Changes

Eric Santner's [[discussion ]] of miracles in his contribution to The [[Neighbor ]] is wonderful. I have only just started going back through this, but I was struck with how beautifully and systematically he uses Rosenzweig to make [[good ]] on the [[Lacanian]]/Zizekian proposition that miracles do happen.

Santner ([[reading ]] Rosenzweig) posits [[thinking ]] as a mode of attentiveness to a [[particular ]] kind of address, to a signifying stress that accompanies our 'creaturely' [[life]]. He writes:

<blockquote>To use a [[Heideggerian ]] locution, our throwness into the [[world ]] does not simply mean that we alwasy find ourselves in the midst of a [[social ]] [[formation ]] that we did not choose (our [[language]], our [[family]], our [[society]], our [[class]], our [[gender]], and so on); it means, more importantly that this social formation in which we find ourselves immersed is itself permeated by [[inconsistency ]] and [[incompleteness]], is itself haunted by a [[lack ]] by which we are, in some peculiar way, addressed, 'excited,' to which we are in some fashion answerable.</blockquote>

[[Reality ]] is fissured by lack. [[Symptoms ]] thus acculmulate around this lack, symptoms of [[past ]] failures to act, past failures to, as Santner writes, "suspend the force of the social bond--call it the dominant [[ideology]]--inhibiting [[acts ]] of [[solidarity ]] with society's '[[others]].'" At a particular [[moment]], these symptoms become legible as such, recognizable as missed opportunities. He writes:

<blockquote>Miracles happen when, upon registering their 'historical [[truth]],' we are able to act, to intervene into these symptoms and enter the [[space ]] of possibilities opened thereby . . . Miracles happen when we find ourselves able to suspend a pattern ... The crucial [[thought ]] in all of this that such failures/defense [[formations ]] persist as a peculiar sort of stress in the [[individual ]] and collective lives of those in some way linked to [[them]]. It is the [[signs]]/symptoms of such stress that await, as it were, the 'miraculous' now of their recognizability.</blockquote>

* [[Slavoj Žižek|Zizek, Slavoj]], [[Eric L. Santner]], and [[Kenneth Reinhard]]. '''''[[The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology|The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology (Religion and Postmodernism Series)]]'''''. Chicago: February 14, 2006, New edition, Paperback, 240 pages, Language [[English]], ISBN: 0226707393. <small>Buy it at [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226707393/nosubject-20/ Amazon.com], [http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226707393/nosub07-20/ Amazon.ca], [http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226707393/nosub-21/ Amazon.de], [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226707393/nosubjencyofl-21/ Amazon.co.uk] or [http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226707393/nosub04-21/ Amazon.fr].</small>