/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

The fundamental leftist critique of religion is that religion lulls the masses into complacency with promises of a better life in Heaven and an assurance that the Earthly order is ordained by Providence and, on the flip side, recognition of the falsehood of religious belief will cause the masses to undergo a radical re-evaluation of the world, the way it is organized, and their relationship with their fellow man. But here in 2024, and in the Western world, is this still relevant?

Let's look at the first claim. Is the largest or even significant ideology keeping the masses in line the promise of a better life in Heaven? Do the actively religious actually believe that the world order as it is established now is the product of divine providence? I would say that obviously this is not the case and hasn't been for a while. What subdues the masses can vary from country to country, but at least in America (and increasingly around the world) it is not the promise of Heaven that motivates the masses to stay in line, but the promise of earthly reward. The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" attitude has long been an aspect of the American ideology, but I would argue that it has moreso and moreso taken on the religious aspect of maintaining social compliance. First you had Horatio Alger stories which generally portrayed a "rags-to-riches" narrative based on young men engaged in some kind form of good works to rise above the poverty while benefiting their community, which then turned to Ayn Rand's stories which rejected outright any greater social responsibility of the industrialist tycoon, instead portraying them as pseudo-divine "Great Man" figures for which all the industry and wealth of the world was merely an extension of their great personalities and any attempt to direct or interrupt their great works was to invite disaster upon the world, for the world needs the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur does not need the world. This is further developed by the "self-help" movement that began to take off in the 70s, where often men of wealth would give advice on how to get rich to the masses, but this "advice" was almost never about making shrewd business decisions or actual ways of acquiring capital and business deals, but a litany of all the supposed morals and examples of virtuous living the wealthy supposedly possessed. And then, finally, to top it off we have "The Secret," a bestselling novel which posited that it is not simply being a great personality and having great virtue that makes one rich, but also one's mentality. To get rich, you must quite literally have faith and piety in Capital and all problems can be solved essentially with a secular version of prayer. And flagrant nonsense though it may be, it has nonetheless integrated itself into into the greater Cult of the Entrepreneur. There's now tons of media of wealthy people spouting this exact ideology, giving examples of how they live their lives in virtue and always remember to say their prayers to capital. And, in spite of the complaints of the "retvrn to tradition" people, the otherworldly look of the abstract and minimalist designs of most modern homes and luxuries of rich people really adds to this effect. Unlike old manorial style homes, these new properties give the impression that the wealthy have not simply gotten rich, but are no longer of this world and have ascended to Elysium. And it's this ideology that appears to have captured the imaginations of most of the proletariat who refuse improvements in their own real lives in the modern day. They're not coaxed with promises of an honored place in the afterlife, but with the promise of an ascension into an earthly paradise. The "I don't take too much stock in this world because my treasure is in Heaven" types are an absolute dying breed, even among the religious and this has taken its place (even in religious communities in the form of the "Prosperity Gospel"!)

There's also the question of if people will have any kind of radical re-evaluation of the world once they lose their religious views, and I would once again say that this has been fairly debunked even as recently as the last decade after the NuAtheists all became a big gaggle of reactionaries. As it turns out, "Nature" can be a perfectly adequate replacement for God in the reactionary worldview. The world and everyone's place in it can very easily be trumped up to supposedly self-evident natural laws rather than divine providence, and in some ways I would argue that this is even more oppressive than the divine order. The order of the world being mandated by Heaven still leaves some wiggle room. After all, Heaven has enemies and who's to say that our earthly powers aren't actually in league with Hell? Nature, on the other hand, is immutable. To claim that the order of the world is natural is to claim that it is as set in stone as the law of gravity, of the wind and the tides, of the setting of the sun in the west. And what's more, not only have the NuAtheists of the Aughts become reactionaries, guys like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher are even massive Zionists. I guess the fact that God doesn't exist doesn't mean He didn't give the land of Israel to the Jews! So what was the the refutation of religion even supposed to change in these people if it doesn't even inoculate them against Zionism?

The problem with engaging in all of this is that we are simply acting as toadies for secular liberalism. Among many secular liberals, religion is used as the sin eater for liberalism's failures. Religion is portrayed as the evil seed from which all reactionary thought grows and is the perennial reason why liberalism continues to fail to live up to its promises, continues to push for ever crueler policies both at home and abroad and why its in a slow collapse. A certain brand of secular liberal points at religion when they don't want to acknowledge that the calls are coming from inside the house. And we don't need to cape for the liberals and uphold their delusions.

Religion is in many ways a vestigial and dying institution, at least in the West. I cannot remember a time like now when even the supposedly religious have just thrown aside any pretense that they were ever motivated at all by their supposed religion, where reactionaries pushing religiosity have just openly said that they're doing it cynically because they think that it will somehow uphold the social order they want. They almost never even have a reason why they think pushing their particular religion will uphold any particular social order beyond "the past was more religious than now." I think critiquing them on religious grounds is giving them credit they don't deserve. Its to imply that this is all about some transcendent and spiritual worldview when its clearly not. To be blunt, ever since Trump rose up as a political force, I haven't been able to take the religious right seriously as a religious movement and I don't know why other people humor them.

It's giving the liberals support we shouldn't be giving them and showing the right a form of respect they don't deserve.