This work of historical clarification is an insistent theme among many liberal Christians, and while I obviously agree with the historical point that’s being made, I find something unsettling in the way it’s approached. What if events had gone down pretty much as the gospels presented them, with Jewish leaders pushing a reluctant and cowardly Pilate to execute Jesus? Would anti-Semitism then be justified? The insistence on the historical innocence (or at worst, secondary responsibility) of Jewish leaders of the time seems to imply a certain anxiety that it would be justified — or at least to indicate the limits of the liberal strategy of focusing on historical facts without mounting an explicitly theological counter-argument, with the effect that the “traditional” theological framing remains very much in place.

Another question: what are we to conclude from the Romans’ responsibility? The radical interpretation of this — which I share — is that it indicates that early Christianity was a profoundly political movement opposed to the Roman Empire. More liberal thinkers don’t seem to go in that direction, however, instead preferring to fall back on the notion that “it was all a big misunderstanding.” But again, if Jesus really had been preaching sedition, would the Romans have been justified in torturing him and then murdering him in one of the most painful and dehumanizing ways ever devised? I’m going to say no. Even worse, it seems to me that the “big misunderstanding” interpretation fits perfectly within the traditional framing that would make the poor unwitting Romans into the instrument of the Jews.

This seems to me to be a familiar pattern in liberal Christianity — the traditional framing is never seriously questioned or countered, and instead the battle is moved to a terrain with higher stakes. We can see this in arguments that fundamentalists don’t really follow the Bible literally — the hidden premise being that they should. Or from the opposite side, we see a reluctance to take the Bible too seriously — the hidden premise being that the fundamentalists have it right. Or in the insistence that the historical Jesus was a teacher of moral and spiritual edification — the hidden premise being that he is still a source of divine authority.

I believe that this pattern contributes to the widespread perception that liberal Christians aren’t “real” believers — they continually appear to be attempting to superficially “hijack” Christianity for liberal ends, rather than daring to make the properly theological case that Christianity should support those ends.

Dear ________,

First, I want to thank you for your call a week or so ago. I have not been ignoring it, though the delay & your stated concern in the voicemail would perhaps suggest otherwise. Things have just been more busy than normal, attentions tugged this way & then that. While I confess I could’ve made and/or found the time to respond, either by calling or by writing, life is filled with decisions, most of them, we hope, not as malevolent or even as plainly calculated as they might appear, and I opted for decisions that did not include a quick response to you.

Second, you will no doubt notice that I’m responding via email rather than your chosen mode of communication, the telephone. Please, do not read anything into that either. I’m simply far more comfortable in print than I am in person, with even my closest friends. Would that I could carry on my own internal dialogues & diatribes wholly in print, I might make a better go at consciousness in general.

To your concern: I did not stop attending church because of my participation in Occupy Oakland. Again, appearances here are wont even to deceive me. Occupy surely played a role in the decisions I’ve made, but mostly only in their final acts. There was, that is to say, much leading up to my decision to take a break from involvement in the church, none of them related to Occupy. I’ve spoken to [the good Reverend] at some length about this, and we remain in contact still – just last week, in fact – so I have no problem relaying, at least in part, my reason. In the simplest of terms: I did not have enough faith. Which is to say, I didn’t have any spiritual faith at all. This is not a new development. What was new, however, was that I had (foolishly, perhaps) put myself in various formal & up-front positions of prominence in the church, representing various ideals & formations of faith, speaking on behalf of faith, as it were, never quite believing in the faith so much as I believed in the believers. (Would it be a scandal to say I find a kind of atheistic beauty in religion that the spirituality you cherish cannot attain?) In many respects, I stand by my thinking in this regard, as I approached much of my participation (and, yes, as sad as it may seem, leadership) as an experiment: can one, I wondered, help lead when one believes in the material reality of the church more than what the church says and/or experiences of itself? The jury is still out on that, as I don’t want my psychic & physical burden necessarily to be representative. But, suffice it to say, I was chastened by mu effort, though I remain fascinated by the question. I am considering writing a book on it, in fact.

Anyway, yes, I could’ve & should’ve handled the bowing-out better than I did. I had every intention, for example, of helping [the good Reverend] complete her thesis project, not to mention finishing my term as vice-moderator. I am very embarrassed to say, I followed through on neither.

One constant, however, is my high regard for the work done by the congregation (not least of which you). I’ve been especially encouraged by your brave work with Occupy Oakland, to the point of being placed in jail, & am humbled at you going “all-in” with your participation in this regard.

I’ve gone on at some length now. I will end things for now on this note. Again, thank you for your concern & your call.

Fans of Friedrich von Hayek may be surprised to learn that the Austrian economist is the talk of Occupy London. Hayek’s observation that distributed intelligence in a voluntary co-operative is a hallmark of real economy rings true beneath the bells of St Paul’s. Occupy is often criticised for not having a single message but that misses the point: we are committed to incorporating different preferences before coming up with policies. In this sense, it could be said we work more like a market than the corporate boardroom or lobbyist-loaded politics – our ideas are radical but also just and democratically decided.

The policy proposals that follow focus on reducing tax-avoidance, using monetary policy to boost the housing market, and changing the way executives are compensated — hardly revolutionary stuff, but probably beneficial. (I’m not sure, though, how the idea for the Bank of England to use “quantitative easing… to fund housebuilding” would work either logistically or in terms of getting the desired outcome.)

I understand that these kinds of demands are uninspiring for any number of reasons, above all because they embrace the logic of capitalism and implicitly legitimate the system by reference to a “better way” to execute it. At the same time, I don’t think there is widespread understanding of more radical alternatives, in large part because it’s not at all clear, objectively, what the desired answer would be. (In this respect, I’m reluctant to embrace the notion that the problem is the open-ended, anarchist nature of the Occupy movement — though I’m skeptical of that approach to some degree, I don’t think that having greater discipline and structure would be beneficial in the absence of an actual workable program. If an anarchistic/democratic form doesn’t automatically lead to good results, surely we can agree that a centralized “organized” form doesn’t either.)

Indeed, what’s most depressing isn’t that this group would cite Hayek, but that Hayek is objectively to the left of mainstream neoliberal economic ideology at this point — and of course Keynes counts as a radical leftist in this context. To put it another way: what’s most depressing is that drawing on Hayek genuinely counts as a step in the right direction compared to the idiocy that’s driving most policy makers.

Another thing that stands out to me is the mismatch between how relatively painless the task is and how ridiculously backed up most journals’ review processes tend to be. Part of that surely results from the procrastination that forms the bedrock of the academic life, but I also assume that there are many academics who are doing little to no peer reviewing at all.

And that’s when it hit me: I’m writing this post to procrastinate on reviewing an article!

In all seriousness, though, there’s no reason academics who are actively involved in research shouldn’t be peer reviewing regularly. I’d even suggest that doing as much as one article per month would not be particularly burdensome.

• The belief in creation ex nihilo
• Anthropocentrism: the contingent becoming of the universe reaches its pinnacle and unsurpassable goal in humanity
• Faith in the resurrection of the dead
• Hope in a coming mediator figure who, though possessing the divine power necessary to inaugurate the resurrection, empties himself
• An ethics based on living in joyful hope of the resurrection

It’s a good thing we have Meillassoux to tell us about these radically new and unheard-of ideas! I wonder if the other sections tell us about such innovations as a ceremonial cleansing to enter the messianic community or a symbolic meal commemorating the mediator figure.

1. Send a physical letter to all rejected applicants. First of all, of course, one should actually notify unsuccessful applicants. All of them have put considerable work into the application packet, and simply assuming they’ll get the idea if they don’t hear from you is disrespectful. Sending a paper letter has two benefits over e-mail: it takes more effort (hence showing some modicum of respect for the applicants’ efforts) and it is less likely than an e-mail to “ambush” the applicant at an inopportune moment.
2. Don’t try to reassure the applicant. The last person the applicant wants to hear praise from is the person notifying them that yet another avenue of professional advancement has been closed off to them. Learning that their file, “while excellent,” did not make the cut is more likely to produce despair than consolation.
3. It’s not about you. Do not talk about the difficulty of the decision. It can come across as asking for pity from the very person you are disappointing.
4. It’s also not about the other applicants. Nothing is gained by sharing that you received over 100 applications — basically every job does. Also, implicit comparisons to the successful applicant are distasteful. Obviously you preferred that person, and obviously you had a good reason to do so. Language like “we hired a candidate who more closely met our requirements” is both unnecessary and slightly arrogant, implying a degree of certainty and rigor that no hiring process can actually provide. If we change the formula to make it more honest — “we hired a candidate who we believe will prove to be a better fit” — it becomes clear that these kinds of statements are redundant.
5. Don’t string applicants along. If you’ve moved to the level of screening interviews, alert the leftovers that they should give up hope right away. If you think you may need to dip back into the other applications after screening interviews, then select a limited number of secondary choices and alert everyone else. It may be more convenient to leave everyone “in contention” in some sense, but it’s inappropriate for candidates to have to turn to the rumor mill to figure out where they stand. If they no longer have a real shot, let them know yourself.
6. Take responsibility. Phrasing like “your application is no longer under consideration” is disturbingly Orwellian, implying that the application (as an active agent) somehow failed to measure up to an objective standard — when the reality is that a group of people made a decision. That group has the real agency; “we” should be the subject of all sentences relating to hiring decisions.
7. Keep it short. All the candidate can do at this point is put the disappointment behind them — providing extraneous materials allowing them to speculate about alternative histories is not helpful. It may seem impersonal to use a “just the facts” tone, but then the purpose of this letter is, after all, to inform someone that you are not intending to have an ongoing relationship with them.

So with those tips in mind, here is my proposed form letter:

Dear [applicant],

Thank you for your interest in [our position]. We are writing to inform you that [we are no longer considering your application / we have hired another candidate].

Best,

[Search chair]

Just picked up his Anti-Badiou. If I were to write a book called Anti-Laruelle, I would be treated by Laruelle’s tweep army like someone who drowns puppies and crushes kittens.

Considering that writing such a book would require Harman actually read and try to understand Laruelle, I think he’s safe from any attack by the United-without-Unity Tweep Army. Sad that this constitutes his response to a number of questions raised about his abominable review.

Naturally, I’ve gotten some push-back. What this has all led me to wonder is not how the Soviet Union performed compared to some ideal, but compared to the available alternatives.

Obviously it was never going to be much like the United States, with its long history of capitalist development and its durable political institutions. One might think whistfully on the possibilities that were cut short by the Bolshevik take-over that followed on the establishment of liberal democracy — but was a “normal” liberal-democratic Russia really ever in the cards, in the wake of World War I? Had the Bolsheviks not managed to seize power, would it not be more reasonable to believe that Russia, on the model of Weimar Germany, would’ve stumbled along with its unaccustomed liberal-democratic institutions until some right-wing nationalist demagogue managed to overthrow the whole thing? (I know, I know: as opposed to the left-wing nationalist demagogue they actually wound up with…)

Surely there are many readers better-informed about such issues than I am.