David Tracy and the Repressed

So, Hans Kung has been for some time the main author who was really rocking my world. He's been the only guy who's ideas seemed to be big enough and progressive enough to be fitting of the God of the universe. But, I did have one problem with him. When it comes to philosophy, Kung knows his stuff up to about WWI, but beyond that I've never heard him mention much at all. Kung can take Nietzsche, Kierkengaard, Hegel, and Marx, quote them back and forth and use them to explain God in ways that are new and pretty interesting, but i've barely heard him mention existentialism, let alone postmodern philosophers like Derrida and Foucault who are all of the same period as he is. I love Kung's ecumenical views, but I've felt that without acknowledgement of the most recent currents in philosophy they are a bit incomplete.

Enter David Tracy. Tracy is a professor at the University of Chicago. He works in their divinity school and with the philosophy department. This guy knows his stuff, and it's been amazingly refreshing to read it. For the first time in months i've felt like i'm reading something over my head, but not so far over it that I can't make any sense out of it. So for the three of you who might care . . . here's a taste.

In the book i'm reading, Plurality and Ambiguity, Tracy is discussing some of the changes in postmodern culture on our perception of history.

We read a history book and no matter how difficult to discern, most histories are laid out as narratives. Often we let the "objective" language fool us into thinking that historians care only to report the facts. Yet, it has been demonstrated quite well in most current studies that the facts which an historian cares to report are typically those which support his system of beliefs and interpretation . . . just as the fact that he leaves out are those which would pose a challenge to his views.

Consider most accounts of the Wild West. Cowboys vs. Indians. In the end we all know, that the indians were not exactly the victors historically. So, as history reports it, the indians were at best 'noble savages' whose time had come. They had enjoyed their heyday and it was the 'white man's' turn now. Keep in mind that these accounts which manage well enough to justify the genocide of our European forefathers were written by our European forefathers. Notice the stark lack of historical reports from the period written by the indians, generally because we killed or repressed any indians who were capable of writing such reports. Thus, history belongs to the victors, as is commonly said.

Yet in postmodern thought, the lowly voices that we've done so well at repressing are suddenly finding avenues in which they can be heard. Tracy puts it this way:
"Their voices can seem strident and uncivil - in a word, other. And they are. We have all just begun to sense the terror of the otherness. But only by beginning to listen to those other voices may we also begin to hear the otherness within our own discourses and within ourselves. What we might then begin to hear, above our own chatter, are possibilites we never dared to dream."

Earlier on in the book Tracy discusses that a great temptation for us in the uncertainty of our times is to return to the sameness that gives us a sense of stability. But, the only way to do so is to continue on in acts of repressing those voices that represent the other. Cowboys only continue to conquer the great frontier so long as they kill the indians who long before had lived on the same land in harmony. We have long sense run out of things to conquer and realized that we don't know a damn thing about harmony. And how would we? We killed everyone who could have taught us about it, and we go on with our triumphant stories of how the West was "won".

Still we sense the imperfection of our own stories that we use to find our identity. We see our children dying of cancer most likely caused by the toxic pollution left behind so our factories could make better antifreeze to help 'fight' the elements that would prevent us from driving to work. We begin to sense the 'otherness' within ourselves. The otherness that says that the land we've stolen is better lived with, than on top of.

It becomes easy to realize in this conflict within ourselves how much we suffer because we've silenced the voices that might have imparted wisdom that could have saved us from our fate. Yet now, in this postmodern world where pluralism seems to be invading everything that once felt so settled, we are faced with the terrifying voices of those others that we have kept silenced for so long. We are faced with the fact that they too have a story. One that conflicts with ours, or even more frighteningly, sounds more appealing that ours. We are confronted by the inadequacies of our worldview, by the shallowness of our culture, or any number of other things. We are forced to realize the validity of the other person's voice, no matter how we wish we could have the only voice that counts.

This is where we find ourselves. We no longer live in a world where we can keep competing voices quieted by bigger guns and better technology. We are forced to listen to the losers of history whose stories and interpretations also count. This applies in all avenues: politics, religion, economics . . . We find ourselves in the frightening situation where we who for so long have enjoyed a quiet bought by domination, are increasingly forced to listen to those persistent, haunting voices of those no longer intimidated into silence which justifies our truth.