ne	redemption rely on greater powers to take away the problems

Redemption involves appealing to a higher level, placing one’s trust in a higher power. This may be religious, where the higher power is transcendental (God) or immanent (Jesus).  But there are many secular forms of the same stratagem, with the same logical structure.

Letting someone or something else take the burden. Drugs.  Chance (as in the novel DiceMan, where a man allows the throws of a die to govern his life).  Some forms of psychotherapy, especially those where the therapist (temporarily, we hope) takes the Parent position.  Romance.  Technology, where the Device takes on the status of Magic.

If a person hands over responsibility for some aspect of his or her life to some outside force, this leaves him/her in a dependent position.  In the case of drugs, this can often involve physical dependency – but in other cases, it may still leave the person in a psychologically dependent state – the Child position.

Is there anything wrong with this?  Modern society is essentially adolescent – and adolescence often involves premature claims to maturity (as in Elster’s excellent maxim: adolescence involves a series of attempts to skip adolescence), as well as inappropriate repudiation (renunciation) of the childlike. This leads us to a horror of dependency and codependency, and an almost obsessive insistence on taking the Independent Adult position in all situations.  (We are just about allowed to take the Parent position in relation to our own children – and even that can be a struggle.)

But Jesus said: except as ye become as little children ….  Renunciation can be noble – but it can also be frightening.  (Baby, posh, scary – do I detect a theme here?)
 

Earth as Gaia	The Gaia hypothesis (that the Earth is a self-healing system) encourages a passive stratagem - sitting back and hoping that the trees will replant themselves.
Romance	negative thinking > examples > romance
Melancholy	A primary romantic mood is perhaps a longing for redemption.  German Romantics (such as Schelling) perceived nature as essentially melancholic - dumb animals, lacking the redemption of speech. Zizek links this with Fellini's Satyricon "with its unique depiction of Ancient Roman hedonistic figures permeated by an infinite sadness".
Deus ex Machina	... the plot thins ...
World Government	How do we eliminate wars and other geopolitical evils? The League of Nations, the United Nations or some world superpower will transcend the petty national squabbles that foment wars, will save us from these evils.
Saviour	For Christians, the ultimate symbol of redemption is of course Jesus of Nazareth, He who died for our sins. A redemptive power may be evil as well as good. Some heretics have made much of the role of Judas in the crucifixion story: Judas whose subsequent suicide and eternity in hell provides a moral and rhetorical counterweight to the death and resurrection of Jesus. [See Jorge Luis Borges]

Page last updated on February 19th, 2001 Copyright © 2000, 2001 Richard Veryard