>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 02/05/01 12:13PM >>>
Charles comments on the New York Times:
>Yet this advocate of scientific methods is also a devout Marxist who
>has published essays questioning whether today's pell-mell market
>reforms are steering China off the true path of Marx and socialism.
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>CB: A bit of confusion in this NYT reporter's thinking. There is no
>contradiction between advocating scientific methods and advocating
>Marxism. In fact, they sort of go together, especially in
>relationship to religion.
I thought so, too, & I still do. In practice, though, the relation among Marxism, science, & religion unfortunately has not been so simple. Lysenkoism & the Cultural Revolution show that science may very well become sacrificed at the alter of politics, in the name of Marxism, class struggles, etc. And in socialist nations, parties & states, more often than not, have accommodated churches, with a view toward pacifying citizens and/or garnering diplomatic points.
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CB: Yes, they are sort damned if they do and damned if they don't. For example, the Chinese CP is being attacked in the bourgeois press right now for NOT accomodating Falun Gong - the old "Godless Communists suppress religion" , bourgeois propaganda mode.
Half the time the Soviets are chastised as undemocratic and cruel for closing down so many churches, and half the time they are chastisted for pandering to religion in order to rally the people against the Nazis. Anti-Sovietism loves to have it both ways.
I'd say Lysenkoism is a pretty small mistake ( nobody's perfect) and an exception to the general rule in the context of the enormous body of valid natural science done by Soviet scientists in physics, chemistry, natural history/biology, geology, anthropology, mathematics, etc. Sputnik was no fluke. It is as if the only name remembered in discussing English paleontology were "Piltdown".
I'd say overall, the history of Communist countries is qualitatively less influenced by religion than is the history of bourgeois countries; and they have negotiated well the difficult contradiction of reducing the influence of religion without violating "freedom of conscience". The main idea is to rely on improving material conditions as the method of making religion unnecessary, not using "force" , as if that would work.
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Dissidents, too, have often turned to a religious view or institution of one kind or another. So, on the both side of the stunted dialectic (the State & Its Other), religion has exercised its negative influence.
Also, disturbingly, there appears to be a turn toward religion amongst self-identified Marxists & other leftists; recall religion threads on the marxmail list; Roy Bhaskar's turn to God; Negri, Zizek, & the like.
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CB: Yes, that is interesting. Frankly this sends me back to the idea that sometimes even philosophy is rigorous (:>). i.e. the fundamental difference between materialism and idealism ( religion) is not that complicated, and there is not a lot of room for creative philosophy on this issue. And so, if a philosopher/thinker takes up idealism, its logical conclusion is religion; and the people you mention above are sort of backing into that.
This approach is often dogged as dogmatic, but then up pops these people (whom in a different context we criticize as falling into idealism) deriving belief in God, which is some empirical evidence that there is not a lot of room for thirdways between materialism and idealism. It comes down to what side are you on at one level, like class struggle.