Left-Wing Ideology: A Cult, a Religion, or Science?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
More than a hundred years ago, prominent Marxist Antonio Gramsci wrote: "Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. [Socialism is] religion in the sense that it too is a faith with its mystics and rituals; religion because it has substituted for the consciousness of the transcendental God of the Catholics, the faith in man and in his great strengths as a unique spiritual reality" [1]. Equalizing an ideology with religion was pretty novel back then. However, Gramsci was talking about religion not as it is commonly understood — i.e., the relationship between God and men — but as a collection of religious attributes and rituals. In his point of view, socialism was godless religion, the cult of the messianic Marx. At the same time, Gramsci understood that socialism (and leftism in general), like any other dogma, is immune to empirical, rational challenges because, by definition, its postulates are untestable — untestable not because it is impossible to conduct such tests, but because followers of leftist ideology reject any idea of such a test in principle. (By the way, this is something leftists have in common with Muslims.) They are mostly true believers; they aggressively reject any attempts to test the foundations of their dogmatic beliefs.
Leftists' behavior is utterly illogical to a degree one might call unscientific. Their irrationality is based on illusory knowledge — i.e., knowledge acquired through a system of beliefs, expressed by well known authorities (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bernstein, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky, Mao, and many others). Left-wingers acquired their false, Utopian beliefs throughout the entire history of human civilization. Their undisputed belief of multiplying wealth by dividing it (i.e., by redistributing it by force) was the basis of numerous failed social experiments.
To avoid any confusion, let us provide adequate definitions of socialism (promoted by left-wing ideology) and its antithesis, capitalism (promoted by the free-market, or conservative , ideology).
Socialism is a state of society where most wealth, either de jure or de facto, belongs to a government.
Capitalism is a state of society where most wealth, both de jure and de facto, belongs to its citizens.
Communism is a Utopian state of society where all wealth, both de jure and de facto, belongs to a government.
The adherents of both left-wing and right-wing philosophy have knowledge; however, the left-wingers got their knowledge from the system of beliefs, while right-wingers got their knowledge from the trial-and-error development of human civilization. Leftism will accompany society forever because pseudo-science always runs in parallel to science. As in a social life where leftism is the ideology of mostly lumpen (lazy bums), autocrats, and elites, the pseudo-science feeds on real science as left-wingers feed on civilization built mostly by right-wingers.
There is a simple test to distinguish between scientific knowledge and the pseudo-scientific kind. The test is based on the fact that the human reaction to new information that contradicts the original knowledge depends on the method of acquiring that original knowledge.
In the real world, if new information contradicts the original knowledge, it leads to a re-evaluation of such knowledge. For example, when intuitive, widely accepted, and wrong knowledge that the sun rotates around the Earth was challenged by Copernicus, it led to a painful re-evaluation of the original idea and accepting the new, revolutionary one: that it is, in fact, Earth that rotates around the sun.
However, if the original knowledge is acquired by religious or other dogmatic beliefs, the new information does not lead to such re-evaluation. On the contrary, in most cases, it leads to the strengthening of the original belief . For example, even if it were proven that flying horses never existed on the planet Earth, Muslims will continue to believe that Mohammad flew on a horse named Buraq to an outer space where he met Allah. Moreover, any attempt to prove to any Muslim that such a voyage on a horse is impossible will not just strengthen Muslim's beliefs, but could convert some of them from a passive, indifferent follower into an aggressive religious fanatic. The reaction would be similar to the reaction of a rank-and-file Democrat if somebody mentioned that Antifa, like the Ku Klux Klan before it, was founded as a militant wing of the Democratic Party.
When President Trump tweets or says something "controversial," a lot of his political opponents get triggered. This "triggering of snowflakes" is a perfect example of how the strengthening of the original belief manifests itself in real life. There are numerous examples of such triggering. If we are talking about Trump, it is called Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Who is online
240 visitors