Religion and the Critical Divide
A Discussion of 'Religion' and the Problems of Postcolonialism
Dear reader,
So far, I have discussed the implications of postcolonial critiques of the concept “Religion” as side-notes to whichever was my main focus in the context. This, however, is a more fleshed-out discussion of some of the problems we encounter when discussing “Religion” in a post-colonialist light. This is not to deem it an unworkable framework, rather, if the post-colonial critique is to come to its full fruition, we will need to critically engage with its shortcomings as well as its strengths. For the readers who are starting to familiarize themselves with my writing, some names and points may ring a bell, as I have to some extend made similar points elsewhere, but let us now grab the bull by its horns, so to speak.
In this essay, I Daniel Dubuisson’s critique of the term “Religion” and his suggestions for ways forward for scholars of the History of Religion. With my point of entry in Dubuisson’s “The Invention of Religion” and his critique of the term “Religion”, I will argue that the endemic contradiction between “East” and “West” in Critical Studies and its many sub-genres, such as post-colonial studies, have caused us to exaggerate the degree to which "Religion" is a Western, Christian concept. I will argue with Dubuisson, following his brilliant directions for what to do with “Religion”, in the form of his notion of cosmographic formation, but I will do so by arguing that parts of his critique of “Religion” exactly exemplify why we are currently incapable of moving on. His prognosis that “Religion” is a Western construction that must be abandoned slightly misses the mark.
If we truly wish to understand both “Religion”, as well as "the East and the West" and our parts in its development, “Religion” must be truly deconstructed – and reconstructed. With particular focus on Assmann’s (2007) theologization of history and Graeber & Sahlin’s (2017) terms cosmic polity and galactic mimesis, I suggest we re-evaluate “Religion”, as something not outside the sphere of all other human life, but as an endemic expression of culture. And in what some may consider a rather old-school turn, defining it by its functions instead of its inherent qualities. We, “the West” and “the East”, are, and have for countless millennia been, the same ecosystem, in terms of people, power and thought. I propose that “Religion” is not a Western construct, as much as it is both a Western-flavored attempt at grasping a universal tendency of centralization, consolidation, and legitimization of power, and an example of this same tendency. This essay, due to its limited scope, does of course not claim to have found “the solution” to the problems posed by Dubuisson, nor to be a holistic exposition of the argument I present; however, it does claims to be a preliminary, explorative attempt, which is exemplified with the help of existing concept. To commence this experiment, some crucial points in Dubuisson must be described in detail.
The Invention of “Religion”
In his ambitious work from 2019, Dubuisson maps the course of development of the History of Religions, and though the term originally sprang from the Latin “Religio”, he accuses said field of research of having invented, across the planet, particularly during the era of colonization, the concept of “Religion”.1 In a millennia-long process of intellectual production and censorship within the Catholic church, Christianity itself was constructed, and with translation, cataloguing, categorization, and finally scientific studies, the fundamentally Western, Christian concept of “Religion” was retroactively fitted onto peoples and cultures all around the world, across time and space, from South America, to Greece, to India. Because of the very terms used to describe these “World Religions”, they were always compared with Christianity on Christianity’s parameters, with the latter being viewed as the superior “Religion”, always taken apart from the more mythological, and less theological religions of the world.2
In the 1800s the idea of a "history of humanity" grew out of western universities. The discovery of the relatedness of the henceforth-called "Indo-European languages" changed the field of study, providing the very polemic idea of polygenism and the superiority of the Aryan “race” in contrast to the Semitic ”race”.3 In many circles, this took a very polemic turn, and the concept of polygenism, and a superior Indo-European/Aryan "race", specifically, superior to the Semitic "race", took hold in European academies.4 Social Darwinism also took hold of European academia at this time, leading to the idea of stages of cultural evolution, the infamous latter of civilizations that inhabited most (if not all) foundational social science in Europe, as seen amongst others in the works of Spencer, Lubbock, Tylor, Frazer, Durkheim and Mauss.5 The idea that culture was also something that evolved in a biological sense, made it possible for social scientists to study how religion "evolved" from the most "primitive", to the type of "fully fledged religion" that these early thinkers considered Christianity. For all these early social scientists, "Man" was indeed a religious animal, and society was a type of organism that, as Dubuisson puts it "generates religion mechanically", fulfilling certain social functions. This rather pervasive idea, according to Dubuisson, could only have arisen in a Western, Christian civilization.6
He points out that the founding fathers of the History of Religion, many of whom have been mentioned, were mostly protestant, northern Europeans, which in large part shaped the science7. In particular, he points out the 18th century scholar Friedrich Schleiermacher who, although more lenient than some of his colleagues, in that he actively looked to downplay differences and seek convergences, ended up shaping the still rather protestant idea of the foundational religious nature of all human beings. Dubuisson dubs the ideas of the religious nature of man, the universality and innateness of religious feeling, universality itself and the common sources of all religions a "light version” of Protestantism. In extent, this maintained Christianity as the superior religion since it approximated most closely this natural religiosity of Schleiermacher.8
Dubuisson identifies in the period between the 17th and 20th centuries a change from Catholic theology to the philosophy of religions and then onto modern "science of religions".9 However, although Dubuisson considers the change from theology to science of religions a considerable change, the anthropology of Tyler, used to exemplify the coming of science of religions, at this stage was still highly ethnocentric. In this way Tylor did not represent a break. On the contrary, theology and philosophy of religion are both alive and well today.10 Although many later attempts have been made to undo this, Dubuisson considers the domain of the study of “religion” so firmly imprinted in a Western, Christian worldview that it has completely halted our ability to reflect further on the concept. The concept of "Religion" and its Western bias has at this point limited our lexicon so much that it is impossible to say what it is not. The fact that “Religion” can only be explained sui generis is one of its greatest problems. However, Dubuisson notes that there are certain advantages to these “skeleton key”-type terms because they allow for a wide scope, and he states that Critical Studies have mainly been able to point to the incapability of "Religion" to explain what The West has called “religions", but that it cannot do much else than this. And so, we arrive at his suggestion for what to do with “Religion”.11
What to do with “Religion”?
Complete cultural relativism on the one hand, and a redefinition of “Religion” on the other, both seem relatively useless to Dubuisson. He suggests, rather, that we must kill homo religiosus12. This third way is represented, according to Dubuisson, by himself, Fitzgerald, and few others. Ultimately, Fitzgerald suggests entirely abandoning "Religion". To him, since it is entirely a Western, Christian concept which perpetuates imperialist, neo-colonial Western liberal-capitalist ideology, and since essentially anything called “religious” may as well be studied in any other socio-cultural context, and since culture is a human invention aimed at providing stability, we may as well replace “Religion” with “Culture”13.
However, Dubuisson seems quite convinced that using "culture" doesn't really solve anything, because it suffers from the same problems as "religion". He suggests following the notion that we all live on the same planet, but inhabit different worlds, a notion he dubs cosmographic formation. In his words, the “world” encapsulates the “ensemble of elements, institutions, discourses, and relations that people have patiently invented and assembled in order to construct an ordered universe”. Each culture constructs the world in their own way, and what “religions” have in common is exactly that they defend conceptions of the world and humanity that reflects the very world they created said conceptions in and for. This description incorporates everything from Catholicism to Marxism to materialism, and is thus a more universal, anthropological, rather than theological, foundation. Even further, Dubuisson calls for as many comparative investigations as we can possibly manage, as this will in his estimation lead us closer to solving the problems posed by Critical Studies and History of Religions.14
Yin/Yang Reprise: Eurocentrism and Postcolonialocentrism
While Dubuisson’s critique of “Religion” is certainly thorough and erudite, he appears to succumb to a few traps on his way. He certainly points this out himself, stating that the problem of Critical Studies at this point is the danger of its critiques crystallizing, of certain formulae and Foucauldian buzzwords having become more performative than scholarly, and of its inability to construct something from its deconstruction.15 In the following, I am in large parts taking Dubuisson’s suggestion for how to solve the problem of “religion” and its impreciseness. Further, Dubuisson points out the problems that arose from the old and pervasive paradigm of the “sacred” as opposed to the “profane”, and how this paradigm has managed to create an idea of “Religion” as being completely isolated from all the rest of human life16.
This point is crucial, and in taking Dubuisson’s suggestions, I shall also very much follow that line of thought in the following. However, I will do so by arguing that his critique of “Religion” suffers from what I will refer to as “postcolonialocentrism”. Dubuisson and Critical Studies have been (rightly) obsessed with abolishing imperialism and Western, Christian biases, but because of this focus they risk falling into the same trap as the scholars they critique. In considering the term “religion” a Western or Christian construct, we risk overlooking the areas where something universal can be gleamed with the term.
What I suggest is a type of compromise between Dubuisson’s second and third ways of solving the problem of “religion”. Combining Fitzgerald and Dubuisson, we could assume “Religion” to be the process of cosmographic formation within any given culture. To elaborate this suggestion, and base it in some historical data, I shall now turn to Jan Assmann to explore the power of the theologization of history. The data presented in their works, to underline the interconnectedness between “Religion” and the society around it, shall be framed within a system of cosmic polities in which rulers and societies contend for power through galactic mimesis, as hypothesized by Graeber and Sahlins in their seminal work On Kings (2017).
The Theologization of History
Monotheism and polytheism are strange terms. In a sense suffering from similar problems to “Religion”, Assmann suggests it seems “polytheism” is more than anything a monotheistic invention to describe what is not “monotheistic”17. However, the terms are also misleading, as indications of monotheism, or at least the concept of a complete cosmic unity, are to be found in “polytheisms” in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and many other ancient societies. To explain the relationship between the human and the divine around the ancient Mediterranean, Assmann employs Varro’s tripartition of dimensions of human-divine interaction: The cosmos, the cultic and political organization, and the myth. Usually, the world is a cooperative piece of work shared between the Gods.
Depending on the pantheon they take more or less active roles in the creation and maintenance of the cosmos. However, the idea that one god rules the others is quite strong in all Mediterranean pantheons. In Mesopotamia you get a very clear idea of how this "polytheistic" system works in a cultic and political sense: Hierarchies of gods took shape after by which city was dominant and any given time. All cities had patron Gods, across Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece etc., and usually the patron god of a ruling city, such as Marduk in Babylon, could be the patron god of an entire state, if that city held power, or at least have sanctuaries spread throughout an area. The aspect of unity, according to Assmann, can be glanced in this center-periphery dynamic amongst the competing city states, and their diversity lies in the local difference of said cities. The third dimension is the personal, biographical aspects of the gods, and this reveals an anthropomorphic relationship between the divine and human worlds. We find the fundamental social structures of society repeated in the divine images, amongst others: Father and mother, husband and wife, slave and owner, war and peace, love and death, suffering and salvation. The gods are, however, models, not reflections of society.
The Tripartite system of polytheism establishes an indirect relationship between humans and gods. The gods care mostly about themselves, then their cities and only exceptionally about humans in general. Modelling is the key element of the relationship between gods and humans. However, Assmann points out a fourth dimension in the human-divine relationship: That of human life and history. With the emergence of history in Egypt in the 18th dynasty onwards, a shift from an anthropomorphic to an anthropocentric relationship with the divine takes place. The gods are no longer simply functioning as driving forces of the cosmos, who appear in myths and stories and rule from their temples. They directly impact the course of history, providing, amongst very many things, victories and defeats in battle, illness and wealth, and importantly, support and opposition to states, peoples and rulers. This is what Assmann refers to as "the theologization of history”. This development came much earlier in Mesopotamia than in Egypt, which to Assmann means that in a Mesopotamian context, anything from disasters or victories to invasions or economic downturns could be attributed, for example, to a given ruler's relationship with a given god. This meant that the course of history could be put into system, and a coherent narrative of the succession of dynasties and great events could be made from it. Whereas in Egypt, disasters had mainly been considered manifestations of chaos.18
A classic example of this narrative-creation is “The Sin of Sargon”. This text is a political-polemical text, showing the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II's missteps in his treatment of the Gods, and king Sennacherib’s wish to right his father's wrongs. Landsberger notes that only with a blind belief in the sources could anybody assume that this text was commissioned by Sennacherib.19 It seems strange that Sennacherib, a king who famously boasts of having sacked Assyria’s main rival in the 1st millennium BC, Babylon, its holy places, and statues, and even further displaced Marduk from his role as world-creator and ruler, should have composed a text concerning something so minor in comparison as not being allowed to build a statue to Marduk. "The Sin of Sargon" likely reflects the precarious situation that Sennacherib’s successor, Esarhaddon, found himself in after ascending the Assyrian throne. Artfully using intertextual references from the Babylonian and Assyrian traditions, to consolidate his rule over Assyria and Babylonia and legitimize his new policies for the empire.20
According to Assmann, of the four dimensions of the human-divine relationship, the fourth won out and eventually replaced the others. The cosmos was thus no longer a manifestation of the gods, it is the creation of the one god, the cult centers reduced to the single temple in Jerusalem under king Josiah in the 7th century BC - a movement is very much reminiscent of Akhenaten’s monotheistic revolution in Egypt during the previous millennium.21 Soon this tendency manifested all over the Mediterranean, whether in the form of hyphenated or translated gods, as the fully-fledged idea that for example The Greek and Egyptian gods were the same, international deities with different names, or even in hypsistos, the belief in one God, and following this, the belief that other gods can be false. This is what termed by both Assmann and Dubuisson as a shift from orthopraxy, the correct way of acting in accordance with the gods, to orthodoxy, the correct way of believing.22 Although Assmann goes on to describe monotheism and its different iterations, for our purposes, having described the process of the theologization of history, and to fit the rest of my argument in this relatively short essay, we shall leave him behind for now. In the following, I shall try to fit the theologization of history within the theoretical framework of Cosmic polities and galactic mimesis, provided by Graeber & Sahlins (2017).
Cosmic Polities
In their work On Kings, Graeber and Sahlins grabble with what they identify as one of the greatest problems of the human sciences, and it very much follows a similar line to Dubuisson: Disregarding a few recent globalization and world-systems theories, most schools, from functionalism through structural functionalism, structuralism, Marxism, even to poststructuralist discourses, are stuck in paradigms that imagine cultural order and change as taking place within isolated, self-fashioning societies. That is, societies are imagined as sui generis and autonomous.23 In the following, I shall present parts of their theoretical solution to this problem, and combine them with the suggestions of Dubuisson, building a bridge between these two with Assmann’s theologization of history.
From the highest Mesopotamian kings to the humblest Brazilian hunter-gatherers; something quite like a state is a universal human condition. Kingship in such a “state”, or cosmic polity, is both derived from ancestors, the divines, and meta-humans, and very often the highest authority in these “states” are meta-human or divine agents. This point must be stressed in the context of this essay; There is no such thing as secular power. The authority to rule, although very much capable of changing hands, is ultimately the authority of meta-human actors. Considering this ontological levelling, kings should be considered as modelled on gods rather than the other way around. When kings gain the right to wield the authority to rule, it often happens in part by allying with (or establishing) bureaucracies, this alliance can be gleamed from the examples provided with the scribal bureaucracy “The sin of Sargon”, King Josiah or Akhenaten earlier in this essay. Attempts to overcome temporal boundaries and translate royal status into some form of meta-humanity, or even immortality, also follows such a seizing of power.24
However here arises a paradox: If a king derives his power from his ancestors, and ultimately divinity, he comes into competition with same ancestors. If his ancestors are too powerful, this negatively impacts his own sovereignty, however if they’re effaced, they, and thus the king, lose all status.25 This competition can, according to Graeber & Sahlins, be dealt with in a few ways, for example by the construction of “eternal” monuments, being anything from statues to grand, planned-out palaces and capitals as models of the universe, built to represent cosmic order, as seen for example Sargon II’s splendid capital Dur-Sharrukin.26 Further, one can conquer of new lands, make displays of arbitrary power, sacrifice, and even by creating a myth of progress.
Finally, Graeber and Sahlins points out that with the assumption that all large states were once petty kingdoms, and peripheral kingdoms would have oriented themselves towards the center of power, amongst other reasons to attempt expanding their own power and sovereignty, be it via warfare, trade, diplomacy or many other options (Graeber & Sahlins 2017: 13). In this core-periphery configuration of cosmic polities, a certain “endemic upward mobility” can be articulated. Kingdoms are juxtaposed in the political field and compete for domination via their own claims to power. And this competition over claims to power is what Graeber & Sahlins call Galactic Mimesis.27
Galactic mimesis takes two forms; Complementary schismogenesis, in which individuals and communities contending for power in a community, or in a larger galactic field, will approximate their superiors to supersede local adversaries. Opposed to this is antagonistic acculturation, which involves a lesser group resisting a dominant power by adopting the political apparatus of said power, effectively trying to make them equal rivals to reach a position where one can be abolished, or at the very least ignored. This can be exemplified with Vietnam’s claim, stretching over a very long period, to their own Mandate of Heaven. What these dynamics show is that most societies, even the smallest and most isolate, tend to be hybrids. Political and cosmological forms are not entirely of any society's own devising.28 With the following theoretical points in mind, I shall now attempt consolidating the perspectives presented in this essay.
Religion, or Cosmographic Formation in Cosmic Polities
“The past is not simply prologue; it is paradigm”. This Turner-quote, recalled by Graeber29, is rather telling of the point I am trying to make. We have seen how Dubuisson worries that the term “Religion” is ready for retirement, based on his damning prognosis regarding its origin: It is simply too embedded in Christian, Western thought to be applicable in any other context. However, recalling the recently made point, which is expressed in Dubuisson as well, that no society is an isolate, Dubuisson’s critique, in my estimation, unintentionally turns “Religion”, and the society which spawned it, into such an isolate.
By viewing “Religion” only as a biased category used to underline the superiority of the West and inferiority of everyone else, though it may be part of the whole truth, does bereave it of its descriptive qualities and of the Mediterranean, antique context which it grew from. Although this argument would still need large amounts of substantiation in the form of further comparisons, as well as theoretical elaboration, I suggest, at least for an intermediate period, considering “Religion” as a term with a two-fold meaning: First, it is a Western categorization. And a faulty one at that. But even with its biases and the value judgements that can be extrapolated from them, if that is the intention, it is an attempt at describing something tangible. And this “thing” providing the second meaning to the term “Religion”, I argue, is indeed an example of what Dubuisson describes as cosmographic formation, taking place within and between any given culture(s).
Following Assmann, Graeber, and Sahlins, cosmographic formation can be described as the theologization of history, a mode of history-writing, narrative-creation, or cosmology-building is an example of galactic mimesis. This use of world-building is both a brilliant way of administering people, but including Graeber and Sahlins’ points on competing polities, on the obverse it can be a tool for overthrowing, overtaking, and competing with polities as well establishing them. I would like to investigate further the personal dimensions of “Religion” in this context in the future, as it is obviously not just a tool for legitimizing power. But in line with Graeber and Sahlins, one can imagine it as holding some narrative power within individuals as well, and possibly the very same dynamic that we have here described as taking place between policies may be possible to downscale to the interpersonal, or even the individual level, but as stated this is simply beyond the scope of this essay. Thus, with these remarks, I shall briefly conclude in the following.
Conclusion
Although Critical Studies presented a much-needed break in its attitudes to long-held assumptions in the human sciences, the revolution did not entirely create a new playing field, as much as it blew out the foundations of the old one. A few oppositional base pairs that remain from the structuralist past, such as “East” and “West”, are very much alive in Critical Studies, to the point of where they not only lead the way but seem to have been the way for scholarship. A lot of energy has been spent mapping how Western imperialism, whether political or cognitive, has shaped the world, and that work is likely not done, but this essay has been an attempt at shining a light beyond the deconstruction of said imperialism.
Though nestled within the history of the Catholic church and later European, often “Protestant-spirited” science, I have argued the term “Religion” still has a use, at least as a bridge between the outdated, Eurocentric term, and the notion of cosmographic formation suggested by Dubuisson. Especially considering that, everything leading up to the moment when the term was framed within a Catholic context, was a long fermentation of the divine taking place across the Mediterranean. Realizing the role that meta-humans actors, whether they be gods, ancestors, principles, ideologies, something else or something in between, have played and continue to play in our narratives and following world-views and organizations of society, will help us push beyond our still quite isolate understanding of “religions”, and the societies that spawned it. “Religion”, as a strictly Western term, is an example of what it tries to explain. But far from being sui generis, it is a cultural, political product, a source of the authority and a mode of the narrative-creation or cosmographic formation that legitimizes the power to rule.
I could have chosen a virtual ton of other literature to make this a longer, more fleshed out (and not as limited literature-wise) discussion drawing on more than anthropology, theology, and history, but in a sense, my wish with this text was more to draw out what are in my view key issues with postcolonial discourse - a thorough history on the movement, and a history of research, will have to wait for another time. For now, I hope to have given you, my esteemed reader, an impression of how we have talked about ‘Religion’ has changed over the years, and what they are now saying, as well as how I think.
Literature:
Assmann, Jan. 2007. “Monotheism and Polytheism”. In Johnston, Sarah Iles (Ed.) Ancient Religions. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.
Dubuisson, Daniel. 2019. The Invention of Religions. Bristol: Equinox Publishing Ltd.
Frahm, Eckart. 2017. “The Neo-Assyrian Period”. In A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons.
Graeber, David; Sahlins, Marshall. 2017. On Kings. Hau Books.
Tadmor, Landsberger, and Parpola. 1989. “The Sin of Sargon and Sennacherib’s Last Will”. In State Archives of Assyria vol. 3/1. Sargon.
Dubuisson, Daniel. 2019. The Invention of Religions. Bristol: Equinox Publishing Ltd: 9-10.
Ibid., 13-14; 16-17.
Ibid., 29-30.
Ibid., 30-31.
Ibid., 32-34.
Ibid., 34.
Ibid., 36-37
Ibid., 37.
Ibid., 39.
Ibid., 39-40.
Ibid., 141-143.
Ibid., 143-144.
Ibid., 144-146.
Ibid., 147-150.
Ibid., 152.
Ibid., 25-26.
Assmann, Jan. 2007. “Monotheism and Polytheism”. In Johnston, Sarah Iles (Ed.) Ancient Religions. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: 17.
Ibid., 17-21.
Tadmor, Landsberger, and Parpola. 1989. “The Sin of Sargon and Sennacherib’s Last Will”. In State Archives of Assyria vol. 3/1. Sargon: 31-33.
Ibid., 50-51.
Assmann, Jan, 2007, Monotheism and Polytheism, 21-24.
Ibid., 24-28; Dubuisson, Daniel, 2019, The Invention of Religions, 11.
Graeber, David; Sahlins, Marshall. 2017. On Kings. Hau Books: 21.
Ibid., 2-9.
Ibid., 10.
Frahm, Eckart. 2017. “The Neo-Assyrian Period”. In A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons: 181.
Graeber, David; Sahlins, Marshall, 2017, On Kings, 13.
Ibid., 13-14.
Ibid., 17.