion that with the dawning of God's kingdom, the Roman Empire would be destroyed and replaced by a new heaven and a new earth entirely unlike empire. There (as indicated in the Acts of the Apostles) wealth would be distributed from each according to his ability to each according to his need. There would be room for everyone. If that sounds like communism, it's because, as the Mexican exegete Jose Miranda (one of McLaren's favorites) points out, the idea of communism originated with Christians, not with Marx and Engels. With all this in mind, McLaren returns to his critical theory. He traces its roots not merely to Marx and Engels or to the 20th century work of philosophers like Jurgen Habermas or to philosophical circles such as the Frankfurt School. Instead, he takes readers right back to the one he calls "Comrade Jesus."”
46		-Impact Calc: Liberation theology is intent based
47		-1.
48		-2.
49		-3.
50		-4.
51		-
52		-Thus, I defend that countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power as a method of embracing liberation on the cross.
53		-
54		-Contention:
55		-
56		-First, extracting natural resources is part of a western spirituality that has created an ethical dualism between the environment and its subjects. This treats the environment as instrumentally valuable and propagates an epistemology based on human superiority, which is counter productive to humility in the cross. WRIGHT:
57		-“CHRISTIANITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE” By Nancy Wright // UH-DD
58		-“Some feel they need to move beyond Christianity: theologian Chung Hyun Kyung writes, “Many eco-feminists reject the spirituality of traditional Western Christianity, which is based on Greek and Hellenistic dualism, of hierarchy of beings and an androcentric bias....Therefore, when we incorporate African or Asian indigenous spirituality to eco-feminist spirituality, ...The earth becomes sacred....Reaffirming our commitment to the struggle of liberation of our people and nature, we would share the symbol of a tree as the most inspiring symbol for the spirituality of eco-feminism.” 21 While I am sympathetic to Kyung’s position, I disagree that we have to move beyond Christianity. Christianity is large enough to encompass and undergird a response to environmental injustice. Foundational theological motifs to inspire work for environmental justice are: The incarnation, the suffering of Christ on the cross (as representing the suffering of the vulnerable and disenfranchised and God’s suffering with them), an understanding of the goodness of the cosmos (“for God so loved the world=cosmos” John 3:16), the motif of the Promised Land, and Jesus’ teachings about the worth of the sparrow and lily. Theologian James Cone articulated the Black Theology of Liberation as early as 1970, followed by Gustavo Gutierrez in 1973. In the forty years since, highly esteemed theologians have articulated the cry of the earth and the disenfranchised: Jurgen Moltmann, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Larry Rasmussen, Leonardo Boff, among them. As Boff writes, “The protest of Liberation theology against suffering is not limited to a single region. Every kind of repression, every cry of the poor, of the oppressed, of the marginalized anywhere in the world is an appeal to theology. ... is it possible to live in peace and happily when you know that two-thirds of human beings are suffering, hungry and poor? It’s not only the cry of the poor we must listen to but also the cry of the earth. We must do something to change the situation – there won’t be a Noah’s Ark to save only some of us.”22 The changes needed illumine the roots of Christianity, and we need the roots to flourish as Christian environmental justice advocates. As Luther wrote, we must distinguish the theology of the cross from the theology of glory: “That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened Rom. 1:20....He or she deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross....A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is....”23 When Christians discover that we actually need clean water for the rite of baptism, perhaps we will wake up even more. When we invite ourselves to see the biblical cosmic Christ and the Spirit of Christ in all things, through taking to heart the description of Logos/Christ in the Prologue to the Gospel of John and Colossians 1:15-20, we will hopefully discover the preciousness of Earth’s creatures. Don’t we have an obligation to remember that Jesus pointed to the lilies of the field as an icon for God’s care and radical faith claim that we need not think for the morrow or amass riches? Doesn’t that criticize a profit economy and the greed that drives it? A mutuality is embraced by ecofeminism (as Rosemary Radford Reuther defines it: “Ecofeminism claims an alternative principle of relationship between men and women, humans and the land—a mutuality in which there is no hierarchy but rather an interconnected web of life.” 24). Such mutuality reminds us that Jesus was a nature mystic and eco-feminist, because those were his concerns, too.” (11-13)
59		-
60		-Second, preeminence in nuclear power is part of a larger race towards a hegemonic framework that aims to influence global policy through power and imperial suppression. This is counter productive to a liberation theology. THOMAS:
61		-“Black Liberation Hermeneutics: A Postcoloinal Perspective” by Richard A. Thomas UH-DD
62		-“The lasting effects of the slavocracy were that the slaveholders not only tried to enslave the physical bodies of the slaves but their minds as well.35 As noted earlier, one method of controlling the minds of the slave was through the use of the biblical text. The slaveholders but were not completely successful in their attempt to control the slaves through the Bible. Enslaved people understood God as both the creator and their source for freedom. Liberation for the slave resembled moksha in Hinduism. Slaves and had to discern for themselves the reality of Divine truth apart from what they had been taught by the slave masters. This discernment process has continued to present day for African Americans. Although they no longer face subjugation from slavery they face what Arundhati Roy observes as the “New Imperialism,” under the contemporary context. She states: “Even in its battered economic state, the United States continues to cling to hegemonic power- exercising preeminence in nuclear power, asserting its will in global policies, influencing both global culture and cultural products, advancing putatively humanitarian initiatives.”36 A key tool for the slaves to combat the oppressive forces of the slaveholders was a firm belief in Jesus as the liberator. In the same sense that slaves viewed Jesus as the liberator in past, African Americans today can create a liberation hermeneutic using Jesus as the ultimate example of the jivanmukta. If Jesus is the ultimate jivanmukta then those who want to truly follow in his path must act similarly. The jivanmukta is liberated from selfishness, permeated with the presence of the Lord and, spends their life both loving and serving others. All of these features were attributes of Jesus found within the biblical text. The description of Jesus in Matthews 20:26-28 fulfills the description of Jesus as the ultimate jivanmukta. Furthermore, liberation hermeneutic gives humankind the imperative to imitate Jesus as the jivanmukta. Paul writes in the book of Galatians: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Galatians 5:13 NRSV) This verse encompasses all of the attributes of the jivanmukta. Humanity is free because of the realization of the Divine truth through knowing Jesus Christ. The recognition of the Divine truth allows humanity to serve one another through love. It is this biblical virtue that counters the threat of the “New Imperialism” faced in society today. A practical application for this virtue in America is the continued fight for both social and economic justice. African American continue in the struggle for justice whether it be for the hate crimes perpetuated against Emmitt Till in 1955 or the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013. Liberation hermeneutics allows one to realize their connection to the pain and suffering caused from these tragedies. Gandhi proclaimed: “If one man falls we all fall to that extent.”37 Thus it becomes important for African Americans to work towards the alleviation of suffering of all God’s creatures. A practical approach to this is to work towards ending the social structures that caused the deaths of Emmitt Till and Trayvon Martin. Namely, those structures are racial discord, poverty, and oppressive power structures. This requires the love and service towards others found within both the biblical text and through the jivanmukta.”
63		-
64		-Third, nuclear power is a modern Tower of Babel— it is an attempt to defy the laws of the transcendent through the modification and domination of the environment carried with the belief of superiority over one’s right to do so. CALDICOTT:
65		-Caldicott, Helen. "Pope Francis Calls Nuclear Power Plants a Modern-Day Tower of Babel - Helen Caldicott, MD." Helen Caldicott MD. N.p., 25 June 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.
66		-“In an audience with Japanese Bishops, Pope Francis had criticized nuclear power by comparing it with the Tower of Babel, as reported by Takeo Okada, the Archbishop of Tokyo. When human beings attempted to reach heaven they triggered their own destruction. “Human beings should not break the natural laws set by God,” the Pope said. (Mainichi Shinbun March 22, 2015; Asahi Shinbun March 25, 2015)¶ This is probably the first clear-cut criticism of the “civil use” of nuclear power issued by the Vatican. The Pope expressed his conviction during an ad limina meeting with the Japanese bishops on March 20. “The destruction of nature is a result from human beings claiming domination (over the earth).” With these statements the Pope referred to the TEPCO-nuclear disaster in Fukushima in March 2011. Soon after the terrible disaster, the Japanese Catholic Bishops’ Conference had publicly demanded from the government the immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants.¶ During the audience, Bishop Katsuya Taiji, head of the “Council for Justice and Peace” of the Japanese Catholic Bishops’ Conference, had handed over letters of two activists from Fukushima to the Pope. The first author was Takumi Aizawa, a school clerk from Iidate Mura, the most contaminated place in Fukushima Prefecture, who is involved in health care and protection of children since the disaster. In fact Mr. Aizawa had the great wish to inform the Pope personally about the real situation of the people in the contaminated area because the government, the administration, many doctors and scientists, and the media try to cover up the extremely dangerous situation. The second author is Mako Oshidori, a well-known journalist from Tokyo, who attended most of the TEPCO press conferences with critical questions and who is investigating the contaminated region constantly.¶ Shortly before, Mr. Aizawa and Ms. Oshidori had delivered presentations about the situation in Fukushima at the international and interreligious conference on “Contributions of religious groups to the energy shift” which was organized by the Center for Ecumenical Work in March 3.-6. 2015 in Arnoldshain (Germany). Prof. Ichiro Mitsunobu S.J., a representative of the “Council for Justice and Peace,” also participated in the conference and gave a talk about the position of the Catholic Church in Japan. Triggered by this conference, the “Council” asked the two activists to write letters to the Pope which the bishops wanted to hand over during their audience two weeks later.¶ One of the main goals of the conference in Arnoldshain on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the TEPCO nuclear disaster was to stimulate international and interreligious networks to abandon nuclear power and to engage in climate protection. The developments outlined above may be considered a first result of such an endeavor.¶ Until now the Vatican had condemned only the military use of nuclear power. Since the Vatican is member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it seems that with his critical statements about the “civil use” of nuclear energy Pope Francis deviates considerably from the position of his predecessors und is pursuing a new direction. Many Catholics hope that in his next encyclica on the protection of the environment the Pope will clearly voice also his critical attitude towards nuclear power.”

EntryDate

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-2016-10-16 18:31:31.0

Judge

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-Panel

Opponent

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-Mountain View DZ

ParentRound

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-13

Round

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-Doubles

Team

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-Strake Jesuit Chen Aff

Title

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-SO - Liberation Theology AC

Tournament

...	...	@@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1		-Valley