Law, Globalisation and The Second Coming

Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge
A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)
ISSN: 1540-5699. © Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press) and authors. All Rights Reserved.
Law, Globalisation, and Second Coming
Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
Birkbeck School of Law, University of London, UK

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
o.guardiola-rivera@bbk.ac.uk
Abstract: In the wake of the “war on terror” and the emergence of a global surveillance regime
shrouded in secrecy during the first part of the 21st century, notions of “empire” and the “white
man’s burden” (including “saving” the global economy, or behaving as global protector) are in the
process of being rehabilitated in social theory, public law, human rights and global economics.
Meanwhile, such principles as universal access to justice and equality are relegated to the dustbin of
history, as if they were dangerous remnants of a previous period of history in which genuine
aspirations to global justice resulted in the pathologies of today. The work of social theorist and
political philosopher Enrique Dussel, emerging from within the legacy of Latin American thought,
is hereby marshalled to the aim of reconstructing such notions as “people”, “justice” and
“international” in relation to the need for political organisation and legal creativity, against new
forms of imperialism today. Based on Dussel’s reading of the liberatory event in Paulian theology
and Latin American society’s popular religiosity, this paper seeks to explore an alternative agenda
for theorizing about legal and political principles and institutions from an internationalist
perspective.
across borders, while emphasizing the need

I. Introduction: From Law and for international political organisation—
Globalization to Peoples’ Global emerging from the encounter (at times,
Justice “missed” encounter or mismatch) between
peoples in movement and the normative
This article seeks to explore an alterna- principles of their actions—as the basis for
tive agenda for theorizing about legal and creativity in law and politics, in economics
political principles and institutions from an as well as history.
internationalist perspective. It aims at creat- In this respect, the article finds inspira-
ing reasonably comprehensive overviews of tion among the historical critiques of the
such phenomena as decisive legal transfor- “stages of growth” and modernization the-
mation and political change taking place ories that developed in conversation with
Oscar Guardiola-Rivera is the award-winning author of What If Latin America Ruled the World? (Bloomsbury,
2010) and of the forthcoming Story of a Death Foretold (Bloomsbury, 2013). He teaches International Law, Rights
and Political Philosophy at Birkbeck School of Law, University of London (UK).
33 Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, XI, Issue 1, Fall 2013, 33-56
34 Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
critical dependency sociology in the 1960s sistent disavowal of objects ripe for histori-
and 1970s, critical geography, scholarly cal comparative research across areas of the
writing about law from a global (specifical- world, such as law and legal-political prin-
ly, “southern”) perspective, and more recent ciples, in the richer sense of the term.2 In
attempts to rehabilitate such notions as turn, area and comparativist scholars, ex-
“earth”, “world”, “territory”, “internation- ploring legal conceptions and political insti-
al” and “people(s)” in the wake of the rise tutions in non-Western parts of the globe,
and fall of globalization theory, growth eco- have noticed that certain epistemic discon-
nomics, and the discourses and practices nects, idées fixes and automatic reflexes add
(economic, legal, philosophical) which con- up to the basic constraints already faced by
ceived of freedom and everything designat- transnational commentators, ‘truncating
ed by the term “public” as ruled by money fuller debate about questions of law’ in oth-
and property. er parts of the world and displacing ‘wider
Scholars writing about law from a glob- discussions over alternative policies, com-
al perspective have observed that although peting interests, and the distributional im-
Western traditions of academic law and pol- pacts of rules and institutions’, privileging
itics have a rich heritage, from a global instead a narrow set of perspectives, posi-
standpoint they appear parochial, narrowly tions, and prescriptions.3
focused and even unempirical or, as Emeri- Like the traditions it recognises as wor-
tus Professor of Jurisprudence at University thy predecessors, this article tends to favor a
College London William Twining put it, historical comparative perspective that al-
‘tending towards ethnocentrism’1. lows for interpretive approaches, and ar-
Furthermore, in the wake of the so- gues for a more careful consideration of con-
called “war on terror” and the merging of crete locality and the sites in which so-called
security and progress in public law, human “free associations” have taken or can take
rights and global economics, notions of place, vis-à-vis the prevalence of abstract
“empire” and the “white man’s burden” (in- (especially, probabilistic and choice theoret-
cluding “saving” the global economy from ical) models in the social sciences. In accor-
the brink of disaster, or the emergence of a dance with such spirit, this article concerns
statutory and global surveillance regime itself with Latin America as a specific locali-
shrouded in secrecy during the first part of ty in which events of “free association” and
the 21st century) are in the process of being people’s creativity have been an can be set in
rehabilitated. All the while, such crucial motion, in relation to actual cases of legal
principles as universal access to justice and transformation and political construction
equality are being relegated to the dustbin beyond current laws or the limitations of
of history, as if they were so many remnants “the existing situation”, as Frantz Fanon
of a previous period of history in which uto- would’ve put it. However, this article does
pian aspirations to global justice resulted in not intend to develop a full-blown case
the pathologies of today. study of historical comparison between the
Sociologists concerned with the histori- countries of this region, or this region as a
cal-comparative study of institutions, an whole and some other global grouping.
interpretive approach that challenges the This article shares with the aforemen-
predominance of Rational Choice Theory in tioned approaches the thesis that most pro-
the social sciences, have observed that a cesses of so-called “globalization” take
similar set of problems stems from the per- 2. J Mahoney & D Rueschemeyer,
1. W Twining, General Jurisprudence: Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social
Understanding Law from a Global Perspective (2009) Sciences (2003).
xi. See also Human Rights, Southern Voices (2009) 3. J Esquirol, ‘Writing the Law of Latin
1-3. America’ (2009) 40 TGWILR 3, 694.
Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, XI, Issue 1, Fall 2013
Law, Globalisation, and Second Coming 35
place at sub-global levels (e.g. regional, for Way before notions of eventuality, situ-
instance Latin American) and that, as Wil- ation, historical context, principled equality
liam Twining said, a healthy cosmopolitan and the creativity of the people were recov-
discipline of law and political theory (here ered in contemporary European thought
including political philosophy) should en- (from Fanon, among others, via Sartre and
compass all levels of social action and rela- Foucault, or more recently Alain Badiou,
tions, as well as the principles prescribing Slavoj Zizek and Raymond Geuss) Dussel
the orientation of these actions and rela- was developing his views on the problem of
tions. Along these lines, the essay hopes to historical novelty in dialogue with radical
contribute to the critical review and exten- currents of social theory and theology alive
sion of the so-called “Western” canon of in the social and political movements of the
jurisprudence and political philosophy be- Americas in the 1970s.
yond its limitations. It also hopes to contrib- Such views contrasted with mainstream
ute to the reconstruction of social, legal and understandings of law and order as the nor-
political theory by taking into account not malization or mastering of contingency,
only some of the general and more specific backwardness and savage desires. Back in
problems of conceptualization, comparison the ‘70s, such mainstream positions under-
and generalization, or the relationship be- pinned modernisation theory. Now, they
tween the local and the global, but more inform the post-historical rediscovery of the
pointedly, by initiating a reflection on jus- empire-form in geopolitics, economic histo-
tice, law and globalization (in particular, ry, law and political theology.
global social justice) from within a specific On the one hand, I will be exploring
legal and philosophical tradition that refus- Dussel’s concern with the specific role that
es to be reduced to this or that context (e.g., religion in general and Christianity in par-
analytical or continental, common or civ- ticular have played in the context of the to-
il)—in this case, Latin American thought. tality of social relations and normative or-
ders and principles in Latin America. On the
II. Event as Problem: Dussel’s other hand, as said before, this essay seeks to
make a modest but honest contribution to
kairós
the more general attempt to bring together
theology, legal, political and social theory in
The work of social theorist and political order to further the aims of the emerging
philosopher Enrique Dussel, emerging from field of study of the concrete relationships
within the important legacy of Latin Ameri- between religion, politics and empire.
can thought, is appropriate to the aim of re- In this respect, following the example of
habilitating such notions as “people”, “jus- the editors of the collection Empire and the
tice” and “international” in relation to the Christian Tradition, I believe that no account
need for political organisation and legal cre- of globalization and the hegemonic role
ativity against new forms of imperialism played in that process by countries such as
today. In what follows I will be referring not the United States, a country whose leaders
so much to the more general significance of ‘often claim to represent the Christian tradi-
his contribution to Latin American think- tion’, or the counter-hegemonic role played
ing, but rather, to his specific presentation of by Latin American social and political
the question of kairós, the event of radical movements that also claim to represent ele-
turning and novelty, vis-à-vis more and less ments of the Christian worldview, would be
current understandings of law and plane- complete without an exploration of the rep-
tary order as the normalization or mastering resentatives and main conceptions of that
of contingency and time.
religious heritage and its succession.4 III. Final Judgment and the
One such element is the tension be- Liberatory Event in Paul of Tarsus
tween conceptions of law and political insti-
tutions that see it as their task to normalize,
I believe Dussel’s position accurately
manage, or master the contingency of time
responds to the concerns expressed by those
(e.g., the idea of the katechon as a Christian
in the “global north” who believe that “a just
sovereign whose role is to defer the cata-
international order and a healthy cosmopol-
strophic end of times), on the one side, and
itan discipline of law need to include
on the other the crucial notion of “Final
[non-Western] perspectives” as well as more
Judgement”, as both the principle and the
nuanced views on the intellectual legacy of
event or the act of bringing to an end the in-
what is now called “the West”, particularly
equities of oppression and empire. I argue
in relation to the more complex histories of
that the former—law and politics as the
Christendom, Renaissance and the Enlight-
mastering of accidents and contingency—
enment.6 Given the global reach of his phil-
underpins current attempts to rescue the
osophical, historical and theological work,
empire-form in geopolitics and history
Dussel also strives to create a thoroughly
(against the onslaught of Third Worldism
original set of inter-cultural analytic con-
and egalitarianism in the 1960s and 1970s).
cepts that critically reflect upon our stock of
The latter—the notion of “Final Judgment”
theories about justice, human rights, philos-
or “the judgement of history”—has often
ophy, legal pluralism, and crucially, com-
been mobilized in support of a more radical
parative and global history.
view of spiritual liberation and decoloniza-
His intellectual intervention amounts to
tion with implications for legal, social polit-
nothing less than a reformation of thought.
ical and economic institutions in the current
Building upon Dussel’s insights, and some
situation. An example of such use was Fidel
modest observations of my own, I will take
Castro’s recourse to the judgment of history
his exemplary stance one step further and
(“history will absolve me”) during his de-
call for a wider and more encompassing ref-
fence in court after the assault against the
ormation in relation to the substance of so-
Moncada barracks on 16 October 1963. An-
cial relations and normative orders preva-
other was Salvador Allende’s plea for a new
lent in Latin America, with consequences
“common orientation” or political purpose
for the rest of the world. Toward this aim, let
in his last radio broadcast on 11 September,
us consider Dussel’s “The Liberatory Event
1973, as US-backed renegades among the
in Paul of Tarsus”, a text which he presents
Chilean military overthrew the constitu-
as a decisive contribution to “a very timely
tional government of that country.5
subject for political philosophy in recent
Within the framework of this set of
years”.7 The argument developed by Dussel
questions, the following arguments will
in this text is set in direct relationship with
also consider the dynamic between ‘critical’
more and less recent European debates on
and ‘therapeutic’ understandings of the role
the relation between religion (specifically,
of religion in Latin America and elsewhere.
Christian theology) and the public use of
reason (law and politics).
As he says in reference to the more re-
6. W Twining, Human Rights, Southern Voices
(2009) 1. See also B De Sousa Santos, ‘A Non-
4. DH Compier, K Pui-Lan & J Rieger (eds.). Occidentalist West? Learned Ignorance and
Empire & The Christian Tradition (2007) xiii. Ecology of Knowledge’ (2009) 26 TS 7/8, 103-125,
5. See O Guardiola-Rivera, Story of a Death and T Ramadan What I Believe (2010).
Foretold. The Coup Against Salvador Allende, 11 7. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event in Paul of
September 1973 (Bloomsbury, 2013). Tarsus (2009) 1.
cent debates on the place of religion in the that seems to me parallel to what Kant
public use of reason, “today, political philos- termed “succession”. Kant was referring to
ophy has unexpectedly taken up a subject the way in which a tradition is inherited, re-
which had been ignored since the Enlight- claimed and thereafter “betrayed” or put to
enment”.8 He is referring to the latest wave an original use that could not have been con-
of writings on and around religion by com- templated from the previous situation. This
mentators as diverse as Slavoj Zizek, Alain has to do with clearing the ground for the
Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Terry Eagleton, creation of what Kantians like Drucilla Cor-
John Milbank, Jürgen Habermas, and Gi- nell call “moral images” of freedom.9 “Suc-
anni Vattimo in Europe, or Franz Hinkelam- cession”, as the activity of a community that
mert in the Americas, and in a more indirect receives and transforms its common heri-
way to some of the issues touched upon by tage, and kairós , as both judgment and a
“militant atheists” closer to the tradition of turning of the page, allow for a powerful
English evolutionism, such as Daniel Den- understanding of acts of rupture with/
nett, AC Grayling or Richard Hawkins. within imitation in history. Understanding
It is crucial to understand that for Dus- them better may help us to achieve our aim:
sel the “new debate” on the role of religion invoking a new thinking of history, sover-
in the public sphere is foreshadowed by a eignty and independence in relation to what
previous “older debate”, harking back to Dussel calls “the event of liberation”.
Kant’s Conflict of the Faculties and Hobbes’s Since the notion of “succession” is not
Leviathan. According to Dussel, in order to used explicitly by Dussel, I will have to
understand the new debates we must first show that his conception of power as popu-
acknowledge the stakes of the older one. At lar and communal requires it. Dussel’s con-
stake in this “older debate” was not only the ception of power (which I understand to
question of how to read sacred texts (or “in- designate that which a people have “in com-
terpretation”, according to Kant) but also, mon”) refers to the capacity to open up pol-
and most crucially, the question of “judg- itics and law to their exteriority—and per-
ment”, and thus of general jurisprudence in tains to the uses of imagination as a critical
relation to the (economic, cultural and polit- and regulatory element.
ical) planetary crises at the time. This “relo- For now, it will suffice to say that Dus-
cation” of the object of such debates from sel’s conception of power as communal,
“interpretation” to “judgment” opens up which is expressed in the injunction ‘to gov-
jurisprudence—in its more particular sense ern while obeying’ (mandar obedeciendo), in-
of the exploration of the activity of legisla- cludes an element of common memory and
tors, judges and precedents in bounded ju- of the work of the community to recover
risdictions—to a much more general sense, such a memory while renewing it (as wit-
one in which it also concerns itself with the nessing and testimony). This correlation be-
beyond of jurisdictions (the “international”) tween the memory of the community and
but also with “final judgment”. The latter the legitimacy of those who govern, the fact
term refers to a specific kind of judgment: that they bear witness and give testimony to
so-called chiliastic judgments. These are ap- the living memory and future-oriented will
plied to the whole of history so far, and seek of the community- makes it possible to open
to transgress the present order in the sense up the law so as to make it responsive to its
of the radical overturning of established surrounding environment. This constella-
boundaries in time and space. tion of time, memory and legitimacy
Passing judgment on the present order through testimony is central to popular
in order to subvert it, is a critical operation 9. Drucilla Cornell, Moral Images of Freedom.
A Future for Critical Theory (Rowman & Littlefield,
8. Ibid. 2007).
practices and images of religiosity and nar- the connection between the normative or-
ration in Latin America and elsewhere. It is der of religion and secular politics is not im-
a critical normative element in the construc- mediately apparent. After the Enlighten-
tion of communities, and their projection ment, that connection tends to appear in
beyond the present situation.10 two guises: on the one side, as a conserva-
That the stakes in the old and new de- tive advocacy of more or less benign forms
bates on the relation between theology and of authoritarian paternalism and empire
politics are much higher than it may seem at that can be traced back to Thomas Hobbes
first glance becomes clearer, as Dussel sug- and the ultra-Catholic thinker Carl Schmitt
gests, if we trace Hobbesian and Kantian in the twentieth century. On the other, the
motifs all the way up to the “political theol- normative theological dimension is given a
ogy” of the 20th century. For instance, to the new lease of life under the cover of “Messi-
work of German jurist and transnational anic” and prophetic power. The latter is of-
commentator Carl Schmitt, and to the con- ten associated with a certain reading of cri-
stellation of 20th century thinkers that debat- ses and catastrophes as bringing an era of
ed his positions on such issues as judgment suffering and exile to an end, thereby open-
(not just in the abstract sense, but also in the ing the path of history towards the new and
concrete sense of order and orientation in the unexpected—from tragedy to redemp-
space and time), crisis (in geopolitical as tion and overturning, or the time of kairós—
well as global economic terms), and the rather than bracketing history as “interreg-
jurisprudence of crisis and emergency. num”.12
As is well known, most of these debates The Hobbesian and Schmittian concep-
followed the fall of the Weimar Republic in tion of history as “interregnum” closes his-
the 1930s and the political and economic up- tory by introducing merely the possibility of
heavals that extended from that period into its end. It sees history as a period marked by
the 1940s and the rest of the twentieth centu- risk and uncertainty that needs to be mas-
ry. They focused on the issue of political tered and managed, in which the absence or
transformation, the rise of a global order in weakening of the authority of the politi-
which the United States takes over “the mis- cal-religious leader increases the chances of
sion civilisatrice of the West” (Mendieta some apocalyptic catastrophe to actually
2007:1) and the nature of spatial division occur. The job of the paternalist leader at
and newness in history.11 Chief among the home and abroad is to avert or defer that
questions raised during these debates is that possibility. To that aim, the leader exercises
of the meaning of events of emancipation or near-absolute power, which often takes the
“liberation” in the contemporary world of form of pre-emptive action and “exception-
state-capitalist nations led by America. al” intervention in ever more catastrophic
Why is it that the names of relatively ob- ways. The source of his authority is the par-
scure political-theological thinkers such as ticular and supposedly definitive act of a
Walter Benjamin or Jacob Taubes, and the founding father, which the paternalist lead-
classical archetypical figure of Paul of Tar- er—functioning as the protector of the unity
sus, feature so prominently in these discus- and homogeneity of the community—al-
sions? One must ask such a question since legedly reproduces and continues. It is no
surprise that in the versions of this concep-
10. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event in Paul of tion closer to medieval Christian traditions,
Tarsus (2009). On law’s responsiveness to an
exteriority, see the work of B Golder & P 12. JA Gordon & LR Gordon, On Divine
Fitzpatrick, Foucault’s Law (2009) 99-131. Warning. Reading Catastrophe in the Modern Age
11. E Mendieta, Global Fragments. (2009) 117-120. See also D Cornell, Moral Images of
Globalizations, Latinamericanisms, and Critical Freedom: A Future for Critical Theory (2008) 137-
Theory (2007) 1. 149.
the political-religious leader is portrayed as only did they emphasize in various ways
a “retainer” or kátechon. This is the Christian the secular powers of the community, they
prince whose pre-emptive action restrains also associated this power to the coming
evil by containing the archenemy of the into being (existence) of the community
community, thereby deferring the time of from an initial situation of persecution, in-
the coming of the Anti-Christ. According to equality, anonymity, oppression, or in more
this narrative, in doing so, in “deferring” general terms, of inexistence. In doing so,
time, the paternalist leader produces histo- they linked the self-organizing power of the
ry. community to creativity and originality in
These two “older” positions struggle history. And also, to the very question of
over the meaning of modernity and enlight- how “new” history emerges and “old” his-
enment. In general, modernity can be de- tory comes to pass.
fined as “the social order in which religion is In accordance with this position, new
no longer fully integrated into and identi- history emerges out of the opposition be-
fied with a particular life-form” but rather, tween two orders or epochs. In philosophi-
acquires the ability to globalize itself.13 cal terms, between the present totality and
However, the price religion has to pay if it is its exteriority, situated as a concrete commu-
to become truly global is to be `reduced to a nity of others that organize and project
secondary epiphenomenon with regard to themselves beyond the prevailing coercive
the secular functioning of the social totali- totality.15 This is the moment of historical
ty`(ibid.). This means that in the “new” disruption and creativity that, in relation to
global order religion has two possible roles, the Paulian corpus of texts and the critical
invoked above: therapeutic or critical. It can tradition it initiated, Dussel calls “kairós”. In
either help individuals “function better in anthropological terms, kairós could be un-
the existing order, or it can aim to assert it- derstood as the moment of recognition and
self as a critical agency articulating what is memory in which the latter is deployed
wrong with this order as such, as a space for against prevailing cultural values, mores
the voices of discontent”.14 and ways of life. This is also the moment of
The Hobbesian-Schmittian position, in the composition of a rational symbolic nar-
trying to protect and reproduce the homo- rative against the present (imperial) order
geneity of the community while at the same (of inexistence) in its very essence.
time projecting its crusading role into and This means that such is the kind of nar-
against the future, is therapeutic in relation rative that shakes the very foundation
to the present order. The opposite position, “upon which the legitimation of the Roman
which emphasizes the secular “messianic” state in its totality rested”.16 This narrative
powers of the community and the redemp- emerges also as a critique of other groups
tive character of history, plays a critical role and interpretations within a common textu-
in relation to the present. Critics like Walter al tradition from which the new (messianic)
Benjamin or Jacob Taubes in the twentieth community slowly differentiates itself in a
century, and Bartolomé de Las Casas, Thom- process of continuous division. Finally, and
as Müntzer or John Milton in the sixteenth importantly, it opposes a form of legalism
and seventeenth centuries, took issue operative in the present or primitive com-
against the main tenets of Christian political munity, or in certain groups within the
theology—what would become galvanised primitive community, that failed to grasp
in the Hobbesian-Schmittian position. Not “the novelty of the new position of the
13. S Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf. The 15. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event in Paul of
Perverse Core of Christianity (2003) 3. Tarsus (2009) 7.
14. Ibid. 16. Ibid.
founding group” without contradicting the in this case, as the operative basis for mem-
fact that this critique and division occur ory and action related to popular religiosity
strictly within the confines of a common in Latin America) to be both antique and yet
memory and tradition17 . Thus emerging modern, ‘its infinite—but never anarchic—
from within the order of the law (as its plurality that categorizes it’ as the embodi-
“zero” or lowest degree of impotence) this ment of exemplarity itself.18
narrative stands against the very concept of Any exploration of legality and politics
Law as the foundation of the prevailing or- in Latin America from a historical-compara-
der or epoch. And, having borne witness to tive perspective would be incomplete with-
the collapse of the Law due to its insufficien- out taking into consideration the role played
cy (or as Dussel says, invoking one of richest by religious normative discourses and insti-
notions in the modern vocabulary of criti- tutions, and in particular Christian religious
cism and critique of religion, law, and eco- discourse. This is due not only to the recog-
nomics, when it has become “fetishized”) it nizable fact that a large majority of Latin
brings forth a new justificatory criterion. Americans and Latinos leaving in the Amer-
icas and elsewhere declare themselves as
IV. Kairós and the Meaning of practicing Christians, or that the practice of
Christianity flourishes in the Americas
Heresy: On Religious Truth as while in Europe it languishes. This is no
Law’s Critique and Exemplarity doubt an important fact. But it only tells one
half of the story, if at all. Ditto, religion in
To sum up the argument so far, the cre- modernity can play the role of critic or com-
ative genius of Dussel’s formulation of the forter (in Zizek’s terms, “therapeutic” religi-
Paulian kairós is to open a specific ‘common’ osity).
tradition or legacy to a superior form of The fact that the overwhelming majori-
commonality, schematized as a higher-or- ty of the populations in Latin America assert
der set of complimentary differences. The their allegiance to Christianity gives reli-
community of readers and interpreters re- gious institutions (in particular, the Roman
ceive a tradition while at the same time tak- Catholic Church) a huge sway over “secu-
ing it into uncharted territories. In the pro- lar” political and legal state institutions, and
cess, an exemplary tradition comes to over political life in general. This has been
embody the very meaning of exemplarity true about Latin America for most of its his-
itself. For Dussel, as well as for the critical
tradition that he reinvents—from Las Casas 18. As literary critic Frank Kermode
observes, an exemplary text is a work that
and Milton to Benjamin and Taubes—Paul’s ‘subsists in change, by being patient of
writings are exemplary precisely in this interpretation’. Put simply, the antidote against
sense: it is the very pliability of the exemplar fundamentalist word-worshipping is to keep on
reading and writing. This means that every
or the classic (that is, of memory) or its un- generation will read and understand received
fixed quality, that is its essence. It makes it- texts such as Paul’s Epistles or the Qur’an
self at home wherever and whenever it finds differently, insofar as every generation is different
from its predecessors. But every generation is
itself, but in doing so it reinvents the very also challenged to produce an interpretation that
meaning of ‘home’ (which is why, seen from is not only satisfactory (i. e. that respects tradition
the standpoint of those comfortable in the by not presenting its own version of it as the
‘final’ version) but also categorically decisive
present situation it would always seem ‘un- and forward-looking (in the sense of adding to
homely’ (unheimlich, violent and uncanny). reality, rather than simply imitating). Kermodian
It is the exemplar’s ability (Paul’s writings, categories of criticism are appropriate to
introduce this aspect of Duseel’s work to Anglo-
Saxon audiences. See on this J Sutherland
17. E Dussel The Liberatory Event in Paul of (21/08/2010 )‘Fierce Reading’, The Guardian, ,
Tarsus (2009) 7-9. Review, 16. Also, F Kermode, The Classic (1983).
tory, and the justified cause of a great deal of power is far from fading away. Pundits right
criticism about the Church’s role as a “com- and left of center who believe that the East
forter” and even an accomplice in many of (led by China) is on its way to replace a de-
the injustices visited upon the peoples of the clining West (led by America) miss the point
Americas throughout its modern history. that there are no real rivals to the US. They
However, it is also true to say that in no oth- also miss the fact that America is undergo-
er part of the world has the role of religious ing a major internal transformation driven
discourse as critique been developed as cre- by the increasing political and economic im-
atively as in Latin America—particularly as portance of its Latin American and Latino
a critique of legal and political-economic population, soon to become a majority. The
institutions. United States is set to become the next Latin
Although this is a well-known fact, few American country.
contemporary observers have explored its In both aspects of the story, religion,
consequences for law and political economy Christianity in particular, will be of central
in the context of wider processes of global- importance. The militant religious Conser-
ization. In fact, it is remarkable that the “new vatism that has become so outspoken and
debates” about religion and politics in Eu- influential both at the level of high-end and
rope seem to find no place for the implica- grassroots politics in the US, threatens
tions of Liberation Theology and philoso- America’s ability to rebrand itself interna-
phy, which emerged in Latin America after tionally and to secure economic recovery
the 1960s. Especially given that, as we will and political stability at home. What it needs
see, this is not only one of the most influen- is precisely, a form of Christianity that can
tial interpretations of the Christian tradition subsist—even with some conservative ele-
in recent times but it may also be the most ments—in the rapidly changing world of
universal; at least in its capacity to allow globalization, while at the same time pro-
Christianity to subsist in the changing land- viding much needed energy and space for
scape of globalization and confront the chal- radical criticism and reform. Given their
lenge posed by major geopolitical shifts, by numbers and geographical location in the
making its textual corpus “patient to inter- US, but also the dynamism of their religious
pretation”. practices, no other candidate seems to offer
The present situation of the globalized a better alternative to provide both elements
world is characterized by the decline in the than the popular religious beliefs of the US
capacities of all major states to run and reg- Latino and Latin American populations.
ulate the international system. And after the Abroad, the readiness of this frame-
2008 Great Recession, also by major doubts work of popular beliefs to relate to religious
about the persistence and the justification texts in a way that allows them to subsist
(the means-to-end nexus) of nation-state “by being patient of interpretation” places
capitalism, underpinned by militarism, as this form of Christianity in a much better po-
the framework of globalization. In this situ- sition than any nationalistic or expansive
ation, the central story is less a state (for in- orthodoxy, Christian or not, in order to re-
stance, China) that is allegedly rising to take late to and even inspire change among other
over the American position, but the likely text-based religious practices without vio-
consequence of the softening of power from lently dismissing them as backwards or her-
the center. America will undoubtedly have etic. At home, its firm opposition to estab-
to scale down its presence in global affairs as lished hierarchies that tend to impinge upon
enforcer of the international system, both to the weakest members of society, and to all
rethink its role as “protector” and avoid be- forms of oppression and discrimination
ing perceived once more as a “bully”; but its originating from the particular interests of a
few in politics and the economy, will reso- course, must go through a reformation? As
nate with the militant core of those across suggested before, this is the case in which
party lines, race and class who believe that “religion as such tends toward assuming the
America must be rescued from such inter- role of a heresy” . 19 This assertion helps clarify
ests and that they should be tamed and the critical role religion can play vis-à-vis
overcome. law and politics in the contemporary world
Add to this the fact that as America of “declining” state-capitalist nations. But it
scales down its presence in global affairs, may not go far enough. It is symptomatic
embraces its inner Latinidad, and looks for that in a recent debate between “radical or-
ways to secure its economic future, it is more thodox” theologian John Milbank, whose
rather than less likely to strengthen its ties work is one of the most important and influ-
with its closer neighbors, such as Mexico ential sources driving the “one-nation” pol-
and Brazil. The latter two are already emerg- icies of the present Conservative British
ing as competitors of, say, other emerging government, and liberation philosopher
(authoritarian) economies such as Russia Enrique Dussel, who is in turn one of the
and China, share a popular and historical most prestigious scholars of liberation the-
commitment to democracy, a “melting pot” ology and philosophy in the Americas, the
cultural legacy, and have shown the will and former was forced to take out of the closet
the capacity to play a mature role on the one of those old chestnuts of the medieval
stage of global affairs. Indeed, the crucial traditions of theology he so admires. Hav-
point in this story is that the combined ing exhausted all philosophically sound ar-
weight of the Americas will give any upstart guments and even some ad hominem attacks,
nation with dreams of global hegemony a which the Latin American philosopher re-
run for its money; and the catalyst of this butted and unpretentiously separated
combination might well be popular religion. from—creating in the audience the effect
But the condition for this chemistry to known as “romance of the withheld”. Mil-
occur, avoiding any major explosive effects, bank denounced Dussel with one word:
is that the popular religiosity of Latin Amer- “heretic”.
icans asserts itself as a force for change rath- We need to ask once more what is the
er than an obstacle to it in the name of ortho- normative significance of religion becoming
doxy. This is to say that Latin American heresy. The answer lies in the deeper mean-
religiosity must go all the way through an ing acquired by a “heretic” religious dis-
inner reformation: it must fall (in a way that course: in the very act of a normative dis-
brings it closer to its Protestant siblings) on course being used by a specific sector of
the side of heresy. Even if this means revis- society to rise against the given order, to
ing its ties with Rome, a center of power that stand up against the law as it is in the name
has done everything it can to dismiss the of the future, in the name of liberation. What
fact that the special dynamism of Christian- is exactly at stake in this act? “Liberation is a
ity in the Americas goes beyond anything concern about purpose”, writes existential
that happens in Europe, and has actively philosopher Lewis Gordon, “a concern
misunderstood, discredited and even perse- about ought and why: Whatever we may be,
cuted those who have emphasized the criti- the point is to focus energy on what we ought
cal role of Christianity. to become”.20 Accordingly, religion becomes
heresy when it emphatically takes sides
V. A Latin American Reformation? 19. S Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf, (2003)
3, my emphasis.
20. LR Gordon, Existentia Africana.
What exactly means to say that Latin Understanding Africana Existential Thought (2000)
American religiosity, as a normative dis- 6.
with those who remain invisible, as a resi- very criterion of truth and justification, but
due, in the present order, question its justifi- then, in a second moment, as Dussel ex-
cation, and having found all justifications plains, the criterion collapses due to its in-
wanting, reasonably conclude they ought to sufficiency—it’s shown to be inconsistent.
overcome it. To do so, and to avoid falla- However, in a third moment, rather than
cious connections between what is and what demanding that we do away with contra-
to become, they appear in the world as a po- diction—or conversely, that we do away
litically organized forward-looking group, with consistency and logics—it is shown
rather than continuing to be defined as that consistency has to do with incomplete-
merely a series or a “cultural other”. ness and observation, and that a logical sys-
It is not merely a case of religion making tem of truth or justification is consistent only
such sectors of society more visible, more if it does not exclude its own problematic
“identical” to the rest of a society that ig- nature.
nores, serializes and devalues them. Rather,
religion itself becomes located in the posi- VI. Testimony, or Truthfulness in
tion of this otherness and rises against the
Action
bond of alterity that defines the social posi-
tion of otherness: that is, being ignored, de-
valued and even demoted beneath the realm This is precisely what is meant by the
of humanity. When that happens, questions notion of action as testimony, or as “provid-
of “identity” (what am I? Am I other or iden- ing evidence”. Such an account of human
tical, or something else? or what am I other action “decisively marks its distance from
than a problem or the very embodiment of assumptions about action as the successful
insanity in this society?) become insepara- assertion of will”.22 Action-as-willful-asser-
ble from the question of reason (or truth) tion-upon-others and nature is the common
and liberation. This is to say that such ques- characteristic of fundamentalist word-wor-
tions (and those who posit them) are now shipping and its apparent opposite, neo-hu-
posed in a situation before symmetry. manitarian instrumentalist fear-mongering.
These are the two sides of current debates
In that situation, the struggle is to be in about the role of religion vis-à-vis politics
a position for truth and the ethical to emerge. and science. Neo-humanitarians like Rich-
This is also the answer to the question “what ard Dawkins seem to reduce the meaning of
it means to struggle to be a human being, religion to its expansionist and violent drive,
and to be reasonable, in the onslaught of the which allegedly follows from a deep-seated
very denial of one’s humanity and of exis- word-worshipping attitude, contrary to rea-
tence?”21 son and Enlightenment values. There is,
Crucially, this position inevitably ap- they seem to argue, a slippery slope from the
pears, from the perspective of the given or- logic of religious texts to the fundamentalist
der, as both mad and inhuman. There’s no violence of Islamist suicide bombers and
paradox here. What is at stake is the logic of Jewish (Orthodox) or American (Evangeli-
the objectivity of an idea. Put otherwise, the cal) evolution-deniers and anti-abortionist
issue here is how ideas gain concrete exis- murder justifiers.
tence: they do so by affirming evidence that There is much to learn from these and
at first appears counter-intuitive (mad, in- other strident critiques of Christianity and
human). Or, as an internal criticism of given religion in general, such as Hannah Ar-
assumptions: the latter appear first as the endt’s. However, all too often their strength
22. R Williams, Introduction to Theology and
21. D Cornell, Moral Images of Freedom (2008) the Political: The New Debate. (Edited by Creston
107. Davis, John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek) 2005: 1.
is diminished by a tendency to combine of political and religious meaning makers,

fear-mongering (against some fundamen- has collapsed. This is the exact opposite of
talist “other”, in the case of Dawkins) with a the “classical” (sacrificial) Greek, Semitic
sound defense of the incompleteness of and Roman attitude toward the Law and
truth, evidence, and Enlightenment values. Truth, which has passed into modernity in
This is problematic not necessarily be- the sacrificial language and practice of im-
cause it goes too far, but rather, because it perialism and colonization (including its
does not go far enough: on the one hand, it more “liberal” British and American con-
fails to recognize that neo-Humanitarian- temporary versions), instrumentalist sci-
ism can not only be described in terms that ence and “free-market” economics. Testi-
are merely apparently secular (as Tony Blair mony appears from this perspective as the
proved in the run-up to the Iraq War, through enlightened opposite of persistent sacrifical
his discursive use of the singular character attitudes in society, prejudiced beliefs that in
of “western” Enlightenment values—hu- turn allow inequality and injustice to per-
man rights and liberalism—before he “came sist. This is true in the sense that the death of
out” as a Catholic) but can also be as violent an innocent and the destruction of nature
and imperialistic as any religious funda- function as evidence backing up the argu-
mentalism, particularly in its fear-monger- ment that condemns all forms of sacrifice,
ing and most “liberal” mode: that which has religious or secular, fundamentalist or liber-
to do with the “virtues” and allegedly “sci- al.
entific” assumptions of free-trade global It is possible here to open up a dialogue
capitalism. On the other, it is constantly at between politics, theology, and science. On
risk of simply replacing God with Human the one side, this dialogue can take place in
Will both when it does not distance itself the context of critical and post-Enlighten-
sufficiently from a defense of science as the ment questioning of sacrificial logics preva-
successful instrumentalization of nature or lent in even the most liberal and neo-hu-
the external world to man’s will, and also, manitarian forms of globalism and
when it seems unwilling to recognize that expansionist behavior (Golub 2010:4-10)
self-exposure to death isn’t always some and in the capitalism of perpetual innova-
miscalculating, masochistic or mad attempt tion and the enslavement of nature. On the
to seek atonement for non-existent sins other, the dialogue can continue in the con-
committed by fictional characters.23 text of careful consideration of the role of
In fact, the category of martyrdom, evidence vis-à-vis the Law and Truth, which
when distinguished from all transcendent is directly relevant to notions of Freedom,
undertones (being “fast-tracked” to Para- Autonomy and Liberation or independence.
dise and so on) means, for Christians and Among other things, this entails nuanced
others, a distinctive instance of testimony: it distinctions between Reason and Will, be-
provides evidence that the Law, in the hands tween Will-as–assertion and General Will,
and between critiques of fundamentalism
23. This is how Richard Dawkins interprets
Paul’s writings in The God Delusion (2006). For an and instrumentalist fear-mongering (which
alternative interpretation of self-exposure to is another form of will-assertion leading to
death see Rowan Williams’ introduction to sacrificial calculus). It also entails being
Theology and the Political: The New Debate (2005).
Dussel shares Williams’ understanding of Jesus careful not to render the category of “testi-
Christ’s death as martyrdom, rather than mony” or evidence, in general, too optimis-
sacrifice, and thus as making evident to the new tic. Monsignor Óscar Romero’s death in El
messianic community the fetishism of the Law.
See E Dussel, op. cit. 10; and F Hinkelammert, The Salvador certainly testifies to the collapse of
Cry of the Subject: From the World Theater of the Law and Truth in the context of the estab-
Gospel of John to the Dog Years of Globalization lishment of financial liberalization and in-
(1998) 45.
terventionism in the Americas in the 1980s. clearer that, at its most fundamental, the
But this does not make the fact of his assas- question of existence involves more than
sination any less grotesque; it cannot be re- solving the problem of what is it to be a hu-
covered as part of a “higher” narrative un- man being in a situation in which one is not
derlined by a superior purpose or a finalized being seen as such by the rest of society. This
and more perfect totality. His death was is already the crucial problem for human
contingent, unnecessary. Much in the same rights discourse and practice. But in addi-
way, evidence in science and the tribunal tion to that, those struggling against racism,
help us reflect upon the incompleteness and economic oppression, debt, forced displace-
fragility of “natural” as well as “artificial” ment, land-grab and the loss of sovereignty
environments, of our truths about them, that leads to diminution of democracy and
and our responsibilities toward them. No to the inability to decide one’s own econom-
laws of necessity underpin such processes, ic and political destiny, are realizing that
particularly no man-made laws. their constraints are connected, in concrete
To sum up, the problem with “atheistic” ways, to the constraints being placed upon
responses in the “new debates” between non-human environments by a form of
theology and public reason is that they do “progress” that continues to pile catastro-
not seem to draw all the consequences of the phe upon catastrophe and moves forward
event of the death of God, as Slavoj Zizek blindly, reaffirming the very limits of capi-
has suggested: put simply, they’re not athe- talism, of humanity, of nature.
istic enough. As suggested before, these re- This is why on April 22, 2010, in the con-
sponses cannot boil down to a defense of text of the World People’s Conference on
purely abstract (subjective or “negative’) Climate Change and the Rights of Mother
freedom, since the latter is indistinguishable Earth, the plight of the communities that are
from the actual struggles of specific peoples being most directly damaged by the envi-
to be free and to bring themselves “out from ronmental crisis brought about by a sacrifi-
beneath the despairing weight” of such real cial model of capitalist consumption and
situations as racism, economic oppression, production was turned into an argument to
debt slavery, force displacement, land-grab, take the question of existence one step be-
environmental destruction and coloniza- yond the notions of symmetry and reciproc-
tion.24 ity that have traditionally informed interna-
The lack of a critique of “Capitalism as tional law and human rights discourse and
religion” remains a serious shortcoming in advocacy.
these critiques of religion. Particularly since In concrete terms, these peoples in
the struggle referred to here is not to destroy struggle gathered in Cochabamba (Bolivia)
but rather to edify, to build and to add more for the Conference, proposed a Bill of Rights
to reality. The action involved is not simply for Mother Earth and a climate tribunal to
one of making visible what was masked or investigate those responsible for environ-
covered over, but rather, to bring into reality mental damage. These proposals join the
(thereby making visible) what was not there “leave resources in the soil” initiatives and
before. The issue is both ontological and po- the corresponding financial schemes devel-
litical: it involves the fundamental question oped by activists in the Amazon. Both ac-
of existence and the classical problem of tions have precedents in the long history of
how an actuality emerges also from impo- rights-based struggles, advocacy and insti-
tentiality. tutional design: the thirteenth century Char-
In the “new debates” it is becoming ter of the Forest, which together with Magna
Carta constitutes the pillar of the Common
24. D Cornell, Moral Images of Freedom (2008) Law tradition; the Law of Peace of the indig-
106-7.
enous peoples of North and Central Ameri- well” are directly related to his understand-
ca, a component of the much more complex ing of the (liberatory) event he names kairós,
and living memory of the interrupted referencing Paul of Tarsus.
thought of the Amerindians; and the norma- They are also at the core of his reading of
tive tradition of pretty much any religion Paul’s criticism of the concept of Law as
with a long and venerable history in the face foundation. According to this reading, the
of the earth. (religious) criticism of the Law has three
It is unsurprising that this extension of moments:
the fundamental question of existence has First, the moment of justification, or
come to resonate strongly with the political “the subsumption of the concrete (the actor
theology developed with an eye on ancient or the praxis) in the universal (the criterion
sources and another in contemporary phe- according to which the evaluative judgment
nomena by thinkers such as Walter Benja- is based)”.25
min, who also spoke of catastrophes piling Second, an exploration of the deeper
upon catastrophes, of our blindness, and of meaning of law. Since at least Paul’s Epistle,
the storm called progress, while bringing law is the criterion held as valid for all in the
back the allure of the objects of the world, justification of the agent or his or her praxis.
and in particular the images that best tell Put otherwise, the law determines a frame-
“history” nowadays, in the age of mechani- work for the will ‘as a criterion to be able to
cal reproduction, of cinema and the internet. judge by differentiating what is just’ from
What might seem surprising to some is that what violates the law. This allows good to be
Benjamin’s political-theological reading of discerned from evil, and thus to avoid moral
the fundamentals of existence resonates error by moving from the justification of
also with the least discussed and publicized present evil as necessary (as in ‘lesser’ or
feature of the 2010 Conference in Bolivia, the necessary evil, or as inevitable ‘costs’ or the
one ignored by contemporary “atheistic” collateral result of ‘hard choices) to a recog-
critiques of religion: their call for an alterna- nition of the insufficiency of such justifica-
tive polity, in the form of taking bold steps tions and the positing of a future-oriented
towards new and emancipatory ways of do- criterion of justice.
ing politics, decolonizing knowledge, and As Dussel observes, starting with the
composing society (now including the figure of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at all the
non-human part of nature). In the Confer- way up to the nómos physikón of the Greek,
ence, this call took the normative form of an Roman Law or the Jewish Toráh, the function
injunction to “live well”. This injunction has of the law is to give consciousness of—or
also been enshrined in the Constitutions of make visible—moral error and sin.26 This
countries like Ecuador, Bolivia or Colombia function is also discernible in the structure
since at least 1991. of classical tragedy as the double aspect of
truth, as truthfulness (prior to) truth, as
VII. The Meaning of Life, or Paul what is known only in part and what is not
known, for instance, in the cases of Osiris,
via Dussel (… and Monthy Python)
Oedipus and Orestes. In this structure, only
the composition of two contradictory testi-
The normative injunction “Live well”, monies—one looking backwards for
and “Life” as its material basis, are among self-referential justification in the prevailing
the most basic building blocks of the theses totality (the given), the other projecting it-
on politics developed by Dussel, of which
his text on Paul constitutes a further devel- 25. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event of Paul of
opment. The notions of “life” and “living Tarsus (2009) 8. He cites Romans, 1, 17.
26. Ibid. Dussel cites Romans, 3, 20.
self beyond the given (prophetic or specula- the second event, following the collapse of
tive)—allows for the passage from the pres- the Law based on the foundational event.
ent order to the new order, i.e., from given This is the point where the apocalyptic
truth to truthfulness or reflective judgment writings of John and Paul’s Letters emerge as
in Kantian parlance. cogent critiques of the Law. If, on the one
This passage entails the analysis of the hand, the Law appears as the criterion for
given as both catastrophe and farce, as an the justification of the praxis carried out in
explanation of the collapse of the law due to any given order, on the other, the Law also
its fetishization. As a phenomenon, ‘fetishi- emerges, after negative critique, as that
zation’ also has a double aspect: first, a cri- which “can nevertheless become fetichized
tique of self-sufficiency as mere surface ap- and corrupted, falling into contradiction
pearance or the result of the projection of even with itself, and thereby producing its
forms of composite causality into a figure of own collapse”.28 This is the case when it can
necessity so as to make it appear as uncondi- be shown that the Law has been affirmed as
tional or sufficient reason, and second, a rec- the single most basic foundation of justifica-
ognition of the composite and contingent tion of the present order, thereby becoming
nature of all purportedly necessary entities. the ultimate cause of itself, and thus, abso-
The result of this analysis is ontological lutely necessary and dogmatic. Then and
(i.e., anti-dogmatism, based on the refusal of only then, can the Law be criticized from the
the principle of sufficient reason) and ethi- standpoint of the future, understood in the
cal or ethopoetic (the recognition of the fra- sense in which John referred to early Chris-
gility of everything that exists, and also the tians as “being in the world” but not “of this
recognition of our collective responsibility world” (John 17, 14-17). For Dussel, this oc-
to create future environments for all). Liter- curs when the Law is situated above Life.29
ary archetypes like Osiris, Oedipus, Orestes, What does this mean? On the one side it
Moses, Paul, Quetzalcoatl or ‘the Founding means to say that the truly ethical act is the
Fathers’ symbolize and embody, in their questioning, transgression or disobedience
quest, the journey of the mind and the com- of the Law. Both Abraham, in refusing to
munity through these distinctions, and from sacrifice his son, and Jesus, in curing the
error (down below) to truth (up above).27 28. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event of Paul of
Third, there is the event. Here, it is rec- Tarsus (2009) 8.
ognized that the Law presupposes a time 29. Here Dussel follows F Hinkelammert,
prior to its dictation (chaos and slavery), an- The Cry of the Subject: From the World Theater of the
Gospel of John to the Dog Years of Globalization
other time of hope (Abraham’s first Alli- (1998), Hacia Una Crítica de la Razón Mítica: El
ance, in the Judeo-Christian narrative) and a Laberinto de la Modernidad (2008), and Das Sujekt
time of the first Law (for instance, the law und das Gesetz: Die Ruckkehr des verdrangten
Subjekt (2007). In relation to this problematic,
pronounced by Moses in the desert during Dussel refers also to the distinction between
exile from slavery). In the Judeo-Christian foundation, justification and application
narrative, the event of the first Law estab- developed in volume II of his Política de la
Liberación (2007) 377 ff. This distinction is made in
lished the order still prevailing during relation to Kant’s analysis of future-oriented
Paul’s time. This foundational event and ‘reflective judgment’ as distinct from backward-
constitution must in turn be distinguished, looking ‘determinate’ or purely empirical
judgment. This means that what Dussel calls
according to Dussel, from what happens in ‘fetichization’ involves the elevation of the past
and the given order to the level of an absolute and
27. See on the priority of truthfulness over necessary order for all times and in all places.
truth and on ethopoetic devices E Mendieta ‘The This is also the danger of ‘globalization’
Ethics of (Not) Knowing. Take Care of Ethics and discourses in relation to the law: that it becomes
Knowledge Will Come of Its Own Accord’, in ‘globalism’. I use the term ‘globalism’ in the sense
Decolonizing Epistemologies. Latino/a Theology and of the ideological element present in the
Philosophy (2012) 247-264. justificatory discourse about globalization.
blind man during Sabbath, in speaking VIII. What If Latin America Ruled
against the laws of debt and proceeding to the World? The World Turned
angrily “cleanse” the temple from the law of
Upside Down
value, and especially when he observed that
the law in its fetishized state would demand
such a degree of application that it can even How do we turn this state of affairs on
produce death, and moreover, in giving tes- its head? The starting point is the recogni-
timony of this demand by being crucified, tion of the fragility of everything that exists.
deny the law its power of serving as the ba- Call it “the meaning of life”, in a reference to
sis for justification.30 the brilliant pun on necessitarianism put to-
On the other, this is in contrast to the at- gether by philosophical comedians Monthy
titude toward the law (and truth) that was Python in The Life of Brian. From this stand-
typical of classical Greek-Roman as well as point, we start form absolute contingency
Jewish legalism. In the latter, exemplified by rather than from the idea of mechanical pat-
the cases of Ifigenia in the Oresteiad, Socrates terns or rules that can be revealed through
in Plato’s Apology or the members of the tri- natural reason as, ultimately, the uncondi-
bunal that condemned Jesus to death in the tioned reason of everything that exists and
New Testament, and later on also in the impo- is efficiently moved forward in our images
sition of the Law of Christendom across the of nature. Another way to put this is to assert
globe, after the imperialization (and intel- Nature (like in the 2010 Conference referred
lectual Platonization) of Christianity, we to above) as a living organism going through
must accept the Law (and truth as the whole cycles underpinned by fragility, rather than
truth) to its final consequences: that is to say, some machina mundi. In the first conception,
even if its application entails the death of the predictability, in the sense of a calculus of
innocent, which is justified either as an probabilities and costs attempting to derive
abuse of the Law by those who apply it or as some measure of necessity from within the
a necessary sacrifice in the altar of law, manifold of accidents and phenomena, is
(whole) truth, order, national interest, seen as form of metaphysical dogmatism—
self-righteousness or economic wisdom. in short, as ideology.
What cannot occur to the legalistic “classi- With no figure of necessity, no ultimately
unconditioned set of rules or no big other in
cal” mind or to its “modern” reinvention as
supply (neither as transcendent divinity nor
economic wisdom and pragmatic calculus
as deus ex machina), the image of nature be-
is the questioning and denunciation of the
comes a token of our radical freedom rather
law itself and the order it founds as fatal and
than the realm of determinism. This radical
murderous. And yet, this is precisely what
freedom is always here and now as well as
the death of Jesus and its apocalyptic inter-
future-oriented, present in our recognition of
pretation by John and Paul entail: not sacri-
sociality as something in which we partake,
fice but scandal, the revelation that the law and which is always beyond us, in fact a step
itself has become unjust and that “the wis- toward recognizing, precisely, the specificity
dom of this world” has turned sacrificial and universality of our common world. Our
mythology into economic calculus, which it radical freedom lies in our acknowledged
calls “reason”. commonality, which can only grow out of
our recognition that as embodied beings we
will always speak to each other from differ-
ent perspectives, and of the humility that
30. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event of Paul of arises when we actually confront the truth
Tarsus (2009) 10. See also F Hinkelammert, The that we must live in a field of commonality
Cry of the Subject (1998) 45. Dussel cites John 8,
40-44. that is the world and nature. Philosophically
speaking, in Dussel the injunction to “live “identity” here, but rather, about “position”.
well” and the notion of the infinite fragility of And we have moved from morality or eth-
nature (Life) vis-à-vis the bad infinity of our ics—the art of leading by precepts or exam-
dreams of unending progress (which is the ple—to the fundamentals of existence: new-
theme of his first theses in Twenty Theses on ness, originality in time and space, a priori
Politics), take us in a movement that goes causality or composition, and the autonomy
from inter-subjectivity (language, reason, of human and non-human nature, what phi-
normative prescriptions) to the key problem losophers call “ontology”.
of communication, understood ontologically At stake is the issue of newness in histo-
in the sense of proximity and vicarious rela- ry and reality in the most general sense. And
tionality between contingently existent and this is what Enrique Dussel, no doubt hav-
gathered entities (human and non-human ing in mind Walter Benjamin and other writ-
assemblages and disassemblages). 31 ers embedded in the Miltonian-Kantian tra-
Another name for this process, one that dition, refers to when he speaks of a
has been coined and developed in the “liberatory event”.32
philosophies of existence of Caribbean writ- Notice that vicarious communication,
ers and phenomenologists more than by which opens up the set of options for com-
Dussel himself, but one whose use he would munication and relationality (rather than
surely endorse, is “creolization”. The term merely choosing a form of communication
often refers to phenomena of semio-seman- between a given set of options) makes it pos-
tic hybridization within or across cultures. It sible to cross not only between cultures but
involves the inversion of a word from its also between the realms of the human and
negative meaning to something more posi- the non-human, allowing for richer and
tive, or the kind of proximity that does not original relations between us humans and
entail imitation but achieves originality. our conceptions of technological advance-
Examples of this phenomenon in histo- ment so central to our present way of life, on
ry would include the Haitian revolution- the one hand, and nature on the other. The
aries of the 1800s singing La Marseillaise to point is to disengage the mind and its capac-
occupation Napoleonic forces, or the case of ity for technological advancement from
the Yoruba religion of Africa being Chris- what is empirical in examples of the relation
tianized in the Americas while Christianity between technology, production and con-
was refigured through the gods and god- sumption in the present situation, thus
desses of Yoruba African religiosity. Both achieving exemplarity.
religions changed, becoming perhaps un- Only then, it begins to make sense to
recognizable to defenders of (European) or- speak of the Earth or Nature as being enti-
thodoxy, but in the process revealing the tled to (strictly non-reciprocal, or “post-hu-
importance of the revaluing and affirmation man”) rights. But not in the sense of some
of indigenous and original values and ide- restorative project bringing back a purely
als. Put otherwise, the result of this kind of emotive and non-technological union with
hybridization is a composite (a vicarious or
32. On the Miltonian-Kantian tradition, and
creolized entity) of a higher order, a new re- the notions of ‘the sublime’ and ‘succession’
ality that cannot be judged from the stand- emerginf from that tradition, see S Budick, Kant
point of its components and in fact would and Milton (2010) 253-306. For the precedents of
Latin American liberation philosophy originating
have seemed implausible or improbable at the end of the colonial period, in the late
(and may remain invisible) from the stand- eighteenth century, among thinkers and activists
point of the previous situation. who were engaged with the language and forms
developed within the trans-Atlantic Lascasian-
We’re no longer talking about particular Miltonian-Kantian constellation, see O
Guardiola-Rivera, What If Latin America Ruled the
31. E Dussel, Twenty Theses on Politics (2008). World? (2010) 107-179.
nature that in fact has never existed. Rather, are in fact striving for and toward freedom.
in the sense of challenging the assumed in- They do not offer just another choice, an al-
trasystemic consistency of the system and ternative choice within the given dichotomy
the way of life we usually call “capitalism” between “leaders” and “led” (or “devel-
(which assumes a necessary connection be- oped” and “underdeveloped’). Rather, they
tween technological advancement and cap- seek to open up the set of available options
italist production/consumption, in which and to move from given examples to exem-
the former is dependent upon the latter) by plarity. They are transforming our image of
raising systemic critique from within, from the world, changing in the process the terms
the standpoint of the real and contingent fu- of language and communication: freedom
ture as well as our responsibility to create and contingency rather than necessity;
future environments for all. post-development rather than linear and in-
This would be a critique of “necessity” evitable orientation in geopolitics and glob-
and of figures of necessity, in particular the al economics; human and non-human rights
dogma concerning the supposedly inevita- instead of the pure reciprocity and equiva-
ble character of capitalist globalization and lence of “humanitarian” international rela-
its correlative image of the world as a unity tions underpinned by the alleged moral su-
divided between nations that lead by pre- periority of some; redemption in the present
cepts, permanent authority and example for the sake of the future, rather than auster-
(recently couched in pseudo-humanitarian ity and pre-emptive action to avert an-
language) and peoples willing to be led by nounced catastrophes brought about by
precepts and example. This was already the “monstrous” peoples or greed.
point highlighted by those participating in Refigured in such terms, religion ceases
the “older debates” (Las Casas or Milton in to be a normative discourse that mixes par-
the sixteenth and seventeenth century; the adoxically the impatience of the crusader
German Miltonians, Francisco de Miranda, with the pacifying effect of the soldier-ther-
Thomas Paine, Anna Barbauld, Olaudah apist. Notice how those who argue that sav-
Equiano and Simón Bolívar in the eigh- ing modernity means abolishing religion
teenth and nineteenth centuries; W. E. B. Du and those who choose to respond in kind by
Bois, Ernest Cassirer, Walter Benjamin, Ja- seeking to abolish modernity provide the
cob Taubes, Hans Jonas, Frantz Fanon and background noise of such confusing mix-
Roberto Fernández Retamar in the twenti- ture. The bitter Kulturkampf that we seem to
eth century). have witnessed in Britain and the USA (also
This is also the point that needs to be rec- addressing the Islamic world) in the first de-
ognized in the “new debates” about theolo- cade of the twenty-first century, between
gy and politics: what about the peoples of secular science on the one hand and reli-
the world not willing to be led by precepts, gious social Conservatism on the other, can
the permanent authority of a handful of na- be understood precisely in such terms.
tions, and their paternalistic example? What
if, say, Latin America ruled the world? So far, IX. Conclusion: Law, Globalization
these peoples have all too often been dis-
and Religion’s Second Coming
missed as “anti-modernist”, “unorthodox”
or “rogue”; in a word, as “heretic”. These
apparently blunt terms are in fact simplistic, As religion becomes more and more
particularly in their inability to help us un- globalized in the contemporary world of
derstand the perverse complexity and allure state-capitalist nations, it has come to be
of heresy: the peoples of the world not will- seen merely as a set of ideas or an external
ing to be led by given precepts and example state of affairs, which can be surgically sep-
arated from the public conduct of business groundwork for a truly cosmopolitan polit-
and from the religious person like a poten- ical philosophy. They also coincided with
tially dangerous tumor. For this perspective the emergence of a specifically global mer-
there is a straight choice between political cantilist/capitalist market, on the back of
theology and political philosophy, includ- the Spanish (American) Silver Peso and the
ing legal theory. Another perspective ob- massive displacement of labor force from
serves that we may have anachronistically Africa and elsewhere. The language and ar-
misunderstood the Great Separation con- guments of these debates challenged from
flicts that took place in the West between within a venerable tradition known as phil-
1550 and 1648 merely as wars of religion, in osophical geography that was received in
a way that serves to bolster our mythical un- medieval Europe by such people as Alber-
derstanding of the state and its legal and tus Magnus.
political institutions as both a “protector” Mixing elements of theology, cosmolo-
and a “savior” from religious fanaticism. gy and philosophy from at least four cultur-
Furthermore, others add, it is possible to al sources—Greek, Semite, Arabic and Eu-
trace a line of continuity between the apoca- ropean—with elements of law’s autonomy,
lyptic dimensions of Christianity and other it set the coordinates of our modern “secu-
religions and the modern political projects lar” images of the world. Geopolitics, devel-
that in the West and elsewhere have aimed opment economics and cartography, but
at radical and even violent transformations also the languages of ethno- and Euro-cen-
of human society. It follows that attempting trism and the Atlantic bias of international
to “abolish religion” by suppressing it from relations owe much to the recovery of this
public conversation merely succeeds in re- ancient tradition at the very point of origin
pressing it, leading to its ever more violent of modernity. These were the languages that
return. They point out, however, that fully Immanuel Kant continued to explore in his
integrating the primary human need for re- lectures on Geography and Anthropology
ligion in public life does not mean establish- at the University of Könisberg in the late
ing any one religion as public dogma. eighteenth century.
There is plenty of heat and some light in Second, the new debates constantly
these “new debates”. However, at least two miss how much they imitate the older de-
important dimensions seem to have been bates: for instance, the point about fully in-
hitherto ignored by the debaters: first, as po- tegrating religion in public life without es-
litical theologian William T. Cavanaugh tablishing any one religion, made in
suggests, the conflicts originated in the West contemporary times by writers like John
between 1550 and 1648 had a more global Gray, was well understood by the eigh-
dimension, related to the emergence and teenth century generation of liberationist
justification of modern imperialism. This is thinkers in the Americas inspired by Las Ca-
the dimension that the archbishop of Chi- sas.34 For instance, in one of the most import-
apas Bartolomé de Las Casas emphasized in ant episodes of the struggles for liberation in
the 1550 debates at Valladolid, Spain, con- the late eighteenth and early nineteen centu-
cerning the status of Amerindians as “even ries, Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda like-
bellow slavery”, and the right of the Chris- ly discussed the point with philosopher Mo-
tian Spanish Crown to occupy and exploit ses Mendelssohn during an encounter in
the resources of the New World.33
These debates helped inaugurating 34. J Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion
and the Death of Utopia (2007). For a useful survey
modern international law and laid the of the virulent critiques of religion offered
33. WT Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious recently by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett,
Violence: Secular ideology and the Roots of Modern Christopher Hitchens and others, see T Beattie,
Conflict (2009). The New Atheists (2007).
Germany in 1758. He tackled the issue once that binds the “children of God”.36
again in his 1801 draft of a Constitution for The exact meaning of what it is to be
the projected Great Colombia. “children of God” constitutes the crucial
Similarly, the scientific secularism of problem. As Dussel, points out, this is where
Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett tends to Paul’s Epistles can be interpreted as offering
imitate the French Positivists, whose views political and legal categories of implicit
were central in the institutional design of philosophical importance: “Humanity
modern Latin American nations such as watches impatiently (apokaradokía) wait-
Mexico and Brazil. ing for what it is to be children of God to be
What is missing in the “new debates” is revealed” (Romans 8, 19). This passage con-
a form of repetition that is not mere imita- tains the interpretive key that clarifies both
tion, but includes also a new wager and an the Christological framework and advances
original understanding of legality and his- the ultimate consequences of its basic event.
tory. If the “new debates” remind us of the “The meaning of “being children of God”
Pascalian theology of the wager—which ar- enunciated for the slaves, the oppressed,
gued that theism is the rationally correct op- and the excluded”, Dussel says, “is the mo-
tion because betting my life on the assump- ment of “ransom”, the payment of freeing
tion that there is no God cannot benefit me if the slave or “redemption”, a subject sug-
I win “and could be disastrous if I lose”— gested so clearly by Walter Benjamin”.37
liberation philosophers and theologians According to this contextual reading,
like Dussel posit another argument that the writings of Paul “must be situated in the
takes into account belief and communal ex- political economic context of the Roman
perience in an original way. As theologian Empire during the stage of consolidation of
Michael Kirwan observes, this is the argu- the structure of slave-based domination”
ment of a mutual wager between the poor and inequality, which provoked “an im-
and God. The poor trust in God as their mense clamor among the growing majority
champion, the one who will liberate them of oppressed and exploited masses” re-
from their suffering, while God “wagers on duced to live in conditions of anonymity
humanity, by daring to enter, repeatedly, and inexistence—that they make them-
into political partnership (covenant) with selves free and autonomous. This is the
human beings” and importantly, by han- question of succession and liberation.
dling over his son.35 The notion of “succession” became ex-
The Christological frame of the discus- plicit in the writings of a trans-national con-
sion may seem obscure at first, but it mat- stellation of thinkers and political activists
ters: on the one hand, it indicates that in or- whose agency became globally significant
der to move beyond imitation the debate during the revolutionary events of the late
between theology and politics must empha- 18th and early 19th centuries. Immanuel Kant,
size a God who wholly became man and po- who may have coined the term, was one of
sitioned himself among the oppressed and them. So was the group of German writers
the excluded, those who don’t count and who introduced elements of the Semitic tra-
remain invisible in the present order. On the dition into the conversation, such as Moses
other hand, this means that what matters is Mendelssohn, taking on board a number of
to draw all the consequences from the basic observations on the nature of the sublime—
event in this symbolical narrative, the death
36. S Zizek, Living in the End Times (2010) 34.
of God and his passing over into the love See also S Zizek & J Milbank, The Monstrosity of
Christ (2009) and E Dussel, The Liberatory Event of
Paul of Tarsus (2009) 4.
35. M Kirwan, Political Theology: A New 37. E Dussel, The Liberatory Event of Paul of
Introduction (2008) xii. Tarsus (2009) 4, n. 18.
not only in its aesthetic but also in its politi- gular dogma imitating on earth the order
cal significance. and hierarchy of the heavens up above and
These meanings and languages were organizing the multiplicity of the communi-
the common currency of a trans-continental ty (and nature) under the rule of the One, an
debate often traced back to Edmund Burke’s identity of origin and a singular orientation
reaction to the events of the French Revolu- (fate, character, destiny or necessity) ex-
tion, radical agitation and religious dissent panding into time and space, flattening the
in Britain, and anti-slavery or revolutionary geography and the history of the entire
struggle in Haiti and elsewhere in the Amer- planet in its fatal and fated embrace. Succes-
icas. Moses Mendelssohn and Lessing were sion and the sublime event of liberation (or
among the German group. Thomas Paine, independence) oppose and remain the an-
Joseph Priestley, Thomas Spence, Mary swer to, precisely, such ideas of order, dog-
Wollstonecraft, Anna Barbauld, William ma, hierarchy, orientation in time and space
Blake, Olaudah Equiano and the “Spencean and planetary expansion or diffusion.
Abolitionists”, among others, were active in This question of “the community of
various and different ways in Britain and those who have nothing in common”—oth-
the Americas, and engaged both Burke and er than the renewal of the common is at the
the Germans but also the French, and some very heart of more or less recent explora-
writers from the Americas. tions of the figure of Paul as archetype. It
Latin American liberationist thinkers serves also as an entry point for arguments
and activists such as Venezuelan Francisco concerning the nature of law, order and jus-
de Miranda and others, came in contact with tice in the global situation. For instance, no-
members of these circles at various points in tice how the opposition set up at the end of
their lives and exchanged similar meanings the previous paragraph calls for another
and languages, but also traced their tradi- distinction between two conceptions of or-
tions of thought back to early anti-slavery der and legality: let us then distinguish be-
and anti-imperialist writers such as the tween “the law of succession” on the one
Archbishop of Chiapas Bartolomé de Las hand, and “the law of imitation” on the oth-
Casas. er.
All of them shared, in different ways, a I call “imitation” the procedure by
conception of the earth as common treasury, means of which the order of the multiple
of history as contingent and punctured by (e.g. all existing objects and entities) is sub-
original events of succession (or “sublime” mitted to a single point of origin, efficiency
occurrences in history), of self-determina- and finality (e.g. God, dogma, self-correct-
tion as the decisive experience of the coming progress, or any other figure of necessi-
mon, and of normative orders—including ty). The latter is said to sustain the former,
law and religious mores—as based upon while the former is said to participate in the
such a experience of “inner communal con- latter. This paradoxical relation, it is argued,
version”. It is no coincidence that the early corresponds to the eternally paradoxical ex-
example of John Milton and the significance istence of the point of origin and singular
of the context, language and memory in- orientation (or “God” as pure relationship
voked by his poetry, featured prominently of mastery over creation); normatively, this
in these global exchanges. entails a relation of dependency. Also, the
Ultimately, the idea of “succession” at notion that one’s given world is merely an
the basis of these conversations constitutes inheritance; that it is proper and can be ap-
an answer to the question of the just order of propriated, but not created anew.
a political community which is not a com- I call “succession” the procedure by
munity of believers gathered around a sin- means of which the order of the multiple or
the finite is received and organized into ac- Cornell, Drucilla. Moral Images of Freedom. A Fu-
tually infinite assemblages, or disassembled ture for Critical Theory (Rowman & Little-
field, 2007).
from existing ones, thereby adding to reali-
De Sousa Santos, Boaventura. ‘A Non-Occiden-
ty. Nothing, no law of necessity underpins talist West? Learned Ignorance and Ecolo-
this process. It isn’t a matter of efficient or gy of Knowledge’ 26 Theory, Culture & So-
final causes but rather a matter of structural ciety 7/8, 103-125 (2009).
arrangements and compositions, in which Dussel, Enrique. “The Liberatory event in Paul
of Tarsus”, in Qui Parle: Critical Humanities
the component elements are never com- and Social Sciences, tans. By George Ci-
pletely absorbed within the resulting com- carello-Maher, vol. 18, no. 1 (Fall/Winter
position. Politics is also about entering into 2009), and “El Evento Liberador en Pablo
de Tarso”, manuscript on file with the au-
and withdrawing from relations without thor (2009).
losing our capacity to move on or move out. Dussel, Enrique. Twenty Theses on Politics (Duke
The commonality which results from our University Press, 2008).
acts of assembling and disassembling is Dussel, Emrique. Política de la Liberación, Volu-
never some all-encompassing whole. Rela- men II (Trotta, 2007).
tions within it and against it are not depen- Esquirol, Jorge. “Writing the Law of Latin Amer-
ica” 40 The George Washington International
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Gordon, Lewis R. Existentia Africana. Under-
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ing practice that gives meaning to life by the Death of Utopia (Penguin, 2007).
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told. The Coup Against Salvador Allende, 11
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Law, Globalisation and The Second Coming

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Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge

Law, Globalisation, and Second Coming

Birkbeck School of Law, University of London, UK

across borders, while emphasizing the need

is diminished by a tendency to combine of political and religious meaning makers,

nizing Epistemologies. Latino/a Theology and

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