While listening to Badiou, I was filled with mild fear and horror that his position stemmed from a superficial reading of Paul. It really seemed like he was advocating an almost Sunday-school version: the Bible says we are all one, so we shouldn't worry about differences, (can't we all just get along, blah blah blah). This was further complicated by the radical disjunction he saw between Paul and tradition ("Paul is not a philosopher"). Interestingly, this was not unlike the position advocated by Marion at the Lumen Christi lecture (cf. Gaunilo's summary). Christianity, it is claimed, is something opposed to and irreconcilable with philosophy. Thus, with Paul, we have a pristine, radically different perspective that establishes with (frustrating) simplicity an alternative to today's dominant model. (This smacks a little too much of the "Christ against culture" model.)
At any rate, I have to believe that Badiou means something more complex and nuanced, if only for the reason that he's freakin schmaht and well-read and been studying this shizznit for a while! He can't be advocating what he seems to be advocating. We've got to read between the layers. I'm not sure what all this means just yet, but his link to Lacan at the end saved his presentation by sufficiently complexifying it.
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As to your aforementioned, that was probably the slyest little guilt trip I've received in a long time! Ok, ok, I know I'm taking forever to post on Badiou, but you don't have to wait for the millennium (viz., forever) for it! I'll get it up this week, I promise promise promise.
Badiou's polemic (and in his Ethics it's definitely a polemic!) against the ethic of the Other is definitely one of the most disquieting aspects of his thought. Given his strident atheism, he can't be too facile in the manner in which he embraces the Pauline model (haven't read his book on Paul, though). Having only read one work by him, my post is going to be nothing much more than thinking out loud, like yours here, but we'll see if we can get him figured out a little more!
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