Hegemony, Ideology and Religiosity

Almsgiving and helping the poor are also great ways to keep the devil at bay.  Anything done from the heart, especially when it's sacrificial, confounds him.  Why?  Because he doesn't have a heart, and he can't understand it.  He has an immense intellect, and can win a battle of wits with us every time, but he always loses the battle whenever we do something for the less fortunate, from the heart.
- Catholic Bible 101

So why is it that in horror movies involving demon possession you never see the possessed or tormented going to a homeless shelter or food cupboard and volunteering?  It is, of course, the increasingly reactionary ideology of Hollywood.  However, there are redeeming qualities in films like the Exorcist and the Paranormal Activity series.  They depict privileged people who don't really deserve their privilege who get their comeuppance from the demons.  In fact, in the Paranormal Activity films, the riches/privileges themselves come from a pact with Satan and his demons.

I am, of course, a total materialist, but even in the most despicable of religions there are lessons to be learned.  Undeserved privilege, whether it be race culture, gender, orientation, ability or body type based must be formally renounced, in the way someone tortured by demons must renounce Satan.  It must also be recognized that despite such renunciation, those of us who have privilege may still benefit from it.  Thus, we must become traitors to our identites, like John Brown, and actively oppose these systems of privilege.

As a great liberation theologian once said: 

In terms of Bill Maher, I think he's a flip-flopping Zionist liberal who gives atheism a bad name.  However, the general thrust of his argument against Islam is correct, albeit problematic.  Essentially, Bill Maher is saying that if you read the holy books of just about any religion and interpret them through a fundamentalist/literalist lens, they're all pretty despicable.  Of course they are!  They were written a long time ago when the world was a very different place culturally, socially, politically and economically.  He also blames religion for wars.  Well of course religions have been responsible for wars.  They often preach about spiritual warfare as a proof of a zealot's devotion.

What makes Bill Maher's conceptualization of religion problematic, is that he seems to think it's just a religion thing, when it's really just hegemonic ideology that is the problem.  Religion is one form that hegemonic ideology takes, but there are other forms as well.  Fascism, for example, was not a religion (although some fascists like Franco and to a lesser extent even Hitler espoused religiosity) but it was an insidious ideology that resulted in some of the most horrific atrocities of the last century.  

Neoliberal capitalism is another more current example.  As a matter of fact, I would call a progressive liberation theologian like the Catholic Workers or the late-Malcolm X's Muslim Mosque, Inc. a comrade before I would a free-market libertarian neo-atheist.

Religion is only different because it is ideology at its rawest, purest form.  It demands faith, not facts or even revisionist history to sustain its legitimacy.  However, it should be seen as simply an ideology.  It should not be sheltered from criticism nor should it be unjustly criticized and disproportionately blamed for atrocities.  Even we communists have some past crimes done in our name that we have to own.

Often I am disappointed by those who call them socialists who would disavow Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung etc. by saying they weren't really communists, or their governments didn't try real, authentic socialism.  Bullshit!  They were communists of some form or another, even though maybe not whichever particular version may be popular at the moment.  They made mistakes, their thinking was off in some ways, they tried things that failed and they even committed atrocities at times.  However, to insist that they weren't authentic communists is to parrot the libertarian-capitalist argument that "true capitalism was never tried."  Additionally, we must not reject wholesale these leaders' contributions to the body of socialist thought.  The benefit of studying history is that we can see, in hindsight, what aspects of which theories worked and did not.

If socialism was never tried than socialism can never be tried and the socialist project is doomed to failure from its outset.  The ray of hope here, however, is that a successful revolution redeems all failed ones.  Let us not dismiss uncomfortable aspects of our tradition's history as non-authentic.  Let us learn from them and improve going forward. 

Buddhism and Materialism

I've had some friends and comrades that would insist that if you're looking for spirituality without the "opiate" effect that Marx talked about, one should try Buddhism. However, the more I have studied Buddhism, the more convinced I've become that it is completely incompatible with communism and leftism in general.

Doctrinally, it teaches elimination of suffering through withdrawal from concern over material realities. The ultimate goal is to reach enlightenment through mental discipline and meditation.  Herein lies the heart of my beef with Buddhist philosphy.  An enlightened one has eliminated suffering for her/himself, but to maintain enlightened status, must be indifferent to the suffering of others.

I have had self-described leftist/Buddhists explain to me that there is such a thing as secular Buddhism and it is more of a philosophy than a religion.  Religions are just dogmatic philosophies, anyway.  If you follow what Gautama said with or without 1) spirituality or 2) cult of personality you are left with the idea that the way to eliminate suffering is to be indifferent to it.  Any philosophical paradigm must stand up to the dialectical materialist test: Does this way of thinking benefit the proletariat, or harm it?

 Counter-intuitively, when measured against this rubric, Christianity is actually more progressive on this than Buddhism.  Jesus preached that the meek shall inherit the earth, blessed are the poor, woe to the rich and that it is more difficult for a rich man to get into to heaven than it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle.  Indeed, the beatitudes in the sermon on the mount are some of the most proto-communist religious writings ever.

I'm confused by the strange relationship between Buddhism and leftism in the USA primarily.  Buddhism is marketed as a peace and love religious tradition that is much more benign than the mono-theistic religions, Christianity especially.

One Buddhist comrade told me that he reconciles communism and Buddhism by being 'both against materialism but pro person.'  He proceeded to explain that communists strive for the betterment of all and that is the common ground that Buddhist anti-materialism and Communist dialectical-materialism shares.


Certainly not!!! Marxism is dialectical MATERIALISM! That means suffering will be alleviated only when MATERIAL resources are distributed equally and humans no longer have to compete.  Additionally, I don't want material conditions to get better for everyone, equally.  Marx said "From each according to ability, to each according to need."  To espouse an ideology that rosily insists that things must get better for everybody, even the rich, is no different than the "rising tide brings up all boats" concept in Reganomics.  In order to have economic equality, things must get better for the poor and worse for the rich, most essentially, the billionaires.

Yet another Buddhist comrade recounted a Buddhist parable to me.  The moral at the end went something like this:

The monk smiled and nodded. Then he said softly, "First, take away the "I". That is ego. Then take away your "want". Now you are left with only happiness.

First, if one is believe Lacan, happiness is not really what we want.  He claimed that the source of desire is not the object of the desire (petit objet a), but it is that we desire the desire itself and objet a is merely a placeholder.

Additionally, I desire to uplift my class (proletariat). Only through this desire will we as a class be motivated to struggle for our own liberation.

Many American Buddhists look to the Dali Lama as a spiritual leader.  Dali Lama, of course, no longer resides in Tibet due to his dissident status according to the Chinese state.  The origin of the insistence on Tibetan autonomy appears to be anticommunism influenced by USA/CIA.

Here Michael Parenti relates the Dali Lama's ties to US covert-ops and US hegemony in general:

  
This link gives you a sense of what kind of people the Dali Lama is courting these days:

'Free Markets Are Miracles,' Panelist Claims; Debate Opens Dalai Lama's Mind to Capitalism

 
Finally, I would like to speak on corporate Buddhism.  A recent Salon article, written by Shawn Van Valkenburgh, a self proclaimed Buddhist, starts with the following anecdote:



Recently, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave some shocking advice to a young businesswoman who was concerned that her male peers were passing her up for promotions: Don’t question the systemic sexism of corporate America, just trust in “good karma” to get you ahead. While his attitude made waves in the blogosphere, in fact it accurately represents a form of spirituality that is becoming popular in the West.

He correctly cites Zizek's comments on Buddhism, which can be heard here (most relevantly at around 5:00):



However, unlike Zizek, he still sees redeeming features in Buddhism. He concludes thus:


The good news is that there may be a spiritual antidote for what Tibetan teacher Trungpa Rinpoche called “spiritual materialism.” And I’m not talking about intermittent bouts of Catholic guilt. I’m suggesting that if we work to complement our gratitude with mercy and compassion for those who are less fortunate, we can move away from the surface-level spirituality that is really just materialism in disguise. And this may be what the world needs more than ever.

There are plenty of opportunities for us to be compassionate. For example, as scientists’ long-term projections of the effects of climate change become more and more dire, somehow American denial of anthropogenic global warming is on the rise. This kind of denial is only possible if it is not met with compassion for those who are already facing the extreme weather of hurricanes like Sandy and Katrina, like the hard-hit women who are struggling to survive after flash floods destroy their communities. Cultivating compassion for those we usually ignore — whether that’s women in the global south who are facing the ugly end of natural disasters, inmates of American prisons, or businesswomen who make 20 percent less than men who do in the same job — is therefore both a spiritual and political imperative.

The point is not that we give up on Western spirituality, as Zizek seems to suggest. The teachings of Eastern religions are becoming more mainstream in America, but this is an opportunity as well as a cautionary tale. As we develop a more conscious lifestyle, let’s ask ourselves if we are deepening our spirituality, or just falling for the myth of spiritual meritocracy. May all beings be free from pain and suffering.
  
I disagree with this conclusion. The problem is not materialism. Just the opposite. For liberation we must desire and demand improvement in the material conditions of the oppressed. Spirituality's de-emphasis on the material is what makes it complimentary for late capitalism.

My argument against Buddhism is a philosophical argument from dialectical materialism. I wouldn't oppose a concept of Buddhism that is open to revolutionary communism, but I would oppose it philosophically as the opposite of dialectical materialism, and certainly not the necessary philosophy to arouse the proletarian class to a point of rage that would create conditions favorable to build worker power and revolution.