Re: [Marxism] Theocracy

[Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I would not, however, make such a sharp distinction between
> functionalist sociology and anthropology.

I wasn't trying to generalize about the fields, but only how they tend
to handle religion. But even there, I suspect the two fields are
perhaps just looking at the same thing from different points of view.

> The idea of religion as an aspiration that cannot be fulfilled is an
> interesting idea. I would amend that somewhat. I would put a "yet"
> in there, and suggest that perhaps religion can be an incubator for
> social change. You know, a utopian construct. Certainly liberation
> theology could be read in such a light.

I doubt the idea was my own invention. If I understand your point
about the "yet", I'd agree. Whether religion can be an incubator for
social change strikes me as a different and rather more complicated
issue.

There's a long tradition of an ideal alternative to the status quo as
offering a legitimation for change. Besides the obvious case of the
bourgeois revolution (Utopianism based on a notion of human nature),
we find it in the famous medieval European slogan, "When Adam delved
and Eve spanned, where was then the gentleman"? Today, when we see an
injustice and seek to rectify it, we make an implicit appeal to social
norms or values that offer a legitimation of our effort.

Given such examples, I suspect the term "incubator" has to be limited
to a legitimation for change and not imply any force for change that
lies beyond consciousness. You can imagine an alternative, but getting
there is something else, and it is the latter that seems of primary
importance.

Religion has little to offer beyond a moral critique of the
status quo. I'm not so jaundiced as to deny that such a critique
cannot upon occasion lead to positive action, such as in your example,
but I wouldn't attribute to religion much more than a critique of the
existing order and perhaps some values that might give direction to
change. The belief that if more people were good Christians, it would
be a better world, rings hollow, for they are not good Christians for
real reasons. The point I tried to make about "opiate of the people"
was that religion does not significantly engage objective social
forces and it therefore does better at offering a critique than
facilitate a needed change.

> I gravitated to a Buddhist approach to reconcile my need for
> something which actually worked on the psychological level, along
> with my lack of faith in the supernatural.

I'm not sure Christianity and Islam necessarily fail in that regard
(Sufi mysticism, for example), but that's another question.

I once encountered a form of Buddhism that was being taught in Indian
universities in the 11th century that was close to dialectical
materialism, but I've never had to time to pursue it. And, of course,
there's the Last Words of Buddha from the Maha-parinibbana sutta,
which, depending on the Sanskrit-Chinese translation, are very
suggestive. "Decay is inherent in all compound things! Work out your
salvation with diligence!" I see this as implying a Thermodynamic
Engine. But when all is said and done, the fact that there are
interesting elements in religion (in the Benedictine Rule [or at least
in early Benedictine literature], words to the effect that everyone is
a worker, whose virtues are his tools and salvation his wages). But
while this might make some elements of the past congenial, it doesn't
help us much to change things now.

The examples I gave suggest that change requires struggle, but the
only implied source of power for that struggle is personal commitment
(which in the past was understood to trickle down from the
Godhead, a supernatural power). In Marxist terms, on the other hand,
power arises from working-class solidarity, a real potential for
change that was not available in pre-capitalist eras and does not
reduce to a collection of willful individuals. 

Haines Brown



________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism