/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2808564
>That simply isn't true. The abolitionist and Civil Rights movements relied heavily on Christianity as a galvanizing force
because christianity was a major political force, now it is decaying
>and on the clergy as leading members of those movements. Elsewhere in the world Liberation Theology ead considered enough of a threat that right wing military juntas actively sought to stomp it out.
and they succeeded, if an ideology was so easy to practically render dead with 1 or 2 exceptions, why should we attempt to just do it again?
>There is no dishonesty and those traits aren't imagined. Jesus directly advocates for a form of communism in the Bible, and socialism is the logical conclusion of Christian moral philosophy.
lol, the dishonesty is pretending that this is communism or socialism, it isn't, it's a utopian ideal that doesn't actually abolish class society or mean anything, you can look in the book of matthew for this and you'll find it, but in the other books of the bible it's a tertiary goal at best, since very few early christian besides the matthean authors actually cared about it, and what political continuity does it have today? liberation theology which undeniably failed, was systematically easy to crush due to having a large authority to simply declare it heretical if they chose to, again, what value does this hold?

>>2807142
Converting to anarchism? Are you fucking kidding? Wtf is happening today shittiest content ever

and also, if these beliefs were "naturally compatible", then why do most of them simply develop into at best a modern form of social democracy, and more historically average, a conservative, corporatist welfare state, or just naked abuse of the proletariat?

>>2808571
Get back to work.

>>2808571
true also, but they'll call me a bernsteinite for that

>>2808566
>because christianity was a major political force, now it is decaying
Christianity is still obviously a major political force, as a single look at US politics will tell you. I'm not saying that socialists should all become Christians, simply that we should make room in our movement for Christian socialism.
>if an ideology was so easy to practically render dead with 1 or 2 exceptions, why should we attempt to just do it again?
You mean like what happened to socialism?
>since very few early christian besides the matthean authors actually cared about it
I don't see how that's an argument against it. The call for collective ownership of property and distribution according to need is in the Bible, its how the earliest Christians lived according to the gospel. That later Christians sought to ignore it is irrelevant. Christians are a lot more likely to become socialists if they believe that their is no contradiction between their faith and socialist politics, which is easy because there isn't one.
>liberation theology which undeniably failed, was systematically easy to crush due to having a large authority to simply declare it heretical
That's really only applicable to Catholics, and that's an ironic example considering that Liberation Theology has clearly made major inroads into the Church hierarchy since Francais became pope.
>>2808570
>then why do most of them simply develop into at best a modern form of social democracy
Marxism has done this too though. The entire movement of social democracy emerged from Marxism before being recaptured by the bourgeoisie.

>>2808583
>The entire movement of social democracy emerged from Marxism
<what were the bourgeois socialists
VWobbly really is the worst pseud flagfag this community has ever seen
No other can compete with confusing and misleading new posters so consistently and for so long

>>2808511
Has anyone ever noticed that the most common argument against atheism online is
>atheists are smug and made fun of me :(

>>2808547
>>2808564
In Tsarist Russia, Christianity had a significantly stronger grasp on working class culture than it does in the modern United States. But did the Bolsheviks resort to religious tailism? Fuck no; they fought Christianity at every turn. Why? Because it is incompatible with dialectical materialism, and in a world where we have discovered dialectical materialism, it is an objectively reactionary force that encourages people to sit back an accept worsening material conditions with the promise of an eternal afterlife.

The reason we have a vanguardism (one of the many reasons) is that the popularity of a sentiment among the working class has no bearing on its actual correctness. Most members of the working class are uneducated, and have absorbed most of their ideology from the bourgeois media surrounding them. Our goal is to educate them so that they have the correct line of thought, not to indulge their bourgeois programming. Obviously you need to speak to people at their level, but this is not the same as diluting your ideology to make it look more appealing to them.

>>2808591
<what were the bourgeois socialists
That's not where modern social democracy comes from. It comes out of the split between pro and anti-war Marxists in 1914, and then is solidified when the former committed themselves to a reformist path to socialism in 1918. The SPD considered itself a Marxist party until the 1950s.

>>2808593
They realized militant atheism was a mistake early on

>the us is filled with right wing politics
<why would anyone be interested in converting right wing people?
It's all we got

It called People United Front. The only way zioleftists can win is to pander to zioeuroamericans. Like Communist Party of Israel. You have to call Hamas rapists to win votes so you can stop genocide. Like CPUSA support platner

>>2808596
Not really. Despite what some people would like you to believe, the Soviet Union was never particularly nice to religion. There were definitely points where they eased up on it, but it was, at best, begrudgingly tolerated.

>>2808593
>But did the Bolsheviks resort to religious tailism?
It's not tailsm to adapt your rhetoric and propaganda to the cultural environment in which you're operating.
>Fuck no; they fought Christianity at every turn.
Which was a huge mistake and completely failed to eliminate religious sentiment. All it accomplished was creating an insurmountable rift between Christianity and socialism, which forced people to choose between the two. The anti-theism of the Bolsheviks directly harmed them as a movement.
>it is an objectively reactionary force that encourages people to sit back an accept worsening material conditions with the promise of an eternal afterlife
This is proven wrong by numerous historical examples. John Brown and many others like him were inspired by their faith to take up arms against slavery. The True Levellers did the same thing during the English Revolution, Wat Tyler's peasant uprising in the middle ages, MLK in the Civil Rights movement, etc. A passive form of Christianity is a particular interpretation, but it's very obviously not the only one.
>but this is not the same as diluting your ideology to make it look more appealing to them
There's no dilution involved here. It's simply a question of pointing out to people that much of what they already value and hold dear points logically and inexorably to socialism.

>>2808583
>Marxism has done this too though. The entire movement of social democracy emerged from Marxism before being recaptured by the bourgeoisie.
i'm referring to modern social democracy
>That's really only applicable to Catholics, and that's an ironic example considering that Liberation Theology has clearly made major inroads into the Church hierarchy since Francais became pope.
more or less a liberal version, but i suppose so
>That later Christians sought to ignore it is irrelevant
it's actually quite relevant because of the fact those "later christians" emerged within at most a generation, likewise the earliest christians from what evidence we have precisely didn't live in that, instead lived in communities that were afforded only because of the fact that most members were roman freedmen or citizens

>>2808605
To be honest I'm pretty sure sociologists have found that Religion is objectively a stronger force at keeping intentional communities together than secular philosophy. Can't remember the exact study but they were looking at communes I believe and they found basically the religious ones were the only ones that could survive for years; everything else eventually petered out.

You kind of see this with the Mennonites/Amish communities out here. Like I think the return rate for Amish people who have their period of "going out into the world" is something like 90%?

>>2808605
>All it accomplished was creating an insurmountable rift between Christianity and socialism, which forced people to choose between the two.
The Christians already did this, the Orthodox Church was in bed with Tsardom and wholly loyal to it. Even the celebrated Georgy Gapon was a Tsarist agent.

>>2808605
>Which was a huge mistake and completely failed to eliminate religious sentiment. All it accomplished was creating an insurmountable rift between Christianity and socialism, which forced people to choose between the two. The anti-theism of the Bolsheviks directly harmed them as a movement.
the mistake was pushing it as hard as they did, but not the idea of a totally secular state that otherwise opposed religion

>>2808571
The state of Communism is actually fine. You are doomer. You are fascist. Sate of imperialism on other hand is collapsing. Imperialism is dying. Communism is living and growing. You are imperialist. You are wrong.

>>2808619
Trvke

>>2807142
>What exactly explains the (American) left's obsession with trying to "convert" right-wingers to the left?
The only people who are actively trying to convert right wingers are ACP/Hazite morons, who are at the end of the day are just confused fascists. Meanwhile everyone else has concluded that 99.9999999% of American conservatives are a lost cause.

>>2808614
Correct. Christianity is imperialism. Christianity ia oppression and exploitation. Christian pistaco cut fat off native body to feed their lamps.

>>2808630
Not true. Platner converted three time trump voter to the left

>>2808547
Jesus Christ was a capitalist.

https://fee.org/articles/42-jesus-christ-was-a-progressive-because-he-advocated-income-redistribution-to-help-the-poor/

>>2808605
>All it accomplished was
Massive scientific and technological activities that would have been greatly hampered in an environment lead by the retarded superstitions of backwards religions institutions.

>an insurmountable rift between Christianity and socialism
As >>2808614 pointed out, the rift already existed.

>This is proven wrong by numerous historical examples
Almost all of those examples were before Marxism had been articulated, and their achievements were in the progression to capitalism and its higher stages, not socialism. Christianity was a historically progressive force prior to the discovery of dialectical materialism. In a modern context, it is reactionary.

>There's no dilution involved here
Religious "Marxism" rejects dialectical materialism and is thus, obviously, revisionist. RAFB.

>>2808564
>simply means phrasing socialist ideals in Christian terms and appealing to Christian values as articulated by Jesus, since these are naturally compatible with socialism.

Such as? Repeat the “eye of a needle” quote as nauseun? Talk about the Book of Acts? What?

>>2808638
jesus was a capitalist which is good bc thats very progressive for his time

Please respond to this.

>>2808695
Probably something like the slave Bible where they removed 90 percent of the old testament and 60 percent of the New testament.
Think "Quotations from Chairman Christ" or something like that

>>2808639
>Religious "Marxism" rejects dialectical materialism and is thus, obviously, revisionist. RAFB.

Why does dialectical materialism keep getting its ass kicked by people believing in spooks like the nation or religion? Like it doesn’t seem able to actually outwit them but it’s just assumed to be the best thing ever and any move away from it is bad.

>>2808771
China seems to be doing pretty well for themselves, why not ask them?

>>2808772
There are people on this board that’d say China is revisionist

>>2808771
When the dominant superstructure is controlled by Christian bourgeoisie, this is what you get. A failing of Christianity and a schism between old and the retarded.

>>2808776 (me)
forgor sauce
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/int-hist.htm

>>2808776
Does this have anything to do with whether diamat is useful though?

>>2808783
That’s a neat quote but my point is a bunch of people claiming to be informed by dialectical materialism disagree on some fundamental things: whether China is socialist, where the USSR went wrong, when the revolution will happen.

Like Lenin thought there would be a global revolution following the USSR: he was wrong. Doesn’t seem like anyone in the USSR thought its own government would try to destroy itself. The Italian communists lost to a former socialist but the German communists lost to a guy who didn’t even read.

Seems like it’s just a post-hoc justification; like a guy claiming he won some bet cause God was on his side. If you’re right it’s cause your dialectical materialism is better if you lose it’s cause you weren’t thinking diamat enough

>>2808788
Dialectical materialism on its own doesn't prove anything. But it is the necessary philosophical framework for a proper understanding Marxian historiography, economics, and sociology as intended by Marx and Engels, with any non DiMat interpretation of Marxism inevitably decaying into revisionist nonsense.

>>2808819
But if anti revisionists still get outplayed by people who don’t even attempt to obey a Marxist worldview what good is it?

>>2808821
DiMat isn't an auto-win button, that's not the point of it.

>>2808831
But shouldn’t it inform good decision making? Inspire people? Do something?

Reading my posts I see I might come across as a concern troll and I’m sorry if I do, but I’m really asking here. Cause if a movement without DiaMat can outmaneuver one with it then it seems like the focus should be on trying to come up with novel strategies then making sure they’re not being revisionists

>>2808837
That's where Lenin was correct. Instead of resting in bourgeois parliament like the other so called "Marxists", he seized power and began socializing the capitalism existing in USSR.
Just because you have the correct line of thinking doesn't mean people with guns won't shoot you.

>>2808411
>There is no logical reason why leftists should pander to Christianity. We’re always going to be out-pandered by the right anyway.
>>2808605
>much of what they already value and hold dear points logically and inexorably to socialism
>>2808616
>the idea of a totally secular state that otherwise opposed religion
Andrei Sinyavsky aka Abram Tertz: "we should have said that when Stalin died he ascended into heaven to watch over us lol…lmao 😏"
https://filosofia.dickinson.edu/encyclopedia/sinyavsky-andrei-abram-tertz/
<Sinyavsky’s book, On Socialist Realism (Chto takoe sotsialisticheskii realizm?), published in Paris in 1959, offers an original interpretation of the Soviet literary and artistic method, challenging both the official valorization of socialist realism and its skeptical reception in the West. Sinyavsky exposes the inner contradiction of the method, which attempts to join a teleological element (socialism) with a scientific one (realism). He contends that Marxism is not only teleological but borders on religion, since it formulates an ultimate goal of history and interprets all past and present events in relation to this goal.
> “The specific teleology of Marxist thought consists in leading all concepts and objects to the Purpose, referring them all to the Purpose, and defining them all through the Purpose. The history of all epochs and nations is but the history of humanity’s march toward Communism… ” (On Socialist Realism 35).
<Sinyavsky reveals that even the material base, which in Marxist philosophy determines the ideological superstructure, is inherently idealistic, since, in the words of Stalin, “the base produces the superstructure so that it can serve the base” (qtd. 35). Such a presupposition is at least quasi-religious in its congruence with the notion that God created man so that he might serve God.
<Socialist realism is logically inclined towards classicism as an aesthetic model, with its orientation toward sublime and idealistic norms of discourse. The realistic component, which is alien to socialism, introduces an involuntary element of parody into Soviet art. “It is impossible, without falling into parody, to produce a positive hero in the style of full socialist realism and yet make him into a psychological portrait. In this way, we will get neither psychology nor hero” (On Socialist Realism 90). Sinyavsky would prefer both hero and parody. He is not only sensitive enough to grasp the inherently parodic element in socialist realism, but he goes so far as to advise the self-conscious exploitation of parody as an enhancement of Soviet heroic art. He regrets that the eclectic mixture of realism and classicism that was officially promoted from the 1930s through the 1950s lacks the genuinely phantasmagoric proportions capable of transforming dull, didactic imitations of life into inspirational imitations of didacticism and teleology itself.
<For example, Sinyavsky proposes that Stalin’s death, if presented as a religious event, could have become a theme of great art, intrinsically deeply parodic.
>We could have announced on the radio that he did not die but had risen to heaven, from which he continued to watch us, in silence, no words emerging from beneath the mystic mustache. His relics would have cured men struck by paralysis or possessed by demons. And children, before going to bed, would have kneeled by the window and addressed their prayers to the cold and shining stars of the Celestial Kremlin. (On Socialist Realism 92)
<Such a transformation of socialist realism into a religious-parodic form was accomplished more than twenty years later in the Sots Art of Komar and Melamid. The titles of many of their paintings—such as Stalin and the Muses and View of the Kremlin in a Romantic Landscape (both from the series “Nostalgic Socialist Realism,” 1981-2)—suggest an implicit reference to Sinyavsky’s meta-socialist project.
<Instead of condemning socialist realism as false, demagogic, or simply bad art, as was done in the West, or praising its truthful reflection of life, as in the Soviet Union, Sinyavsky eliminates the criterion of truth altogether, reinterpreting this canon as a system of interrelated signs which may be used for artistic purposes—not because they refer to some knowable reality, but precisely because they escape it. He was among the first to formulate the principle of parody and conscious eclecticism as a new source for contemporary art, and he opened the way for a highly innovative postmodern assimilation of socialist realism, which in the 1960s was generally considered a dead-end movement both in the West and in dissident circles within the USSR.
based based based based

>>2808630
>everyone else has concluded
revolutionary struggle to sweep workers into a fungible collective ❌
reactionary narcissistic moralism ✅
The only think you enlightened leftoids are struggling with is your pants size from being lazy pigs sitting on their fat asses!!

Talking to apolitical workers or moderate leftists is fine. Talking to conservatives can be okay if they share your material interests (i.e. they're working class), but it's a poor investment of your time and energy for obvious reasons. Talking to fascists and the bourgeoisie (even petite bourgeois) is counterproductive, complete waste of time.

>>2808852
i'm sure worshipping the same guy is gonna get you real far in a country detached from it, but what do i know? i'm just an ultra!

>>2808695
Simply talk about all the obvious ways in which capitalism is completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. He tells his followers to care for the poor and the downtrodden, that the accumulation of wealth at the expense of others is sinful, that property should be held in common and distributed according to need, etc. In short, simply identify to them the myriad of ways in which capitalism compels and encourages people to behave in ways that are the complete opposite of Christian teachings. From there it's a small leap to point out how a socialist society would be objectively closer to the application of those teachings on a national scale.
>>2808639
>Massive scientific and technological activities that would have been greatly hampered in an environment lead by the retarded superstitions of backwards religions institutions.
And yet countries like the US which didn't engage in any crackdown on religion made similar advancements and often surpassed those of the Soviet Union. This isn't the 17th century, no mainstream Christian denomination teaches that scientific inquiry and research is a bad thing. On the contrary, some of the largest denominations (like Catholicism) actively promote it as a means to better understand God through studying creation.
>the rift already existed
The rift existed between socialism and established religious institutions. Those institutions like the Russian Orthodox Church absolutely needed to he subjugated and neutralized. However it doesn't follow from this that religion in general should be demonized. The correct course of action would be to promote schools of religious thinking which were compatible with the revolution. This is the current approach in China. If a reactionary priest tells somebody that they cannot be both a Christian and a socialist, we aren't helping our cause by confirming that and allegation and forcing Christian workers to choose between their faith and their class. We would be much better off convincing them that not only can they be both, but that their faith compels them to be a socialist.
>Religious "Marxism" rejects dialectical materialism
I see no reason why this should be the case. Dialectical materialism is simply a model to describe human socioeconomic evolution. If Christians can accept Darwinian evolution as truth (which the vast majority do) then there is no reason why they cannot accept dialectical materialism. Darwin's theory struck far harder at the core beliefs of Christianity than Marxism does, and yet most have come to accept it.

If you believe the world was immaculately concieved you are not a materialist. Simple as

>>2808837
>Reading my posts I see I might come across as a concern troll and I’m sorry if I do, but I’m really asking here
No, it's fine. And even if you were, it can still lead to an interesting discussion.

A big thing in Marxian historiography is that, while the overall direction of history is in a given direction, on a moment-to-moment basis, it can still go backwards. It took centuries worth of back and forth for capitalism to overtake feudalism, so long that feudalism still existed in Russia by the time the Russian revolution had occurred. Whether or not we actually are moving in the direction that Marx and Engels believe us to be is debatable, but that's a whole conversation unto itself.

>>2808852
I don't see what any of this has to do with anything.

>>2808877
>And yet countries like the US which didn't engage in any crackdown on religion made similar advancements and often surpassed those of the Soviet Union.
The US also has a construction that protects people from religious authority. Both countries were still, from a legal perspective, secular, so the distinction isn't quite as large as you think.

>This isn't the 17th century, no mainstream Christian denomination teaches that scientific inquiry and research is a bad thing. On the contrary, some of the largest denominations (like Catholicism) actively promote it as a means to better understand God through studying creation.
See above. And crazed Christians who want to live like it's the middle ages absolutely exist.

>Dialectical materialism is simply a model to describe human socioeconomic evolution
That's historical materialism. Dialectical materialism is Marx's philosophical outlook.