Is anybody aware of decent texts that build a case for Marxism having taken on a religious quality? Someone must have done it by now.

Submitted by Tequila_Wolf in AskRaddle

Guattari:

What is paradoxical is that [Marx] has been used to concoct an appalling academic hotchpotch. It’s part of the power of coopting or reterritorializing each and every movement of mutation in the world. Which, of course, is nothing new. If you try to decipher the theme of Christ in the Gospels and you look at what it produced, you get the same thing. In my view, what is fundamental is a radical questioning of the relation between theory (as expressed in books and taught in schools) and the way in which you specifically use, discuss, or articulate it, that is, the way in which you situate it in a specific reality. The way in which Marxism is used now serves for undertakings of reduction, Manicheanisms that specifically crush molecular revolutions.

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Fool wrote

Demoralising Moralism by Jason McQuinn has a bit about it.

the objectivistic (naturalized) dialectics of all the most prevalent forms of Marxism function as little more than arcane formulae for justifying whatever Karl Marx and his epigones wanted justified. The abstract and highly speculative nature of Marxist dialectics is usually obscured in an attempt to lend an appearance of logic and solidity to ideological arguments and positions that defy conventional attempts at more transparent rationalization.

Dialectics of Ambiguity by Ron Tabor is a bit less direct about it being religious, but more thorough in overall analysis of Marxist work.

one of the chief characteristics of historical materialism (and Marxism as a whole), is its ambiguity. This pertains even in its title, specifically, its use of the word “materialism.” Although the term appears to be precise, it is in fact used in two distinct senses within Marxian theory. To Marxists, the two meanings are understood to be compatible—indeed, necessarily linked. But this is not the case. The first, and more basic, use of the term is its philosophical one; it pertains to that part of Marxist theory that has come to be known as“dialectical materialism.” This is the philosophical description of what Marxists believe to be their scientific outlook, both its specific propositions and its methods. In philosophical language, “dialectical materialism” is both an ontology,that is,a theory of being, a theory of the true nature and structure of reality, and an epistemology, a theory of knowledge. Non-Marxist philosophers would call this“metaphysical materialism,” a term Marxists usually object to since they deny that their world view is metaphysical at all;to them,Marxism is scientific, whereas bourgeois philosophy (that is, all other philosophical outlooks), is “metaphysics.”

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Tequila_Wolf OP wrote

Cool, thanks for these, I think they apply well. It would be fun if there were a few more examples some folks could come up with. There must be some stuff out there that even more directly paints contemporary Marxism in religious terms. The way he is so often referred back to and his works treated like scripture despite their overwhelming decontextualisation in the present, for example.

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Fool wrote (edited )

Another section, from a more influential text

After Marx: Autonomy by Alfredo Bonanno

We thus have two elements: the struggle, and the will to struggle. Now we must ask why this struggle has constantly had a negative outcome, and what is significant about this. The first point can be partly explained by the presence of a minority ‘leading’ this struggle; a minority which, if on the one hand it takes itself as being the ‘head’ of the movement of the exploited, on the other adopts the role of ‘ascending elite’, that is a minority that intends to take power itself, taking the place of the elite who were previously in charge. There is another, deeper reason for the first point: the persistent ‘religiosity’ of the exploited masses, hence their ‘need’ for a ‘guide’, a group or a person capable of materialising their desire for vengeance. This takes us to the second point: what significance should be given to the constant negative outcome of these struggles? The conclusion is linked to the discourse on the autonomy of the individual. Only the will to freedom, at the same time the fruit of and the reason for the struggle, can eliminate the sentiment of religiosity that is still intrinsic in the struggles of the workers today.

This model might explain the great flood of reformist and authoritarian parties in that they become, in our opinion, the symbol of vengeance. The masses see in these organisations the sacerdotal caste and church that will lead to their millenary dream. For their part, the bureaucrats of power (the trade unions should be included in this argument) who present themselves as ascending elites, have every interest in exploiting this sentiment, while their very nature prevents them from stimulating any initiative towards a process of liberalisation.

... Let us take an historical example. In the Middle Ages the German peasants rose up against the lords and the Church, demanding vengeance for the suffering and privation they had always been subjected to, but at the same time asking for the restoration of the Christian principle of poverty and morality in custom that had been profaned both by the lords and the Church. They were therefore fighting in the name of a desire for vengeance, hence put themselves—with great reticence in this case—into the hands of a leader in the name of a moral code shared by the exploiters who were considered profane by the people.

... What is more serious is the fact that this is not simply a literary component that belongs to the priests of the Marxist church, but is also a common sentiment among the mass, one of so many factors of corporate origins which, out of interest, has not been fought by the reformists. The latter’s’ collaboration has in fact hindered any action capable of confronting the State with an irrecuperable situation of conflict.

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fortmis wrote

https://www.scribd.com/document/377625404/Trevor-Ling-Auth-Karl-Marx-and-Religion-in-E-B-ok-xyz

Have you read this ??? Page 152... Final chapter. I skipped a bit in the middle but found the rest of it to be super interesting. The comparison to Islam was maybe not so tight, but I see why he drew it up the way he did. Anyway, he packs a punch. Curious to hear your thoughts.

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ukuleleclass wrote

i guess Desert kind of touches on that but it’s not dedicated at all

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