[not an actual picture of car, but one just like it]
So, my buddy Bret says "Perhaps Western Capitalism is wearing down even Muslim extremists? After all, it is a very enticing idol."
That got me thinking…
This raises a great irony for me. On one hand, societies that are [nominally] "Christian" have been the ones who are the largest exporters of colonialism and consumerism. Both of which are explicitly condemned by Christ, who, by the way, is the God who "emptied himself", became a slave, and was crucified [cf. Phil 2.]. In short, Christ, even though perfectly obedient, was spectacularly "unsuccessful" in consumer terms. So, the basis of our "Christian worldview"- Christ Himself- is in fact antithetical to the social system it is used to uphold.
However, on the other hand, in Islam, God remains ever-transcendent, never enters into human affairs directly, and explicitly promises material prosperity in return for obedience to Quran. Furthermore, the life of Muhammed (PBUH) and his early followers shows that Islam can be rightly spread "at sword point" to unwilling peoples. So, Islam would seem to be the perfect divine under-writing for both colonialism and consumerism. And yet, extreme Muslims, whatever else their faults may be, at least are able to identify and decry the sickness in postmodern Western consumer society.
Now this is what I call a paradox.
But, as Bret noted, perhaps this paradox is shrinking away under the commodifying leer of the consumer monster.
2 comments:
Thought about your post today as I was reading Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's "New Monasticism: What it has to say to Today's Church":
“The ‘global economy’ seems to have an infinite ability to draw people into its orbit - even those who struggle the hardest to resist it.
So protesters boost the oil economy by flying to DC by the thousands to tell the president they don’t want a war for oil...But the Empire’s economy isn’t the only possibility. God’s economy insists on interrupting the filthy rotten system. And it does it with a celebration...
[In the Old Testament] God was determined to interrupt this slouch toward a filthy rotten system with redistribution parties...Each celebration was an act of resistance against the power of Mammon...Celebration is our best tactic of resistance.” pg 99-101.
Very interesting observation.. I wonder what Zizek would make of it..
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