This is somewhat long, and somewhat cringe. The short version is that I think Marx had really interesting things to say about religion, and I think materialist theory of religion should form a part of any socialist project, because it’s the reality from which we are working with. Even if most of us are atheists, we have to have a working theory of religion and an understanding of religious people, because they will necessarily be part of any revolution that occurs.
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Marx’s views on religion are expressed throughout his work, most eloquently in the introduction where he wrote his famous opium of the people line. This resonates with me, not as some epic takedown of religion, but for its refutation of the mechanical-materialist atheism of Feuerbach, which in some sense echoes in modern New Atheism. Marx, despite his atheism and materialist philosophy, found humanistic compassion for the followers of religion, by applying his materialism to religion. From this he identifies an indispensable function of religion: it soothes the pain of alienation and exploitation inherent in class society. So, his proposal for abolishing religion is not to ban religion, but to abolish the material conditions which require religion; i.e., abolish class society, which today is predicated on private property and wage labor.
This is as good an expression of my feeling toward religion as I have found. Yet, it still feels… incomplete? It feels like there is more to say on this topic, but for Marx it seems that he is content to believe that, like the state, religion will wither away with class society.
There are two questions that I return to:
- Could religion really disappear with the abolition of class society?
- Could a secular institution replace organized religion (the church, e.g.)?
Here is where some speculative, maybe half-baked thinking begins…
I wish Marx took what he said above just a step further. I would modify it to say that the abolition of class society would not abolish religion as such, but only the form of religion required by class society.
The basis of religion is suffering. This is why it has to act as opium. Class society has been the most terrible source of suffering, exploitation, and alienation for the past several millennia, as class society in various forms has expanded with the growth of civilization. Yet humans have practiced religion for as long as humankind has existed, even in those primitive communal societies analyzed by Marx and Engels.
In chapter 7 of Capital Volume I, Marx connects production and abstract thought:
A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement.
In other words, (1) abstract thought is a prerequisite for human labor, (2) as part of the labor process, the mind conjures up an ideal, perfected versions of concrete objects. This acts not only on external things, but is directed at ourselves too: we produce things in order to perfect our appearance, health, education, or innumerable other attributes. So as a prerequisite, in order to produce as humans, as a practical fact we already imagine ideal versions of ourselves which we want to bring to reality. And if there are barriers to the realization of this ideal, that elicits suffering.
When humans feel they lack the power to shape reality to their ideal, this can happen for one of two reasons. Either it is controlled by nature, such as the weather, in which case religious practice is oriented toward nature; or it is actually controlled by humans, but they are not aware or capable of using that control. This second reason is alienation, and it is the type of religion seen in most of the capitalist world today. Just as we alienate our political power from ourselves and place it in secular institutions of government, so also we (or at least, the religious) alienate themselves from moral power and place it onto an idealized version of themselves (god, jesus, whichever) which has the ability to judge and forgive. But this alienated spiritual existence only mirrors the actual alienation experienced in our social existence.
If it is the case that class society produces a form of religion, not religion as such, then the answer to (1) is: no, the disappearance of class society will not end religion. Religion will only change form, in a way that addresses the forms of suffering experienced by people in a post-class world. Therefore the answer to (2) is straightforwardly: maybe, if a socialist society can come up with a rational institution which is capable of really addressing the suffering experienced by all the individuals in society. But I would bet against the idea that we will actually achieve utopia.
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Analysis of religion from a perspective of, why do bad things happen, how do we explain things, is satisfying as high philosophy. But there’s an equally important practical, one might say material, social function of organized religion. Some of the earliest mass gathering spots found in archeology, past simple tribal settlements to places where many people from different settlements would come, are religious sites. Lacking any central state or national identity to coalesce around, religious rites at a scared spot for a dispersed peoples was the way to do that. The particular explanations didn’t matter so much as the communal experience of them.
Even into relatively modern days, Islam spread in the Middle East largely due to the socio-economic stability and benefits. People weren’t converting necessarily because of the theology or threat, rather that it made doing business smoother.
We leftists love to talk about the alienation and atomization in capitalist society, but having a weekly communal pep talk, followed by a potluck, that’s a really damned good way to combat alienation. So I think it’s more useful to think in terms of, what can socialism do to fill the social role that religion fulfills, rather than getting hung up on the metaphysics.
Even into relatively modern days, Islam spread in the Middle East largely due to the socio-economic stability and benefits. People weren’t converting necessarily because of the theology or threat, rather that it made doing business smoother.
I believe this is exactly the case even today for a lot of people. It’s why arguments about science and evidence fall flat, because that’s beside the point for someone who goes to church because it’s the only place they’re treated like a human being in this forsaken world.
I think it’s more useful to think in terms of, what can socialism do to fill the social role that religion fulfills, rather than getting hung up on the metaphysics.
I basically agree with this but with some reservation. Marxist revolutions have historically struggled, theoretically and practically, with the question of religion. The details matter. The religious needs of people should be considered just as seriously, and with as much detail, as their economic needs. But of course always kept in line with the larger vision of the party.
Here’s a data point for you regarding Christianity (coming from someone who is not particularly spiritual at all full disclosure)
For a while before the first crusade, the church gained a huge amount of popular support and devotion when it managed to enact the Truce of God which basically forbade the constantly feuding warrior elite class, the knights, from pillaging on a few days of the week. It was mostly done as a way to give the peasantry a chance to actually do some agriculture amidst all the pummeling, but the peasantry understandably saw the church as an institution that acted in their interest. Fast forward to the first crusade, and there was almost a mass hysteria event as people, whose only chances at comfort for their whole lives had pretty much been downstream of the church, believed Pope Urban’s propaganda about the Turks wholeheartedly.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that while I don’t subscribe to the idea that religions are some kind of evil anti-intellectual force to be eradicated, their becoming the providers of people’s material needs represents a failure of some kind. The hierarchical structure of the average major religion just lends itself too easily to exploitation imo.
This is going to be the 500th time I’ve typed this out, but I highly recommend reading the chapters: “Modernity and Religious Interpretations”, and “The Decline of Metaphysics and the Reinterpretation of Religion”, from Samir Amin’s book: Eurocentrism, second edition, if you’re interested in this. The two chapters total just over 40 pages, and they’re not difficult to understand.
Thank you, I will check this out when I have some time. Hopefully this weekend
