look, the most terminally online thing that leftists tend to not think consciously about is how much effort it takes to see enough current and past world history and materialist thought that you become some flavor of materialist anti-capitalist. it takes a ton of content to get there. most people accept a capitalist reality without understanding any of its internal logic, and they're constantly propagandized about it. the idea that the revolution of the proletariat is going to actually combat wreckers by just doing enough education is silly, at least in the post-revolutionary short-term. Figuring out how to slightly turn religious and spiritualist thought to be compatible with internationalist socialism is a lot more doable imo than trying to immediately give everyone an immediate and nonviolent shift in political perspective.
edit: i see a comment referring to matt's cushvlog posts, specifically an idea that we need to make a global socialist spiritual movement before revolution is possible. i'm not so sure about that, and it's probably not necessarily the case. however, i do think that if it isn't necessary for the movement to begin, it's certainly necessary to avoid lots of internal conflict. that religion has not been liberating is not inherent, but a product of oppressors. as we see now in late capitalism, where most of our capitalist reality is defined in terms of constant secular ideological propaganda, it was never the spiritual or eternal aspects of spirituality that are trapping and oppressive. it's just that it's something people believe in. in the west, the idea of fomenting a radical love for your neighbor, sounds like an odd thing to suggest. in the global south, such ideas have formed part of the basis of revolutionary action, since putting your neighbor at an equal level of moral value as yourself means fighting the oppressors.
Creating a global socialist spiritual movement before a revolution might lead to said movement just being co-opted by the ruling class like christianity was
yeah, that's a good point, and kind of what i'm thinking as well. the early christians were doing a proto-anarchism at least in some places before the romans decided to take it up. co-opted massively by every single western state, kingdom, and ruling entity since. but then, much of the global south is at least spiritual in some way, if not in terms of a colonizing religion then at least in their own indigenous beliefs. so movements will have to deal with it, and it doesn't seem like outright deleting the prevailing spiritual outright works super well. you get ideological enemies, not newly secularized comrades.
Literally the only people right now making a big fuss about how leftist movements really really need religion are terminally online, barring some movements in a few coutnries which have nothing to do with the countries said terminally online people live in. And they don't even make the same arguments, which of course makes sense because the people in these countries actually genuinely believe in these religions, they're not coming up with weird Jordan Peterson-esque postmodern fantasies about how they could maybe tweak religion so that they make it communist or whatever the fuck. No one gives much of a shit about religion any more in most developed countries and that's good. It was never needed in the first place and it was 90% of the time a hurdle, and 10% of the time it just happened to be helpful because of some specific features of these societies and religion in these societies.
look, the most terminally online thing that leftists tend to not think consciously about is how much effort it takes to see enough current and past world history and materialist thought that you become some flavor of materialist anti-capitalist. it takes a ton of content to get there. most people accept a capitalist reality without understanding any of its internal logic, and they're constantly propagandized about it. the idea that the revolution of the proletariat is going to actually combat wreckers by just doing enough education is silly, at least in the post-revolutionary short-term. Figuring out how to slightly turn religious and spiritualist thought to be compatible with internationalist socialism is a lot more doable imo than trying to immediately give everyone an immediate and nonviolent shift in political perspective.
edit: i see a comment referring to matt's cushvlog posts, specifically an idea that we need to make a global socialist spiritual movement before revolution is possible. i'm not so sure about that, and it's probably not necessarily the case. however, i do think that if it isn't necessary for the movement to begin, it's certainly necessary to avoid lots of internal conflict. that religion has not been liberating is not inherent, but a product of oppressors. as we see now in late capitalism, where most of our capitalist reality is defined in terms of constant secular ideological propaganda, it was never the spiritual or eternal aspects of spirituality that are trapping and oppressive. it's just that it's something people believe in. in the west, the idea of fomenting a radical love for your neighbor, sounds like an odd thing to suggest. in the global south, such ideas have formed part of the basis of revolutionary action, since putting your neighbor at an equal level of moral value as yourself means fighting the oppressors.
Creating a global socialist spiritual movement before a revolution might lead to said movement just being co-opted by the ruling class like christianity was
yeah, that's a good point, and kind of what i'm thinking as well. the early christians were doing a proto-anarchism at least in some places before the romans decided to take it up. co-opted massively by every single western state, kingdom, and ruling entity since. but then, much of the global south is at least spiritual in some way, if not in terms of a colonizing religion then at least in their own indigenous beliefs. so movements will have to deal with it, and it doesn't seem like outright deleting the prevailing spiritual outright works super well. you get ideological enemies, not newly secularized comrades.
Literally the only people right now making a big fuss about how leftist movements really really need religion are terminally online, barring some movements in a few coutnries which have nothing to do with the countries said terminally online people live in. And they don't even make the same arguments, which of course makes sense because the people in these countries actually genuinely believe in these religions, they're not coming up with weird Jordan Peterson-esque postmodern fantasies about how they could maybe tweak religion so that they make it communist or whatever the fuck. No one gives much of a shit about religion any more in most developed countries and that's good. It was never needed in the first place and it was 90% of the time a hurdle, and 10% of the time it just happened to be helpful because of some specific features of these societies and religion in these societies.