Rousseau's dogmas formed the ideational basis of
virtually all political revolutions since the
eighteenth century, and it is an easy transition from
Rousseau's civil religion to Marx's estimate (borrowed
from Heine) that religion is "the opium of the
masses."
Marx understood that Rousseau's idea of religion
served an utilitarian function in society. He
therefore substituted such an abstract civil theism
(seeing scripts and beliefs as a way for society to
reflect on itself, its meanings and its errors as we
are doin here now) in favor of what can be considered
concrete civil theism where the state is god and all
the activities to serve, understand and love God are
re-directed towars the State.
Marxist societies are certainly no less religious
than the Christians , then -the only diference is that
the Transcendental God is replaced by a humanistic
(often necessarely totalitarian) State.
But to understand our societies and the clash of
conclicfs we have with one another we should primarely
look at the clash in economic interest Nations and
population have, exacerbated by religious belief (the
abstract celebration of ine state, one group, one
family order )
erminia
--- Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'd say the convergence is nothing more than the
> deep genealogical
> relationship between these two religious texts -
> interesting also to
> compare them with the Juadaeic spiritual writings -
>
> A
>
>
> >
> >What chilled me about those two passages was their
> convergence with Bush's
> >militant/military plans (or the rhetoric thereof),
> almost as if Islam had
> >long since anticipated what would be in store for
> (some of) them, or--more
> >chilling yet--almost as if Washington were drawing
> on the Koran for
> >strategy. Note my "almost as if" before denouncing
> me as paranoid. I don't
> >think this convergence is anything like this
> literal, but it's suggestive of
> >such momentous historical dovetailing--at this
> moment at least--as would
> >make anyone weep, I'd have thought.
> >
> >Candice
>
>
>
>
> Alison Croggon
>
> Home page
> http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
> Masthead
> http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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