The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Apocalypse or Utopia?This book addresses the problem of religion, ethics, and public policy in a global technological civilization. It attempts to do what narrative ethicists have said cannot be done--to construct a cross-cultural ethic of human dignity, human rights, and human liberation which respects the diversity of narrative traditions. It seeks to do this without succumbing to either ethical relativism or ethical absolutism. The author confronts directly the dominant narrative of our technological civilization: the Janus-faced myths of "Apocalypse or Utopia." Through this myth, we view technology ambivalently, as both the object of our dread and the source of our hope. The myth thus renders us ethically impotent: the very strength of our literal utopian euphoria sends us careening toward some literal apocalyptic "final solution." The demonic narrative that dominated Auschwitz ("killing in order to heal") is part of this Janus-faced technological mythos that emerged out of Hiroshima. And it is this mythic narrative which underlies and structures much of public policy in our nuclear age. This book proposes a coalition of members of holy communities and secular groups, organized to prevent any future eruptions of the demonic. Its goal is to construct a bridge not only over the abyss between religions, East and West, but also between religious and secular ethics. |
Contents
The Challenge of BabelFrom Alienation to Ethics After Auschwitz and Hiroshima | 1 |
The Promise of Utopia and the Threat of Apocalypse | 17 |
Technology and the Dialectics of Apocalypse and Utopia | 19 |
Language Technique and the Utopianism of the Body | 30 |
The Technological City as the Utopian Horizon of the BodySelf | 34 |
Procrustean and Protean Distortions | 37 |
Doubt and Utopian Transcendence | 42 |
The Dialectics of Apocalypse and Utopia | 46 |
From the Sacred and Profane to the Holy and Secular | 141 |
From Sacred Morality to Alienation and Ethics | 155 |
Utopian Ethics From Human Dignity to Human Rights and Human Liberation | 161 |
The Commanding Voice from Auschwitz and the UN Declaration of Human Rights | 176 |
From Abraham and Siddhartha to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr | 202 |
Beyond Technopolis The Utopian Promise of Babel | 213 |
The Linguistic and Narrative Poverty of Secularism | 214 |
Welcoming the Stranger as the Utopian Norm of Secular Reason | 220 |
The Narrative Ambivalence of a Technological Civilization Apocalypse or Utopia? | 55 |
The Secular City as Apocalyptic | 60 |
The Sacralization of the Secular City | 68 |
Technopolis and the Abyss of the Demonic | 74 |
From Auschwitz to Hiroshima The Apocalyptic Dark Night | 81 |
The Demonic Inversion of the Narrative Traditions of the HolyEast and West | 96 |
Wounding in Order to Heal Slaying to Make Alive | 100 |
The Apocalyptic Dark Night and the MADness of Planetary Suicide | 115 |
After Auschwitz and Hiroshima Utopian Ethics for an Apocalyptic Age | 121 |
The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima to Technological Utopianism | 123 |
Theology of Culture as the Utopian Critique of Technical Civilization | 134 |
Technobureaucratic Rationality and the Myth of Human Rights | 231 |
From Narrative Diversity to the Utopian Promise of Babel | 238 |
A Utopian Vision Narrative Ethics in a MAD World | 247 |
The Utopian Quest in an Age of Apocalyptic Darkness | 276 |
Utopian Technopoesis and the Limits of Political Realism | 285 |
Public Policy Ethics as Critique of the Narrative Imagination | 296 |
The Secular University Religious Studies and Theological Ethics After Auschwitz and Hiroshima | 317 |
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights | 327 |
Notes | 333 |
359 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abyss Alasdair MacIntyre anthropological anti-Judaism apocalyptic argued audacity Auschwitz and Hiroshima Babel become biblical bomb Buddhist bureaucratic Christian church consciousness cosmological covenant created critique death demonic desacralizing dialectical diversity Elie Wiesel emergence emptiness Eric Voegelin ethic of human experience faith freedom Gabriel Vahanian global Holocaust holy community horizon human dignity human rights Ibid ideology imagination individual infinite insight institutional Irving Greenberg Jacques Ellul Jewish Jews Judaism language live MacIntyre meaning modern moral myth naked public square Narrative Theology narrative traditions nations nature Nazi Neuhaus normative nuclear one's order to heal person pluralism political question reality realm religion religious Richard Rubenstein role rooted Rubenstein sacral sacred order says secular Secular City self-transcendence Shoah social order Stanley Hauerwas story structure suggests surrender symbolic technical technological civilization technological utopianism technopolis theology of culture theonomous Tillich tion transcendence transformation Übermensch understanding urban values vision welcoming the stranger