The evil of such a thing [Communism], because the essence of such a thing, is an idea. And those who understand a stunt, a scare, a slogan, a catchword, or a caption, never do understand an idea [hence the evil of it is never spoken of]. It is something that exists before any of its manifestations; it is something anterior to policy, a programme, or a propagandist movement; it is simply a thought.
[...]
[Communism has some good in it, but it is sought in the wrong way. The critics], ‘are right when they rebuke the Bolshevist crimes of massacre and pillage; they would be still more right if they also rebuked the Capitalist crimes of usury and chicane’
The evil should not be called Bolshevism but Marxism; or perhaps a particular policy founded on the materialism of Marx. To realise it, its opponents would not only have to endure the pain of thought; they would require the moral courage to read the literature of the people they denounce; and it is much easier to denounce it…. [a Marzist propagandist] does not justify it that it may be established he would rather establish it that it be justified. He would set the material forces at work, and treat the moral forces as if they were material forces; that is, use them rather than agree with them. Among this moral forces would be discontent; but he does not use it because he thinks it divine discontent. [He would use it to create his own contentedness]. It is rather a bestial or vegetable content; not as a question of quality, but rather of its process of production. It is imposed by forces upon men…. For instance, the hatred of religion does indeed break out into blasphemy and sacrilege, and maxims like “Religion is the opium of the people.” But this, which is the largest part of the scandal, is the least part of the evil. The more subtle Marxian carefully explains that he would not denounce faith merely because it is false, or preach abstract atheism because it is true. That is mere idealism or “ideology”; his is the practical atheism that would produce by any means the material state in which he hopes that men would be materialists. For that purpose he will if necessary be moderate, not to say hypocritical. His principle is that principles are not good until they have become practice. It is that prudence that is for us a heresy from hell; and worse a hundred flaming churches. For it is a war against the will; a denial of the primal right of the mind over its own thought and choice; a hideous nightmare of the cart dragging the horse. It is true in the sense that there can be no debate, but only war, with those who think that they cannot really think. For any conception of popular rule it is, of course, a paralysis. Materialism makes citizens as such merely passive. Irreligion is the opium of the people. (G. K. C., 'Straws in the Wind: The Crime of Communism', No. 128. Sat. Aug. 27, 1927.)
This long quote from G. K's. Weekly does bring forward some interesting points about the nature of the problems not only with Socialist/Communism but also with modern society in general. It reveals the fallacy of establishing the reality of materialism without having any basis for that reality. The materialist is not interested in setting up materialism because it is right, but simply setting it up because he feels it is practical. And surely this is logical to the materialist, for there cannot be a realm of abstract ideas, for such a notion would refute his materialism. Hence, he must set up his material reality, he does so because by doing so he can pretend that their is nothing spiritual. It also makes a telling point about the nature of evil. That it is as much an error of ideas as it is a weakness in the will. If we start from faulty premises we can never achieve right conclusions, even by accident. Likewise, if we start from true premises but have not the will to follow them we will not achieve the right conclusions.
'Irreligion is the opium of the people'. Chesterton, turns the famous Marxian phrase on its head, and in fact hits upon something that is entirely true. One of the chief reasons why Catholicism and Communism are incompatible is not simply because the former burned Churches, killed priests and all that, but that both Catholicism and Communism appeal to religious sentiments, to spiritual forces. However, while Catholicism fully acknowledges that it is a spiritual entity Marxism fails to do so. Marx would say that ideology merely follows economic reality, as Christopher Dawson puts it:
Now, Marx himself did not regard ideologies as of prime importance, since they were to him merely the theoretical reflection of social realities which are primarily economic and material. But he fully recognizes - no thinker more so - that ideology and sociology are indissolubly linked, i.e., that Capitalism, bourgeois society and Liberalism are three aspects of the same social reality.
Hence Marx,
admired its [bourgeois societies] material achievements and power, its conquest of the world by machinery and economic organization. He appreciated still more its revolutionary organization:… its thoroughgoing secularization of life. [Capitalism was the first step towards Communism]… But on the other hand Marx was bitterly hostile to the ideological side of bourgeois culture - that is to say, to the liberal ideals which the bourgeois themselves regarded as the real justification of their material achievement. [Class exploitation, was to Marx, was the real goal of liberal ideology]. (Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Modern State, (London, 1935), pp. 60, 63)
Thus, Communism seeks to continue the path of secularization of life, the subordination of man to economic conditions. It takes the place of the Capitalist society; but it seeks to destroy class exploitation. Communism actually attacks the part of Liberalism that was the continuation of Catholicism, the moral standards (rationalized by 18th philosophers), and approves the part which is in conflict with Catholicism, that is materialism, secularized life and irreligion. When a modern justifies Capitalism he does so not on grounds that it is more just, or morally acceptable, or more humanitarian, but rather on the grounds that it is most efficient, or practical, or realistic. In other words, it is not a moral system, but a practical system, one that 'works'. Here Communism and Capitalism are united against Catholicism. Inverting the hierarchy of values, a 19th century idea, and putting work, labour, or economics above morality, ethics, and politics justifying materialism and irreligion. It appeals to the base appetites. 'Satisfy your lower instincts, your material needs as much as you like'. Leave morality, contemplation to those 'superstitious' types, to 'celibates in ivory towers'. Material practicality, utility, these are things that ordinary people can understand, the base passions must rule.
We are entirely deadened to spiritual realities. Irreligion satisfies lust, and lulls us into a coma. If all that matters is the base, material realities then any system which can satisfy them on the largest scale must be the 'best system' we have. This is way a Catholic and modern find it so difficult to communicate. Not because a Catholic does not have base urges, or material ambitions, but because he has subordinated his lower state of being to his higher ones. He speaks of spiritual values, even while the word spiritual is incomprehensible to a modern. The word spiritual, to a modern, might have something to with a relegated past 'Age of Faith' where a few pious people sat around and mumbled prayers, but not something for practical people in an 'Age or Reason', in the 'Old age of Mankind'.
Yet ironically the materialist philosophies are still spiritual, again Dawson says:
Communism is the perfect example,..., for it represents the culminating point of the secularising process in modern civilization, and it is at the same time a reaction against that tendency in so far as it is an attempt to go beyond politics and in a sense beyond economics also and to restore to society a common faith and a common sense of spiritual solidarity.
The strange paradox of a godless religion and a materialist spirituality has its basis in internal contradictions of the revolutionary tradition of which Communism is the final product. For that tradition unconsciously drew its dynamic forces from religious sources, though it denied and rejected them in its rationalized consciousness. In the same way the Marxian theory of history, for all its materialism, is dependant to a degree that Marx never suspected on the antecedent religious view of history which had been formed by Jewish and Christian traditions. (Ibid., pp. 71-2)
In other words, irreligion while lulling us into a coma and drugging us with material things, is still dependent on religious sentiment, and in fact still possesses that empty shell of the Christian religion. With Communism, the State really did become God. All things were subordinated to the glory of Russia, for example. In a Capitalist state, with its de facto materialism, there is still a contradictory devotion to 'human rights', 'freedom' and so on. We also find weird pseudo-religious cults springing up, but often they present themselves as a consumer product. (You only need to walk into a local book shop and go to the 'Spiritual' section to see what I mean). Even the material sciences become a kind of religion, you only need to hear phrases such as 'Darwinism allows one to be an intellectually satisfied atheist', to realise there is more to materialism than simply Matter. The very idea that the 'Beauty' of the Universe is enough to satisfy cultural needs (while wholly absurd) suggests that there is something ontologically different from mere matter which can actually understand 'Beauty'. Thus, irreligion deadens the higher spiritual values, while at the same time expresses itself through them.
Irreligion really is the opium of the people!
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