/lit/ - Literature

>>10981946

>But as a concluding coda let me emphasize that theological discourse, however critical, does not bear the holy grail across the wastelands of late
capitalist democratic culture. It is not the antidote to commodification, or even reification. As I said at the beginning of this essay, “commodification
has always been constitutive of religion”—fetishism is first and foremost a religious phenomenon. And this leads me to recognize that there is the smell of moral self-righteousness throughout this essay. For what seems presupposed is that commodification (and reification) are bad things, evidence of corruption in the social body. Castoriadis evidently
believes this and pits his own humanism against such wicked forces.

>Marx is clear that even among primitive nomadic tribes, Imperial Rome, and Christendom’s Middle Ages, the circulation of commodities becomes necessary. While commodification is inevitable, it is not in itself a social evil. Moral enquiry and moral debate are only possible on
the basis of the evaluations of goods, situations, and behaviors. The operation of a judiciary requires both the atomization of individuals
within larger social groupings and their reification. Commodification and reification are not in themselves wrongs; nor are they simply the
products of capitalism. Capitalism produces certain forms of the circulation of commodities and certain forms of the reification of persons.
Theological discourse, and theological praxis more generally, cannot escape either commodification or reification. Escape is not the point; rather the point is to produce forms of the circulation of commodities and the reification of persons that critique and resist the social and cultural effects of rampant capitalism.

>Christian theology is a case in point. For some of its key doctrinal moments weave notions of exchange, debt, repayment, and redemption
into accounts of “making good.” Capitalism does not have the monopoly on economics—and in that lie all our hopes for cultural transformation.

that is a fucking solid essay. reasons why /lit/ is a part of a balanced breakfast. holy hannah.