Christianity and S/M

[Guerino Calemine]

Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>It still seems to me that any characterization of the form, "Social
>Group A = 'Character structure' B" is at best a trivial put-down,
>obviating the necessity of serious historical or theoretical analysis of
>content. Clearly it is bizarre to think that a remark on character
>structure can have any significance appled to many hundreds of millions
>of people -- and if it turns out to be true, that only means it is to
>general to have any content.
>
>This or that psychological theory may or may not apply to the human
>"mind" (whatever that is), but it is clearly merely subjective game
>playing to think it has social or historical significant. This one in
>particular is so silly that it is impossible to say anything sensible
>either in defense or criticism of it.
>
>There are either as many character structures has there have been, are,
>and will be human individuals _or_ EVERY group has sufficient numbers of
>every conceivable character type to make the equation silly.
>
>Pish!
>Carrol
>
>
>Carrol

Maybe I misunderstood what was meant by "sadomasochistic character structure 
of Christianity."  I didn't understand it to mean that Christians (as 
individuals or as a social group) are sadomasochistic, but that, for all 
intents and purposes, Christianity as a religion/idea/philosophy is itself 
sadomasochistic.  Maybe I should have also asked what "character structure" 
is, too.  Regardless, saying that Philosophy A has the characteristics of a 
defined Pathology B is not a meaningless or useless statement and can 
be/should be debated.  I understand Carrol that you have an antipathy for 
any discourse that strays from a purely economic understanding of history, 
especially when it gets tripped up with Freudian/Lacanian/Zizekian 
psychoanalysis.  (What drives economics, though, but human desire in the 
first instance?  Why can't dialectics be applied to human desire?  And what 
is our goal here, as Lefties?  Assuming our goal has something to do with 
fostering human dignity, is human dignity something that can be achieved and 
understood wholly via changes in our economic system and only via economic 
analysis, respectively?  I'd like to see a purely Marxist explanation of why 
anyone should "bother."  Our struggle is enriched by noneconomic inquiries 
in the world, whether psychoanalytic or spiritual, etc.; they are not 
useless.)

Pshaw!
Jody

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