Hmm, maybe you better think this through again Doug. If you want a left pedigree, Gramsci based his idea of a hegemonic party that provides for the range of psychological and social needs of its members on the Catholic Church. I think churches, synagogue, etc. work because they _are_ the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions. A mere interest group is not going to be effective that way. You don't necessarily have to swallow a gallon of supernatural Kool-Aid to think about building institutions that can do for ordinary people what churches do for them.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 24, 2007, at 5:44 PM, Lenin's Tomb wrote:
>
> > I don't think this is Yoshie's point, but there is
> another way to go
> > about it, which is to terminate this ressentiment
> toward religion, and
> > try to engage with the religious rather than
> writing them off.
>
> Anyone involved in left politics in the U.S. has not
> choice but to do
> that - it's not even a question. I don't think
> non-Americans fully
> appreciated how religion-saturated this society is.
> It made the news
> here when one - one! - member of Congress, Pete
> Stark, announced the
> other day that he's an atheist. Fewer Americans tell
> pollsters they'd
> vote for an atheist for president than a queer.
> Politicians are
> always going on about god. There's no escaping it -
> it's in the air
> and the water, though there are signs that its grip
> is easing some.
>
> But what I don't get are these exhortations to
> imitate religion, or
> follow its example, or be intimidated by its
> pervasiveness, or
> whatever, it's not really clear. I don't see how
> religion is any kind
> of transferrable model - it operates in a different
> realm from
> politics. Eternal salvation vs. a higher minimum
> wage? Not much of a
> contest. Of course, the relgious can, and do,
> campaign for a higher
> minimum wage and no secular person doing so would
> ever scorn the
> alliance. But I don't get what left politics has to
> learn from
> religion, doctrinally or organizationally.
>
> Doug
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