Theory of ReligionTheory of Religion brings to philosophy what Georges Bataille's earlier book The Accursed Share brought to anthropology and history, namely, an analysis based on notions of excess and expenditure. No other work of Bataille's, and perhaps no other work anywhere since Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, has managed to draw so incisively the links between man's religious and economic activities. "Religion," according to Bataille, "is the search for a lost intimacy." In a brilliant and tightly reasoned argument, he proceeds to develop a "general economy" of man's relation to this intimacy: from the seamless immanence of animality to the shattered world of objects and the partial, ritual recovery of the intimate order through the violence of the sacrifice. Bataille then reflects on the archaic festival, in which he sees not only the glorious affirmation of life through destructive consumption but also the seeds of another, more ominous order -- war. Bataille then traces the rise of the modern military order, in which production ceases to be oriented toward the destruction of a surplus and violence is no longer deployed inwardly but is turned to the outside. In these twin developments one can see the origins of modern capitalism. |
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Religion , whose essence is the search for lost intimacy , comes down to the effort
of clear consciousness which wants to be a complete self - consciousness : but
this effort is futile , since consciousness of intimacy is possible only at a level ...
But this generalized reduction , this perfect fulfillment of the thing , is the
necessary condition for the conscious and fully ... The Clear Consciousness of
Things , or , Science The condition for achieving clear self - consciousness is
science ...
This implies , as a matter of fact , the replacement of compromises by a bringing
of its contents to light in the domain of clear and autonomous consciousness that
science has organized . It implies SELFCONSCIOUSNESS taking up the lamp ...