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The article reminded me of Pope Benedict XVI's short commentary on Marx in his 2007 encyclical letter Spe Salvi[1]: "Together with the victory of the revolutio
by michaelsbradley 13y ago
The article reminded me of Pope Benedict XVI's short commentary on Marx in his 2007 encyclical letter Spe Salvi[1]:
"Together with the victory of the revolution, though, Marx's fundamental error also became evident. He showed precisely how to overthrow the existing order, but he did not say how matters should proceed thereafter. He simply presumed that with the expropriation of the ruling class, with the fall of political power and the socialization of means of production, the new Jerusalem would be realized. Then, indeed, all contradictions would be resolved, man and the world would finally sort themselves out. Then everything would be able to proceed by itself along the right path, because everything would belong to everyone and all would desire the best for one another. Thus, having accomplished the revolution, Lenin must have realized that the writings of the master gave no indication as to how to proceed. True, Marx had spoken of the interim phase of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessity which in time would automatically become redundant. This 'intermediate phase' we know all too well, and we also know how it then developed, not ushering in a perfect world, but leaving behind a trail of appalling destruction. Marx not only omitted to work out how this new world would be organized—which should, of course, have been unnecessary. His silence on this matter follows logically from his chosen approach. His error lay deeper. He forgot that man always remains man. He forgot man and he forgot man's freedom. He forgot that freedom always remains also freedom for evil. He thought that once the economy had been put right, everything would automatically be put right. His real error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favourable economic environment."
[1] http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/d...
- yukichan 13y agoI was with this until this part: > His real error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favourable economic environment." That's going to segue (thanks for the spelling check davidw) obviously into some religions thing about the soul or something. And I take issue with having to be redeemed. I do not need to be redeemed.
- michaelsbradley 13y agoRead paragraph #1 in the linked page and you'll find stated quite plainly the ideas and questions which the author intends to explore in the rest of his text. The commentary on Marx is situated within that larger context and does touch on questions of soul, faith, redemption, and other religious themes.
- tehwalrus 13y agoumm, no it isn't (I mean, maybe he did say something like that afterwards, but that's not what he's saying here.) The idea that humans are not just the product of their environment but have something within them is undoubtedly true; some of our behaviours are learned (from the economy, and from other places), and some are innate/genetic. Similarly, humans placed in a "favourable economic environment" are not automatically perfect, or even good. On these points, I agree with him (in spite of being an atheist and ex-Catholic.)
- yukichan 13y agoDue to the bit about redemption and that it was the Pope's words I considerably doubt he was speaking about anything other than original sin. If you find your genetics equatable to sin from which you need redemption, you should consider aiding gene therapy research or something then, because you cannot change your genes by reading the writings of religious leaders.
- tehwalrus 13y agoTo talk about "redeeming" oneself is a standard English idiom. When the pope uses it, maybe he does mean something else, but I don't see why we need to interpret a long-ish, otherwise non-theological piece uncharitably over the use of a single word once.
- yukichan 13y ago> but I don't see why we need to interpret a long-ish, otherwise non-theological piece uncharitably over the use of a single word once. Because the words are in the general sense and I'd like someone to show me why "man", as it was originally phrased, needs any kind of redemption. Maybe we don't need a tailbone or some troublesome cancer causing genes, but fixing bad genes isn't redemption. It's a judgement-free mechanical fix for a machine, a biological equivalent to the flipping of bits in programming code. I'm not redeeming my code by making it more optimal when I fix a bug. So why would changing our genes be redemption?