Re: [Marxism] Theocracy

[Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Your ignoring the fact mentioned in my post that once the idea of
> the social gospel became institutionalized, it became a material
> force.

No, I don't think I ignored the point.

What I tried to suggest is that the idea (social Gospel) did not
create the institution, but people created it through an expenditure
of effort, and the original idea for it only constrained their effort,
giving it particular institutional form.

Once the institution is in place, it constrains behavior, I suppose
you would agree, but is it a "force"? Using the word loosely, if it is
a force, it has the capacity to produce change. It requires power, and
an institution in itself has no power. Simple physics: you can't
produce change without free energy, and an institution has none. It
can only constrain the dissipation of free energy, influence outcomes
without being their cause. In common parlance, we say that an
institution causes something to happen, but actually it is people who
do so who are constrained by institutions. The view I offer here is so
contrary to common usage that I'm sure folks will object to it, but I
can't at this point imagine on what solid ground.

> I'm not suggesting a simplistic and reductionistic causal chain, nor

Perhaps not, but there's a danger that an argument that A caused event
B might overlook the fact that the effect of A on B depends on the
broader system which it takes place. I'm not suggesting that you were
indifferent to that consideration, but only that to posit an idea
(religion) as a material force depends on circumstances and it is
these circumstances (people's actions, for example) that actually
cause the outcome. Religion _describes_ a pattern of behavior, but its
_explanation_ requires laying bare the underlying causal mechanism.

> But then again, the whole social movement spawned by the social
> gospel would not have existed without the ill effects of capitalism
> to begin with. So there's your dialectic, implicit in the idea. In
> other words the idea was generated as a result of reflection on a
> material reality, and the idea to institutionalize the idea in the
> specific time and place in which it occurred was based on a specific
> analysis of the then current conjuncture of social relations in the
> deep south.

Yes, that's my point. We cannot understand it without reference to
that material reality. I was not criticizing you personally, but only
the dangers of the shorthand you employed.

> Be careful of a reductionistic mechanical materialism from the other
> direction. Given the choice between a perceived subtle idealism and
> the notion of ideas as epiphenomenon of the real, I'll take the
> former any day of the week, and especially on a sunday.

Of course, and I tried to suggest that we do not have to be caught on
the horns of this dilemma. If ideas and material reality are aspects
of one process (activity), a reductionism that sees ideas as
epiphenomena on one hand or as a material force on the other are both
one sided.

Haines

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