Went to a seminar a while back featuring a Theology professor talking about how the contemporary paradigm of charity and international development is based on Comte's theory of positivism and his proposal for a religion of humanity. While Comte's theory are considerably out of fashion and his brand of positivism far from compelling in the philosophy of science, it would seem - or so the man would argue - that the model for NGOs and humanitarian aid is a form of worshipping humanity.
He goes on to talk about Comte's life and how he came to develop his religion of humanity. As a theologian, the speaker, wanted to argue against this form of praise and that nothing should be placed before 'God' (*of course I'm thinking what kind of 'God' he wants to posit and whether a "worship of God" as the central tenet for humanitarian aid is not a confrontational stance towards non-Christians and how it would be any different from an ephasis on humanity - if we play a Durkheimian card). There is automatic suspicion in many parts of the world when something is being done in the name of 'God' or in the spirit of 'God.' Moreover, a Christian stance to humanitarian aid or an explicit stance is not going to be favourable towards, at least now, the people of Islam. This immediately raises questions regarding religious discourse in the public sphere (debated by Habermas and Taylor - among many others). It would seem that a focus on certain values that find commonality across religions would be a better intellectual and practical move in the international arena. But this isn't really what I wanted to get at; tangent.
The speaker talked about how Comte's religion of humanity seems very much like Christianity transposed in a secular framework, which I would certainly agree. In this regard, he thought it ironic that much of those who worked on the Human Rights discourse and the development of international aid is within a Christian paradigm. To me, this is just strikingly obvious. Putting the notion of Human Rights and international development into perspective, the whole program was very much born out of western Europe and the U.S. This means, irrespective of whether it is explicitly Christian it will have similar themes and motifs that propagate it. It is extremely difficult to separate the history of Christianity from the history of western intellectual thought - philosophical or theological. You really can't have one without the other. Just as it would be difficult to separate the influence of Ancient Greek philosophy in that trajectory as well.
If all the hubble of WWI and WWII did not happen in Europe and the U.S. did not step in to take a powerful stake in the international arena, and global power was concentrated in China you would see a Neo-Confucian or Buddhist framework to Human Rights and international development. Although what that would like is subject to question.
If I may humbly suggest that thinkers stop considering the world in terms of western intellectual development and that all problems and answers lie within this framework. The approaches to national/international development need not be an either/or distinction between a "religion of humanity" within a "secular sphere" and "Christianity," which are related to one another (see Talal Asad's talk on the Origin of Human Rights) There are alternative models of charity that are working out there as well as alternative models for constructing what it means to be human and thereby developing a horizontal international framework rather than one based on past habits of hegemonic regulation.
The speaker did, correctly in my mind, point out the ridiculousness of contemporary NGOs who go into third world countries with volunteers and build something only to have local persons come back at night to reconstruct it because the volunteers built it wrong; sorry, good intentions without a proper skill set does not build houses. This was also pointed out by Gayatri Spivak in her talk - much aid effort becomes a vanity project of moral capital but don't really do much in the way of help (which I comment on here). However, it would be incorrect to conflate this type of action and neo-liberal framework with Comte's 'religion of humanity' and thereby use this as a reason to argue that we return to 'God' as the central concept from which policies should develop. I find this unhelpful. If anything Christian missions equally fall into the same habits. I will say that he passingly noted how we should empower local churches. I certainly agree with empowering local persons to develop their own communities but am reluctant to fully endorse church only led action. This potentially creates political tensions in multireligious countries or where competing political parties utilize religion as a mobilizing banner. I was a bit saddened, but of course shouldn't expect him to, from his failure to mention the role of the anthropologists and how academia should study and engage in their communities more - theology being no exception.
No comments:
Post a Comment