Thomas_More
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True.
And i’m precisely one of the intellectuals who are practically useless and are
never listened to. So woe betide me if I thought socialist awareness depended on me putting my views across.
Thankfully, I believe it doesn’t, or there would be no hope.When and if revolution comes, it won’t be by Marxist intellectuals. It won’t be by people reading Marx and Engels, and it won’t be by people knowing what idealism and materialism mean, or even by having heard of us.
It will be a socialist revolution, but won’t call itself that, because most workers won’t ever equate the word socialism with what they’ll be doing. They’ll just be doing it.
“Agreed that “most people” are resigned—albeit grudgingly—to tolerating their subjugation to capital.
Social experience convinces “most people” that subjugation is eternal, natural and inevitable.”
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To be resigned to subjugation implies that one is conscious of subjugation. In this part of the world, most workers do not see themselves as members of the working class, and they would sneer at you for calling them subjugated.
Yes. As I say above, for the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the Hindus, and indeed the Japanese, religion was/is primarily ritual, not belief.
We in the West associate religion with belief, because of our Christian heritage, and especially protestant heritage, which stresses belief over everything.
But religion for the Greeks, Romans, Hindus and Japanese holds its original meaning: as the expression, via ritual and performance, of social cohesion.
The Romans were open to all religious cults and persecuted none. Most Roman notables served as priests sometime during their lives, and attendance at the rites was expected of all citizens. It had nothing to do with belief.
The Jews, in abstaining from the Hellenist rites, were tolerated and exempted because they were an ancient people. But the Christians were not all Jews, and by rejecting the rites, they were rejecting Roman society. That was the reason for persecution. The Romans couldn’t care less what the Christians believed; they were snubbing Rome, and snubbing the Emperor. This was their crime.
So with China and Japan, essentially materialist societies. Which doesn’t imply there weren’t superstitions. But religion was there, and amongst the Hindus, about the stages of life, marked by rites.
And most people shun what they call “Marxist types”, and would never read these books. Heck, they’re no longer able to read English that was the norm in the last century!
I agree with you here. And linguistic snobbery in France has to be the worst.
When I use the older form of the numerals 70 (septante), 80 (huitante) and 90 (nonante), still the use in Switzerland btw, the French will always “correct” me, and some rudely. They think i’m being hip and modern, whereas these simpler forms are older than their convoluted ones, which are in fact very recent. And they’ll pretend not to understand, and shout at me “Nonante? What’s that? WHAT’S THAT?” and poke me in the chest.
Most people don’t have any inclination to listen to these explanations.
It’s a bore to them. And they continue to misuse the words, just as they misuse the term socialism.I mean today, use the terms, and everyone thinks a socialist is an idealist and that Jeff Bezos is a materialist.
Paradoxically too, grandfather Kautsky would be gung-ho for the war in 1914, whereas grandfather Trotsky was anti-war.
When I was a teenager, I went through teenage stages of interest. One of these was a wish to become a monk.
I wanted to escape the modern world and I thought if I could be a monk, I could avoid what every one else did: get a job, etc. Plus, I loved history and thought being a monk would help me into a medieval world.
What type of monk I wanted to be depended on my teenage phases. I had a Buddhist period, and studied Tibetan Buddhism. I learned a lot about that. I also had a Catholic period, and learned a lot about that.
And during these periods, I practised the religions. I went to the Catholic church and told the priest about my wish to be a monk. In my Buddhist phase, I went to meet a lama who is a relative of the Dalai Lama and spoke to him.
Finally I had my last teenage phase, which was the Eastern Church. This phase went further than the others and lasted three years, beginning in my last year at school.I left home at nineteen and began to prepare to become a Greek monk. I was baptised and sent to Greece to stay at several monasteries. A translator met me there and I had some very bizarre experiences.
I learned a lot, from the inside, about Byzantine theology. I stayed in the mountains near Corinth.
When I was twenty I repudiated the Church and returned home to my parents. My teenage years were over. But I learned much which has helped me understand monasticism, theology and history.
In the Greek Church, even a monastic deacon is more influential than a married priest.
I stayed in several monasteries and one deacon visited them all and was in fact feared by the monks. They awaited him by looking nervously out the windows, saying “The deacon’s coming!” like schoolboys afraid of the headmaster. He was very tall and stern.
Even if the Roman Church were to allow priests to marry, it would only be secular priests at parish level. Not monastic priests. I guess it would work out the same as the Greek Church – which is how the Roman Church was anyway until the 11th century.
