I’ve been feeling this for a while, and I’m trying to flesh out an idea here. Feedback is appreciated. I’ve been a leftist for a long time, and have studied theory and history in my lazy, hodgepodge way, and while I believe that materialism as the old boys theorized is definitely a useful tool and structure to view events and systems of humanity, it doesn’t have a kinda joi de vivre that I require to really get turned on by something. In my teens I was a lonely atheist, and in college I was a bewildered existentialist/absurdist and over the past decade or so I’ve been I’ve gotten out of straight materialism, starting with Buddhism and moving into reading and practicing stuff out of the western esoteric/occult tradition. I feel that the left has a tangible, essential moral and ethical center, but it hamstrings itself in its articulation by sticking with this materialist/mechanistic view of life and the universe. I want an enchanted left, I want a haunted left. I want a left where we honor our ancestors and speak to them, where we call upon the elements to help us, where we come together to bind our enemies and protect our allies in ritual chaos. Mostly I want a left that isn’t afraid to acknowledge the divine, that calls upon those forces and entities that can’t be seen but only felt. I want a left that can take leaps of faith into an uncertain future because We Have Faith. Faith in a Living, Breathing Something that we are all a part of, and so can act and rest in the knowledge that we aren’t alone in a cold dead universe, but rather vibrant cells in a communal, universal body.
When ghosts show up to help with the rev, I’ll become a Marxist-Spectralist, til then I’m sticking with the material realm.
Not that there’s anything wrong with having some spirituality in your life - I just don’t think we should be trying to use it as a tool on the left? Religion has always historically been used by the ruling class to keep down the other classes so really you’re just fighting the bourgeoisie on their turf.
Someone down below mentioned Libration theology, which I should actually study instead of just mentioning, but I can also point to the religious fervor of John Brown and Harriet Tubman, and the Black Church during the civil rights movement.
Sure religion is a tool of the ruling class to dominate the proles, but then again, what isn’t?
And playing with this idea: if Capitalism is a totalising, universalising phenomena, then we’re always fighting on “their own turf” to an extent.
religion split the libs.
it worked out for them, but we don't need that.
You're not really describing an alternative to the type of materialism leftists are supposed to use. You're just going along with general cosmological dualism. As in ghosts and spirits and all that. Marx & Co were using materialism in the sense of a scientific analysis of history. Surely you're not suggesting that gods or whatever were the great drivers of history?
Before you reinvent the wheel, learn the wheel. Taking on a personal spiritualism is not antithetical to dialectical or historical materialism. And the idea that we drive political change by doing magic rituals or something is crazy.
I think what I’m thinking is that faith, spirituality, whatever ya wanna call it is as human as anything else. And rather than writing off a recognition of the non material in our lives as bougie brainwashed bullshit, we can explore it, discuss it, and lean into it as a strength and virtue.
If you're possibly interested in Norse and Anglo-Saxon traditions try “The Way of Fire & Ice” by Ryan Smith. It's supposed to be the pagan revival stuff but minus the racial motivations that white nationalists like about it. I'm not really against the idea of people believing in the non-material if they want. But a lot of organized religion is brainwashed bullshit. I don't see how any good leftist can draw value from US Protestantism given how it was so tied up in justifying colonialism and early capitalism. It's just something I can't separate. I know the Chapos stan Catholicism pretty hard, but again I find a lot of trouble with that due to history. That's not to say that the Bible itself can't be a source of comfort or whatever. Just that following these institutions is kinda bad to me.
I’ll check it out! I’m a dirty slav so I hearken to a different but similar pantheon
I know ciaplant666 personally (we both work in Virginia) and I can assure you they’re no spook!
I want a left where we honor our ancestors and speak to them, where we call upon the elements to help us, where we come together to bind our enemies and protect our allies in ritual chaos.
This is a great bit. Hilarious in its conception and execution. 9/10.
"You know how the libs accuse the left of being a cult? Actually, I like that idea."
Hell yeah. Everything’s a cult, capitalism, religion, gender, individual experience. Let’s just be honest about it. We’re all ghosts in meat sacks wandering around believing mystical insights about reality. We’re all convinced we’re right, and convinced everything would be a lot better if everyone else were in our cult.
I'm all for you doing you, friend. But not as the basis of the movement. Scientific socialism, facts, evidence, analysis and merit are the basis on which we should forge our way forwards. I'm not saying that you shouldn't enjoy your spirituality, but I am saying that it's not a credible foundation on which to build the lives of others. It is irresponsible to act on belief over analysis and science.
Scientific socialism, facts, evidence, analysis
Sniff
Nobody can stop you from becoming an idealist or a mystic or whatever but I find it hard to reject the materialist conception of the world, including the idea that religion is a human creation based on people's material realities. I think you would also run into the practical problem that in much of the imperial core, even materialists struggle to demonstrate material contradictions to people, you know, the things that actually exist, they can see, and that hurt them. I have no idea how you would convince someone that the cosmic beyond promises eternal happiness if a revolution is undertaken especially in today's world where "god is dead", or rather he has become a reflection of our realities in modern capitalism; hyper consumption and dogmatism for the petite bourgeoisie, a manipulative tool for the bourgeoisie, and a short lived hollow relief for an ever shrinking section of the proletariat.
God is dead, and Capitalism Killed Her.
I certainly don’t reject materialism in favor of idealism. I mean existence precedes essence and all that, and yeah all religion is based on material conditions. So I just had this thought: the human need for material sustenance has produced countless culturally specific foods and cuisines over time. What if the human need for “spiritual sustenance” produced the veritable shmorgasboard of faiths, cults and religions we see today?
lmfao is this a fucking bit
what do you think materialism is in the context of leftism
like do you think materialism means "there is only material"
Like, do I think there is only atoms and molecules? Or do I think like there aren’t things like ideas, or theories or tendencies or conversations between peoples over time?
Yeah that's not what that's about at all lmfao
"Materialism" (or what you really mean which is historical materialism) isn't about whether or not there exists the ideological, theoretical, or even spiritual. It has nothing to do with that. It's not a metaphysical statement, lmfao. When leftist theorists say "materialism" they're referring to a specific difference between how to view historical change. Specifically Hegel saw broad strokes of history through the lens of ideological development. For example something like the "renaissance." Implied in this is that the driver of what happens in the world is people's ideas. Marx's materialism is a direct response to this, where instead the driver is how we organize resources.
None of this has anything to do with fukn spirituality or whatever you're talking about. You can still be a priest or whatever you wanna fukn be. Historical materialism is just a particular way of assessing history. You can assess history in other ways too if you want, but bourgeois society tends to not, and in that exemption you serve their purposes, thus as a leftist you gotta do that.
I feel that the left has a tangible, essential moral and ethical center, but it hamstrings itself in its articulation by sticking with this materialist/mechanistic view of life and the universe.
Like buddy marx wasn't doing an epic atheism reddit moment when he talked about historical modes of production lmfao
I mean maybe not all of them. As a partial pagan, I can connect with some vague semblance of my European heritage in a way that is somehow a little less mediated by capitalism and white supremacy. Like, not in a fashy nordic golden god way, but like, damn way back in the day my people hopefully danced naked around a fire in the caucuses, clothed in flowers and deer skulls! Maybe we had harvest festivals and shit, and worshipped the moon and trees and bears!
(Also pills helped)
rituals are good yes.
but i'm more of the ev injections; all the best rituals include the possibility of getting an infection.
Have you checked out liberation theology? They're up to change material conditions and still talk about the divine a bunch. A God who riots, and all that
Also, psychoanalysis could be a worthwhile addition to your analysis but might be a bit too 'sterile' for you liking, not sure.
we’re not actually magicians, though, as we don’t have actual magic yet. That is the plan of course! We will get there. Right now we have the dialectic, which looks a lot like objective magic when you use it properly!
You can subsume your own “idealisms” with materialist dialectics, and make sure to use Maoism for this and truly understand how the idealistic negation of the negation was finally subsumed by struggle in the associated triplet movements: if you try to use Hegel/orthodox “Marxist” dialectics in anything but your own subjectivity you will fuck up massively, and then a friendly materialist will have to reprogram you again
unfortunately for the Buddhists and other idealists, I was them, I’ve met them, including relationships with the serious Buddhists who actually spent ten years in the Himalayas and went years without speaking. They are “happier more spiritual people”, they do have access to deeper truths, but at the end of the day they’re also calmer, more “enlightened” fascist compradors living “blissfully” damned subjectivities in an objectively brutal system.
You do not live in a monastery, you are not fed rice by servants, you live in air conditioning and traffic and capitalism, so you can’t fully lose yourself in a tranquil idealist subjectivity just yet - it’s too late, it won’t work, and very little of it actually matches our current conditions
the hard truth is that these were (originally) excellent but pre-capitalist ideas for helping people in pre-capitalist societies, and while all religions contain important truths, and their followers really do believe in them, and we’re going to respect them and let them finally topple their own Gods for themselves, they have only parts of the full materialist truth that is available to us
you would greatly enjoy and benefit from critically reading the work of Mariategui
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mariateg/works/7-interpretive-essays/index.htm
Good stuff! It’s a Latin American Marxist foundational classic.
CW: contains insensitivity about world religions
If you're into leftist spirituality, check out the stuff Sever wrote for Black Seed (PDF)
