Grammar is politics by another name. I find myself returning to the clash of verb tenses in the discussion about divine authority and life in the gospel of John, 8:58: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” I should say: grammar becomes politics. The linguist Jean Gagnepain puts it more clearly. Grammar is something implicit and part of the dialectical framing of human activities, whereas discourse (rhetoric) is the emerged part, the visible, negotiated, partial, political therefore, reinvestment of our implicit capacity for grammar. And so the question is, what politics engendered the saying attributed by the author to Jesus in his discussions with the specialists of the time of divine authority? Ἐγὼ δαιμόνιον οὐκ ἔχω, ἀλλὰ τιμῶ τὸν πατέρα μου, ὑμεῖς ἀτιμάζετὲ με. “I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.” Does the ensuing discussion about Abraham and genetic understanding of history not signify and excuse the control of men and women at work in the engine-rooms of history: Ἀβραάμ ἀπέθανεν καὶ οἱ προφῆται… σὺ μείζων εἶ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀβρααμ, ὅστις ἀπέθανεν; τίνα σεαυτὸν ποιεῖς; “Abraham died, as did the prophets; […] Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Who do you claim to be?” … Abraham and the prophets died. There is finality to this death, which seals the expression of divine will and vision of history that we inherited from them. From Ezra on (or what Ezra stands for, no matter the chronological precision for now), the proclamation of the text engenders a dynamics of interpretation from which no one can escape. See Yerushalmi, “Réflexions sur l’oubli,” in: Usages de l’oubli (Paris, 1988: pages 7–21, 15). The expressions of divine will that one gets in the law, in its correct, on-going interpretation, or in the visions of the prophets, they are all at two removes from the original, as in politics.

The answer put into Jesus’ mouth is meant to be reactive if not rebellious, no doubt. It is anti-genetic, even though it uses fatherhood as the exclusive image of ultimate authority: πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί. “Before Abraham was, I am.” Two twists on tenses: an infinitive (aorist middle) after a conjunction, and this present forever tense, the contrary of an aorist. The clash of tenses is one thing, the choice of verbs another indication of the tension between a temporary existence, a being that died, and a being that has no predictable past and future. A being that claims not so much eternity as the right to go beyond the politically convenient adaptation to the “conditions of life.” It’s not so much the dualism of the inchoate Christian doctrine that is at stake for this author, with its forever refinable hope for an eternal life beyond Abraham, a hope within the mean-, un-redeemed time, justifying the hiccups and bogging down of political discussion and action into this aoristic world reduced to a succession of moments. In a single-substanced world, however, the present tense of eimi, I am, is not only a claim of direct access to divine will. It is calling for a history in the present and the renegotiation of all sclerotic political deals.

My memory’s faultiness and durability keep puzzling me. Faulty recall first: I had to let time do its work this morning—i.e. slower chemistry in the brain—before I could remember on the bike lane, far up on the slopes, the name of the author whose angry mockery of the Supreme Court judges I had appreciated just half an hour before when reading today’s New York Times on my iPad: Maureen Dowd. I also enjoyed her use of two curious words—pervy for Thomas (a pervy liar...), and suspire for M. Monroe—, even though I shouldn’t allow myself to be overly enamored of Ms. Dowd’s vertiginous lexical vaultings. It could be argued that her own jealous anger at the Clintons and her fascinated tolerance for Trump deserve a bit of damnatio memoriae. Didn’t it cost as many votes to the Democrats as her present article might reclaim? These two words I didn’t forget yet, however, perhaps because of the work that goes into figuring out their origins (pervert and French soupirer). So, there goes a durability of sort, as well as a faulty self. I find it hard to graft new memories, a well known phenomenon. And then, while reading Tales of royalty, a recent book on Mesopotamia, I am surprised to discover that I remember right away very useful stuff such as the name of the wool dress that kings wore in Sumer—kaunakes—, for instance that of Urnanše, king of Lagaš. I could also instantly remember when and where I learned it—in 1967, in the books of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, a cool fifty-five years ago. I doubt that I used this word ever since…

I am puzzled to discover in the latest New Yorker article on France by James McCauley that Marcel Gauchet makes room for Marine Le Pen under the great tent of democratic France. She would exemplify a new, softer, though inexperienced right that is not in continuity with Barrès or Maurras but more like the Republican party at the beginning of the Fifth Republic (the RPR: rassemblement pour la République). I don’t think he is naïve. But it is shocking at first to see his expansive ideas on democracy be so flexible (see his Le nouveau monde, vol.\ 4 of L’avènement de la démocratie (Gallimard, 2017). So, I hope he is not about to cajole her any further and perhaps even tolerate in advance her possible victory in the 2027 presidential elections, while she finds it politic to coax the likes of Poutine or Orban.

The need to criticize the destructiveness of neo-liberalism, including its European façade, and the terrible effects of the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots, which despairs and frightens about half of the French, is, I assume, the real reason behind Gauchet’s widening or rereading of the democratic church. It would be a way to recognize the “laissés pour compte,” whom Macron gives the impression of abandoning to their fate of victims of the unstoppable global world. The Europe that Macron speaks about will go larger with the integration of Ukraine, without making its decision making about taxation or social policy any more decisive and transparent. But I don’t see how this suffering, fear, and frustration can justify a ballot for the Le Pens’ profiteering. Nothing in her program—or what transpires of it—can be construed as a challenge to neo-liberalism, in spite of her couplets on nationalism, “civilization”, and immigration. Neither does Macron’s ideas qualify as a program, granted. His persona is that of a supremely competent negotiator. In fact, they both invite an acceleration of the oligarchies or oligopolies that we see at work in Russia and in another form in the US. It can go along with proto-fascist measures, like the arrest and expulsion of immigrants in the middle of the day.

Here is what McCauley says about Gauchet::

Gauchet, a historian, co-founded the journal Le Débat, a cornerstone of French intellectual life for decades. (It ceased publication in 2020.) Gauchet has recently insisted that Marine is a “sort of authoritarian right, national, popular, which for me strongly evokes—as an ancien combattant—the beginning of the Fifth Republic.” He went further, saying that “in reality, she incarnates something very different from the extreme right of the past”—even though Marine is the direct heir, literally and ideologically, of precisely that tradition.

Macauley is not fair to Marcel Gauchet. The interview that Gauchet gave to Europe One recently makes clear that he looks at both sides of the election as not providing political platforms but rather as playing superficial roles in a moral tale. Gauchet is being realistic and simply taking seriously the weakening of a Republican front traditionally opposed to the far right. The French voter is not politically represented in the presidential election because the traditional parties that were eviscerated in 2017 and especially 2022 haven’t been replaced by real political options. If not corrected—by proportional-style elections—France might see a social explosion.

Oh what studying!
the heads are bobbing.
Some want revolution
others stick to tradition.
These hilly intellectuals
scout over the terrain,
and look for victuals
but all they get is refrain.

We flew to Houston
and walked by the apocalyptic space suit.
Bunny had landed here from Michigan with his loot
of stories, chapters of his invention
that he told to Cal and Lucie with gumption.

American red buds are in bloom,
After thunderstorm and rain, no gloom.
Gardeners are busy on Sunset, and yet
Seventy-one years have set.

Time we know or believe so,
It has a beginning, no end in tow,
Just a hidden horizon
Of expectation and jubilation.

The US and Europe have decided to inflict preliminary sanctions on Russia while still leaving some room for diplomacy. According to the papers, 190 000 Russian troops surround Ukraine. The Russian claim is that the US started the belligerency by giving NATO status to ex-USSR nations soon after the collapse of the Soviets in December 1991 and siting missiles on the borders of Russia. The Russian leadership is right to feel that the Cold War has never been over and has taken new forms. The real fear of Putin and acolytes, however, is to see Ukraine and ex-USSR nations become part of Europe and leave their sphere of influence, perhaps even increase the political danger inside Russia in turn. The NATO conference of 2008 in Bucarest decided to extend NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. This was seen by Russia as tantamount to war. And another reason for the war-mongering is that Putin’s strident nationalism is tolerated by the Russian people and hides its government’s massive thievery, injustices, and crimes of the past thirty years.

There is a more hidden reason to the war. It is strange and sad to see videos of enormous columns of sophisticated war machinery being set in place. The NYT doesn’t hesitate to show maps and photos of the Russian moves. Nothing however, or very little, is shown of the war capabilities of NATO. This organization saw its raison d’être disappear in 1989–1990 with the collapse of the USSR. But as a large irreplaceable market for US-made or -designed weaponry, its existence continued to be justified by the likes of the US Senate for other reasons, such as countering terrorism or perceived Iran’s threat (missiles in Poland are supposedly for defense against Iran’s missiles). Now that Russia has provided a bona fide reason for using NATO’s capabilities, we learn that Ukraine will never be part of it and will be left to its own devices, except for the supply of certain weapons. It seems that armament industries can continue to be great investments both in the US and the USSR.

According to the wikipedia’s list of countries by military expenditures, the USA spends more than ten times on war (“defense”) what Russia does.

US: 778 billion$ = 3.7% of GDP;

Russia: 61.7 billion$ = 4.3% of GDP;

China: 252 billion$ = 1.7% of GDP;

Christianity promotes a teleological view of history. The Christian reading of the Bible recasts it as a god-revealed plan in which the prophets announce Christ and their place in the Bible is changed accordingly to make that clear. Nothing is left to chance or to circularity in that history. Even the return of Christ is one single, unifying goal. Everything is part of a divine plan in which politics cannot be a return to a golden age. No MAGA! Everyone is the citizen of two cities, permanently under a tension to be resolved at the end of time.

This kind of thinking was already in the works in Israelite thinking and is in continuity with it. My sense is that ancient Israelites started to give this kind of oriented meaning to their history because they found that the habitual answers given by them or their neighbors to their historical catastrophes were failing and did not take the events into sufficient account. It was not enough to claim that one’s gods or god had punished or abandoned their people until the right king showed up again. Israelites and Judahites tried radical solutions to explain the total ruin of their monarchy and temple. Kings were not going to come back, and Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia were not going to vanish either, with their paradoxical succession of divine pantheons. As Yahweh had already become the Israelites’ only god—this was somewhat encouraged by Israel’s and Judah’s kings in the 9th to 7th centuries—they found themselves deepening the singularity, mobility, and power of their god, especially after their exilic contacts with Babylonia (Ezekiel). This led to the transformation of their god into the creator and unseen mover of universal history (Isaiah), as well as to its refashioning as their only salvific, law-giving, king (Exodus, where there is still an intermediary, Moses, but who is not king).

This god was presented as having plans and a will, even if some of it was impenetrable (a theme of the Psalms). Further, in some very important stories like Genesis 1 (creation) or 12 (Abraham’s “return”), human history is set as open to the future generations rather than locked in the time frame of a royally defined mythological epic. Divine punishment or threat of it were still a primary aspect of the divinity, but divine care for its people and salvation were taken to be certain also. In that sense, the Hebrew Bible already—and singularly—saw meaning in its history. Of course, my being a “modern” makes me stop short of calling it a praeparatio evangelica, or of seeing a Hegelian spirit at work. After all, we are talking about a mere three millenia, if barely that!

Right wingers keep up their attacks on reason and its uses. One recent example is the Florida Senate bill that would make the teaching of critical race theory an offense and could have it sued by bounty-hunters. See Paul Krugman’s column on the topic. A proper history of the US would become impossible, since students “should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” Republicans are covering this attack on rational discourse by using two widely accepted masks. First, they adopt something that has become somewhat common in the culture. They invoke a feeling of discomfort as sufficient excuse for refraining from inquiry, just as some students want to be excused from reading the story of Dinah’s rape in Genesis because it is too disturbing to them. Secondly, the Republicans turn everything around by pretending that this feeling of discomfort is commensurate with the denial or minimization of the Holocaust. False dichotomy: The long-standing overt and covert racism of US society should not be analyzed, but the history of the Shoah or at least its mention are to be kept up as a subject of inquiry. And why shouldn’t the discomfort experienced when seeing pictures or stories of the horrors of WWII also excuse students from pursuing that topic? The phrasing of this new bill makes clear that both totalitarianism and racism are joined at the hip. It is more crucial than ever to study both critically and include this draft of a bill as evidence.

Last week, the archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester, issued a document on nuclear warfare that is crucial reading regardless of one’s religious inclination or lack thereof:
pastoral letter on the Catholic position on nuclear disarmament. Santa Fe and its state, New Mexico, are home to two of the three nuclear labs of the USA (Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories).

Major objections to continuing the conception, production, and strategic or tactical deployment of these weapons: first, the fact that nuclear weaponry is systematically targeted at large population centers and would have long-term climatic consequences; second, the framing of international relationships within a balance of terror or mutual assured destruction that relies on the absence of trust and hope and contributes to it; finally, the immense cost incurred by countries pursuing these programs instead of spending the intellectual, social, and financial capitals on other urgently needed pursuits such as social programs and the eradication of poverty. The dangers posed by nuclear armament have recently increased and are at their peak: increased risk of launching errors—with several incidents in the past—, the discontinuation or rejection of treatises—including the Non Proliferation Treaty—, and the more recent danger of electronic warfare.

Interesting though not very searching article on paganism and its replacement of Christianity in yesterday’s NYT by Christopher Caldwell. The author starts from a new book by Chantal Delsol, La fin de la chrétienté, which argues that we are living through the end of Christian culture or civilization. This turn of events would be undoing what Christians did to Roman culture, namely the “normative inversion” of its ethics and values, and their surreptitious borrowings from pagan culture. I would put a plural and talk of pagan cultures, with multiple centers and customs. We would be re-paganizing and our “undoing” would be a sort of sweet revenge on the undoing of Roman values in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era… I note that when the author defines Christian culture, he is thinking of art, philosophy, and lore, not of the beliefs on which everything else was anchored. A sideline is that the “woke” culture of today and its erosion of values—many or most based on Christianity—is somewhat rued by Delsol.

The article doesn’t go into the politics of pagan and Christian kingdoms. The beliefs in Christ and the historical claim they rested on made it difficult and paradoxical but not impossible to develop a political system in which kings and elites rode on the coattails of the re-structured divinity. Think of the representations of Christ Pantocrator as conveying the power of kings and the renewed dream of empire. Political and military power stemmed from the Bible and trinitarian god, but the meanings of the messianic claims made it contradictory and self-defeating, in the long term at least, to hold onto the Biblical God and its crucified messiah as the origin of power. As Marcel Gauchet has long been saying, the revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not reject everything Christian. They rejected the contents, not the forms. They subjected Christianity to its own secularized power. They still held to the structures and formal concepts of Christianity when they justified the industrial revolution and its abuse of labor, the imperial and colonial adventures, or progress, as religious-like necessities stemming from the popular will but no more from a divine creation and incarnation. Most of this ontological framework collapsed by the end of the twentieth century, or so we are given to think. Modern ethics and moral claims lost the two main grounds they have had in the past two millennia. Now, they have to be moored in something else than Christian theology and liturgy, and in something else than national values. Human rights? One would like to believe that reason alone, if open and aware of its limits, could do the trick. But can it attract many people and give them the disciplined passion that divine and national religions provided?