Subjection and Belief

"You shouldn't believe that!"

Is this not a paradoxical sentiment — the paradox, in fact, which gives rise to modern political society? The non-violent (but also non-pacific) clash of directly contradictory beliefs has arisen by the elevation of Respect or Tolerance to conditions of citizenship — that is to say, conditions of freedom. Freedom is invested in the suspension and not the resolution of hostility. Freedom still presupposes bondage; peace would be something entirely other.

But more than this: it is a twofold paradox. The reason we must posit the liberal's supererogatory commitment to Respect or Tolerance is that our declaration "You shouldn't believe that!" implies an egoic control over our beliefs; it invites us to change our beliefs by an act of will. But think about it. Have you ever changed a belief by an act of will? No. Is it not, rather, our beliefs that act upon us, that in-form the will we pretend to exercise?

Some have encountered this conundrum and phrased the question culturally: "What makes a belief believable?" But to put the question like this is to enter into the same paradoxical economy of belief and scepticism. The real question is, "How do my beliefs change?" And here we might see that the essence of belief is not in volition, not in the ration-al work of a thinking already in-formed by its sceptical method, but rather in undergoing, in being persuaded. My beliefs are changed by the experience to which I am subjected.

In this way we cast belief in a different light — no longer a confessional belief which effervesces, but an introverted belief, a receptivity. Belief would not be the will to convert a soul to my ways. Instead belief would throb within me as the need to serve a need. A belief that tyrannizes would not be a belief, since it would refuse all subjection. It would not undergo the supererogatory command of Respect or Tolerance. Such a belief, which is no belief, would reject justice: it would be Violence itself.

Labels: belief, philosophy, politics