Freud and Badiou on the Monotheistic Event

The foundational traumatic event of the institution of monotheism has received its strongest depiction in Freud’s Moses the Men and the Monotheistic Religion.The book has traditionally been seen as the most speculative of Freud’s works. Freud wrote it under the threat of rising Nazi power while suffering from cancer and knowing full well that it would be his last book. The talk will argue that very structure of the piece, its deconstruction of the Egyptian-Jewish divide, the way in which it depicts a disavowed Event (the institution of monotheism in Egypt coupled with the killing of Moses) and the subsequent sense of fidelity to this traumatic event will be argued as a key but repressed paradigm of Badiou’s concept of the Event. I will argue that rather than Paul (Badiou’s original choice) it is Moses who is arguably the more fitting Badiouian militant figure of emancipatory politics. Christ resurrected also does not correspond to any of the truth conditions which Badiou recognizes (art, science, love, politics) as the basis of any truth event. “Exodus” whether a fable or loosely based on historical truth is at its core a political, emancipatory event which fits Badiou’s political truth conditions much better than “Christ resurrected”. Liberation struggles, even if they consider themselves wholly secular, have a theological core, an irrational belief in the worth of the individual, and a similarly unfounded belief and hope in the future. Both the worth of the individual and future hope are ultimately grounded in neither experience nor reason. Experience reveals ever-changing forms of subordination, while reason often justifies authority and sovereignty. Both the intrinsic worth of the individual, and hope in a better future are unseen, non-empirical attributes or dispositions which sought to find an otherworldly grounding in the unseen and disembodied will of God.