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GEORGES BATAILLE'S MYSTICAL CRUELTY
Author(s) -
Bush Stephen S.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of religious ethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.306
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1467-9795
pISSN - 0384-9694
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9795.2012.00536.x
Subject(s) - cruelty , mysticism , exorcism , intervention (counseling) , ecstasy , sociology , psychoanalysis , aesthetics , philosophy , psychology , criminology , theology , psychiatry
In this reply to Kent Brintnall's response to my essay on Georges Bataille and the ethics of ecstasy, I explore two primary questions: whether instrumentalization is inherently violent and non‐instrumentalization is inherently non‐violent, and whether there is a way to intervene in the world that avoids both “apathetic disengagement” and domination. I endorse the view that instrumentalization can be good as well as bad, and I suggest that it is possible to strive to intervene in the world without striving to master it. I make reference to Sarah Coakley as a Christian theologian who advances particular practices that aim for non‐dominating intervention in theworld.