socialist religions

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Factional hatreds within religions

As the various factions of the left fight amongst themselves, they generate all sorts of religious sub-cults. Some of the world’s bitterest hatreds are reserved for heretics, between Jews and Islamists and Catholics and Protestants and Calvinists, all stemming from a Abrahamic root, while other traditions such as Hinduism and Confucianism are hardly noted among the squabbling factions.

Likewise, the modern, shallow, simplistic, puritanical religion that is socialism has its internal hatreds as its members spit words like fascist, communist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, Nazi, at one another. Never be confused—these are just battling factions within the modern religion that is socialism, each sub-cult searching for power, expansion, recruits and disciples.

I am concentrating here on central features of the dogmatic religion that is socialism. Of course, it is obvious that many other hierarchical religions share some, or all, of similar central characteristics. Socialism has essentially risen in the West, particularly in northern Europe. Socialism has, naturally, imbibed much of the cultural background of Western religions. The authoritarianism is virtually identical to that of Rome, the Puritanism is clear in several branches of Protestantism, and the tendency to rewrite history, brilliantly satirised by Orwell in 1984, has a long precedent in the heretic-hunting, also perfected by Rome.

One issue that should be kept in mind is that socialism is a fairly recent christianist schism. As religions gain history, they tend to become more complex, whereas socialism is still at a very crude stage of early development. Hence, very likely, socialism’s easy appeal to under-educated people.

The error of tolerating intolerance

Like all socialists, Oswald Mosley [1] was eager in his wish to restrict the civil liberties of others. Ironically, he was the one whose civil liberties were heavily curtailed through much of his life. The aspiring liberal democracy has a theoretical conflict at its very centre—how to stop would-be dictators from using the mechanisms of democracy as a means of obtaining the power to impose dictatorship upon others. Liberal democracies cannot tolerate intolerance, for such toleration inevitably contains the potential seeds of its own destruction.

Like religious fundamentalists everywhere, socialists pursue the salvation of others with dedicated enthusiasm. Being ‘idealistic’ and rather shallow, they just know what is good for their fellow citizens. They start by assuming that their nostrums of absolute perfection will be obvious to all right-minded people. But people are not like this, people tend to want to follow their own objectives, not those of the hopeful dictator. The authoritarian mind-set is:– that what the authoritarian wants is to be called good, and anything that opposes the ‘programme’ is bad, or evil.

Hayek has set out clearly the steps by which the (socialist) idealist must inevitably move towards dictatorship, as their wonderful visions are opposed by the uninformed. I have no intention of repeating Hayek’s work here. Every person should read Road to Serfdom as part of their basic education.

Some dogmas of socialism

Authoritarianism

Self-rule, as opposed to centralised rule, requires education to self-development. Authoritarian power structure demands education to herd-like conformity and obedience. By the structure of education in the classrooms, can you assess the present objectives and the good will and judgment of the elite. For more on power and the need for power see ‘why power’.

People who are fearful of things that they cannot control, cannot believe that society will function without control, preferably theirs! A major element driving dictatorships has been the fear of lack of control and ‘order’. It is has been the ‘democratic’ societies that have far outperformed the various socialist ‘experiments’. But what is very striking, when studying the various socialist hells on earth of the last century, is the ‘religious’ dogmatic certainty among the proponents that they had achieved some major social advance and vast intellectual breakthrough. Yet Adam Smith knew better long before these shallow cults developed.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but their self love.” Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776, bk. 1, ch. 2

There is nothing more designed to destroy wealth than governments that imagine they can choose better for us that which we want than we can achieve without their beneficent ‘help’. However, we have also moved on somewhat since the understanding of Adam Smith:

“The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.” John Maynard Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire, 1926, part 4

See also the logic of ethics.

Puritanism

“...Cromwell’s dealings with Parliament are not unlike Lenin’s with the Constituent Assembly. Both starting from a combination of democracy and religious faith, were driven to sacrifice democracy to religion enforced by military dictatorship. Both tried to compel their countries to live to a higher level of morality and effort than the population found tolerable. Life in modern Russia, as in Puritan England, is in many ways contrary to instinct. And if the Bolsheviks ultimately fall, it will be for the reason for which the Puritans fell: because there comes a point at which men feel that amusement and ease are worth more than all other goods put together.” [Russell, p.28]

This ‘knowing what is best for others’ is definitive of puritanism, quite apart from an attachment to ‘simplicity’ and the miserly, a taste for the hair shirt, the distrust of any joy or enthusiasm for anything but the objectives of the party (‘religion’). Even the songs and the parades must be sterile of any content beyond that of the great project.

Anti-scientific

“ ....Almost all the progress in the world from the earliest times is attributable to science and the scientific temper; almost all the major ills are attributable to religion. By religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional and authoritarian, not intellectual. By this definition, Bolshevism is a religion: that its dogmas go beyond or contrary to evidence, I shall try to prove in what follows. Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and commit intellectual suicide. even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination of them is tolerated. One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.”  [Russell, p.74]

“Bolshevism as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not an ordinary political movement...” [Russell, p.73]

Groupism–anti-individualism

“ Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.......” [Russell, p.74]

Highly definitive of the various sub-cults of socialism is an utter contempt for the individual. The individual is but an ant that serves the nest—and, of course, the leaders of the nest. The ant must have no life or ambition or interest that does not serve the state. Hence, the grave outrage expressed by socialists in Britain when Margaret Thatcher said, “And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people”. [2]

For the libertarian, society is the expression of the individuality of millions of independent beings. For the socialist, there is no such thing as an individual. Society is driven by abstract forces of historical materialism. For socialism, it is the economic structure that defines the individual, it is not the individual who, independently, chooses the manner in which they should live and develop.

Strangely, free-market dogmatism, which is often mistakenly thought of as a libertarian view, is also infected by the socialist virus. The markets decide, individuals do not plan and construct society to meet their own needs. The notion that markets might fail is as difficult to impress on the free-market dogmatist, as is the idea that the state may fail to drive into the skull of a committed socialist.

Interestingly, socialists have the view that individuals can be perfected by the setting up of ‘perfect’ states. This is the reverse of the Western individualism that has grown out of christianism, where the onus is upon the individual to seek a higher state of grace. This idea has also surfaced in behaviourism, with Skinner who claimed that we may control ourselves by controlling our environment. Both these positions, as well as that of christianism and that of socialism, are yet more examples of the error of either-or ‘logic’ central to Aristotelianism. For more detail see the logic of ethics.

Class hatred

There are several confusions among those who attempt to study the development of socialism: communism confused with anarchy; dozens of flavours using the word socialism, revolution and so on. But the essential commodity hardly varies—always the simplistic nostrums and the same basic dogmas. The one consistent definition that seems to be available among the adherents is “we are the real socialists”. When questioned about other supposed variants, one is consistently told, “Oh, that is not - or was not - real socialism!” The prayer books vary, whether Mao’s little red book, Mein Kampf or the communist manifesto of Marx and Engels. The prayers, the slogans, the songs and the flags vary (although you can usually rely on a lot of red and black), but the underlying dogmas are easily recognisable.

Just about every version of socialism has a psychological need for a class or racial enemy. So they acquire enemies and scapegoats, whether it be the Jews, the bourgeoisie, the democracies, the non-Arabs; or, in due course, even other versions of socialism, such as the real dangers of communist socialism. Thus in the end, one version of socialism justifies itself by reference to the dangers of another flavour of the self-same product.

As Jeeves repeatedly observes,

“The first essential is to study the psychology of the individual”. [3]

Authoritarian regimes do not arise from reason, they arise from the psychology of the individual. Some individuals want to be ‘in charge’ and, therefore, subscribe to dogmas which justify that wish and drive. The dogmas are not developed on the basis of what works most efficaciously for society. All the evidence of history, and especially of the 20th century, is that liberal democracies are much more creative, efficient and productive. But a ‘democratic’ structure does not justify the maintenance of dictatorial power positions, nor the perks and vanities of power.

Socialism is inherently authoritarian. Despite claims that ‘socialism’ has roots in anarchism, authoritarians simply have no grasp of the meaning of anarchy; the notion is quite outside their natural and rigid headset. Anarchism is far more expressed in ‘free-market’ capitalism; it is not something you can deal with by laying down a dogmatic formula, or a set of rules to tell you how to act in any and every circumstance. The ideas of such rules are antipathetic to free choices among responsible beings. Democracies deal with rules with systems of laws administered by independent judges. The independence is a categorical essential in an ever-changing world, but the authoritarian sees allowing independence as unfair or uncontrolled. For a free society, the rules are not sacrosanct, people have to think and judge! Thus the general contempt for ‘effete’ and ‘weak’ democracy that pervades those seeking ‘revolutionary’ socialism.

For a currently fictional, but excellent, description of a more developed anarchic society, see and then there were none.

To have a revolution, it is quite essential to have a class or group of persons to revolt against!

“There isn’t a pin to put between the Nazis and Bolshies [...] If one is a Jew one prefers one, and if an aristocrat the other, that’s all as far as I can see. Fiends! [Mitford’s emphasis]
[from a letter written in 1939 in Love from Nancy [5] by Charlotte Mosley (née Marten), p.120.]

Much of the theorising in the 19th and early 20th centuries came from people incensed by the contrast between the fortunes being made by the new entrepreneurs of the industrial revolution, and the poverty of the multitudes that fled the countryside as feudalism broke down. In their intellectual poverty, the socialist theorists have consistently sought groups to ‘blame’. Few had the patience or the foresight to await the riches forecast by Adam Smith from the growth of industrial society and the development of the mass-production factory system. So we move onto the next basic dogma: the supposed end of property. But, of course, property is concentrated in the hands of those who own the socialist states.

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think.”
Adolph Hitler

Anti-ownership

There is nothing more designed to cause a tragedy of the commons than government ‘ownership’ or no ownership at all where, because no-one feels responsible, everyone plunders and wastes. Further, ownership gives independence to individuals, quite the reverse of the normal aim of socialist governments. The only ownership a socialist government wants is to be itself sole owner and controller of every resource in a new and even more dull form of feudalism. Everybody, everything is the property of the government.

It is in this area that socialism has some valid concerns with the capitalist society, but the quality of ‘analysis’ is dire beyond belief. As Keynes says,

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion - how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

4 Commentaries on some socialist parties

Bibliography

Quotations from Russell, Bertrand, The practice and theory of bolshevism,
first published in 1920 by George Allen & Unwin. [4]

1995, Spokesman [Nottingham, UK], 0851245412 pbk / 0851245404 hbk

£7.99 pbk / £30.00 hbk [amazon.co.uk]
                   $67.50 hbk [amazon.com]

End notes

1. Oswald Mosley (1896 – 1980), English politician who was the leader of the British Union of Fascists from 1932 to 1940 and of its successor, the Union Movement, from 1948 until his death. These groups were known for distributing anti-Semitic propaganda, conducting hostile demonstrations in the Jewish sections of east London, and wearing Nazi-style uniforms and insignia.

   Serving in the House of Commons from 1918 to 1931, Mosley, as he became ever more extreme, was successively a Conservative, an Independent, and a Labour Party member, serving in a Labour ministry in 1929 – 30. In 1931 he tried to form a socialist party but was defeated for reelection to Parliament. The next year he founded the British Union of Fascists, for which some enthusiasm was generated by his own powerful oratory and by the support of the newspaper publisher Viscount Rothermere. Interned after the outbreak of World War II, Mosley was released in 1943 because of illness. On Feb. 7, 1948, he launched the Union Movement.

   Mosley married in 1920 Lady Cynthia Blanche Curzon (died 1933), daughter of the 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston; and in 1936 Diana Guinness (née Freeman-Mitford), daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdale, himself a prewar apologist of Nazi Germany. (Redesdale came to abhor the Nazis while his wife, Sydney, continued to revere Hitler. This was probably the basis for a growing rift between the couple). Mosley’s autobiography, My Life, was published in 1968.
   enc. brit., with changes by ab

2. “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

   Margaret Thatcher, 3 October 1987

3. “The first essential is to study the psychology of the individual”.
   “The what of the individual?”
   “The psychology, madam.”
   “He means the psychology,” I said. “And by psychology, Jeeves, you imply —?”
   “The natures and dispositions of the principals in the matter, sir.”
   “You mean, what they’re like?”
   “Precisely, sir.”
   “Does he talk like this to you when you are alone, Bertie?” asked Aunt Dahlia.
   “Sometimes. Occasionally. And, on the other hand, sometimes not.”
   
   P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves, 1930, in The Jeeves Omnibus 3, 1991 Hutchinson, 009174833X, p.433
   See also [5]
   
   
4. Now that communism has been mainly defeated by the USA and militant islamism is facing similar pressures from capitalism, it is interesting that this next quotation was written over 80 years ago.

   “ ....Bolshevism must sooner or later be brought by success into a desperate conflict with America; and America is more solid and strong as yet, than anything that Mohammed's followers had to face.”
   [Russell, p.75]

5. It is interesting to note that two of the authors that I quote above satirised Mosley, Britain’s very own would-be socialist dictator, in novels.
   
   P.G. Wodehouse in The Code of the Woosters, 1937—

   “The moment I had set eyes on Spode, if you remember, I had said to myself ‘What ho! A Dictator!’ and a Dictator he had proved to be. I couldn’t have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living in Clapham.
       ‘Well, I’m dashed! I thought he was something of that sort. That chin … Those eyes… And, for the matter of that, that moustache. By the way, when you say “shorts”, you mean “shirts”, of course.’
       ‘No. By the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left. He and his adherents wear black shorts.’
       ‘Footer bags, you mean?’
       ‘Yes.’
       ‘How perfectly foul.’
       ‘Yes.’
       ‘Bare knees?’
       ‘Bare knees.’
       ‘Golly!’
       ‘Yes.’
   
   The Jeeves Omnibus 1, 1990 Hutchinson, 009173987X, p.238

   Also, Nancy Mitford, in Wigs on the Green, where the British Union of Fascists became the Union Jack Movement, and the Black Shirts became the Union Jack Shirts. Wigs on the Green also satirised her sister Unity. This satirical work was not taken well by the Mitford family (aggravated by Unity’s attempted suicide), and Nancy Mitford and her family ever afterwards worked to ‘bury’ it. Therefore, as a result of this behaviour, Wigs on the Green has become virtually a banned book since its publication in 1935. This is a shame, because it forms an interesting, minor social document of those times. It is now close to unobtainable.

       “Oh, good”, she said, coming down from her tub. She then began hitching up her skirt, disclosing underneath it a pair of riding breeches, from the pocket of which she produced two recruiting cards and a fountain pen. “You sign here—see? You have to promise that you will obey the Captain in all things and pay ninepence.”
       “I promise,” said Jasper.
       “It’s all very well,” said Noel, “I suppose that’s O.K., but look here, who is the Captain? Is he a nice chap? Couldn’t I promise in most things? He might want me to do something very peculiar, mightn’t he?”
       “Eugenia looked at him with a lowering brow, fingering her dagger. “You’d better be careful,” she said gloomily. “That is no way to speak of the Captain.”
       “I’m awfully sorry,” said Noel, nervously eyeing the weapon. “I’ll never do it again. Right then, here’s my ninepence.”
   
   Nancy Mitford, Wigs on the Green, 1935 Thornton Butterworth, Ltd, p.22.

   Wigs on the green,

   a colloquial expression (orig. Irish) for coming to blows or sharp altercation (wigs being liable to fall or be pulled off in a fray).[OED]

   In this extract, the character, Eugenia (who was based on Unity Mitford), was election campaigning, standing on an upturned washtub.

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