My previous post has me thinking a bit about Gore’s latest book, and how , thus far, about 1/3 of the way through, he trumpets the “Attack on Reason” as if “reason” had some “pure” location or is somehow exempt from subjectivity. The book is interesting in its discussion of how the media and propaganda masquerade as “common sense” or enable groups to associate their desires with a “matching” schema for reason (“matching schema” is my term, not one that Gore suggested, but this is what I get from the reading as I reflect on the “power of reason”.
I bought the book back in late May, but have not been particularly drawn to its arguments, because of this inherent assumption that “reason” has some commonly agreed upon attributes and theology¹ (the ¹ representing the underlying “theology” of ideologies that claim to be secular or non-religious.)
Gore’s approach, along with Dan’s post which I linked to in the post below, provide us with an interesting juxtaposition. This might give me some extra motivation to continue on with Gore’s analysis. Frankly, I bought it with more of an interest in Gore’s take on the Bush administration than for his theology¹.
(Additional thought: One of the commenter’s in Dan’s post mentions Peter Rollins How NOT To Speak of God as a relevant discussion to this topic. I see that they have it at Border’s , so I ‘ll probably be visiting across town today to pick that one up and get back into some theological book reading. )
