Replying to Jim was Re: For Carrol and lou on religion

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>
>Gary,
>
>Can not the same objection be made to Marxists in general?
>Do not Marxists hold that they have a more scientific, more
>penetrating understanding of social reality than do non-Marxists?
>Hence, that as consequence, possess a more advanced
>level of consciousness than non-Marxists?  Do not Marxists
>draw a distinction between science and ideology, and do they
>not contend that Marxism is a part of science whereas
>most forms of bourgeois thought is contaminated with
>ideological distortions?
>
> >Do you seriously think that religious
> > people
> > would not detect that attitude?
>
>If what you say is correct, then wouldn't the
>same problem arise whenever Marxists collaborate
>with non-Marxists in political alliances?
>
>Jim F.
>



>Of course it does Jim, and that is one of the reasons why Marxism is so
>easily isolated. Far too many Marxstis suffer from episteomological
>arrogance.  They assume somehow that Marxism is the last word on things
>rather than bieng one more research program, which despite or maybe
>because of its explanatory power needs continually to be challenged and
>renewed.


None of us have all the answers.  The neo-Leninist fantasy of the
revolutionary party that will constitute the brain of the workers' movement
is not simply out of date.  It is actually harmful in terms of obstructing
the building of the kind of movement we need.  Moreover Zinoviev type
attitudes to political organisation attracts the kind of people who revel
and wallow in their very marginalisation.

I may have mentioned this before but back in 1981 I organised for the ISO
at the University of Qld one of the biggest radical meetings of its
time.  It was on Christ and Marx.  The meeting was a disaster because we
the "vanguard" spent the whole meeting taunting the Christians with Marx
and Tawney.

What we should have done was to take the exact same line that Castro took
in the post that Lou sent recently.  We should have challenged the
Christians to live up to the tenets of basic Christianity - the Church of
the Gospels as Kierkegaard called it.

We in ISO failed then out of arrogance and sectarianism, and if I may say
so, comrades, elements of that same attitude have surfaced on this list
around this thread.

regards

Gary