Full Text - Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses

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Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 43(3)
Concerning the stated theme – Religion as Art – the reader should not expect too
much in terms of a strong theoretical analysis. At best, this volume can be compared
to a spring-salad – light and refreshing – while the main course is yet to come. This is
not meant, however, as a negative evaluation of the work; on the contrary, it points to
the way in which it teases the reader to think more concertedly about how religion and
art function together as dynamic social realities within our world today. And even if this
is all that these various different essays manage to inspire, they will indeed have done
their job. After all, what more could one ask of a scholarly work?
Richard A Beinert
Concordia Lutheran Seminary
On The Muslim Question
Anne Norton
Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013. 265 pp.
In recent years, social and political scientists have begun examining debates and controversies related to religious minorities in the West through the lens of ‘‘secular studies.’’
This perspective generally proposes that concerns about the presence of non-mainstream
Christianity in North America and Western Europe actually are more reflective of ambiguities with the application of secularism(s).
In this short, sometimes tersely written, book, Anne Norton similarly argues that the
‘‘Muslim Question’’ echoes the opacities of Western values, not Islamic ones. Norton
posits that post-Enlightenment Western secularisms have not produced their promised neutrality, impartiality and rationality; these shortcomings produce internal anxieties that are
replaced and hidden by a false pejorative sense of ‘‘the Muslim.’’ Norton’s title and project
are meant to evoke Marx and others’ concern with ‘‘the Jewish Question,’’ consciously
conjuring its anti-Semitic catastrophic conclusion. False portrayals of ‘‘Islamofascism,’’
she notes, dangerously disavow the Muslim ‘‘other.’’
Norton covers a sweeping amount of ground in this monograph, from, in her first
chapter, European post-1989 ‘‘freedom of speech’’ controversies, to sites of ‘‘terror’’
in chapter four, and to the barbarities of American carceral society in chapter nine. In
the latter, she underscores how post-9/11 America has exported its ‘‘troubling domestic
issues’’ (179) to other sites, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the offshore prisons
of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, all focused on containing ‘‘bad Muslims.’’
With reference to the anti-Muslim backlash following the murder of Dutch film producer Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, Norton notes that Islamophobia is not only an
act of disavowal, but also reflects a fear of the known, especially for ‘‘cosmopolitan,
sexually-liberated Europeans [who] remember that their appetites were once constrained by poverty, or religion, or convention’’ (23). Referencing a number of high
profile European cases, Norton demonstrates how demands for free speech are asymmetrical: some iterations are valued, while others (such as faith-based confessions) are
marginalized.
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Book Reviews / Comptes rendus
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In chapters two and three, Norton explores how far-right leaders and supporters (and
some Western governments) focus on undesirable Muslim sexuality and tropes
(oppressed, veil-wearing women) to mobilize support and justification for military invasion and as expedient means to deflect from enduring gender inequalities. For example,
Norton deconstructs Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s controversial short film Submission to unveil its prescriptive secular political project to redeem sexual pleasure. These
claims lead into chapter three, ‘‘Women and War,’’ where Norton takes up Gayatri
Spivak’s well-worn but continuingly relevant Orientalist adage of ‘‘white men saving
brown women from brown men.’’
Norton’s book also soundly critiques a number of contemporary liberal critics of
Islam like Hirsi Ali and Paul Berman, as well as contemporary Anglo-American philosophers, namely John Rawls’ characterization of Muslims as ‘‘violent, warlike and
imperialistic’’ (96) in his conception of ‘‘Kazanistan.’’ Norton effectively shows how
Rawls’ liberal regimes are unfairly protected from scrutiny. In other chapters, this
critique of concealed Islamophobia is directed at Slavoj Zizek’s work on atheism and
Jacques Derrida’s Youyous. Taking a socio-psychological approach, Norton concludes
that Derrida ‘‘is haunted by the democracy he fears, and by the Muslim whose fraternity
he has refused’’ (124). Norton thus briefly and handily shows the pervasiveness of these
perspectives among celebrated thinkers.
Norton presents a counter-discourse on democracy and rights in response, outlining her
preference for the ninth-century thinker Al-Farabi’s often forgotten work on democracy,
and qualifies widespread Franco-American contemporary vilification of the Swiss theologian Tariq Ramadan. She similarly seeks to resurrect the executed Egyptian radical Sayyid
Qutb’s compositions on inequality, claiming that his writings on women pre-date Western
feminist writers. Some of Norton’s relativization may well go too far: for instance, Norton
seeks to equate al Qaeda’s contemporary acts of terror with the actions of Reformation
Protestant radicals. Both informal networks sought to create change through extremist,
theologically motivated political projects. In a general sense, Norton’s project aims to
show the enduringness of sameness. Chapter seven turns to the ‘‘Western Street’’ in Europe to argue that it has always been pagan, secular, atheist, Jewish and Muslim.
The book concludes by taking up the now widely critiqued Huntington’s ‘‘Clash of
Civilizations’’ thesis. Relying on Paul Gilroy’s notion of conviviality, Norton argues that
despite the thesis’s history, it has no factual grounding. To make the point that Muslims
are already well-integrated into North American and European societies, she draws on a
range of popular culture and literary examples.
While Norton’s erudite critiques of the pejorative essentialisms endemic within popular responses to Muslim debates in the West are on the mark, many of her arguments are
facile. For example, while easily digestible, her discussion of Islam and femininity needs
elaboration – not necessarily historical or Qur’anic – but with an endnote which could
direct the reader to other scholarship. In this vein, most problematic is Norton’s overuse
of the categories of ‘‘the West’’ and ‘‘Islam’’ as distinct entities, when her project claims
to show their interconnectedness. Moreover, Norton ignores qualitative scholarship that
concretely depicts the complexities of social realities and identities. For example, her
point that, ‘‘As Jews became American, Americans became more Jewish’’ (4) does not
include supporting data. Norton’s concluding dismissal of the Huntingtonian thesis
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Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 43(3)
similarly too-easily ignores still serious questions around the Islamophobia and discrimination that Muslims in the West have been shown by social scientists to experience.
The polemical and accessible writing style of On the Muslim Question will appeal to a
learned non-academic Anglophone audience. The book’s demonstration of the pervasiveness of an unfair characterization of Muslims may be alarming to non-specialists and
useful in undergraduate teaching. It also reflects significant thinking taking place in
secular studies. Yet, by concluding that ‘‘don’t worry, they’re just like us!’’ Norton may
inadvertently perpetuate the homogeneous political stereotypes she seeks to dispel.
Jennifer Selby
Memorial University
Exercices spirituels / Leçons de la philosophie contemporaine
Xavier Pavie
Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 2013. 434 p.
À la question « Qu’est-ce que la philosophie ? », que l’on ne cesse de préciser sinon
d’obscurcir à travers les siècles, le mieux-vivre de la philosophie antique qui renvoyait
théorie et pratique aux réalités et doutes de chacun, l’auteur se demande s’il n’est pas
« venu le kaı̈ros de la philosophie antique pour l’époque contemporaine ». Xavier Pavie,
comme Pierre Hadot et Michel Foucault qu’il cite abondamment, développe cette question par le biais de l’exercice spirituel.
Les philosophies grecques et latines ont été vite reconnues comme utiles à l’œuvre
théologique du christianisme naissant ; selon Pavie, il s’agit bel et bien d’une récupération qui n’a pu être contrée que par quelques philosophes qui, au cours du Moyen-Âge et
des périodes ultérieures, gardèrent « intactes » la longue tradition antique des exercices
spirituels. L’intention de l’auteur n’est donc pas de transposer la philosophie antique à
des auteurs qui nous sont contemporains, mais essentiellement d’y trouver ces mêmes
voies aux accents très marqués qu’empruntent des philosophes de notre temps afin de
comprendre ce monde tout en proposant de le changer.
Intitulée « Le pragmatisme », la première partie se veut une approche du grand
courant philosophique américain dont quelques-uns de ses plus grands travaux sont ici
discutées. Les historiens reconnaissent à C. S. Peirce, mais aussi à William James, la
paternité du concept de pragmatisme qui s’inspire en cela de la philosophie antique,
du moins en partie, par cet échange constant entre la théorie et la pratique dans une
recherche de clarification qui a pour but de comprendre ce qu’est la vérité. Et c’est par
cette recherche toujours sous tension d’une philosophie pure que Peirce, tout particulièrement, souligne cette impérieuse exigence de remettre sur le feu de la pratique toutes
formes de théories ; James ajoutera que cette tension nécessaire entre théorie et pratique
ne peut que collaborer à améliorer l’être humain. John Dewey se penchera davantage
sur la question de la transformation de soi par l’art que l’on doit sortir de son élitisme
afin de l’intégrer dans les pratiques de la vie quotidienne. Quelques philosophes comme
R. Shusterman ou R. Rorty ont largement repris le travail de Dewey, tout en insistant sur
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