PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUES
XXVII
ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE XXVII
By
Franz J. T. Lee
21st January, 2000
Again: Marx, Religion,
Ideology, Mind Control.
(Scene: Philosophy Seminar)
(The class has just begun. The discussion on religion and ideology continues.)
Coseino: In front of me, I have the international edition of NEWSWEEK (January 3, 2000); let us see, statistically in percentages, how many of the world population are now already religiously mind-controlled, and how many will be there in the year 2025. Also, let's note how many are mind-controlled by other methods, and how many are still left to be controlled or who are immune to Mind Control (of course, including the mind controllers themselves). The figures in brackets are the estimates for 2025.
Well, here you have the estimated distribution of religious denominations:
Buddhists
5.9% ( 5.7)
Atheists:
3.7% ( 2.8)
Hindus
13.4% (13,1)
Non-Religious 16.1%
(15.0)
Muslims
18.5% (20.2)
Christians
33.4% (35.5)
Other Religions 9.0%
( 7.7)
2000: Total: (Controlled) 80.2%
Total: (Still Indecisive).
19.8% .
2025:
82.2%
17.8%.
If these figures should be somewhere near to reality, then obviously our topic on religion, ideology and mind control is of utmost importance. Furthermore, these days, there is not much to control mentally anymore.
In our last session we terminated by analysing the relation of Marxism to Ideology. We mentioned that the "young" Marx had a "negative" conception of "ideology"; nevertheless, it was strangely ambiguous. Also we indicated that Soviet Marxism or Neo-Marxism has even declared its own philosophy as "Ideology", to such an extent that socialist or communist party ideologists themselves founded "Ideological Institutes".
Adam: In one ideological aspect, Marx and Engels were not "ambiguous"; they were very clear about "religious ideology".
Rosemary: (smiling sweetly at Adam) Last week Adam and I fetched some Marxist literature on the topic "Religion" from the university library, and we studied the views of the fathers of socialism. We were surprised how consequent they were with reference to religious critique.
Max: Could you tell us about your discoveries, please?
Adam: (paging through some books) In fact, we have the works here, and we marked some interesting text passages.
Coseino: It would be a brilliant idea, if you could read some to us, so that we can see the Marxian socialist endeavours towards intellectual enlightenment, and also Marx's permanent battle against bourgeois ideological Mind Control.
Rosemary: Fine! Here is the first anti-religious sweetie! Let's take a quick glance at Karl Marx's religious critique of a leading article published in the Kölnische Zeitung, No. 179. As you all know this daily newspaper published in Cologne since 1802 supported the Catholic Church against Protestantism, then prevalent in Prussia. Its political editor was Karl Heinrich Hermes, a secret Illuminati agent of the Prussian Government. This religious mouth-piece severely attacked the Rheinische Zeitung, edited by Karl Marx.
Among other things, in his reply, Marx wrote:
"And as for Rome?
Read Cicero! The Epicurean, Stoic or
Sceptic philosophies were the religions of cultured
Romans
when Rome had reached the zenith of its development.
..."
Jeffrey: Does it mean, that with the decline of the Roman Empire, also its religious superstructure became obsolete? In other words, also the Roman State and Nationality?
Rosemary: I'll give Marx the honour to reply:
"That with the downfall
of the ancient states their religions
also disappeared requires no further explanation,
for the
'true religion' of the ancients was the cult of 'their
nationality'
of their 'State' ".
Max: Then, what caused the "downfall", the Religion or the State?
Rosemary: Of course, as Marx stated:
"It was not the
downfall of the old religions that caused the downfall
of the ancient States, but the downfall of the ancient
States that caused
the downfall of the old religions."
Adam: What really interested me, in the article, was Marx's explanation of the relation between "classical" philosophy, idealist doctrines, and religion.
Albert: In any case, idealism concerns the Platonic "idea" and its corresponding "logos", God, hence the idea of the logos, Ideology!. That Neo-Marxists claim that they have an ideology, well, then, they did not yet give up the "Holy Ghost"!
Coseino: Agreed!
Adam: With regard to this, let me quote Marx:
"True to its nature,
philosophy has never taken the first step towards
exchanging the ascetic frock of the priest for the
light, conventional garb
of the newspapers. However, philosophers do not spring
up like
mushrooms out of the ground; they are products of
their time, of their
nation, whose most subtle, valuable and invisible
juices flow in the ideas
of philosophy. The same spirit that constructs railways
with the hands
of workers, constructs philosophical systems in the
brains of philosophers.
Philosophy does not exist outside the world, any
more than the brain exists
outside man because it is not situated in the stomach."
Mahatma: Mother Nature, natura naturans, the creatress, surely did some thinking before she created her Child, Homo Sapiens, her natura naturata, her creation. She put his brains, very carefully guarded in the cranium, where it belongs; that the idiot developed Labour and Capital, that he became a consumer, placing his brains in his stomach, and that he is even consuming his very brains, for that she should not to be blamed.
Alfred: Oh, my Ghost! Imagine if my brains really were situated in my stomach, then, exactly where would my wonderful intelligence land within a few hours?! This Marx was a brilliant thinker, he applied succinct literary expression! Now, I know why so many people vomit skunky nonsense from their very mouths! Also, why they have such a bad breath.
Elvis: Agreed. And yet this is exactly what is happening progressively with the brains of billions! And, for decades, I myself, with my songs, have contributed to this religious diarrhoea. No wonder that the common folk and the youth selected me as their "man of the century", and my "songs" as the ideological "event of the second millennium"! Very badly, I really got stung by the Illuminati, and in "Heartache Hotel", one morning, I sprung up, out of bed, looking like a radio-active "mushroom".
Indira: Marx confirmed how idealism and religion interpenetrated your "love" songs. Let Rosemary continue with the quotation!
Rosemary: Here I have a lovely "goodie"!
"One can consult
any history book and find repeated with stereotyped
fidelity the simplest rituals which unmistakably
mark the penetration
of philosophy into salons, priests' studies, editorial
offices of newspapers
and court antechambers, into the love and hate of
contemporaries."
Karl: All very fine, but, according to Marx, what is the real objective of History? Of Emancipation? What will the emancipated man accomplish?
Coseino: In his famous "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law", Marx himself answers your question:
" Man makes religion, religion does not make man. ...
This State, this society, produce religion, an
inverted world-consciousness,
because they are an inverted world. Religion is the
general theory of that world,
its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in a popular
form, ...
To abolish religion as the illusory happiness
of the people is to demand their
real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about
the existing state of
affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs
which needs illusions.
The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo
the criticism of the vale of
tears, the halo of which is religion.
...
The task of history, therefore, once the
world beyond the truth has disappeared,
is to establish the truth of this world. The
immediate task of philosophy, which is
at the service of history, once the holy form of
human estrangement has been
unmasked, is to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy
forms."
Exactly this, we, the Pandemonium Crew, are trying to do, to unmask "estrangement", in its capitalist, post-industrialised, global form, as alienation, as Labour per se !
Indira: Let's get to more recent mind bamboozling. What about the Ideology of the "Battle for King and Country" in the First World War?
Karl: By 1916, the Allies had considered the War as a just cause, "to make the world safe for democracy"; on the other hand, the Germans visualized it as a struggle of "German Culture" against "Barbarism." On both sides, the casualties were higher than anyone had imagined, hence, via ideology, an urgent need to justify and to sustain the will to war had to be propagated.
After World War I, the rise of Soviet "communism", an essential product
of the very capitalist system itself, clearly marked a corresponding
increase in the role of ideology in
international relations. The Great Depression and rise of Fascism helped
to speed up
the ideological process. The Spanish Civil War of the 1930's was an almost
direct clash between different ideologies within the very same capitalist
system, of left and right (not quite so clear-cut in the case between socialism
and anarchism).
Martina: Did ideology in international relations change during the Second World War?
Mahatma: As the war itself, its ideology
was chaotic and absurd. However, after many political conflicts, eventually,
the revival of Wilson's idealistic war aims in the Atlantic
Charter provided a basis for a kind of general ideological consensus of
the Allies. The Happy End of the ideological fairy tale was, simply
expressed:
Pro-Communism vs. Anti-Communism.
Coseino: During the "Cold War", this fierce ideological battle continued, and mind control flourished. The connection between "world wars" and world economy, and ideology can at best be expressed in terms of social discrimination, of racism: the superstructural umbrella for global economic exploitation and political domination. Across the capitalist system, the difference is rather of degree than of kind, whether you call it McCarthyism, Nazism or Apartheid. In this period, the same ideology, the same "communism" was confronting itself, reflecting the deepening contradictions in capitalism itself. Quite evident is the analogy with past religious wars. In fact, mixed with political diplomacy, with "Carrot and Stick", it is just the modern version of "Holy Wars", of "Crusades". Today this ideological "Russian Roulette" continues!
For today, we have to terminate our class.
(Adam whispers in Elvis' ear, please sing for me "Love me Tender". Our other favourite philosopher, Don Albert, called it the "straight" road to Rosemary's heart. In straightforward, upward gait, Coseino leaves his sprouting class. He wonders if any Marxian "mushroom" would also "sprout" here.)