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[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Recently Utah Senator John Curtis in the Wall Street Journal wrote about a survey he conducted after the murder of Charlie Kirk: “Among the hundreds of messages that poured in, an alarming cohort spoke to the vicious cycle of online hatred they see and the isolation they feel on social media.”
These sermons of hate are delivered not by a preacher in a pulpit from which he addresses a congregation seated in pews, a community of other human beings sharing their spiritual humanity and beliefs; but by online apps and algorithms that spellbind isolated strangers with wounded souls who face inhuman screens throbbing with extremism and hate.
They are the “woke” parishioners of a new “black market religion,” French philosopher Chantal Delsol’s metaphor for the deracinated, secularized peoples of modernity who find substitutes for the lost meaning and solidarity of faith in political religions like fascism, ethnonationalism, and communism. For as priest and professor Owen Chadwick observed, “secularization is a religious process rather than an irreligious.”
Of all the black-market religions, Marx’s theories have been the most dependent on Christian doctrine and theology. A critical precursor and model was the French Revolution. Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1856 The Old Regime and the French Revolution described the Revolution as “a new kind of religion, an incomplete religion, it is true, without God, without religion, and without life after death, but one which nevertheless, like Islam, flooded the earth with its soldiers, apostles, and martyrs.”
Similarly, Marx’s financier Friedrich Engles’ claimed that he was a “scientist” who discovered the “science of real men and their historical development.” But rather than an empiricist, Marx was a prophet of his own revelations, who appropriated much from Christianity. As historian Michael Burleigh writes, “It is relatively easy to transpose some of the key terms from the Judeo-Christian heritage to Marxism: “consciousness” (soul), “comrades” (faithful), “capitalist” (sinner), “devil” (counter-revolutionary), “proletariat” (chosen people), “classless society” (paradise.) The ruling class were also going to face a revolutionary form of “Last Judgement.”
But, Burleigh continues, “there were far deeper unacknowledged correspondences, including nostalgia for a lost oneness and the belief that time was linear . . . [and] that the achievement of higher consciousness brought salvation, and that history was progressive with its meaning and purposes evident to the discerning, knowledgeable vanguard.”
Any leftist or “woke” column, speech, podcast, or protest slogan reprises these Marxist clichés.
Though Christianity was Marx’s most pertinent religious influence, we are witnessing today a bizarre symbiosis between the traditional atheist left, and Islamic jihadism still commanded by Koranic doctrines––a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The result is a new version of black market religion.
The points of solidarity are many: for communists, their motivating hatred is of the capitalist, free market West and its most powerful nation, the U.S., which brought down the Soviet Union, Marxism’s greatest success and power. For traditional Sharia-supremacist Muslims, the infidel West is similarly hated, but particularly the U.S or “Great Satan,” for wielding the global power and dominance that Allah intends for Muslims; and for supporting Israel, which according to Islamic myth-history hijacked Islam and occupies territories belonging to the “best of nations,” as the Koran says. Hence the support for Hamas by “woke” leftist college students who protest while donned in Muslim garb, and chant Muslim genocidal jihadist slogans against Israel, the nation of the Jews, the “Little Satan” allied with the “Great Satan” that interferes with Allah’s divine intention.
Another connection is the use of brutal violence against “infidels” and rival ideologies. For nearly two millennia Islam has killed vast numbers of people during their jihads. The communist Soviet Union similarly murdered vast masses of unbelievers in Marx’s tyrannical ideologies. As Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the secret police, wrote, “We are not waging war against individual persons. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class.”
The Ayatollah Khomeini, godfather of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, was even more brutal with infidels than Dzerzhinsky was with Marx’s enemy––the bourgeoise and capitalists. “Those who know nothing of Islam,” Khomeini preached, “[who say] that Islam counsels against war are . . . witless. Islam says ‘Kill all the unbelieves as they would kill you!’ . . . Islam says: ‘Whatever good there exists is thanks to the shadow of the sword!’”
The leftists and “woke” fit the mold of Marx’s version of the “black market religion”: the resort to extreme violence; the amoral “any means necessary” modus operandi; the “no enemies on the left” double standards and its blatantly transparency hypocrisy, the shamefully preposterous “big lie;” and the juvenile hysterical “passionate intensity” that marks the apocalyptic Second Coming. If you want proof, look at the current attempt to weaponize the Epstein files in yet another feeble attempt to wound Donald Trump.
Finally, we must emphasize the “black market religion” of the left’s scientism that has defined Marxism from the beginning: the pretense that Marxist ideology is a species of empirical science rather than an incoherent, malign figment of Marx’s imagination. That’s one reason the left so vehemently supports anthropocentric, catastrophic global warming, and predicate their belief on dubious hypotheses that rely on manipulated computer models rather than real-life evidence, while demonizing anyone––including respected actual scientists––as “deniers,” a smear meant to evoke holocaust denial.
Meanwhile, warmists attempt through Democrat policies to eradicate the abundant, carbon-based energy that created the modern West, while energy poor nations of the developing world are pressured to follow the rich Western left down the green rabbit hole that is wrecking its economies.
Similarly, the Marxist tradition of scientism also explains the leftists’ support for transgenderism pseudoscience––the ridiculous belief that biological sex is an antiscientific construct of the lupine greedy medical establishment, scientifically challenged media, and naive parents of newborns, who are encouraged by the left to choose their child’s sexual identity from a preposterous catalogue of made-up identities, and then have their children poisoned and mutilated in an attempt to make a malign fantasy into a grotesque reality. Having no real science to support these fantasies, in traditional Marxist fashion, the left attacks critics with violence and slander.
Most importantly is the main purpose of contemporary black-market religions: to dismantle our Constitutional order of divided and balanced powers, and protected rights and freedoms that are the bulwark against the tyrannies of black-market religions eager to take control of society and government power, and create their impossible utopias and globalist fever dreams thwarted, for now, by Donald Trump’s restoration of our Constitutional heritage of freedom. But by no means has the job been finished.
Excellent-although had to relook up deracinated for about the fourth or fifth time.
It is a hard word. It sounds like “race” but the latin root (radix) means “root.” That’s how I remember it now, because I did the same thing you did – kept looking it up!
There is a new dental practice here called “Radix.” I feel pain every time I look at the sign!
“Christianity prepared the ground. It paved the way for modern totalitarianism by entrenching three fundamentals in the Western mind: in metaphysics, the worship of the supernatural; in epistemology, the reliance on faith; as a consequence, in ethics, the reverence for self-sacrifice”
― Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels
“You are probably wondering here: “What about Communism? Isn’t it a logical, scientific, atheistic philosophy, and yet doesn’t it lead straight to totalitarianism?” The short answer to this is: Communism is not an expression of logic or science, but the exact opposite. Despite all its anti-religious posturings, Communism is nothing but a modern derivative of religion: it agrees with the essence of religion on every key issue, then merely gives that essence a new outward veneer or cover-up.
The Communists reject Aristotelian logic and Western science in favor of a “dialectic” process; reality, they claim, is a stream of contradictions which is beyond the power of “bourgeois” reason to understand. They deny the very existence of man’s mind, claiming that human words and actions reflect nothing but the alogical predetermined churnings of blind matter. They do reject God, but they replace him with a secular stand-in, Society or the State, which they treat not as an aggregate of individuals, but as an unperceivable, omnipotent, supernatural organism, a “higher unseen power” transcending and dwarfing all individuals. Man, they say, is a mere social cog or atom, whose duty is to revere this power and to sacrifice every thing in its behalf. Above all, they say, no such cog has the right to think for himself; every man must accept the decrees of Society’s leaders, he must because this is the voice of Society, whether he understands it or not. Fully as much as Tertullian, Communism demands faith from its followers and subjects, “faith” in the literal, religious sense of the term. On every account, the conclusion is the same: Communism is not a new, rational philosophy; it is a tired, slavishly imitative heir of religion.” – Leonard Peikoff, “Religion versus Amarica”
Didn’t you post this Lenny Piehole garbage last week and at least 400 times over the last few years.
If I may crib from Lenny:
On every account, the conclusion is the same: Objectivism is not a new, rational philosophy; it is a tired, slavishly imitative heir of religion.”
In other words Objectivism is the same old same old that offers nothing more than bitterness and misery.
Yep! All that crazy talk about the benefits of free markets and sound money. Like Ann Coulter, Rand was a “whacky nut job.” (Sarcasm off now.)
My intellectual hero is not someone who says “‘tariff” is one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary.”” Talk about a very dumb statement…But hey, let’s try to buy votes with $2,000 checks from government at a time when the deficit is still absurdly high. Vote for me. I’ll give you $3,000.
Why is Trump advocating for imported beef from Argentina? Never mind. Never let president worship get in the way of a blatantly contradictory policy.
Have you ever actually read Atlas Shrugged? There’s an obvious reason those who recognize the benefits of free markets find the book so important.
It IS religious! Dressed as reason, it collapses under the weight of its irrationality. And we have been there and done that — think the French Revolution and the guillotine removing all the disagreeable, unreasoning heads. Life unworthy of life, but let’s try it again, shall we?
Is religion more dangerous than socialism?
“I believe that the medievals understood much better than the moderns on what basis to build a totalitarian society that would last and not collapse in less than a century. They did it and the people in the rising religious movement today know that full well. They’re the ones who have millions, upon millions, upon millions, of followers and a real insight into the fact that economics is not the crucial factor, but philosophy and culture are…. Religion has been the root of [totalitarianism] from the beginning, it has ruled in disguised forms, and still is, and now the disguise had to be stripped off… What socialism is doing is really helping religion, the bigger the statism, the more people grow accustomed to government rule over everything, the more people are ready for religionists to take over the lead from the more secular side… The socialists are building the basis for totalitarianism but only the religionists are going to cash in on it and take over.” – Leonard Peikoff
It’s pretty clear that these two clowns in the picture could use a dose of Capitalism instead of standing on a curb talking about the wonders of socialism and yet holding up a sign that was probably printed by a business engaging in capitalism.
Oh the irony!
Hmmmm, who would justifiably be considered a stauncher advocate of free markets, the woman who wrote “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” or a guy who thinks the formula for economic prosperity is interfering with people’s efforts to get the most for their earnings?
The High Priest of Debt is certainly doing a great job increasing the national debt, What was Ayn Rand’s position on deficits?
We’ll await your insightful refutation of Rand’s position on tariffs. Commence with the name-calling and evasion,
There is an idiot asst. professor of economics at Monmouth College in Illinois who very smugly used that worn out “We’ll wait your (fill in the blank) technique to attempt ridicule. He didn’t like tariffs (or Trump) either yet he claimed to be a conservative and he kept insisting I read something he wrote 20 years ago.
Like I have time for that. I am on to that freshman “We’ll wait” attitude of yours.
It’s also “pretty clear” you haven’t read or understood Ayn Rand. Maybe someone can buy you a copy of “Atlas Shrugged,” or “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” for Christmas. We’ll look forward to pointing out all the things she gets wrong in the books.
I have read enough Rand and Peikoff from our resident Objectivist Gooroo to last a lifetime
So if that imaginary somebody buys either of those books tell them to invest in a shredder. I never really understand why you bother, I’m six.
Two useful Idiots you can tell that because of their stupid sign they carry, we were told by McCarthy about this commie scum suckers
I have one question for those socialist/communist clowns: Name a single invention, scientific/engineering innovation and/or advancement in any area of science & engineering, that a socialist or communist country has ever introduced and changed the world. They can’t
The modern world as we know it would not exist if not for capitalism. More than 80% of everything in the modern world was invented right here in America.
For example: Nikola Tesla, a demonstrable genius and arguably the greatest inventor in human history, was born in Serbia, but came to America where he later, single-handedly, invented Alternating Current and every electrical device that makes it possible (e.g., transformers, generators, etc.) Today in science & engineering Nikola Tesla is known as the man who electrified the world. Even Albert Einstein once proclaimed Nikola Tesla the smartest human being alive.
Tesla and his inventions are just one example of the many things invented in America–a capitalist country. But don’t take my word for it, do a patent search on just about any modern device or invention and confirm it for yourself. (I have.)
Again, the modern world would not have ever been invented or built without capitalism as the motivating/driving force. But of course, those socialist/communists neanderthals wouldn’t know or understand that.
Good point.
An example is when Canada & England socialized it’s health care.
It was acknowledged that innovation would end, but everyone would have access.
By access, they meant a SEVERAL month waiting period.
Hence, it became commonplace to see Canadian license plates at NY hospitals & care clinics
In England, it became normal for dentistry to be a bottle of vodka and a neighbor to pull the abscess tooth, as an abscess tooth can’t wait.
(Dentists see only the minimum patients required per year. Why exceed that list when one isn’t paid more?)
It’s hardly simply a matter of money. It’s a matter of freedom and rights. It’s a matter of life and death.
Don’t you remember the case of that baby in England a few years back who’s parents raised the money for his operation by opening an account on “Go Fund Me”. They raised the money but were denied a visa to go to Italy for the baby’s operation by the British government and the baby died.
Even if the best doctors in the world could work for free the totalitarians would want to control and destroy them. Marxism is not about money or helping the poor, it’s about hatred of the good for being the good, the talented for being the talented, the intelligent for being intelligent, the successful for being successful. Hatred of the free for being free.
“Conservatives sometimes observe that government, by freezing medical fees, is destroying the doctors’ financial incentive to practice. This is true enough, but my point is different. With or without incentive, the doctors are being placed in a position where they literally cannot function — where they cannot think, judge, know what to do, or act on their conclusions. Increasingly, for a man that is conscientious, today’s government is making the practice of medicine impossible,” – Leonard Peikoff, “Medicine: The Death of A Profession”
During the convid scam doctors that wanted to prescribe hydrocloraquin (sp) for convid were threatened with legal action and even loss of medical license.
The convid scam wasn’t about the disease, it was a test of control.
That mindset prevailed in the world of science around the turn of the last century. The physics scientific orthodoxy at the time proclaimed that everything to know about physics had already been discovered and there was no new to discover.
Then Albert Einstein proposed his theory of special relativity which the physics orthodoxy at the time laughed at and said was ridiculous and impossible. Einstein refined his theory and 10 years later introduce general relativity. Of course, the existing orthodoxy at the time resisted and still said Einstein was wrong.
One of the applications of relativity’s mathematical equations is that it predicts how a large gravitational mass would affect light and cause light to curve around it and by how much depending on the size of the gravitational mass.
The then renowned astronomer, physicist and mathematician Sir Arthur Eddington took a series of photographs of the sun during a total eclipse.
He then applied Einstein’s equations to calculate the amount of curvature of the light from stars behind the sun and stars who’s light past near the sun. The curvature of the light from those stars were exactly the amount Einsteins equations showed that they would be. That was the first confirmation that Einstein’s theories were correct.
The second confirmation came from the planet Mercury. For centuries astronomers had do reliable mathematical analysis capable of predicting Mercury’s erratic orbit. When Einsteins equations for general relativity were applied to the problem, it precisely predicted Mercury’s motion as it orbited the sun and it’s position at any given point in time.
Since then, Einstein’s equations have been applied to a number of physical phenomenon and has proven to be correct again and again beyond all doubt. In modern times, GPS would not exist if Einstein’ s theories were incorrect. In fact, LEO, MEO and GEO-orbiting satellites, Lagrange point satellites and deep space communications satellites would not exist if Einstein’s equations were not correct.
The bottom line here is that anyone who claims that innovation and discovery is at an end is clearly and necessarily someone who is looking backwards and not forward. They’re the kind of people who would’ve been content to live out their entire existence is caves.
The NHS pays for some dental procedures and dentists get to charge for others. So dental neglect in the UK isn’t about dentists not putting in the hours, but about exactly which procedures are funded.
Excellent analysis.
But the upshot fits on a bumper sticker:
“Atheism is a religion.”
And it sucks.
As all of its victims can attest.
That’s why Atheism and Islam are a match for each other.
They are two peas in the same pod.
(And the idea that Atheism is merely skepticism or agnostism is a fantasy, which no one understands unless they happen to be an actual skeptic.)
My bumper sticker…
IF YOU ARE RIGHT I WILL NEVER KNOW IT
IF YOU ARE WRONG, YOU WILL BE DEAD
Creeping Secularization is pervasive.
No, creeping IRRATIONALITY is becoming pervasive.
And Christianity is as irrational as Islam or Marxism.
Just can’t wait to denigrate Christianity, can you. You forgot the Jews.
When you believe in nothing you will fall for anything.
Another aspect of Marxism copies religion. The stages of history begin with primitive communism and end with communism. That parallels Eden and Paradise and claims inevitability.
The type of person easily duped into communism is one who has been ostracized by his peers at puberty. Being outside the “in crowd” is never forgotten. These individuals never grow out of this rejection. It is caused in many cases by a genetically mutated amygdala. The amygdala is the source of homosexual proclivities as well.
Communism is extremely attractive to this group as it attempts to undermine the majority of society. This is the source of a continual movement intent on undermining the culture.
Madame DeFarge:
The worst part is that the idiots duped into communism derives no tangible benefits from it other than the satisfaction of knowing that everyone else around them are just as sad and miserable as they are.
It’s said that misery loves company. I’m all but certain that the person who coined that phrase was reflecting on the nature of communists.
By the way: it has been my experience that the most loyal American citizens are immigrants who came here from a communist country. They have a better appreciation for America and what it stands for than many American citizens who were born here.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Excellent article.
How does the West survive being squeezed between the rock of communism and the rock of Islam?
Or does it all end with the “suicide of the West”?
Since the subject of Communism has been brought up. It’s thus appropriate time to also mention the subject of Communist nation of Cuba an appropriate time It’s important to define the concept of Communism .Otherwise known as Marxism. There the pipe-dream of a pure Marxist society in the philosophical political economic fantasy that no one is ever really in need and everyone “Works according to his abilities and receives according to his needs”
In contrast, the is the reality of Communism which is that Marxism is a philosophy that no intelligent person can actually, truthfully accept is not only unrealistic and unnatural but also a joke and an excuse to set up and prop-up tyranny. For evil is always looking for an excuse. Marxism is just the excuse need to set up brutal regimes. Such as that of that Communist tyrannical and oppressive of Red China.
Most historians agree that Karl Marx had good intentions when he labored so many hours writing his books. Such as the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO along with his long volumes which are entitled THE CAPITAL. Those volumes and his other written works were intended to remedy the terrible social conditions of the oppressed and exploited working class.
The reality was the only further tyrannical oppression and cruel exploitation came upon humankind as a result of his error filled philosophical economic political thesis. First, this awful disaster is what may be called “The law of unintended consequences.” Second, as already mentioned above Karl Marx had “good intentions.” So this serves a proof that the old saying must actually be true. Which is that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
There are three types of persons who embrace socialism: First, the young and uninitiated, enthralled by the “solve the world’s troubles” shtick advanced by Marx and Engels. Second, the undriven, lack of initiative types, pining for a system that will give them a steady financial support. And last, the wealthy and powerful, who want to cut down on the competition. The later are the real fifth column behind the movement, and always have been.