LAUSR

The global political order of modernity consists of states that recognize each other as sovereign. Sovereignty determines the range of legitimacy and economic distribution. Indeed, the global sovereign club defines the relevant players, who is seen and heard, who is ignored and muted. It is the contemporary organizing concept of the political and its primary institutional expression, the state. A critique of sovereignty that aims to make the wretchedness attendant upon human political life visible and hopes to contribute to an alleviation of suffering, must therefore begin by comprehending its power and allure. An analysis of the sovereign order may provide a preliminary sketch of its fissures and of the prospects of change. Against this background, the specific critique I will undertake is from a Jewish theological perspective, promoting what I take to be a prophetic political posture. A theological perspective is neither morally nor epistemically privileged. A theological commitment as I understand it, is not a necessary nor a sufficient condition for morality. Put otherwise, morality in general, and political morality specifically, need not be theologically grounded. A specific theological commitment may well coincide with other metaphysical, moral or political perspectives. A theological ethics seeks to best explicate the specific imperatives and commitments attendant upon a faith posture, of people who understand themselves to be standing in the presence of God. In this spirit, the prophetic positioning is not understood as an oracular one claiming a revelatory privilege but rather an articulation of the ethical consequences of the immediacy of presence in one’s religious self-understanding. This includes a commitment to a political morality. The political arena is fundamental to most forms of human culture today and it is of determining power, whatever the posture of being in the world a person assumes. The political is constitutive of the circumstances of justice and reasoning about them and critiquing them is a shared enterprise of citizens and subjects whatever their faith or creed. In the tradition of biblical prophecy, a theological critique of sovereignty seeks also to uphold a mirror to princes so as to expose the idolatrous reification of power in the current epoch. The posture assumed here is embedded in a Rabbinic tradition committed to a robust form of communitarian personal and social responsibility. This is framed as a complementary to Martin Buber’s theopolitics that specifically amplifies the biblical prophetic moment. Buber’s dialogical reading of the Hebrew Bible served to form a notion of