(See here for previous post.)
In chapter 4, “Against Radical Orthodoxy,” Insole argues, um, against Radical Orthodoxy, specifically the claims made by John Milbank, et al. that “political liberalism … is symptomatic of an ontological nihilism” and “that liberalism leads to a social atomism and individualism that can be overcome with the help of a participatory-analogical theology” (p. 128).
For Milbank, liberalism is the condition of the modern human subject facing a world that has been evacuated of meaning, with no transcendent basis for claims about truth, beauty, and goodness. The only way to have meaning, truth, or value, then, is for us to assert them by an act of will. But my assertion of will is bound to come into conflict at some point with other people’s assertions of will. In liberal theory the public realm becomes “secular”–that is, it is the realm in which no one’s conception of the good is permitted to be publicly authoritative and binding, but everyone is permitted to live according to her own lights. This is supposed to provide for a peaceful solution to the struggle between rival conceptions of the good, especially between religions.
But, following postmodern thinkers like Foucault, Milbank thinks that the “peace” of the liberal order actually masks acts of violence. The “genealogical” project of thinkers like Foucault is to “unmask” the mechanisms of social power that reinforce truth- and value-claims. Thus the peace of liberalism is shown to rest on a hidden violence. In the view of the geneaologist, there are no “truths” as such, but rather a never-ending struggle of assertions seeking to wield power. The “secular” space of liberalism is not theologically neutral, but actually conceals a particular theology (or anti-theology).
According to Milbank, once liberalism’s claims to neutrality have been unmasked as a power play, the space is cleared for the counter-assertion of a Christian “ontology of peace.” Instead of competing centers of power, the Christian mythos posits a harmonious “participation and analogical interrelatedness between all levels of a hierarchical and teleological universe.” In the Christian universe, I needn’t experience claims of truth and value as oppressive, because my telos – the inner principle of my being – consists in greater participation in the life of the Triune God. This participation makes possible a harmonious reconciliation of differences, rather than the eternal agonistic power struggle.
Unfortunately, says Insole, by the rules of the Foucaultian game Milbank’s assertion of an ontology of peace is just one more instance of the will to power. Milbank admits that the Christian mythos is “equally unfounded” as the modern ontology of violence, so his move is tantamount to simply making a counter-assertion. The ontology of peace is simply posited, or even constructed, so in what way has he really escaped nihilism? Why is the assertion of the Christian meta-narrative any less “violent”?
Ultimately Milbank wants to insist on two theses: first of all, that there is no need for Christian theology to engage rationally or apologetically with ‘secular’ reason, just because there is no neutral, foundational, rational space in which such a dialogue can really appear. We are simply called to out-narrate other stories, all of which are equally (un)founded. This thesis is justified because of a broad acceptance of the Foucaultian notion of geneaology, where truth claims are identified with power claims; hence Milbank’s comment that ‘one’s only resort’ is ‘to put forward an alternative mythos, equally unfounded, but nonetheless embodying an “ontology of peace”. Which brings us to the second thesis Milbank wants to endorse, which is almost the opposite of the first, because indeed ‘Christianity is the precise opposite of nihilism’. The second thesis is that the Foucaultian conflation of power and truth, the assertion of ontological violence, is wrong when and only when it comes to describing the alternative mythos which is Christianity. In a wonderful conjuring trick Milbank uses Foucault as his ladder to climb high enough above apology and dialogue in order to be in the right space to assert his meta-narrative ‘that-Foucault-is-wrong’ (the ‘ontology of peace’)’ but we can only claim that ‘Foucault-is-wrong’, in this case and in this way, if Foucault is right. (p. 137)
The problem goes deeper, though, because Milbank has already conceded too much to the deconstructive/genealogical project. For the entire Foucaultian argument contains a fatal equivocation on the term “power.” In one sense, power is any exertion of influence on the world. So brute force, bribery, seduction, and rational persuasion are all forms of power in this sense. But “power” can also have a sinister connotation of dominating and oppressing the other. The Foucaultian argument that all truth claims are “really” power plays works only by conflating these two senses of “power.”
Everything is described as a power struggle: even a charity or a minority justice-based resistance group is understood in terms of this social physics. Inasmuch as everything is accounted for as ‘power’ it seems to be simply a descriptive term, with no more sinister moral connotations than a notion such as ‘gravity’. This descriptive notion of power is used to get the thesis off the ground that ‘power’ operates everywhere. But then there is a movement which associates ‘power’ with oppression and violence, and the term carries strong prescriptive undertones, which seem to make emancipation and peace impossible. The impossibility is not something discerned in the world, but is rather smuggled in at the very beginning prior to any observations. (p. 138)
In other words, we needn’t even play the Foucaultian game to begin with. We’re back to distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. So, according to Insole, Milbank’s assertion of the Christian mythos as the only alternative to nihilism rests on an erroneous description of our condition. And it hasn’t been demonstrated that liberalism is categorically or necessarily nihilistic. As we saw before, liberals like Burke and Acton readily believed in a transcendent order of truth and value but thought that our apprehension of it was limited and fragmentary. This insight, combined with a sense of human fallenness and charity toward the neighbor–not ethical nihilism or constructivism–provides their rationale for liberal politics.
(To be continued…)
A Thinking Reed 
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