Secular religion

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>You are not "thinking for yourself" here, as what you wrote above 
>>simply reproduces an old charge that "Marxism is a secular 
>>religion." In fact, the charge that "X is a secular religion with 
>>its own dogma" must be at least as old as conservative reactions 
>>against modern revolutions in the age of the Enlightenment
>
>At the risk of starting this tedious discussion up again, I can't 
>refrai from commenting that MArxism _was_ a secular religion, and 
>many of its remaining adherents still so treat it. The past tense is 
>appropriate: as I have said, Marxism as a movement is dead. The 
>theory is what is left, much of it is true, but it should be treated 
>like any other theory, as a method of analysis, not as an object of 
>faith or a source of meaning in life. The religious Marxists say 
>they do this, and nothing will persuade them otherwise, but in fact 
>they don't. Here on this list people have argued that Marx 
>discovered all the social truths that are discoverable under 
>capitalism! Btw, losing the religious and mythic elements of Marxism 
>has not been a  wholly positive thing. But for better or worse they 
>are gone except for the fundamentalists.
>
>jks

Marxism as a political theory must have been an object of faith for 
some -- especially for intellectuals who later became neo-cons (the 
"God That Failed" syndrome).  For others, it just came with a 
left-wing political milieu in which they happened to find themselves; 
and it was the milieu, not the theory in itself (with which probably 
only a tiny minority of them grappled extensively), that gave meaning 
to their lives.
-- 
Yoshie

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