Secular religion

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>>Marxism was never mainly a political theory. It was a movement. 
>>>Most Marxists never grappled with the theory. Their Marxism was 
>>>the milieu. Now the movement is gone forever. All that is left is 
>>>the theory.
>>>
>>>jks
>>
>>It's certainly possible that it's gone forever, but I'm not 
>>deterministic.  ;-)
>>--
>>Yoshie
>
>Me neither. The religion of Zeus might come back too, but I'm not 
>holding my breath. Right now and for the foreseeable future, what 
>remains of the Marxist secular religion is a handful of alienated 
>middle-class sectarians--in the US, maybe a couple of thousand 
>people--and a slightly larger handful of persons like yourself who 
>can't stomach the sectarianism but can't give up the faith. I was 
>like that too. I just couldn't hold it any more. The likelihood that 
>the workers iwll ever rally 'round the old symbols again is 
>vanishingly small. Can you honestly see it? It's time to move on, 
>find a more effective way to organize.
>
>jks

I don't think it's necessary for workers to rally around old symbols. 
I do think, though, works of Marx, Engels, and other Marxist 
intellectuals will be "rediscovered" once a mass movement on the Left 
rises again.  The question is if a mass movement on the Left will 
ever rise again in the USA.  Naturally, I believe workers are capable 
of doing so -- hence my continuing political activism -- but they 
certainly don't look like they will do so in the near future; then 
again, things can change very quickly -- who in "the 50s" would have 
foreseen "the 60s"?
-- 
Yoshie

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