April 29, 2007
I have never understood what a redemptive politics is. Doesn't redemption belong to religion or theology, not to politics? Isn't the religious/theological demarcated from the political in modernity? Hasn't God been banished from the political?
I can see that the language of chosenness and manifest destiny of the US offers a kind of redemptive politics, as its inherent goodness is used to overcome hardships and adversity and make the harsh world a better place. In this sense the public narrative in American history is one about redemption; often in the personal form of a religious move from sin to salvation; or stories of upward social mobility in moving from rags to respectability and riches; or stories about recovery from sick or addicted protagonists regaining their health or sobriety.
Then we have a grand neo-liberal narrative about a good and innocent protagonist who takes charge of his own life, stays focused through adversity, and ultimately triumphs in the end.
As Dan P. McAdams says in the Chronicle Review 9/11 plays into this kind of narrative:
The attacks of September 11 and the "war on terrorism," furthermore, play perfectly into the story of the redemptive self. Terrorism and war show us that the world is a dangerous, unredeemed place. In times of crisis, the good American protagonist must call upon the deepest reservoir of unwavering conviction and hope.
A dangerous world is indeed the kind of world that the good and strong hero of the redemptive self seems unconsciously to expect. Under conditions of adversity, he will fight the good fight. He will keep the faith. In the end, his suffering will give way to redemption. And along the way, he may even help to redeem others.
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One thing you can be sure of in any "redemptive" politics and its inevitable "redemptive" violence is that there will be mountains of rotting corpses, or then again, instantaneous vapourisations.
Because "redemption" always needs a "cleansing" of "foreign" elements or those that toxify the body politic.
This theme of "redemptive" violence (RD)is quite often a theme of Hollywood films---the Stallone/Rambo/Balboa films are all about this. I remember reading a review of the latest Balboa offering which waxed lyrical about the "need" for redemptive" violence as a means of "spiritual" renewal.
It could be said the USA imperialist monstering of Iraq is an exercise in RD with Iraq being a dumping ground for the built up poison of the collective USA psyche.