What in the hell …

Thinking more about some conversations around Negri, and about Marx…

Regarding Negri’s periodizing impulse, Angela remarks over at Jon’s:

I think the whole periodisation thing is actually a rhetoric. It’s surely about the announcement and its (dare I say) affective purchase than it is about any ‘consistency’. That’s not to fault Negri, per se - but there’s surely a sense in which the epoche has to be thought of as the political form of the fable”

I’m not sure if Negri’d agree with that characterization, which is the whole point of my objection. Negri announces a new era and a new subject appropriate to the era, and speculates on that subject’s arrival. It’s type of eschatology.

Along these lines, and after reading a bit of Taubes, I’ve been thinking about the function and idea of prophecy.

I found the following at some christian website:

“Exhortation and assurance are two common purposes of prophecy. Paul contrasts tongues (a Godward speaking) with prophecy (a manward message): “He who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding (oikodome) and encouragement (paraklesis) and consolation (paramuthia; 1 Corinthians 14:3).”

Paraklesis has a wide range of meaning. Its root carries the idea “to call alongside to help.” The word can denote “encouragement, exhortation.” The range of meaning of parakelsis in verse 3 extends from “admonishment” (e.g. to “live a life worthy of the gospel”, Hebrews 13:22; cf. Romans 12:1) to “loving encouragement” (e.g. during affliction, 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3). Another idea expressed by paraklesis is “appeal, request,” even “pleading”. The word also extends to the idea of “comfort, consolation” (Romans 15:4; Colossians 4:8; 2 Corinthians 1:3f).[6] Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come to His followers as “another Paraclete,” One who would come alongside to the disciples them (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).[7] A vitally important way the Spirit is fulfilling this ministry of paraklesis is through the exhortation, appeal, and comforting assurance of the prophetic word.

Paul uses the word paramuthia in 1 Corinthians 14:3 alongside paraklesis to explain the purpose of prophecy. This word means “encouragement,” especially “comfort, consolation,”[8] but is difficult to distinguish clearly from paraklesis. It derives from para, “beside” and muthos, “speech, word, saying.” In classical Greek it could refer to “any address, whether made “for the purpose of persuading, or of arousing and stimulating or of calming and consoling.[9]

Exhortation to obedience and service as well as encouragement and comfort from the Spirit to those experiencing pain and trouble are one aspect of the Spirit’s building up of the church through prophecy. “

The specific upbuilding function of prophecy is predicated on the truth of prophecy.

From another christian website:

“Prophecy is often too narrowly defined. It actually has a twofold purpose:

* forth telling - which means speaking out, and
* foretelling - which means speaking of future events.

When we speak of forth telling, we include a whole group of prophets and prophecies that do not deal with the future at all. These are those, like Moses, who on many occasions mainly delivered the law or judgements of God. They did not speak of the future at all in some circumstances.”

which is later summed up as follows:

“The prophets had two main roles:

1. to give God’s message
2. to give predictions about the future.

Predictions about the future are useful as a confirmation of faith.”

Also, to keep it fresh in my mind, the Taubes quote I put in a prior post:

“Apocalyptic science implies a passive posture toward historical events. All capacity for action is enfeebled. Universal history is predetermined, and all efforts to resist that inevitable destiny are pointless. The passive voice is an essential element of apocalyptic style.. In apocalyptic works, no one ‘acts’; things rather “come to pass.”… The apocalyptic style, which one also finds in Karl Marx, founds itself in the lack of confidence characteristic of humanity. The long age of wretchedness and ill-fortune, of recurring delusions, the devastating power of evil, the immense colossus of the diabolical on earth, together occasion the loss of hope, expressed in the apocalypse, in any future prosperity and wellbeing which would depend on the good will and consent of humanity. In this sense, one can speak of at least an implied/unrecognized/obscure determinism within the conceptual structure of the Marxist apocalypse. Marx also saw superior forces at work in history, over which the individual had no control, and, using the mythological termnology of his era, named them “productive forces.”

What’s the function of prophecy, especially if one doesn’t believe in an actual predictive power? I’d say to form groups together (something like Badiou’s fidelity, maybe?). It’s an interesting question, not least because, to my mind, it’s a fair characterization of Marx. (Hence all the scrambling to hold onto the name ’science’ - the only sort of prophecy that the ostensibly irreligious hold to.) The tendency of the rate of prophet to fall, the inevitability of communism, etc etc…

* * *

Oh yeah, because I wasn’t totally clear on the senses of the following terms, some definitions from Ye Olde OEDe.

Eschatology
The department of theological science concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell’.

Eschaton
“the divinely ordained climax of history,” “In prophecy and apocalypse alike, the divine event, the eschaton, is always ‘round the corner’. The prophet never conceives himself as standing midway in the course of history.”

Chiliastic
Of, pertaining to, or holding the doctrine of the millennium; millenarian.

Millenarian
1. Relating to or believing in the coming of a millennium.
a. Christian Church. Of or relating to the belief in a future (and typically imminent) thousand-year age of peace and righteousness associated with the Second Coming of Christ.
b. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a believer in a millennium.
c. In later use: of or relating to any of numerous religious or ideological movements based on the belief in a millennium marking or foreshadowing an era of radical change or an end to the existing world order; esp. (a) believing in the imminence or inevitability of a golden age of social or spiritual renewal; utopian; (b) believing in the imminence or inevitability of the end of the world; apocalyptic.

Apocalypse
1. (With capital initial.) The ‘revelation’ of the future granted to St. John in the isle of Patmos. The book of the New Testament in which this is recorded.
2. By extension: Any revelation or disclosure.

Apocalypst
A revealer of the unknown; an interpreter of the Apocalypse.

Apocalyptic
A. adj.
1. Of or pertaining to the ‘Revelation’ of St. John. apocalyptic number: see Rev. xiii. 18.
2. Of the nature of a revelation or disclosure; revelatory, prophetic.
3. Of persons: Dealing with the Apocalypse or with prophetic revelations generally; apocalyptical.
B. n.
1. The writer or recorder of the Apocalypse, St. John the Divine; also = APOCALYPST.
2. Apocalyptic teaching, philosophy, or literature.

Revelation
1. The disclosure or communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency.
b. A source of enlightenment.
2. An instance of such communication of knowledge to man; something disclosed or made known by divine or supernatural means.
b. A striking disclosure of something previously unknown or not realized.
3. the Revelation (of St. John), the last book of the New Testament; the Apocalypse.
4. Disclosure of facts made by a person; exposure of something previously disguised or concealed.

Last note for now - Negri’s position is millenarian, Virno’s on the other hand is katechonic. Katechon is a term Schmitt uses and Taubes comments on (more soonish on this). For now, from yet another site that I’m a little embarassed to cite:

“the “katechon” (see 2 Thess. 2:6f), a word that was often brought up in the following contributions and discussions. This katechon, according to Paul, is a power that holds back the apocalypse, but also the second coming of the kingdom of Christ. The word “katechon” (participle of “katechein”) means both “hold back, stop, delay” and “encompass, contain”. The “katechontic powers” consequently have the same structure as the market interpreted by Dupuy: they contain (in the double meaning of the word) violence.”

(I make the remark on Virno from these quotes - “the 90s have been years of transition in which national states were empty shells. It seems to me to a mistake to confuse this transition with a stable dynamic. If we identify the new figure of global sovereignty with the Clinton years, calling it “Empire”, we risk muting ourselves when Bush enters the scene.” [From here.]
And, “the movement has as its objective the prevention of the birth of what has been called - hastily - “Empire”.” [from here.] I wonder if katechon might be thought of as a figure for the refusal of work more broadly. A bit more high falutin’ than is probably necessary, but might be useful for linking up some otherwise disparate stuffs.)

I’m also told that Foucault compared the knowledge of political economy with religious knowledge, I think in the Order of Things. I’ve not read that, so I can’t say. I’d quite like to find the reference, but it’ll be a while before I crack that one open.