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I know that my Redeemer lives...

  
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
20:34 / 13.03.03
Not my idea(been listening to R4's In Our Time again), but thought it'd be interesting to discuss here.

The topic is Redemption.

How does it function in contemporary society, how is this primarily Judeo-Christian idea(? is this correct? It's my impression that in the Western world at least, the origins of redemption as a driving human force lie with Judaism/Christianity) changed in its secular applications?

Listening to the program, I found the notion that the opportunity for redemption, whether moral, economic, biological/medico-sociological, political, is a highly influential concept, (in the Western world) highly convincing...

And is not untopical, given that in the UK at least, we have a premier who seems to be consoling himself at times notion that history/his God will redeem him, if he's judged and found wanting at this time, politically and/or morally. Redemption intervenes in world politics...

There are many strands to redemption. As I understand it, it predicates something in one's situation being found wanting, and then holds out the possibility for this to be changed. Is redemption a fundamentally optimistic concept? However, it also demands that you be judged by something/someone else and found wanting...

This is a very attractive proposal, and seductive, in that whatever 'human nature' is, it's very easy (especially right now?) to convince us that there's something wanting. And it's very comforting to think that there's a path to redemption. Especially, I'd say, in secular versions (J-C redemption being very much tied to conditions, suffering, making difficult choices in a way that doesn't apply to for example, advertising's use of the concept of redemptive consumption...). Someone else will take us in hand, save us...

In the C19/20 we can see the notion of redemption played out/as fundamental in for example Marx, Freud, Sartre (and from what i know of them, the German/French philosophical schools in general (as opposed to the US/UK schools), especially in existential thought).

Redemptions feeds into the creeping medicalisation of western societies... if you're born 'wrong' you can be corrected (eg via plastic surgery, genetics) and you'll be happier...As well as in the prevalance of 'therapy culture', solving 'us', that if we undergo a process, we will be redeemd...

Redemption narratives (and perhaps this is significant in why we work so easily with redemption, it's a *narrative* concept), successful or more often unsuccessful, are meat and drink for creatives... How much art, literature, film, music has this at its heart?

Now somebody come and tell me i'm talking shite about Judeo-Christian thinking, or anything else.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
20:46 / 13.03.03
Oh, and one last point: how are we constituted by participation in redemption narratives?
 
 
Cat Chant
22:35 / 13.03.03
Watch it, BiP, or you'll get treated to my as-yet-unwritten essay on Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history ("Only for a fully redeemed mankind is the past citable in all its instants") as it relates to the Blake's 7 episode Redemption, a densely crystallized essay on the non-substitutability of liberation in a determining economic system...

seriously, though, lots more on this when I'm less exhausted.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
22:55 / 13.03.03
No problem with that, D.

My vague mutterings about French/German philosophy were partly written with the Frankfurt School in mind, hoping someone who actually remembered some would run with it. Find it fascinating how that period seems to be *such* a fertile source for 'secular' redemption narratives.

I want this to be a Cult. Studs. thread. Otherwise I won't understand any of the responses.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:48 / 14.03.03
Well (he said, with some trepidation), it seems to me that when you're talking about the concept of redemption, especially as expressed in a Cult Studs way, you're talking about two different concepts.

The first is a sort of auto-redemption: i.e., John suffers for his sins and, by his suffering, becomes a better person. This is by far the more common concept is Western society—indeed, when one hears the word "redeem," it's almost invariably followed with some variation on "oneself." Same with talk of "redeeming qualities"—the object of redemption is the possessor of the quality; it saves hir from being a total loss.

There's all sorts of reasons this is such a common narrative—foremost because it mirrors the process of learning, of trial and error: we try, we fuck up, we try again, we fuck up again, we try one last time and—success! and we feel better, and all is forgiven. That process, blown up to macro level, charts the course of our lives and our spiritual development (it's been called "the spiralling self," but I can't for the life of me remember where I read that— Rollo May's On Myth, I think, though it might've been Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane). It's a universal human narrative, a universal experience, and so a universal concept.

The problem is that that's not really properly "redemption" at all, is it? If it's anything, it's atonement—paying for/making amends for one's own sins or failings.

The classic Judeo-Christian model of redemption is essentially scapegoating: i.e., John suffers for Mary's sins and, by John's suffering, Mary becomes a better person. That's a different beast entirely; it shows up outside the Judeo-Christian tradition , notably in the pre-Christian British tradition of the sin-eater, but it's far less common encountered in modern society. That's got a lot to do, I think, with the death of communalism and the rise of the individual, but those are waters too deep for the coracle of my early-morning brain.

Am I on the right track, here, or circling around you?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:46 / 14.03.03
I want this to be a Cult. Studs. thread.

Does that mean I'm allowed to mention Buffy or Angel? A 'yes' answer will open the floodgates here - up to you whether that's a good or bad thing...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:47 / 14.03.03
Why not. though I *still* won't understand a word. *g*

Thanks loads jack for that thoughtful response. No, that's dead on topic, as I'm very interested in the relationship between these two narratives. One of the things I find interesting about the concept of redemption is how when we hear the word 'redemption' I think we still hear the J-C implications, but that it's come to mean, as you say two different things. But I think there's a relationship between them. At least as it plays out in secular terms.

The secular notion of redemption still has an aura of 'goodness' about it, that for example, comes in very handy if you're trying to persuade people to participate in redemption narratives.

But, and I'm sure either you or Fly will correct me here, in order to be redeemed by the Christian God, there *are* things you have to do. Like recognise Jesus as the son of god, and recognise His sacrifice. And follow certain rules about how to live one's life...which may well involve sacrifice and suffering, and possiblly, renunciation of previous beliefs/practices... Isn't Saul>Paul an example of this?

Or perhaps this is a secular interpretation of a theological point, and might be a replication of the process that occrs with some some apparently 'secular' narratives. Hence the scare quotes.

I'm interested in the idea that redemption narratives can be a way for an apparently atheistic belief system to sneak in faith by the back door. Certainly there's a rather Messianic turn to some of Freud's early work. He does seem to appeal to belief at times...Or for a thinker to work with philosophical traditions within their faith.

There seems to be a point of crossover/interbreeding here which fascinates me...

Will think more about individuality/communalism...
 
 
Rev. Orr
20:13 / 14.03.03
in order to be redeemed by the Christian God, there *are* things you have to do

Depends on who you ask. That whole 'good works' versus 'redemption by faith alone' caused a bit of a flap in the mid-sixteenth century that we really haven't got over yet.

Isn't the distinction between pro-active and receptive redemption rather than secular and non-secular? I agree there's a great deal of overlap, but as Jack points out, it is the division of labour between the sufferer and the beneficiary that is the critical denominator.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
21:59 / 17.03.03
The 'division of labour' notion is an excellent one, and I think probably more useful than my obsession with theological/secular divisions.

And feeds explicitly into another strand of this that I think bears examination.... the relationship bewteen the development or evolution of the redemption narrative to late capitalism. I have a woolly notion about late capitalism needing redemption-type narrative to power the engines, but I'm too tired to have a go at it now.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:42 / 18.03.03
Not that wooly a notion at all, BiP—if you, as a capitalist, can teach the working classes to regard poverty as either a sin in itself or as a consequence of sin, then you can get many long hours of back-breaking labor out of them for relatively low wages—by couching the work itself as an opportunity for redemption.

That's the source of all our talk about the "dignity of honest labor," and all that—when in fact there's nothing intrinsically dignified about scrubbing toilets (there can be dignity in how you do it, of course: but in itself it's just a hardship to be borne).

There is, at the heart of mainstream American Protestant Evangelicalism, the largely unexamined notion that God rewards His faithful ones with material success. That's fine as far as it goes—but it's often fallaciously read that wealth only comes as a reward from God.

And since nobody wants to examine that underlying notion (Americans are infamously uncomfortable with discussions about money and social class), then its dark inverse also goes unexamined: that is, the notion that, just as wealth can be a reward for good character, so poverty is a punishment for bad character.

There's the subtext and root cause of the blame-the-victim mentality that characterizes American discourse on welfare, homelessness, and other social issues. The naïve assumption that anyone in America can be a success leads to the equally naive (and far more destructive) assumption that if you aren't a success, it must be your own damned fault.

The much-vaunted American work ethic is, I think, born as much out of a blind terror of poverty—and thus, of being ostracized as a sinner—as of any actual ambition.
 
 
Cat Chant
07:21 / 27.03.03
The problem is that that's not really properly "redemption" at all, is it? If it's anything, it's atonement—paying for/making amends for one's own sins or failings

Particularly in relation to the discussion of capitalism and the economic models of redemption that are showing up here, it might be useful to point out that "redemption" literally means "paying for" (so 'properly redemption' might be understood to be closer to 'paying for' than this sentence suggests) - as in "redeeming" a coupon, etc.
 
 
Crimes_Of_Fashion
15:09 / 13.04.03
Good and evil are all about personal taste - find a 'redeemer' that condones what you do.

He could be a life form with the body of viral urbanization and the head of a man...

Or would he be like me?

(Hope you we referencing 'the house of asterion' and not some frooty christ wrangler)
 
 
Jack Fear
16:29 / 13.04.03
Not a single sentence of that post makes even momentary sense. Well done!
 
 
Crimes_Of_Fashion
22:57 / 13.04.03
*sigh*

+Good and evil are all about personal taste - find a 'redeemer' that condones what you do. = Good and evil are arbitrary concepts, to attain redemption find someones who's taste is shoes and damnation amtches your own.

The next two lines are a reference to 'The House Of Asterion' By Jorge Borges from which 'I know my redemer lives' is taken.

The final bracketed coment is a hope that you fuckers have read a little more then dragon books so you get the reference-or-at best are not christians quoting some tract that says 'I know my redeemer lives.
 
 
Rev. Orr
02:55 / 14.04.03
Because quoting a suitably trendy author referencing the bible is infinitely superior, intellectually, to quoting the original source?

I'm sorry, I can cope with typos and mis-spelling, but if you drop in with a contribution that consists of a ill-thought-out premise stated as fact, a line of nonsense, a self-aggrandising (but logically consistant, kudos!) advertisment and a combination homophobic insult/ literary reference, you might be asked for a clarification. Which you were. My tiny mind has obviously been irreversibly damaged by years of wrangling with Jesus (my saviour in blue jeans; my cowboy Christ; Lord, Lord on the range...) but I can't see why you'd feel put upon. I realise that it must be hard putting your thoughts into a language other than your own and I freely admit that I couldn't possibly, but you might want to dial down the shrill a fraction.

Deva - isn't the literal meaning closer to an exchange or the realisation of the inherant value of a person or object? I.e. in redeeming this coupon for goods or services, some outside authority has decreed that there is an equality of value or agreed to honour the face value. Which would tend toward the Catholic or Capitalist approach - if I am a good enough person/work hard enough at my job then I too can go to heaven/earn money and be a valued member of society. It's this arc of paying one's dues that runs through modern art and drama from Cinderella earning a prince through her suffering to Angel being awarded his Shanshu if he works for the Powers-that-be for long enough. It is the unearned, unworthy redemption that is the atypical concept.
 
 
Crimes_Of_Fashion
06:57 / 14.04.03
This is directed at Orr's wordy little bitch about my scattered dicta - Everyone else focus on Bengali's original intent, which is cool as Kim Deal.

[Borges is as trendy as plaid and the quote isn't a reference to the bible it's a reference to Asterion's killer...

Apologies if you didn't get it you probably feel that way a lot.

*sigh*

Have you ever met a 'homosexual' dear?


Sorry hun I posted the first message after coming home high on homo party drugs. So really... typos? That hurts.



Maybe you should get out more - or are you one of those internet people that get all bothered if people have the audacity to look good and be well read.

No really, you’re beautiful on the inside.]
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
08:26 / 14.04.03
So Fashion, what you are putting forward is a pluralistic, There is no "real" right and wrong sort of view. Do you think this makes the matter of redemption more or less {important,valid}?

If right and wrong are personal values and we fail our own values is not redemption even more important as a personal goal than it would be as a universal goal with a universal right and wrong?

In one sense the war against Iraq has been framed as a redemption narrative. We didn't follow through and remove Saddam in '91 so we will redeem ourselves by removing him now. Just to stick to the abstract a little.
 
 
Crimes_Of_Fashion
09:10 / 14.04.03
Right on the money Nietsch E.

I think as a a means of political interest 'redemption' is a fine and dandy reason for charging up national support enough to blow up little brown people... But seems to completly stray from the teachings of the baby jesus which Mr. predident claims to be possesed by.

But really 'redemption'...

Is it ever possible for another person to pardon sins when the guilt remains?

If you don't feel guilty do you need redemption?
 
 
bio k9
10:07 / 14.04.03
Hopefully a doctor will pass through here and prescribe an anti-inflammatory.
 
 
bio k9
10:21 / 14.04.03
Seems to me that the 'secular redemption' in the vein of "a premier who seems to be consoling himself at times notion that history/his God will redeem him, if he's judged and found wanting at this time, politically and/or morally" has very little to do with paying for/learning from mistakes and everything to do with "screw you, I was right all along."

That isn't redemption. Hell, it isn't even atonement.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:17 / 14.04.03
Well, with redemption on the case of the President and the Prime Minister, both are in a sense appealing to an other that will justify their current behaviour. That other could be God, in the sense that their actions will ultimately be revealed as "moral" as part of a divine framework, or revealed as wise by history. That seems to me not to be redemption per se, but more like revelation; their actions are correct all the time, and the only thing missing is the justification, which will be provided either after the fact or after the last trump, depending on how you want to look at it.

Redemption more generally doesn't *quite* mean "pay for", does it? "red-" is "back", but "emo, emere, emi, emptus" is "buy". So, Orr's definition seems closer to the mark - redemption is a process whereby one party buys back the inherent value represented symbolically as part of an exchange. You "redeem" a coupon for 50p off a packet of rice, altohugh the same coupon could be redeemed for only 0.000001p in cash. So, the symbolic value fo the coupon is "a packet of rice", but *unlike* a packet of rice you couldn't assume that it had an equivalent value in exchange - you couldn't swap it for something else that cost 50p as you could if you had a pound coin rather than a coupon for 50 pence worth of rice. It's the specificity of the redemption available which distinguishes this from a standard commercial action, perhaps.

So theological redemption, or to be a bit more specific Christian redemption - is the original act of redemption Christ "buying back" the right of humans to achieve the life eternal, as a specific exchange achieved by the giving of his own suffering and death on the cross? And then, from then on, mortals can "redeem" either their belief in Christ or their accumulation of good works for that life eternal? But that's where the specificity of the redemptive exchange must come in - you have to have the right thing to offer in exchnage for the keys to the kingdom, which is maybe why the idea of justification by works is considered so dangerous - because it implies that salvation is earned, like food or housing, rather than a specific exchange of faith for grace...
 
 
Seth
20:45 / 14.04.03
find a 'redeemer' that condones what you do

Surely a redeemer who condones one's actions wouldn't be a redeemer, because there'd be nothing to redeem? Not even in the eyes of the one in need of redemption, because they have sought out a context in which their every action is approved. 'Deity' and 'redeemer' aren't synonyms.
 
 
grant
21:15 / 14.04.03
Is "deem" the root word of "redeem"?

"Deem" being to either have an opinion or to regard, to consider... I suppose, to perceive and judge. Dig this:

deem - O.E. deman, from base of dom (see doom). The two judges of the Isle of Man were called deemsters in 17c.


Is "redemption" really about being "looked over" or being perceived/judged for a second time?

Hmm.

If so, it's certainly related to a core conservative concept, that humans are inherently flawed & violent, and that governments are forged to keep our baser natures in check by continually watching over us. Nasty, brutish & short, Calvin & Hobbes, that whole deal.

And of course there's the religious movement - humans were deemed worthy in the Garden, then they Fell, then Christ came to re-deem them, looping them back into the Garden via blood and pain. The big yo-yo.

I suppose in a way to be the subject of redemption is to be simultaneously worthy and unworthy, to be the sinner created by a loving God.

And that narrative -- falling and getting back up again -- that's the American Dream, isn't it? Being a "self-made man," right? Arriving in New York Harbor with nothing, pulling yerself up by yer own bootstraps, and getting a piece of that pie!
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! (the "re-" portion)
And hold your head up with pride, so the whole world knows! (the "-deem" portion).

At the same time, it seems that "redemption" is a mercantile thing, used as a metaphor in religion:

redemption - c.1340, from L. redemptionem "a buying back, releasing, ransoming," from pp. stem of redimere "to redeem, buy back," from re- "back" + emere "to take, buy, gain, procure." Redeemer in the Christian sense replaced redemptor. Redemptorist is from Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (founded Naples, 1732).


I'd really like to know how "doom" (in the sense, I'm guessing, of "judgement" - like "doomsday" for "Judgement Day") interacts with the "buying back" meaning.
 
 
grant
21:22 / 14.04.03
By the way, I've just finished reading the Books of Chronicles (did the similar history in the Books of Kings last year), and that whole deal is about redemption and fall of the Israelites. The wicked kings build up the altars in the high places (and the wickedest burn their own babies for Moloch), while the good ones tear those high places down, clean out the Temple and reinstitute the proper sacrifices.

I'm a little hazy, but I'm pretty sure those sacrifices are described in terms of a "price" in a few places, like a "bride price" or a "tithing." It's not so much a buying back as it is fulfillment of a contract, in which the Lord is portrayed as being very generous when it comes to violations of the terms. Until, you know, Sennacherib comes down and the Assyrians devastate the nation as punishment.

Which is probably a parallel text to "redemption." The carrot and the stick, maybe.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:44 / 14.04.03
Is "deem" the root word of "redeem"?


I don't think so. The Middle English root of redeem is redemen, from the OF redemer, from the Latin redimo, -ere, which is a compound from "re" and "emo, -ere" (see above). "Deem", meanwhile, also has a Middle English antecedent in demen, but I think they are two different words (demen and the stem -demen, that is), the latter one being derived from "deman", with a long "e". You'd have to talk to an English student for the difference and congruence between demen and demen the second.
 
 
grant
02:27 / 15.04.03
Oh, please let us cling to our etymological free associations, please!

At the very least, they seem related, enough to forge an association for me....
 
 
Rev. Orr
02:55 / 15.04.03
Etymology can be pesky that way. I'm not saying riffing off on similar words isn't interesting, but it's not the same thing.

It's not so much a buying back as it is fulfillment of a contract

Or rather the covenant that Abraham made with the Lord (and please excuse me if I fail to qualify, differentiate from known fact or just whack in inverted commas every time). The scriptural God of the people of Israel isn't really the best example of a redeemer, however. The thread in the switchboard has gone into a little more detail, but basically, your Old Testament Guy With Beard was much more hands on before his people were dead. Later Christian redemption is concerned with post-death destinations - Abraham earns a deal with the GWB (through upping sticks to Palastine and then the near sacrifice of his son) whereby the big fella acts on behalf of his decendants during their lifetime and as part of a continual trading of worship/obedience and protection.

However, despite the Judeo-Christian roots of the concept in the Western culture, given the limited acceptance of the Christian after-life as truth, is redemption coming back to the idea of a more immediate benefit? Is the modern understanding not more like the contract model. Our hero suffers and atones for three reels and then gets the girl in the big finale. Tracing the history and breaking down the terms is fine, but the understood meaning and the shaping philosophy of a still influential concept seem to have moved on. Redemption (or petty redemption on a smaller scale for a series of lesser benefits) might now be understood as something you earn through a clear process of self-inflicted pain or toil. Whether the bestower of this benefit is a human or bureaucratic construct or some nebulous concept of karma, a strong degree of quid pro quo now seems expected.

Of course, this is a subjective reading and is based on a perceived reading of 'what everyone thinks' which is a shaky enough foundation, but is there not a circular path of development? We start with a contract with a divine; 'Catholic' Christianity retains an element of 'earning' the benefit but adds the concept of the unworthy recipiant and a benevolent God; the Protestant model increases the asymmetry of the model and the secular society reverts back to the even bargain with a varied or unspecified benefactor.
 
  
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