As studied in religious studies, “spiritual but not religious” is, more often than not, studied as religious. Scholars seek the contents of collective consciousness, the communities that affirm the contents of consciousness collectively, the practices that reflect the conscious content of the community, and the codes that condition the collectiveness of the collectivity. In other words, scholars study the religion that is not a religion as a religion by taking it as a form of society. In principle I follow this instinct. But when the form of society is paradoxical, then scholarship must reflect this paradox rather than resolve it. To say that spiritual but not religious means a focus on the self rather than the collectivity and interior feeling rather than statements of belief is true enough. But to say this and leave it at this and then to proceed with yet another this-is-this and that-is-that is to resolve paradox into juxtaposition, indeed, into contiguity.
There are many concrete results that can be gained by taking paradox seriously. Breton’s activity as an artist and communist and Luhmann’s corpus of social analysis are only two examples. Paradox is productive, an expression and negotiation of social forms. For those who would understand contemporary society, this means that paradox need not be treated as an analytical threat, a glitch in cognition that must be resolved in order to grasp truth. In fact, such paradox might call for paradox in response and in analysis: a matched and juxtaposed sociological surrealism. Above all one must resist the apprehension at engaging unresolved tensions in a way that leaves them unresolved. Faced with those who would regard such tensions as fatal for analysis, and who would iterate those tensions by way of criticism or dismissal of paradoxical expressions of social reality, one may recall Breton’s call to arms: “The deplorable inspectors who pursue us even after we leave school still make their rounds of our homes and our lives. They make sure that we always call a cat a cat and, since after all we accept this to a great extent, they refrain from sending us to the galleys or the poorhouse or the penitentiary. Nevertheless, let us get rid of these officials as soon as possible.”
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