SYMPOSIUMS 2

Geopolitics and Religion

Claire Brunet Boris Groys Collected papers from the symposium “Geopolitics and Religion: The Politics of Faith“, Jeu de Paume, 24 May 2008

The Politics of Faith

© Éditions du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2008. © The authors. Translation: Jean-François Allain. All rights reserved.

Jeu de Paume receives a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture and Communication. It gratefully acknowledges support from Neuflize Vie, its global partner. Les Amis and Jeunes Amis du Jeu de Paume contribute to its activities.

This publication has been made possible by the support of Les Amis du Jeu de Paume.

Contents

Boris Groys Boris Groys / Claire Brunet

From Religious Ritual to Mechanical Repetition – and Back Conversation

5 11

Video Programme

21

Boris Groys

From Religious Ritual to Mechanical Repetition – and Back

Religion is often understood as a certain set of opinions. There religion is associated with opinions about whether contraception should be permitted or women should wear headscarves. Correspondingly, religion is usually discussed in the context of a demand for a freedom of opinion guaranteed by law. As a set of opinions religion is tolerated as long as it remains tolerant and does not question the freedom of other opinions – that is to say, as long as it makes no exclusive, fundamentalist claim to its own truth. But I would suggest that religion – any religion – is primarily not a set of opinions but a set of rituals. And the religious ritual refers rather to a state of lack of opinion, state of opinionlessness – a-doxa – for it refers to the will of the gods or of God that is ultimately hidden to the opinions of mortals. The ritual as such is neither true, nor false. In this sense it marks the zero level of freedom of opinion, e.g. the freedom from every kind of opinion, from the obligation to have an opinion. The religious ritual can be repeated, or abandoned, or modified – but not legitimized,