Irony, Affirmation, and the Appeal of Inarticulacy

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter considers possible ways of manifesting devotion without risking fanaticism. Previous chapters have shown that devotion plays an important role in ethical life; that devotion involves accepting sacred values, which are inviolable, incontestable, and dialectically invulnerable; that close examination reveals the pervasiveness of sacred values; and that sacred values stave off normative dissipation. More worryingly, these chapters have shown that the person who holds sacred values risks meeting the Enlightenment conditions for fanaticism; that when this person displays certain additional features, he does indeed become fanatical; and that fanatical groups encourage individuals to display these additional features, fueling both individual and group fanaticism. So we now need to ask: is there a way of holding sacred values in a non-pathological way? This chapter suggests that there are ways of rendering values dialectically invulnerable—thereby enabling devotion—without lapsing into fanaticism. Non-fanatical ways of expressing devotion differ from fanaticism in that they enable the agent to recognize a form of contingency, optionality, or revisability in her basic commitments. The chapter investigates whether we can be devoted through irony, through affirmation, or through what is termed the deepening move. Each stance enables a wholehearted form of devotion that nevertheless preserves flexibility and openness, avoiding the dangers of fanaticism on the one hand and normative dissipation on the other.