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stevendedalus's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting, if fluid, meditation on the history of Western thought on evil, Kotsko's genealogical approach allows for a great discourse-heavy examinatiom heavy om history and framing that somehow avoids being too bogged down in theory and academic citation.
Most of the book is a solid history and then Kotsko becomes notably excited drawing parallels to modern society, particularly Christian-centred neoliberalism and its focus on choice (as theory on Satan emphasized choice in the assignation fof sin).
The narrative begins to run away and branch out beyond Kotsko's pages. It's no surprise that his next book more fully explores the idea he begins to develop here.
Two books in one, the first much more thorough, it's still an eminently readable format that communicates clearly the evolution of Judeo-Christian thinking before running off into modern fields a bit recklessly. It still manages to establish a very solid base to jump off from.
Most of the book is a solid history and then Kotsko becomes notably excited drawing parallels to modern society, particularly Christian-centred neoliberalism and its focus on choice (as theory on Satan emphasized choice in the assignation fof sin).
The narrative begins to run away and branch out beyond Kotsko's pages. It's no surprise that his next book more fully explores the idea he begins to develop here.
Two books in one, the first much more thorough, it's still an eminently readable format that communicates clearly the evolution of Judeo-Christian thinking before running off into modern fields a bit recklessly. It still manages to establish a very solid base to jump off from.
piccoline's review against another edition
5.0
Kotsko takes up Agamben's claim that the current secular (Western) order has taken up into itself many Christian theological structures and secularized them in its self-constitution. That this has happened without acknowledgment does not prevent those structures from operating upon us, and (Kotsko and Agamben both argue) in dangerous ways. (It should be noted that K and A both draw heavily from Carl Schmitt (rather an interesting old Nazi), too, and his similar ideas.)
Kotsko does a convincing deep genealogical dive into the Devil, his gradual emergence through different biblical texts and epochs, and his eventual prime place in medieval theology. The genealogical argument is involved and presented with clarity (you should really read this thing) but part of the upshot is that if the kind of God you've heard about lately seems a little prideful, a little too devoted to demanding fealty or else you will be eternally punished... well, that happened gradually and as a result of certain moves in theology as various prophetic and then apocalyptic views washed over the Jewish and then Christian communities. What's more, Kotsko rather convincingly argues that after the Devil was slowly introduced and turned into a figure who fell but who could not repent but who also could be punished (and punish those who followed him) justly for all eternity, that something had been lost at the same time in such a conception of God.
I'm not doing it justice. I should have written this earlier in the day. (Perhaps I'll try again tomorrow.)
All of this has quite the sting in the tail once you realize (and Kotsko explains) just how explanatory it is about our currently (deeply depraved) system, and the ways it works so hard to lock in certain groups of people not only in a certain kind of hell but also locks in a logic that presents them as both deserving of that hellish punishment despite the fact that they really could not have done much differently. If you've found yourself wondering why the white Christian church in the US is quite so comfortable with the now obvious spate of police murders of unarmed black men and boys, well, it's because of the congruence between the demons who cannot repent and yet are tormented for all eternity and the demonized Other upon which the US structure is founded. (Kotsko kicks off his book with quotes from actual testimony by one such killer cop who literally calls his victim "it" and "a demon". You can't make this stuff up.)
Kotsko does leave much of the task of how we then shall adjust and create anew some less corrupted way of being in the world, but this diagnosis of his is convincing and a useful starting point to the conversations we must have.
Kotsko does a convincing deep genealogical dive into the Devil, his gradual emergence through different biblical texts and epochs, and his eventual prime place in medieval theology. The genealogical argument is involved and presented with clarity (you should really read this thing) but part of the upshot is that if the kind of God you've heard about lately seems a little prideful, a little too devoted to demanding fealty or else you will be eternally punished... well, that happened gradually and as a result of certain moves in theology as various prophetic and then apocalyptic views washed over the Jewish and then Christian communities. What's more, Kotsko rather convincingly argues that after the Devil was slowly introduced and turned into a figure who fell but who could not repent but who also could be punished (and punish those who followed him) justly for all eternity, that something had been lost at the same time in such a conception of God.
I'm not doing it justice. I should have written this earlier in the day. (Perhaps I'll try again tomorrow.)
All of this has quite the sting in the tail once you realize (and Kotsko explains) just how explanatory it is about our currently (deeply depraved) system, and the ways it works so hard to lock in certain groups of people not only in a certain kind of hell but also locks in a logic that presents them as both deserving of that hellish punishment despite the fact that they really could not have done much differently. If you've found yourself wondering why the white Christian church in the US is quite so comfortable with the now obvious spate of police murders of unarmed black men and boys, well, it's because of the congruence between the demons who cannot repent and yet are tormented for all eternity and the demonized Other upon which the US structure is founded. (Kotsko kicks off his book with quotes from actual testimony by one such killer cop who literally calls his victim "it" and "a demon". You can't make this stuff up.)
Kotsko does leave much of the task of how we then shall adjust and create anew some less corrupted way of being in the world, but this diagnosis of his is convincing and a useful starting point to the conversations we must have.
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