Discernment might be said to be a process of searching for meaning in the light of an (un)articulated Absolute. This search takes place in the tension between the private and public spheres of life, mostly mitigated by a community. Intermediate communities, such as churches or social movements, construct symbolic spirituality systems for its adherers to search for meaning in the light of an (un)articulated Absolute. The urban events of Occupy Wall Street and Tahrir Square also step into the tension between the public and private spheres of life, creating a (temporary) symbolic spirituality system for its adherers. These events were attempts to construct alternatives to the meta-narrative of global market capitalism. As events attempting to symbolise an urban spirituality, Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street dissipated rapidly, effecting rather little change at the heart of global market capitalism. This article theorises a possible reason for these urban spiritualities’ dissipation, namely an overlap with global market capitalism's idols of instant gratification and technology.
Discernment might be imagined as a process of finding meaning in relation to a central (un)articulated truth in the tension between the public and private spheres of life (Sheldrake
That is not to say that only stable intermediary communities are proprietors of spirituality, nor does it imagine that the spiritualities remain stagnant within symbolic communities. Intermediary communities also gradually change their symbolic constellation of spirituality as the memory of their tradition, describing their (un)articulated truth, is reread in an attempt to remain relevant to emergent events in its surroundings (Cilliers
It is important to note that OWS and Tahrir Square took place in cities. Why is it important that these movements took place in cities? Cities, as the most complex unit within a given assemblage, are symbolic focal points of the dominant spirituality of an age (DeLanda
Yet another question beckons: Is it even important to develop a capacity to discern spiritualities propagated by urban ‘social movements’ like Tahrir Square and OWS? To answer, let us travel back in time to one of the first philosophical treatises on the city. Plato's
In book five of Plato's Republic, Socrates and Glaucon discuss the
People are becoming aware of the drugs in their cultural drinking water that are hidden in the liturgy of global market capitalism. The period from 2011 to 2013 witnessed a series of interesting events: OWS and Tahrir Square, to mention but two (Žižek
Gaiman (
‘The TV's the altar. I'm what people are sacrificing to.’
‘What do they sacrifice?’ asked Shadow.
‘Their time, mostly … Sometimes each other.’
Gaiman's description of Mr. World, in form and content, describes the cultural drugs in our drinking water: technology and time as idols of the (un)articulated Absolute of global market capitalism, which has become the dominant urban spirituality. With this insight, we might start to discern the cultural opiates that have become the religion of the masses by relating the OWS movement and Tahrir Square to the idols that Mr. World mentions in
We first turn to the idol of technology, which might be said to have prevented the social movements of Tahrir Square and OWS from developing a sustainable and sufficiently strong spirituality with which to challenge the (un)articulated truth of global market capitalism. One might object that social movements such as OWS and Tahrir Square were made possible exactly by the use of technology. News agencies would have us believe this is true (Preston
Stiegler's (Barker
McWhorter (Gross
We all know people who overreact to everything. The impression one gets from these sorts of people is that their words are bereft of honesty and meaning. ‘Rofl’ or ‘rolling on floor laughing’ might be read as a function of the fact that, by means of technology, language itself is becoming disjointed from reality. Humans, as users of technology, are overcompensating for this disjointing of language from reality by producing over-reactive pragmatic particles, hiding the dishonesty and lack of meaning in language. Notice how these disjointed, over-reactive pragmatic particles are quickly integrated and made a part of ordinary language. Humans are desperate to be heard, but language and actions are gradually eroded and debased by the idol of technology.
If, for example, OWS is conceived as a form of writing on the text of history, one starts to notice the reason for its failure. The OWS movement functions in the same way as the pragmatic particle ‘rofl’. Realising the one per cent's (the popular name given to the super-rich who caused, and was left largely unaffected by, the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007) lack of honesty and meaning, an attempt is made to force them to listen by ‘Occupying Wall Street’ or ‘OWS’ (functioning in the same way as ‘rofl’) with the ninety-nine per cent.
What the (un)articulated Absolute of global market capitalism discern from ‘OWS’ is the same as what is discerned by the pragmatic particle ‘rofl’. The one per cent's spirituality of global market capitalism plainly replied with what it has discerned as the meaning of ‘OWS’, namely that the ninety-nine per cent want to be heard. The reply from the one per cent was simply: ‘We, the one per cent, are listening.’ Because the ninety-nine per cent had no alternative spirituality with which to launch a sustained challenge on the public spirituality of the one per cent, it did not know what to do after being heard. After being heard, the OWS movement lost its energy: that is the possibility of sustaining a critique drawing on more than the involved of ‘now’ or the hype of ‘new media’. As it stands, OWS seems more like what St. John (
St. Johns’ (2008:183) concept of ‘protestivals’ exposes the ‘pop-up’ armies ready to protect the spirituality of global market capitalism, but it also reveals ‘protestivals’ own reliance on the self-same spirituality as its Hegelian dance-partner. A commandment of ‘protestivals’, which it shares with the (un)articulated Absolute of global market capitalism, is that the time is now (Ward
It is no wonder that, when the revolt succeeded, Egypt dissolved into a semblance of democracy, and later, the revolt was repeated in 2013 after the elections in 2012. Having no constructive spirituality with which to perform public discernment, the revolt collapsed under the pressure of the necessity of having a stable economy, in Egypt's case, facilitated by the military. In other words, the revolt in Tahrir Square bought into the idol of global market capitalism's decree that: the time is always … now.
The Egyptians in Tahrir Square missed an opportunity to perform public discernment. As it stands, the revolts amounted to little more than a recent quip, appropriate when applied to Tahrir Square: ‘Who are we? We are Egyptians. What do we want? We do not know. When do we want it? Now!’ The insistence of the ‘now’ by the Egyptians in Tahrir Square meant that the dominant spirituality of global market capitalism could simply reply to the revolt in the following way: Yes, the Egyptian people needs change immediately, and the quickest way to achieve this change is through the stability of integration into the global market by any means. The ensuing revolt in 2013 clearly shows that this is not what the Egyptian people wanted.
The media's heralding of ‘social movements’ such as Tahrir Square and OWS misses two important aspects of what real change means. Firstly, true revolutions are not in the now: They take time. As Zhou Enlai, Prime Minister of Maoist China, once said when ask about the significance of the student uprising in Paris of May 1968: ‘It is too soon to tell.’ Secondly, revolutions need a constructive network of symbols that sustain its meaning in an intermediate community: that is revolutions need spirituality.
To be honest, there is no clear indication yet as to how to deal with global market capitalism's spirituality that does not consider human or environmental concerns and effortlessly detotalises meaning. At this stage, one can only attempt experiments in discernment to counteract the powerful cultural opiates, which have become the religion of the masses. Yet, it is necessary that we experiments with what Ward (
One way of doing this is to recover failed futures of the past: drawing on the memory of pasts that were never enacted (Žižek
The first marker is
The second marker is
Intermediate communities attempting to constructively perform discernment on the streets and squares of the city is a risky business, for sure, but as Brueggemann (
Undoubtedly covenantal discernment will become more dangerous in time to come as resources shrink, as we grow more fearful, as our public world continues to disintegrate. And therefore it is very important that we do not lose heart. Everything is at stake. (p. 53)
Sharing the disruptive gift of discernment with the streets and squares of the assemblage of the city means risking an impolite constructive spirituality that does not fall into the idol-ologies of global market capitalism. It might mean stepping out of the comfortable private sphere, through intermediate communities, into the daunting public sphere of spirituality. An impolite public spirituality leaves the peaceful compounds and quiet conclaves, the walled garden of discernment, and moves into the street and squares’ grit, grime, and messiness to experiment with discernment, using constructive spiritualities.
The renowned English historian Peter Ackroyd’s (
Maybe this is one of spirituality's duties today: attempting constructive spiritualities that sustain intermediate communities that must attempt public discernment without falling prey to the idol-ological traps of global market capitalism. Spirituality's task is the following: taking the precious disruptive gift of discernment out of the New London with its peace, quiet and certainty into the streets and squares of the Old London, which is craving for words of discernment and spirituality. To put it differently, slightly misquoting Žižek (
Do not simply respect others [
The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.
Here one must exclude, of course, the Mongol Empire, which seems to be an exception on every account.