The Messianic Idea, the Time of Capital and the Everyday

Large, William ORCID: 0000-0003-0447-5364 (2009) The Messianic Idea, the Time of Capital and the Everyday. Journal for Cultural Research, 13 (3-4). pp. 267-279. doi:10.1080/14797580903101177

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Abstract

Why should anyone bother with religious ideas? Are they not the most outmoded, reactionary and useless forms of expression? Not if they make us see reality in a different way. What we are faced with in these dangerous times is a complete and total global catastrophe. Capitalism turns away from this disaster (of which it is the cause) by promising an endless future of the same. Only a time which breaks with this time can truly prevent it from happening. We are faced with three futures: the future of the disaster, which is the reality of capitalism; the future of progress, which is the fantasy of capital; and that future which interrupts this fatal double of the real and the fantastical. Such a future is the messianic. Messianism should be clearly distinguished from any kind of millenarianism. It does not seek the “end of times”, a world beyond or behind the world, but the transformation of the present by the hidden possibilities of the everyday.

Item Type: Article
Article Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: REF2014 Submission
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Divisions: Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Research Priority Areas: Culture, Continuity, and Transformation
Depositing User: Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited: 14 Sep 2015 14:10
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2023 08:56
URI: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/2597

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