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after thought: this term 'representation' is covering for a lot. let's try another term. theoretically, i do not think we can say any longer that the state is sacred. sociologically, almost anything is possible, for a while at least. doesn't mean we renounce all sense of reverence w/in finitude.

i can only tell that i have no problem with a loyalty that rests on a mere modus vivendi because i want to avoid "political theology" in the sense of insisting on political representation of ultimate concerns in the manner of Eusebius or Rawls. better stop here, but i would go next to Qs re limits.

what else could it be? that is not void of concrete content. but it is no rational consensus around a science of justice either. or around the boundaries of somewhat fanciful projections like 'church' and 'state' -- but yes, WI v Yoder is ok. where does Kotsko's frame fit in here? i can't tell. +

but i don't need all my fellow citizens to agree with me about philosophical anthropology, or even to know anything at all about it. or even an obscure thing like first amendment law. i guess i think it is always already a mere modus vivendi w homonoia limited to a functionally equivalent loyalty. +

and if pressed, i would have to subsume those in some goofy mystical philosophical anthropology w/ hocus-pocus sounding stuff like "open soul" and "Augustinian secluarity". i am not sure if this means "seularity" is an ultimate concern of mine or not. or what this has to do w Kotsko's frame. +

some of those harmonies involve "secularity". i am loyal to the trajectory of jurisprudence around the 1st amendment. at least for the most part. like, WI v Yoder (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiscons...). i would have to express this loyalty in symbolic terms like 'liberty' & 'justice'. +

in this hermeneutics of loyalty to my regime, all sorts of ultimate concerns get tangled up in a confusing mess of harmonies and dissonances. but there is a practical projection, for me, onto something less than the alienation of, say, late DuBois. +

i resist endowing my inherited regime with an ultimacy of concern. but i suppose i would say justice is an ultimate concern in a symbolic way. and i am interested in practical issues of the regime's (in)justice in this or that respect or endeavor. that is part of the process of my loyalty to it. +

alright, we'll just try to hammer it out, so we can maybe see each other more clearly. what do you say? i aim for tiny steps and little control over the flow: a tentative joint exploration for helpful but hidden distinctions in our seemingly shared language. +

well, i read the Kotsko. not sure i followed it, but it definitely refused to go down. maybe there will not be any quick fusion of horizons for us. i will have to think more about it before responding in any detail.

we have no freedom of religious public nudism. Roger Williams can stay at rest having defeated the Quakers. shs.cairn.info/journal-clio... partly bc not "offending" "public morals" is a "legitimate" interest. is this religious or non-religious in Kotsko's frame? or just not addressed by the frame?

“Naked as a sign”. How the Quakers invented nudity as a protestshs.cairn.info

descriptively, there is a functionally legitimate (ie socially effective) pluralism, reasonable or not (we do not need Rawls' Kantian justification). and there is a process of contestation over this pluralism. +

hmm. i think i read this Kotsko. i will give it another try. but, it is not clear to me if we have a practical difference re the relative utility of terminological choices, or a more substantive disagreement. maybe this can help: for me liberal neutrality is mirage, like absolute free speech. +

as my theorist friend puts it, liberalism relies on spiritual resources it can only house, not directly foster. well, so does every kind of regime. nothing lasts forever. but natality still happens. another good place to plug Ricoeur's True and False Anguish.

cross-ref on V on Nietzsche's radicalism wrt the unavoidable horrors of the gap btwn power and spirit, even after we have fallen into a not yet "illiberal democracy" that can bomb Schmitt's Führerprinzip into a smoking ruin. bsky.app/profile/svat...

to me, this reading of Hobbes get straight to one of the main lessons Hobbes wants to deliver. cross-ref to a thread on Schmitt on Hobbes, which goes on to pt out that Schmitt's oh-so-virile total state lasted just a brief few years in practice. bsky.app/profile/svat...

sorry. i see i am a broken record. please do ignore at will. bsky.app/profile/svat...

If the souls cannot participate in the Logos, then the sovereign who strikes terror into the souls will be "the essence of the commonwealth." The "King of the Proud" must break the amor sui that cannot be relieved by the amor Dei. ]

If pride cannot bow to Dike, or be redeemed through grace, it must be broken by the Leviathan who "is king of all the children of pride."

but, maybe i am misunderstanding what you are getting at. let's see if we can reach a shared vocabulary?