Protection through the Invocation of Shared Thirds: Sacralization without Iconoclasm

This chapter engages in speculation on the notion of iconoclashes (Latour 2010) by drawing on the insights garnered from three sources for which iconoclasm has become a central challenge: Bruno Latour, relational psychoanalysis and my ongoing research with queers in Christian families. The central question I wish to entertain is whether and how it might be possible to protect relationships against iconoclasm non-iconoclastically. A corollary to this question is another: could such a defense be meaningfully referred to as (a form of) sacralization? As Giorgio Agamben has argued, profanation involves negligence. It is the character of this negligence that is under question in an attempt at a non-iconoclastic defense against iconoclasm. Is protection against the accusation of sacrilege possible to achieve through non-iconoclastic sacralization?