Planetary Theology

Discussion

Rana Dasgupta:

"If we are to turn our “globalization” from a gangster racket into a political society, the divine aura must be assigned to nothing less than the planet itself. The backdrop to all action is the planet; the success of our economy depends on its harmonization with the planet; the moral standards by which our lives are judged come from the planet.

Once again, this immediately requires another, parallel invention: the planetary people. In their state-fixation, liberals have become fond of mocking the possibility of such an amorphous collective. In the process they forget the history of liberalism itself. For such liberal pioneers as Giuseppe Mazzini and Jawaharlal Nehru, nationalism and internationalism were two faces of the same thing—and they could not be separated without great moral loss. The creation of a “national people” from the mutually incomprehensible castes and tribes inhabiting so many nineteenth- and twentieth-century states, moreover, was more far-fetched than the creation of a “planetary people” today. Contemporary cybernetics, after all, allows us to visualize the planetary totality as never before; many people already spend far more time interacting with de-territorialized networks than with national communities.

Increasingly, moreover, the only justifiable perspective is that of this planetary people. The previous era taught us to respect the legitimacy of national democratic majorities; since 1945, however, governments fielded by such majorities have presented by far the greatest danger to world peace. National majorities often vote, also, to dispossess minorities—who have no recourse since the only guarantor of their human rights is the oppressing government itself. No absolute legitimacy, in short, can emerge from national processes. Only the planetary people can produce this legitimacy.

Another significant departure from Enlightenment thought, and indeed from the wider Judeo-Christian tradition: the “planetary people” must also incorporate the perspective of non-human actors. The history of modern state formation is the history, also, of the progressive silencing of non-human voices. We now possess cybernetic resources that can restore those voices to our political conversation, but first we need a theological account of the interconnections between human beings and the other residents of the earth.

Two final notes. First, to shift the sacred from two hundred-odd nation-states to the planet itself does not imply any assault on states. This is not another Puritan project bent on the destruction of everything that is; the goal, instead, is radical preservation. Part of the purpose of unburdening nations of their theological role, in fact, is to allow them the better to flourish. As low-intensity units—like provinces or regions today—they can adapt, fuse, or disassemble without cosmological collapse. In a planetary context, rather than the national, cities and regions can also act more autonomously.

Secondly, theology is dead until it enters culture. The theological innovations of the eighteenth century became generally intuitive because they inspired a cultural explosion. Artists, musicians, and writers dramatized the new arrangement of citizens, states, and God with innumerable paintings, sculptures, novels, and anthems. These works were felt to be a part of an immense moral resurgence, which is why they were consumed with such euphoria. The next theological renewal will also require a parallel renewal of culture."

(https://www.combinationsmag.com/towards-a-planetary-theology/)