Singularities (04): Samuel Barnes
Existing in the Empty Homogenising Sludge of Post-Modern Liberal Capitalism
Singularities is a podcast series that aims to explore religious and theological themes through personal narrative/story. This podcast series is primarily motivated by two tensions:
Our culture seems to be attempting to re-process its relationship to spirituality and religion, and specifically Christianity, in the context of both the breakdown of modernist secular narratives which attempted to replace pre-modern theological narratives, and the un-live-ability of postmodern deconstructive positionality which disenchants the world and leads to a breakdown of meaning structures
I feel that the biggest problem with this re-processing involves the conflict between abstract general universality and personal concrete singularity, with many difficult issues of economics/monetary systems, political power/governance systems, and sexual/libidinal social dynamics being obfuscated by an abstract general religious identification disconnected from the totality of personal narrative/story
Singularities aims to host a discussion about religious/theological themes that may reach universality, but only insofar as they pass through the sieve of the personal story.
The fourth episode in this experiment was with Samuel Barnes a writer and philosopher who has currently published two books: The Iconoclast and Missing Axioms. All information to Barnes work can be found linked below.
Throughout the video we discuss:
Early experiences growing up in England with a “post-modern” sensibility that the traditional sacred dimensions of life were already gone, where the pilgrimage to the church was replaced by the pilgrimage to the supermarket (the “big shop”)
While not reflecting too deeply on the obvious spiritual hole in the culture, as a teenager he engaged the “cliche” act of reading/writing about Nietzsche, as well as the Communist Manifesto, and joining a student communist group
Later he started to theorise the way the loss of social obligation and common life have played a big part in the “Death of God”, and that hole has been filled up by materialist consumerism
At the same time, we should reflect on the ambiguities that there are good and bad forms of individuality, as well as good and bad forms of collectivist common life, requiring more nuanced and dialectical thinking about both dimensions
Larger historical context: there has been a move towards individualism since the Renaissance, today primarily resulting in global liberalism and capitalism; this should be seen as dangerous/going against the social aspects of our human nature
Reproductive decline has also become a big topic (declining birth rates), here we should take a step back and look at the issue from first principles (a global decline in population may not be a particularly negative thing)
Contemporary major philosophical influences include: Nietzsche, Frankfurt School/Adorno, Foucault, Land; mentors that unlocked the philosophical journey and functioned as reflective mediators
Thinking again about metaphysics: keys include telos and eschatology, different types of telos/eschatology and their resulting differences in concepts of time, e.g. linear and cyclical views of time/Eastern and Western views of time
Moving from a more skeptical frame (see: The Iconoclast) to a more Christian metaphysical view (God = the metaphysical truth / Bible = important to philosophy); idea that skepticism becomes an intellectual circle
Political stance today: importance of religion, tradition, ethnicity, right-wing particularism; rules for sexual mores and family structure; clear laws for what is allowed and what is not allowed/border control etc.
Next project: thinking eugenics, overcoming taboos about the topic from eugenics laws and practices from the 20th century; thinking eugenics as a project against contemporary liberalism as the “great sludge” of homogenisation
To find out more about Samuel Barnes work, see: