Thanks to georgesdelatou and others for pointing out that Marx' texts in English versions sometimes do call for the "abolition" of religion--unlike I suggest in this video. Therefore, I should have said instead that Marx' call for the "abolition" of religion should not be taken to mean that he wants to "outlaw" it. In German, Marx uses the word "abschaffen". The Communist Manifesto, for instance says: "Communism abolishes (schafft ab) eternal truths, it abolishes (schafft ab) all religion, and all morality ..." Marx does not use abschaffen/abolish here in the sense of "to outlaw", or "to persecute". A better translation for "abschaffen" would be "do away with", or "make obsolete". (It makes no sense to "outlaw" or "persecute" eternal truths or all morality). Marx' point is, I think, that in a communist society, eternal truth, religion, and traditional morality will all become obsolete and disappear because their socioeconomic foundations will have disappeared. I don't think that the persecution of religion by the state in some communist countries is/was in line with Marx' writings.
Thank you for your courteous reply. As a non-native speaker I must defer to your more sophisticated understanding of Marx’s original German text. I understand “Aufhebung” to mean repeal, annulment or cancellation - as in “Wir warten nun auf die Aufhebung dieses Gesetzes” - we are waiting for this legislation to be repealed. If Marx had been more circumspect, writing “Das Schwinden der Religion” rather than “Die Aufhebung der Religion”, we wouldn’t have to be so forensic about his exact meaning in order to protect his reputation. Marx was well-informed of the events of the French Revolution, in which anti-religious and anti-clerical enthusiasm led to atrocities against the religious, notably during the War in the Vendée. Several years after writing the present text, Marx lived through the Paris Commune of 1871, which again committed atrocities against the religious - notably the “Bloody Week” and the “Haxo Street Massacre”. I’m not aware of a single comment by Marx to the effect that Communist revolutionaries should abjure this sort of thing. In formulating the Bolshevik policy towards religion, Lenin quoted directly from Marx: “Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and every kind of religious organizations, are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class”.
Timestamps of each part. 0:00 Intro 2:01 Part I - The People's Opium 19:57 Part II - Marx, Feurbach, Hegel, and the Critique of Religion 37:11 Part III - The People's Cocaine
Marx's comments on religion should really be distinguished from someone like Dawkins's. He (Marx) was obsessed with ordinary people; his "opium" passage is not an edict against the weak-minded but a subtle and compassionate observation on the source of vital feeling in working life as we experience it. He does not dismiss the "user" as merely irrational but draws out the predicament common to humanity which lies underneath.
@@Djordj69 not a leftist here but i have some respect for marx and other leftist thinkers, i think these kinds of elitist attitude that many leftist have shown in recent years doesn't really help your cause lol, claiming to be the ideology of the people yet i see them consistently hating the same people they claim to represent.
This guy seems to draw on Marx's earlier works including the German Ideology. The Grundrisse and Capital are more coherent analyses of modernity and provide a better critique of Bourgeois life and religion.
one issue that might be developed is the idea that religion is a narrative in post-narrative times. Famously, Benjamin (and, to a degree, the hauntology of Derrida) concerns itself with the fragmentation and interruption of narrative. However, we also appear more and more to inhabit a period when technological means of communication break narratives (and intertextuality - the labour of deploying tropes - can become the narrative itself). This leads to a further distance from religion, but also invites metonymy - the expansion of religion's exchange value. I find Hegel's ideas (and Feurbach) here, somewhat optimistic. Religion isn't static, but constantly moves ahead of itself: the Bible is constantly reinterpreted to provide "lessons for today." There is therefore an elliptical quality to religion. Elliptical, but not dialectical: the "natural history" of interpretations merely refers back to the originary text, and reinforces it as the "first" text; it (re)constructs its metaphysics.
What a terrific point! Now you got me interested. What of Benjamin should I read to understand his ideas on fragmentation and interruption of narrative?
I'm not sure if the Bible is reinterpreted today to give new lessons. It seems more so to me that there is an elusive, non-existent book called 'the Bible' that vaguely resembles the literal text we possess, but which always remains somewhat congruous to the tastes of the contemperaneous age. But ultimately I do agree, religion isn't static.
religion doesn't reinterpret itself lol reinterpreting is called a schism you can build upon religion to fix it's weak sides with tradition what is only evolution by trial an mistake but never changes the core this creates a completely new religion Protestantism tried to defy this evolutionary growth and ended up empty atheist shell lol and when Catholicism will do the same gonna split again the old one keeping core the new one being a new animal species
It's not common to come across someone who can do full justice to the complexities of Marx's critique of religion. Your seven-point analysis of Marx's oft-cited remark that "religion is the opium of the people" was brilliantly developed and skillfully defended. I applaud your willingness to mine the conceptual depths of the ideas with which you treat, even if the medium within which you're operating obviates against the scope that an academic such as yourself is likely accustomed to covering. Still, it's refreshing to see content-creators that aren't afraid to take their viewers into-the-rabbit-hole, if only for a few minutes. Kuddos!
It wasn't brilliantly defended. The seventh point is a pure misunderstanding of religion. Unlike opium, religion doesn't replace all other aspects of life; it enhances them. An opium addict stops caring about his relationship. A religious person starts caring about it even more, as in addition to representing a union of himself and a person he authentically cares about, it also represents service to God. Similarly, an opium addict will support any moral framework that validates and facilitates his consumption of opium, while not caring about anything else. On the other hand, a religious will care even more about things that he authentically believes to be good since in addition to fostering a society that he authentically desires, it also helps fulfil God's plan. This entire video betrays a lack of intellectual curiosity on the part of Hans-Georg with respect to religion.
@@williampan29 The vast majority of that terrorism comes from one particular religion. I agree that that religion is flawed. I don't agree that all religions are inherently flawed. In fact, I don't see how Christianity is flawed in any significant way. As for populism, that's another can of worms altogether. In theory, there is nothing wrong with populism at all. Technically, Marx - which Hans-Georg is evidently a big fan of - was a populist.
This video is actually incredible - the way you lay out the contents of the video just flows so naturally and cohesively and I found myself watching the entire thing without even properly realising the length. Thank you for making such good stuff!
From Marx - Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right "The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man - state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
Very interesting. I think our national lutheran church (Sweden) has completely transformed into a civil religious post-christian one. It's very much in line with the "wokeism" and places very little emphasis on traditional biblical scripture. It's the humanism Feuerbach talked about.
I find it very nice to observe your knowledge of eastern philosophy. Very often i see people that are well read in "western" philosophy commenting about buddhism and getting a lot of things wrong, with misconceptions and distortions dating back to the 19 century. You, on the other hand, appears to be well read on the topic. Very good video.
This is a great video. I am living in a Zen Buddhist temple, and I must admit that your analysis rings true for aspects of Buddhism too...especially in our modern world 🌎
Hi! I'm really interested in your living situation. Could you talk more about how you found yourself where you are? Who would you recommend living in a temple and how did you get to live in one?
@@addy_hits 1. peoples are watching youtube videos. so the question should be: why would anyone ask why? 2. as marxism is continuation of opium war, why wouldn't peoples need comfort where they feel pain?
Hi Professor! Love the content. Curious if you could do a video on Doestoevsky. His writings to me feel like a proposed refutation of enlightenment thinking and the abolition of religion).
Why would a western atheist communist want to look deep into the mind of an Christian Orhtodox Monarchist. The only opiate to the masses is "science", and these 2 years prove that to me for than ever. Science destroyed people worse than any religion ever could. For 2 years westerners shut themselves inside, except when they were brain washed not to (like the Race riots, and big Corporation shopping, they masked their children, and told them to stay away from their grandparents. Masked themselves and injected 3 times and accounting a cure for a disease that relatively speaking was barely present, and willingly turned on all those that dare to question the dogma. I can only imagine what the long term effects of these measures will prove to be economically, socially, and even biologically. But let these commies keep trying and blaming Christ for the oldest pandemic of mankind; human stupidity.
Thanks very much for the video! I also find it very interesting that Marx says the critique of religion is the "Vorraussetzung aller Kritik" (the precondition for all critique). So the critique of civil religion should be the startingpoint of all critique of our era. Similarily to this video and your video on the Kamala Harris video Marx also arrives at a moral rule (his form of the categorical imperativ), so you also join him in that regard. However he also stats (already in the introduction to the critique of hegel...) that the critique of religion necceserily transforms into a critique of politics and economy. Shouldn't you then for your critique of profilicity start to move into other fields usualy outside of philosophy? Are you planning on also doing something on the economy behinde the social media or the algorithems that produce addiction (or seek to do so)? What would a "digitalization" of marxism look like?
I suspect this channel has a very long-term goal of producing a book-length critique of the social media economy. Prof. Moeller and his assistants are doing real field research here on TH-cam. I think there's going to be an epic reveal in a year or two!
Good point. But for education we need to see Marx's critique of political economy. as a starting point. It is not likely ,now that the capatalist declineing power(forever) calls the shots. We should be thankfull that you-tube ,the lowest common denominater, culturaly, allows for this chanell.
Good point, critique of 'religion' rather as critique of 'believe' of whatever contents. Awareness of our placebo power but not to avoid it but to use it properly. Original religion I'd take as process of Versöhnung, every individuals journey through philosophical self reflection. Accessing dynamics of quantumlevel looking into living ideas of our existence. The digitalization of Marxism as a virtual landscape created by the ones who feed their insights of our shared high ideas into it.
What I like about your videos is that is doesn't just cover a single topic per video, but that it is a continues conversation, exploration of topics like civil religion and profilicity.
From what I remember from earlier videos, one of this channel's goals is to popularize philosophy. And this is one of the goals which is really hard to track progress on. So I think some pieces of direct feedback may be pleasant :D Plus just wanted to say thank you to professor Moeller and whoever helped him with execution. Thank you so much, this channel finally started my journey into philosophy. And I totally love it. For now I just reading first book (Macintyre's "Avter virtue", because for person from orthodox family morality was the most interesting initial subject for me) and ordered second ("A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertran Russel). These are not particulary something pushed by this channel, but the fact that I started to do this at all is definitely in big part - your achievment. And I'm really happy that it happened with me. Something that started as "learning my enemy" (watching lefties popular channels) ended up really just elevating me even if just a little bit yet :D
But for this year concept of "profilicity" was felt as something that expanded my understanding of the things around the most. So I would need to read about it closed in the future definitely
You got into philosophy because you wanted to learn about your "leftist" enemy"? What has that been like? If you're new to philosophy definitely get Moeller's book "You and Your Profile", it's very approachable and easy to read. Moeller has been my favorite philosopher as of late and I think he's onto something with profilicity.
@@mkultra4316 I got into philosophy firstly because it's valued highly in my family and by some another important for me figures. But it could've taken several more years if not for some exact occurence of events. Which was like: -Ok, there are interesting content dunking on progressives who are stupid -Ok, these people dunking on progressives are dishonest and probably as stupid -What about more sane voices of the progressives, lets discover therm (because more sane voice of conservatives I could imagine ang generate myself) -Ok, now part of their messaging make sense, but they are still totally incencere and push for false narratives -Hm, what is this video in recommendations commenting on PhilosophyTube? (video from this channel) -Ohm that is the most nuanced and measured content I seen to date, seems like something valuable! Like yes, this is just a part of the journey. I tried to read Kant's critique of pure reason on my own some time in the past. But doing it I first of all got a context for most of the protagonists (whom i despised) and antagonists (whom i despised not less) of russian classic leature which I hated to be taught in school (because i live in russia of course) and started to make more sense to me, and second of all I was mostly disinterested in philosophy for a time as result (because it's written on too newbie-unfriendly manner and at least part of ideas is incorporated into contemporary content as some basis anyway) Also I read some pop-philosophy book which turn myself into determinist for the most part somewhere in university years
Thank you for another wonderful video! Just a few thoughts... In my understanding the deeper reason for civil religion, as envisioned by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, was that it is always an act of faith when I assume that another human being is as capable of experiencing herself as free as I am. Freedom can never be proven in the outside world, it is necessarily intersubjective, never objective. This is also at the core of Hegel's analysis in the Philosophie des Rechts, where the inherent possibility of freedom of every individual needs society to unfold. This means that society not only needs faith, it is a vessel of the collective acts of faith of all free humans that form it. This is by no means identical to what we see as civil religion right now. Capitalism can't see humans as inherently free, quite the contrary. In Capitalism you always start as a slave, your freedom is something you get paid in small change when you subject yourself to it. The difference is, in a society that is enlightenent, every individual can at every point in time demand proof from society that the freedom she gives up comes back to her with interest. While in Capitalism you need to proof to it at any point that your work is worth the small bits of freedom it grants you. So, I think at the core of our modern form of civil religion is a perversion of its original meaning. Neoliberalism is really Pseudiliberalism, with its own false prophets. But I also think we need faith. Faith not in God, that is, but faith in humanity.
Sorry for the late comment. What would your response be to Slavoj Žižek's critiques of eastern religions like Taoism or Buddhism? I do appreciate the Taoist content on this channel btw.
It’s interesting you associate opium with the bourgeoise, because for people writing even prior to but generally around Marx’s time, principally Goethe, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, it was remarked that Christianity amongst the gentry was generally seen as an unfashionable and dirty historical artefact. In light of this, religion being the opium of the people would be more of a metaphor on opium than religion. However one can only assume that Marx did have the intention to say that religion is a discardable and arbitrary historical contingency that serves as a source of temporary pleasure and permanent fixation; and I see lots of people in the comments quoting late Marx on religion, it’s worth remembering than Marx’s views of religion shifted towards the end of his life.
I'd suggest thinking about the Middle Class in its most obvious and extreme example. The Bourgeoisie of Victorian Britain were not exactly irreligious, if anything that, and Catholicism, had become the purview of the old aristocracy.
@@Cuthloch Catholicism in Victorian England, something tells me that comment is not factually rigorous, but Britain was certainly more atheistic than, say, France or Germany
Apparently my comments were being deleted because I included a link to wikipedia. I'd recommend looking at the Oxford movement, or really just being a bit more aware of historiography before telling someone they're not being "factually rigorous," though this is a youtube comment not someone's comps I'm not sure about how rigorous anyone is being. I may mostly be a historian of long eighteenth century Britain, but I feel like I understand a decent bit about the later nineteenth as well. Regardless, some of the most famous British literature of that century and the following is Anglo-Catholic, a bit odd that common knowledge wouldn't get you there. Ironically that wasn't even germane to my point, which was about the bourgeoisie, who were overwhelmingly Unitarian, Quaker, Presbyterian, or low church Anglican, instead of the aristocracy who had been vastly disproportionately high church Anglican or Catholic relative to the background population since the reformation. If you're looking for philosophers talking about this you can even turn to Nietzsche, look at his stereotypes about "English," based on the fact he includes Hume here he probably means British, thought. But anyway, if you want an example specifically from Marx look no further than Capital when he speaks about the religiosity of Victorian child workers.
@@Cuthloch workers’s piety I implicitly mention in my original comment. Tolstoy remarked that there were in his experience no working class atheists, which juxtaposed the Russian gentry’s swelling atheism, and this point is the reason for my comment in the first place. My understanding was that in the Victorian era the new catholic’s like Chesterton, CS Lewis, Tolkien et al weren’t around, so Christianity in England was still mostly Protestant. You mention the Quakers, but William Wilberforce along with most other quakers, was a Protestant Quaker.
I truly like your videos and your very objectiv, scientific like way of working on a certain philosophical topic... unlike, as you always mention, Jordan Peterson for instance... however, I can't help noticing that you have already talked about Identity and Authenticity a lot. So you have spoken about most of the thinkers that Jordan Peterson is constantly mentioning, why don't you make a video about Jung?
Is it the professor's view that this is how religion functions (in distinction to philosophy) or is he presenting Marx et al? I ask because I don't know anyone who studies religion, even an atheist who does so, who would agree with this definition of religion or it's function. Maybe it's about 1/4 right and perhaps more for certain religious sects - but it is so limited I can't help but conclude that it is a straw-man. It's not even a very good description of Christianity on the continent in the 18th and 19th century. So maybe it would be helpful to use a different term - fundamentalism is perhaps more accurate, but there might be others that are better informed. The rest of the video is quite good and I appreciate the work being done on identity, but I can''t really take this argument seriously as a critique of religion as a general phenomenon. Maybe someone can help me if I am missing something.
@@SkepticalMantisCHANNEL10 I don't want to assume that I understood everything said here. There is a difference between - "Let me talk about what it means when we say Religion is the opium of the masses," vs. "Because Religion is the opium of the masses, let's talk about it." The latter assumes that religion is the opium of masses and then explains why. If the latter is what is meant, it is a straw man because the definition, function, and character of religion(s) described there is a caricature. Anyone who studies religion as an academic exercise would reject such a definition outright. I would recommend the youtube channel "Religion for Breakfast" as a decent introduction. The argument made here is such that you could substitute many things for religion as well as drugs: sex, work, interpersonal drama, nationalism, property rights, as things that cause both conflict and can function as a form of social control. I don't know if I prefer fundamentalism - I was thinking out loud. Certainly fundamentalism can function in such a way - but I'm also unsatisfied with that analysis. I did enjoy the video, and I think his points about civil religion functioning as cocaine is pretty spot-on.
These “isms” are flavors of the moment. There’re used by individual people for a time, for many random reasons and motivations, but then fade away in time. It’s all about us smucks! Thanks
have you eve heard of the Sitch & Adam Show? you could be a cool guest if you do that sort of thing and talk about prolificity and civil religion to a wide audience
What are your thoughts on the practice where youtubers set their camera in front of their bookshelves? I am curious if you are following the trend or it was just a convenient place to set your camera. Thanks for the great video!
I think it shows the speaker of as well read since it gives the appearance that the speaker is engaged with a variety of perspectives. Furthermore there is also an element of trying to engage with an audience passivly some Authors would show of their own books of or their friends in the background. Or by nodding to certain ideas for example by putting a copy of Das Capital, a youtuber could signal that they have knowledge or agree with certain ideas without people watching their full videos. This could also be done to enlarge your audience by displaying popular books. Also due to TH-cam not having any restrictions of who can give out medical advice there is also a gap in trust which can partially be closed by showing of your supposed credentials in other ways like by having a lab coat on or a having a bookcase full of medical or scientific looking books. In a similar way shooting a video with a bed or kitchen in the background is less common since it can make the video appear less proffesional, since you also would not ask for medical or financial advice from someone in their bedroom. A more material take would be that due to falling advertisment revenues for youtubers there might not be enough space in a house to have a shot with good lighting but without a bookcase, also for individual youtubers it might be a financial hurdle to rent out a sound studio to record shows. I think in the end it is partly curating a certain image (relatable, knowledgable, proffesional), but also the financial constraints that push youtubers into filming in either their office or their homeoffice.
@@ariebaudoin4824 True, a university is a worthy (though exclusive) stage. Still, I would really enjoy Dr. Moeller's ideas in other formats, e.g. in public debates/discussions or maybe as a longer movie (like Žižek's 'The Pervert's Guide to Ideology').
or it is possible people could get something like what you describe organised. Good luck. But we must recognize that a lot of leftist today are philosophically illiterate and no help to anybody..
@@Djordj69 what kind of weird overgeneralization, how can you even say something like that, i have a lot of both left and right wing friends and i feel like it has verry little to do with how philosophically illiterate they are. why is there so much discrimination based on political ideology on the internet?
Once again a really good video, thanks! Now Im wondering, what is your position on the revolutionary practise/ Marxism-Leninism-Maoism? Just another "Religion", or a based strategy leading to a dialectical evolvement?
From what I see, MLM is the only trend in modern Marxism that pushes the proletariat to take initiative in class struggle, through the promotion of Protracted People's War or Popular War. MLM reinstates the primacy of military seizure of power. It seems to me that other Marxist trends today are passively waiting for a mass movement to arise, or hoping for a moment of insurrection/rapture that will change the balance of forces between the ruling class and the working class.
@@SkepticalMantisCHANNEL10 Isnt the whole point of this peoples war fantasy, that the revolutionary subject isnt the proletariat but rather the pesantry in pre-industrial societies? (which btw is in complete contradiction to what Marx thought).
Yes, notice how every Presedent in the U S and other leaders always use religion to show that they are to be trusted. It's basically living in a British ex colony where you must know the game of cricket and its terminology. Great work and thank you. Don't forget that it is faith, faith in the dollar that is higher than any religion when it comes down to it: 'in god we trust'.
Thank you once more! I would love if at one point or another you could elaborate your views on the morality, refering to your thought-provoking book "The Moral Fool" as well as to the comment in this video: "Like Christianity in the past, civil religion today produces false relief from suffering: Sustains a capitalistic economy by focusing on moral, rather than socio-economic problems". My question is, do you not think that approaching a socio-economic problem needs a moral-based approach? Meaning, it seems clear to me that for a problem to "a problem", it needs some codex of right/wrong. Is it not Morality? How do you distinguish between 'moral issue' and socio-economic problem'? In "The Moral Fool" you note that your approach in criticizing 'moral mindset' isn't a moralistic approach, and I must say this point feels contradictive to me. Happy to hear your thoughts!
It's funny that you bring up Harris because he critiques religion but he would likely fall into Nietzsche's dichotomy where Christian people think agnostically and agnostic people think like Christians. Great video as always, thank you for some of the greatest philosophy content on TH-cam rn.
Well, the algorithm brought me to you, and I have watched a few of your videos from my main account. (This is my commenting account.). I have enjoyed your breakdowns on the videos I have watched so far. This one, the Jordan P videos and the one on Wokeism. I am not a fan of the word itself because talking about being woke stopped being hip in 2015 ish. ;) JK, but it is true. There is always a new name for the right extreme to call the left extreme. The same phenomena will be called something new in 5 years. Anyway, that is neither he nor there. I wanted to toss up a book recommendation since you talk about Civil Religion. My Constitutional Law professor has a recently published book about his thoughts on America needing a common civil religion again. It might be an interesting addition. Bruce Ledewitz, The Universe is on Our Side: Restoring Faith in American Public Life (Oxford University Press 2021).
What is your definition of religion? You seem to define it as inherently superstitious-like it is just when people blindly accept something they are told uncritically regardless of if it even has anything to do with supernatural stuff, origin of the universe of life after death. If that's religion, most religious are doing it wrong. It just says you haven't read too much outside of the heurmanutical skeptics. You cannot seriously read Aquinas, Kalam, Tillich or even just talk to a regualr preist and come away thinking these guys have just completely sacrificed their critical thinking and have no reasons for their belief other than superstition. And the fact people are so willing to let it control every aspect of their lives gives it more credibility in my eyes, it at least suggests there is something there. No one does that with philosophy. Most of the Enlightenment philosophers you say are mainly anti-religion were devout Christians, and their faith played a central part in their ideas (Kant, Hegel, Locke, Descartes). The same goes for the Islamic golden age and even the Greeks- Aristotle was a huge influence on the Catholic Church's thinking. And Hegel was by no means Anti-Religion; he literally viewed Protestant Christianity as the end of History for spiritual development. I get their religious views aren't highlighted in philosophy classes these days, but that is no excuse. Kant saw belief in afterlife as essential to his ethics. And not to defend instutional religion too much, but presenting it as a negative force thst perpetuates oppression is just wrong and only works if you cherry-pick. It is just s fact that the Catholic Church is the biggest provider of healthcare, education, and care for the poor (outside of gov'ts) in the world. And charity is a major pillar of Islam as well. Churches have done far more for the sick and poor than any philosophy department (or Marxist government) ever has. And it isnt like any serial killers repent after reading Bentham the way so many have when they become religious. And I dont see philosophy or even science as some major step forward and is just so much better than religion- there is no objective improvement in morals or thinking the way there is with technology. The 20th century was far and away the most brutal, savage, violent and oppressive in world history. And those evils were a direct result of the academia you praise as so enlightened. The Nazis appealed to genetics and evolution to justify their eugenics programs, and Soviet-style socialism killed tens of millions becuase the social sciences told them this was an inevitale step towards utopia.
Basically, you demand science in general, and perhaps philosophy in particular to become a substitute for organized religion? I'll guess this lesson was wasted on you.
Can you find the time to read and comment on Jonas Čeika's "How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the 21st Century Left"? You're far from the intended audience but that makes your commentary so interesting.
In his essay Junkspace, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has a striking analogue to religion as opium for the masses, which is "Identity is junkfood for the masses; globalization's fodder for the disenfranchised". I continuously relate that phrase to your and your partner's work on profilicity.
Isnt it quite a big distinction whether it is "opium OF the people" or "opium FOR the people"? If opium is for the people, it is being given to someone else, perhaps to induce false consciousness. If Opium is of the people, it is something people go to of their own volition. The people are either an object being acted on or a subject acting of their own volition.
@@hazardousjazzgasm129Am i? Im not really making an argument, more just pointing out a distinction I think is rather crucial. There is quite a big difference between those two sentences, so its not good to jump between them.
23:00 « hegel's whole philosophy can be understood as a reaction to his religious education » i suppose, alternatively, hegel's whole philosophy can be understood as a senseless blabbering as well .. but that would be about as pointless as understanding it as a reaction to religious education ... so what
Faschinating topic and speech! But I am confused. I'd like to hear more on which ground can we critique the civil religion of wokism? It's not like the old-fashioned organised religion with specific texts, dogmas, rituals and personell, but more like an unorganised movement. Also the old religion could be seen as a form legitimisation of actual forms of oppression, but wokeness seems to think of itself more like a liberation of those actual relations. I think a distinction between formal state religion and underground informal religion is useful. For example, in Eastern Germany the Theological faculties where the breeding ground for resistanse against the enstablisment. So religion can be used as cocaine but towards a liberating route. It depends on who has the power. So not only religion is a opium for the people, but also politics can be.
If I may attempt to answer part of your commentary. I think both traditional religion and wokeism present themselves openly as forms of liberation. Traditional religion promises salvation, whereas wokeism promises the liberation of your individuality. However, both can be oppressive in different ways, yet also liberating in different ways. The oppressive aspects of traditional religion should be clear to you I assume. Part of its liberating aspects were already mentioned in the video, coming down to a sedative effect that make life more bearable. Even if delusionary, it has a liberating effect. I would add to that a liberation from the pressures of critical thinking which can free up much time, and make orienting yourself within the world easier. Add to this a partial liberation from responsibility and self-care stemming from the fact that ''God has a plan'', and that many traditional religions provide strong social networks that provide intense care to all its members. Something similar counts for wokeism. Wokeism may be liberating because it allows for individuals to express themselves in ways that wouldn't normally have been allowed, and live alternative life styles. It can also effectuate real life opportunities by granting access to jobs/institutions/public spaces that normally shunned marginalized people. At the same time it can be oppressive for reasons already mentioned and more. Being such a profilic doctrine, it can put pressure on people to constantly curate profiles and make themselves known as alternative, unique individuals. It can provide a real existential pressure in the fact that it puts so much responibility upon the individual to radically be themselves and take care of themselves. Also, being known for its lack of humor and obsession with abolishing laden identital expressions, wokeism can make it very hard for people to share opinions or engage in discussion. Sometimes favoring the marginalized over the normal it can put pressure on individuals and institutions alike to find marginalized aspects about them merely to be able to be recognized or appreciated by the general public (or general peer ;) ). In regards to your suggestion to distinguish between formal/informal. The distincion may be helpful but again, both religions know these aspects. Merely with different emphases. Tradition religion was more formal, but also contained largely informal aspects in the form of passing its doctrine on via family and social pressure. In the case of wokeism it seems to spread more by these informal means simply because current society is more critical of 'paternalist' institutions now. At the same time wokeism does know many institutionalisations in the forms of women quota, the obligation to release diversity statements, help programmes for marginalized idenities, the prohibition of criminal risk profiling etc. (whoops this became a big tldr). Anyway, hope this makes sense.
@@ekteboi4179 oh that was a response and thanks for that! Especialy the last paragraph was very helpful for me! But let me put my random thoughts in order! Marx once critique the religion of his days by pointing out the real material social conditions that it hides and mystifies. On the other hand, wokism considers itself as transparent: "those are the oppressive social relations, lets fix them". Accordicly to Marx's thesis to Feuerbach:... the problem is to change the world... So where should the current critique target? I think that what Moeller does, and what is also my spontaneous thought, is that we reveal the religious and mystical dimension of wokism, just as Marx does in his opening of Das Kapital: the commodity appears to be something platitudinous, but its analysis reveals that its full of mysticism and religion etc. And I wonder, is this a valid critisim? Applying something totaly external (religion) to a movement that (thinks of itself) has nothing to do with it? Its like moving the goalpost: you speak of religion- no, all you mean is material relations. You speak of material relations-no, you mean religion.
Hello professor Moeller. I was wondering If the concept of Civil Religion is something you have been developing and If I can learn more about It in your book? I was also wondering If I can use the idea of Civil Religion for something I'm working on (giving you credits of course)
If you look up the term, it was first used by Rousseau. I'm not sure if the way he uses it is distinct from that. Rousseau seemed to be using it in the sense of an overarching set of religious values and iconography for an entire society. In the US it takes the form of In god we trust on the dollar bill, politicians talking about their religious beliefs, etc. Moeller seems to be defining something that isn't necessarily explicitly religious or subscribed to by a whole society, but any kind of belief systems no matter how large and small. It is clear what he's talking about in the video, but I think in some cases he should be using the term secular religion rather than civil religion.
Can Wenyi’s criticism of religion equally apply to philosophy? Or is there some relevant difference them making philosophy dominating your life more ok.
I will be thinking about the Mazu story for a long time. I wonder, does it mean that you should not dispel religious myths among people with tears in their eyes? Does it mean you should pray when you are crying, just as you should take medicine when you are sick, but not at other times? I sense that it is not just the Zen master's proclamation of atheism. The first part is as important as the second. (I'm not defending religion, by the way. I'm an atheist myself.)
I didn't watch the Mazu story in the video, but I'd like to answer your question. I think that one should support whatever means a person is using to cope with their pain in order to help them get better. About whether one should be using religion for that purpose or not, I'm inclined to think there must be more convenient methods, wich prove to be effective with religious people too.
A good alternative translation of "Aufhebung" in this context could possibly be "to cancel sth. out" similar to the way noise cancelling earphones cancel out noise by mirroring the external humming noises so they can't be perceived by human ears anymore.
i would like to see more nuance in descriptions of modern leftist thought on this channel than to reduce it to 'wokeism' without reference to what is being said or who is saying it. when describing centrist or right-wing thinkers mueller usually describes that persons position and abscribes it to someone, but when he speaks of wokeism he generally does not
im jus getting on this side, im assuming you watch a lot of his stuff, is it really just tha reductive? if so its amusing cause woke as it is now has barely anything to do with whatever people use to use it for. but this what happens when history is ignored ig. but seems like a decent channel.
@@Grimguapo i like the guy he has a pretty good point of view but the way he talks about wokeism specifically... like i think i know what he means but its much vaguer than the rest of his discussion. like here he talks about marx and thats fine, in another video he talks about kamala harris who i would not consider a leftist by any stretch, so like... i cant think of a modern leftist whose opinion he considers at any length, to reduce the whole leftist point of view to wokeist civil religion by only really talking about that... sort of ignores a diversity of opinions there
Han, I forget who I heard it from, perhaps Chris Hedges, there is a view that religion is a response of the suffering of the oppressed, that it embodies many of their experiences and sentiments. Is that something you have found in religion?
Thank you very much for this video. I would be most interested in hearing more about culture and tradition as well. Living in Japan, these two seem to me to have very similar qualities to religion in other regions.
I think more and more on Karl Marx is needed. Besides David Harvey, your content is very good to explain what Marx was talking about and how rich his thoughts were.
Oh, interesting--without additional context, I would have interpreted the Wenyi story differently, considering it an allegory about form and emptiness, similar to this Zen saying: “When I first began to practice, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers. As I trained, mountains were not mountains; rivers were not rivers. Now that I am established in the way, mountains are once more mountains and rivers are once more rivers.”
This is absolute 🔥... amazing I am Anabaptist pastor who works primarily with marginal communities in the semi-rural context. This lecture is a must for any critical thinker peering out beyond late stage capitalism
Religion as ideology, Faith as Praxis. What's it have to do with Christmas? And has Islam, Judaism, and the eastern religions dilude their subjects in the same way?
Wonderful video as always! As you point out in the video, Marx theorized that religion would disappear along with, and only along with, changes in the material reality which produced the religion to begin with. As you say in your pinned comment, Marx's point is that "eternal truth, religion, and traditional morality will all become obsolete and disappear because their socioeconomic foundations will have disappeared." I was wondering, and maybe you go in depth with this in your previous videos on Wokeism which I would have to go back and watch to make sure, what you believe are the material conditions which produce Wokeism/Populism as civil religion, why they manifest as such (in their content), and what material conditions would need to be changed (and to what) in order for this "cocaine of the people" to be made obsolete. Thank you!
I think the Zen Buddhist analogy here is weak. You've mentioned since the beginning of the video, that the word "religion" in this context (i.e., in this dictum "religion is the opium of the people"), refers to Christianity. In this European/Judeo-Christian context, religion require a form of, as you stated, "totalitarianism" of belief or worldview. But the thing is, in Buddhism the core practice is never about belief (or to put it in a more Buddhist term "attachment"), but about detachment, and rigorous meditative practice to develop a capacity of detachement. I think you overstretched the European/Judeo-Christian context into Buddhist one, where the analogy didn't work as well. In my understanding, the two stories of the Buddhsit Zen masters, is maingly about a specific Buddhist concept called "sunyata" or "emptiness". As I said, I think it the use of this stories as a critique of Judeo-Christian type of religion is overstretching. Personally, I would like to know not only the underlying Chinese text, but I would like to know even the underlying Pali-Sanskrit term. Your translation of the word 心 as "spirit" is, in my view, extreme odd. Because one of the main teaching of Buddhism is about "non-self" (anatta ; lit. "no-self") If "spirit" here is used to refers to Judeo-Christian concept of "soul" or "spirit" that is what make the analogy weak.
Thank you for the vid. I hope to listen-to/watch-it again and take notes while doing so. It clarified to me - what Marx actually meant by 'Opium of Masses', and how it is important to understand Marx's response to Fuerbach - how it is important to keep in mind that Jiangxi Mazu Daoyi Chanshi Yulu convo of saying 'Buddha and Spirit exist within another' first, then of following it with "Neither of them exist". It does seem to me that your use of the word "Populism" is confusing to someone in a part of the world like US, cuz that word here is used as a way to refer to a kind of a conservative labor-centered collectivism.
I don't think that's really true. See the use of the word to refer to Bernie or the Populist Party. The overwhelming sense of the word in the US is politics centered around antielitism.
Wondering what you take is, if you’ve read it, of John McWhorter’s recent book ‘Woke Racism’ which makes the analogy of woke-ness as a new religion. Similar to a point you made in this video.
I think religion was meant to bring structure and order, goals and standards, quality control if you like, to spirituality. The toxic effects you speak of, are those which happen when religion runs away with itself, divorced from the spirituality it is supposed to serve, treating like an end and not a means. I think that once capitalism is overcome, this will not make religion obsolete, but will force all the churches to refocus on spirituality and to really prove to believers that they can offer them the spiritual insight they claim to.
In the Pokemon Go augmented reality metaphor that Zizek made, He said the Jew is the Pokemon figure which was funny, I think it applies more to wokeness. In institutions the men are really Pokemon. I've seen myself looked down on like that with overconfident false understanding often and I don't like it.
I'm having a hard time discerning what narrative that has moral proscriptions ISN'T religion. For example, my current meta narrative of human psychology compels me to think that pre-pubescent children cannot consent to sex and thus I am morally opposed to pedophilia. Is this necessarily a religious position? You're usage of religion may have a problem of over-inclusion OR I'm misunderstanding the range at which your usage of religion stops.
He claims that "there is a risk, if you invite God into your home, of religion defining and dominating your life..." Well, what about the very well-supported research that shows that religious people have substantially better physical and especially mental health outcomes?
If God is characterized by what humans tend to value, namely loving, creative and intelligent, then how come Christianity is considered "slave morality"?
Because God's character doesn't dictate what its institution or practitioners teach, it is just part of the dogma. It can be the other way around tho, I heard somewhere that religion is very interpretative.
Your seventh critique is interesting; tying everything to a single reference might seem parasitic or totalitarian; however, isn't it also legitimate to demand that there be a Ground for BEING? And if that Ground is God, then by necessity God DOES affect all aspects of their life.
I'm not religious myself, but for better and for worse, religions can be very very good at producing cooperation within ingroups. Religious people tend to look out for each other more, and even as some rituals may seem silly, the communal aspect, bringing people together and making them feel like a part of a bigger whole fosters a certain level of compassion that can help a lot. On the flip-side, for *outgroups,* it tends to lead to condemnation, vilification and terrible, *terrible* conflicts. Some of the worst behaviors we saw humans do were committed in the name of religion. Also, even just that first part can go too far, swinging easily into the negatives. Brainwashy cults that may be designed to keep people unquestioningly loyal and control them, possibly extorting them in the process or even going so far as to end in ritual suicide... Stuff like that is absolutely crazy. So I gotta wonder whether it is possible to have your cake and eat it too here: Could there be a way to give rise to the compassion and community benefits without diminishing capacity to be (constructively) critical of the organization of that community? To be clear, there are plenty of people who are compassionate and kind without needing to be religious. However, it seems like something about religion can help a lot. And I think that is probably a combination of a base set of principles you can trust everybody to share with you because they are "god-given" or whatever, and a sort of forced set of community activites which enforce people meeting and being more likely to have some active interest in the wellbeing of each other. The first thing seems to be extremely difficult to make work with being free-thinking. The second thing seems to be difficult to make work with being free-acting. So maybe it's just not possible... Certainly it seems like *some* concessions would have to be made if your goal were to foster such community thinking. To some extent I really think it might be a matter of forcing people to their luck. Like, on their own, people seem to tend to avoid confrontation. - Not just *bad* confrontation. ANY confrontation. Because you always have this note of "what if I'm annoying" or "what if I'm offensive" or "boring" or "unlikable" in there. A base reluctance to interact. Obviously some people have this more than others, but I genuinely think an ever more secular society actually makes this worse. - And then you don't even dare ask for help even if you really need it and others are very willing to give it. People tend to underestimate the willingness of other people to help and overestimate how annoying they are to others. I'm saying all this, btw, while being in that boat of not really engaging a whole lot with people who are physically near me. And of not being religious what so ever. I can't bring myself to go out and meet these people. I don't even know how to *start* doing that. Just randomly burst into conversations and go "hi I'm [me] how is it going" to what effectively are strangers even if I have seen them thousands of times? Just seems so awkward. Some sort of pretext to do this would be great. And sure, religion isn't the only way to do it, but it seems to be quite an effective one. I reckon it's a much better ice breaker to ask, Iunno, perhaps "what's your fav bible passage" or something than to go "oh the weather sure is nice innit" (Not that most "casually religious" Christians these days are likely to know enough about the bible to even engage with that first idea either. The world has become a whole lot more secular. For better and for worse)
"Could there be a way to give rise to the compassion and community benefits without diminishing capacity to be (constructively) critical of the organization of that community?" I think this is possibly Zizek's whole project with his critique of ideology. He makes a very good point that critiquing ideology can turn into it's own form of ideology, and even when we think we've escaped ideology we tend to come right back to it. So in regards to religion, it being a form of ideology, there's the urge to cut out the rot while keeping the fruit. I'm pessimistic about that, it may be possible that what good comes from religion is ultimately what's baked into it.
Dr. Moeller, I'd like to take an issue up with you with regard to your statement about the Catholic church and The Philippines. You claim that the Catholic Church is incredibly wealthy in the Philippines which has a populace that is largely poor, however, that is a largely incorrect and generalized statement. As someone who actually lives in the Philippines, the only reason why the Catholic church is "well-off" is large because of donations from both rich and poor alike. The Church does not force people to donate, merely encourages them. If the Church has no money, it literally would not be able to function as a religious organization as it would not be able to maintain its Churches, much less feed its priests. If people chose to stop donating (cuz free will exists), the Church would have difficulty operating. Now, why is my country largely poor? That is not because the people donate excessively to the Church but because of larger societal and governmental problems too long for me to explain here. (Ex. political corruption and poor education) I hope this changes your perspective a bit.
I was under the impression that the purpose of zen stories where the wise master says something that sounds "pragmatic and atheistic" to us is actually intended to shock the student into perceiving the "faith" with a new clarity. Like, master, you could say that the door is just a door with no spirit, but I never could. But also it could be making a point about dualism or objectification. As in, to say the door has a separate "spirit" to the window or the monk or the Buddha is wrong.
cmon mattd8725, Zen is not about adherence to a faith (or dogma) as you name it. It is about searching for a deeper truth and is in this sense no different in intent from philosophy. Zen goes deeper though and looks for realisation, which is an entirely wider matter.
@@virabadrasana I didn't say dogma, and also terms like deeper truth or realisation don't mean anything to me. But what I say here is that Zen Koans are not just little snippets to be read in translation at a great separation of time and space, but part of a lifestyle practice where a relationship between a master and student is essential.
Fantastic video. Like another commenter mentioned, I would love to see a video on Heidegger. In particular I’d love for you to explore a Heideggerian ontic experience of being in the digital world. As a Marxist, I do think that Heideggers ontology offers a really interesting conversation with the Marxist subject (if there is one, and I do think that there is). Since you do a lot of work on Marx, perhaps a conversation with Heidegger would be interesting! I look forward to more of your content.
Religion must be seen separately from faith. Philosopher and scientist are both guided by faith. Faith in their method, faith in the ability to uncover truths (in the sense of Popper). Religion on the other hand, is an instrument of power and the place where faith dies.
I think saying "the prime function of Christmas today is a ... practise of consumerism" raises a strange point. I personally think that philosophy today and historically has had a ubiquitous problem of assigning agency where there is none. It cannot be denied that Christmas is currently quite consumeristic. But it is a stretch to say that someone intended it that way.
Nah agencies so post-ww2 forward have definitely intended for and shaped the holidays to be this way, doesn't even take much searching to find this. Holidays don't come out of thin-air, they're perhaps the pinnacle example of agency both for individuals & groups. You can even argue that there's a very specific architect in this case; Edward Bernays
That's interesting, assigning agency where is none could be sourcing from a bias towards religion, and towards human behaviour too. Although, it may havenbot been the intention to assing a purpose on something that isn't designed to have one, but to make sense of something that currently happens in human thinking.
@@VashdaCrash There is also a tendency to assign agency in religion; it is more surprising to see it in less religious thinkers. It could be related to post hoc explanation, which has been observed in psychological studies of intention. It could be related to pulling out explanations for the unknown from thin air. It could also be related to the human tendency to anthropomorphise anything frightening.
@@HxH2011DRA I'm not referring to the institution of holidays. Consider a metaphor of hot gas. Many particles colliding with each other at different angles. We can imagine the individual particles to have individual agency. Yet even then, the gas overall will do something unexpected. Likewise, Christmas is nearly guaranteed to become something unexpected. The only way to get at the future of a major social phenomenon is to predict large scale group behaviour. Although it appears one Edward Barnays was an effective propagandist, I cannot find any clear connection to Christmas.
@@warrendriscoll350 Now that I think about it, this supposed intention of Christmas is actually coming from agents of the mass media, which don't have anything to do with any of this. It's their huge influence what made this and a lot of thinkers see it that way. In other words, they have quite possibly been bamboozled.
I would point out "on the door he had written "spirit" "on the window he had written "spirit" "on the wall he had written "spirit" your interpretations are wrong, you are not understand meaning. The window lets light in, Zen is Light. The Monk as you said in a Very Small Temple, in 1400Th Century Those were evil times. The Door in a enterance, "Spirit" writ on it repulses enemies "on the wall he wrote "Spirit" Here the Wall is the Very Temple itself. The temple, the people of the temple, and the reason for for the temple. The master's words as you wrongly interpreted as serious are not. The master is being contrarian and sarcastic, My source : alan watts and Swami Vivekananda writings, and 1986- present member Vedanta Society of Northern California
Thanks to georgesdelatou and others for pointing out that Marx' texts in English versions sometimes do call for the "abolition" of religion--unlike I suggest in this video.
Therefore, I should have said instead that Marx' call for the "abolition" of religion should not be taken to mean that he wants to "outlaw" it.
In German, Marx uses the word "abschaffen".
The Communist Manifesto, for instance says: "Communism abolishes (schafft ab) eternal truths, it abolishes (schafft ab) all religion, and all morality ..."
Marx does not use abschaffen/abolish here in the sense of "to outlaw", or "to persecute".
A better translation for "abschaffen" would be "do away with", or "make obsolete".
(It makes no sense to "outlaw" or "persecute" eternal truths or all morality).
Marx' point is, I think, that in a communist society, eternal truth, religion, and traditional morality will all become obsolete and disappear because their socioeconomic foundations will have disappeared.
I don't think that the persecution of religion by the state in some communist countries is/was in line with Marx' writings.
Please answer my question. How do you want to fight for the socio economic environment that would make religion obsolete? What do you think of MLM?
@@HugBugi what is MLM?
@@SchmulKrieger Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
th-cam.com/video/w744TpTlAYg/w-d-xo.html
@@HugBugi MLM...
If it stands for marxism leninism and maoism, I'd rather have the standard multi level marketing... Less damaging to society.
Thank you for your courteous reply. As a non-native speaker I must defer to your more sophisticated understanding of Marx’s original German text. I understand “Aufhebung” to mean repeal, annulment or cancellation - as in “Wir warten nun auf die Aufhebung dieses Gesetzes” - we are waiting for this legislation to be repealed.
If Marx had been more circumspect, writing “Das Schwinden der Religion” rather than “Die Aufhebung der Religion”, we wouldn’t have to be so forensic about his exact meaning in order to protect his reputation. Marx was well-informed of the events of the French Revolution, in which anti-religious and anti-clerical enthusiasm led to atrocities against the religious, notably during the War in the Vendée. Several years after writing the present text, Marx lived through the Paris Commune of 1871, which again committed atrocities against the religious - notably the “Bloody Week” and the “Haxo Street Massacre”. I’m not aware of a single comment by Marx to the effect that Communist revolutionaries should abjure this sort of thing.
In formulating the Bolshevik policy towards religion, Lenin quoted directly from Marx: “Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and every kind of religious organizations, are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class”.
Timestamps of each part.
0:00 Intro
2:01 Part I - The People's Opium
19:57 Part II - Marx, Feurbach, Hegel, and the Critique of Religion
37:11 Part III - The People's Cocaine
Thanks!
Hey, Nate! That rocks!
续
Marx's comments on religion should really be distinguished from someone like Dawkins's. He (Marx) was obsessed with ordinary people; his "opium" passage is not an edict against the weak-minded but a subtle and compassionate observation on the source of vital feeling in working life as we experience it. He does not dismiss the "user" as merely irrational but draws out the predicament common to humanity which lies underneath.
Opium means Escapism like Anime booby Videogames nowadays.
That's truth. Marx critique to religion it's absolutely different of liberal self praised and arrogant atheism.
Hitchens was often providing the context of the opium quote.
This is exactly the monologue I go into with my family over the Christmas dinner.
This is why I sit at kids' table, they are better listeners
You sound like a fun guy to be around
@@inb4play167
True that! 🤣
Why are you ruining Christmas for your family?
No you don't.
Das ist wirklich sehr gut erklärt. Bin wirklich froh dass es solche Videos auf TH-cam (noch) gibt
More videos on Marxist philosophy would be very helpful. There is a lot of misinformation about his thought online.
if you can.t read you can't read you can't read Marx. A huge section of our society for various reasons can't read..
@@Djordj69 Or write, apparently
@@Djordj69 not a leftist here but i have some respect for marx and other leftist thinkers, i think these kinds of elitist attitude that many leftist have shown in recent years doesn't really help your cause lol, claiming to be the ideology of the people yet i see them consistently hating the same people they claim to represent.
This guy seems to draw on Marx's earlier works including the German Ideology. The Grundrisse and Capital are more coherent analyses of modernity and provide a better critique of Bourgeois life and religion.
Marxist isn’t Marx‘s.
one issue that might be developed is the idea that religion is a narrative in post-narrative times. Famously, Benjamin (and, to a degree, the hauntology of Derrida) concerns itself with the fragmentation and interruption of narrative. However, we also appear more and more to inhabit a period when technological means of communication break narratives (and intertextuality - the labour of deploying tropes - can become the narrative itself). This leads to a further distance from religion, but also invites metonymy - the expansion of religion's exchange value. I find Hegel's ideas (and Feurbach) here, somewhat optimistic. Religion isn't static, but constantly moves ahead of itself: the Bible is constantly reinterpreted to provide "lessons for today." There is therefore an elliptical quality to religion. Elliptical, but not dialectical: the "natural history" of interpretations merely refers back to the originary text, and reinforces it as the "first" text; it (re)constructs its metaphysics.
What a terrific point! Now you got me interested. What of Benjamin should I read to understand his ideas on fragmentation and interruption of narrative?
And now religions begin to adapt to social media such as Tiktok
I'm not sure if the Bible is reinterpreted today to give new lessons. It seems more so to me that there is an elusive, non-existent book called 'the Bible' that vaguely resembles the literal text we possess, but which always remains somewhat congruous to the tastes of the contemperaneous age. But ultimately I do agree, religion isn't static.
religion doesn't reinterpret itself lol
reinterpreting is called a schism
you can build upon religion to fix it's weak sides with tradition what is only evolution by trial an mistake but never changes the core
this creates a completely new religion
Protestantism tried to defy this evolutionary growth and ended up empty atheist shell lol
and when Catholicism will do the same gonna split again the old one keeping core the new one being a new animal species
It's not common to come across someone who can do full justice to the complexities of Marx's critique of religion. Your seven-point analysis of Marx's oft-cited remark that "religion is the opium of the people" was brilliantly developed and skillfully defended. I applaud your willingness to mine the conceptual depths of the ideas with which you treat, even if the medium within which you're operating obviates against the scope that an academic such as yourself is likely accustomed to covering. Still, it's refreshing to see content-creators that aren't afraid to take their viewers into-the-rabbit-hole, if only for a few minutes. Kuddos!
It wasn't brilliantly defended. The seventh point is a pure misunderstanding of religion. Unlike opium, religion doesn't replace all other aspects of life; it enhances them. An opium addict stops caring about his relationship. A religious person starts caring about it even more, as in addition to representing a union of himself and a person he authentically cares about, it also represents service to God. Similarly, an opium addict will support any moral framework that validates and facilitates his consumption of opium, while not caring about anything else. On the other hand, a religious will care even more about things that he authentically believes to be good since in addition to fostering a society that he authentically desires, it also helps fulfil God's plan.
This entire video betrays a lack of intellectual curiosity on the part of Hans-Georg with respect to religion.
@@maxkho00your argument would be more convincing if not for the fact that religious terrorism and populism are more rampent than ever.
@@williampan29 The vast majority of that terrorism comes from one particular religion. I agree that that religion is flawed. I don't agree that all religions are inherently flawed. In fact, I don't see how Christianity is flawed in any significant way.
As for populism, that's another can of worms altogether. In theory, there is nothing wrong with populism at all. Technically, Marx - which Hans-Georg is evidently a big fan of - was a populist.
This video is actually incredible - the way you lay out the contents of the video just flows so naturally and cohesively and I found myself watching the entire thing without even properly realising the length. Thank you for making such good stuff!
From Marx - Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man - state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
Religion was a bad idea but the problem is communism is much worse.
@@purefoldnz3070 Oh yeah, thousands of years of religious oppression and persecution is just about religion being “a bad idea.”
@@LeonWagg I'd argue religion was, albeit morally deplorable, in fact a really good idea
@@LeonWagg thanks for proving my point. Religion leads to oppression and persecution. It also lead to the dark ages for a thousand years.
@@purefoldnz3070 No, my comment proved that religion is more than just a bad idea.
Incredible how correct Marx always was and how woke marxism is and still relevant (if not more than ever) today. Good video!
Thank God for Christmas specials! Enjoyed this one.
Very interesting. I think our national lutheran church (Sweden) has completely transformed into a civil religious post-christian one. It's very much in line with the "wokeism" and places very little emphasis on traditional biblical scripture. It's the humanism Feuerbach talked about.
And thank god for that
@@axelnils +100
Chesterton commented on this looooong time ago
I find it very nice to observe your knowledge of eastern philosophy. Very often i see people that are well read in "western" philosophy commenting about buddhism and getting a lot of things wrong, with misconceptions and distortions dating back to the 19 century. You, on the other hand, appears to be well read on the topic. Very good video.
This is a great video. I am living in a Zen Buddhist temple, and I must admit that your analysis rings true for aspects of Buddhism too...especially in our modern world 🌎
Hi! I'm really interested in your living situation. Could you talk more about how you found yourself where you are? Who would you recommend living in a temple and how did you get to live in one?
Even in temple there's wifi, truly amodern world
why tf are you watching youtube videos while living in a Zen Buddhist temple?
@@addy_hits k n o w l e d g e
@@addy_hits 1. peoples are watching youtube videos. so the question should be: why would anyone ask why? 2. as marxism is continuation of opium war, why wouldn't peoples need comfort where they feel pain?
Hi Professor! Love the content. Curious if you could do a video on Doestoevsky. His writings to me feel like a proposed refutation of enlightenment thinking and the abolition of religion).
Why would a western atheist communist want to look deep into the mind of an Christian Orhtodox Monarchist.
The only opiate to the masses is "science", and these 2 years prove that to me for than ever. Science destroyed people worse than any religion ever could. For 2 years westerners shut themselves inside, except when they were brain washed not to (like the Race riots, and big Corporation shopping, they masked their children, and told them to stay away from their grandparents. Masked themselves and injected 3 times and accounting a cure for a disease that relatively speaking was barely present, and willingly turned on all those that dare to question the dogma.
I can only imagine what the long term effects of these measures will prove to be economically, socially, and even biologically.
But let these commies keep trying and blaming Christ for the oldest pandemic of mankind; human stupidity.
Herr Moeller please do critique on Pinker's "Enlightment Now"!
Can you do a vid on Stirner? I think there is a valuable connection with Zhuang Zi’s philosophical project of Carefree Wandering 逍遙遊.
My civil religion is watching professor Moeller's videos. Hope it will never let me down the way all others I tried did.
Thanks very much for the video!
I also find it very interesting that Marx says the critique of religion is the "Vorraussetzung aller Kritik" (the precondition for all critique). So the critique of civil religion should be the startingpoint of all critique of our era. Similarily to this video and your video on the Kamala Harris video Marx also arrives at a moral rule (his form of the categorical imperativ), so you also join him in that regard. However he also stats (already in the introduction to the critique of hegel...) that the critique of religion necceserily transforms into a critique of politics and economy. Shouldn't you then for your critique of profilicity start to move into other fields usualy outside of philosophy? Are you planning on also doing something on the economy behinde the social media or the algorithems that produce addiction (or seek to do so)? What would a "digitalization" of marxism look like?
I suspect this channel has a very long-term goal of producing a book-length critique of the social media economy. Prof. Moeller and his assistants are doing real field research here on TH-cam. I think there's going to be an epic reveal in a year or two!
Good point. But for education we need to see Marx's critique of political economy. as a starting point. It is not likely ,now that the capatalist declineing power(forever) calls the shots. We should be thankfull that you-tube ,the lowest common denominater, culturaly, allows for this chanell.
@@ceruchi2084 That's going to sell a lot of books :D
Good point, critique of 'religion' rather as critique of 'believe' of whatever contents. Awareness of our placebo power but not to avoid it but to use it properly. Original religion I'd take as process of Versöhnung, every individuals journey through philosophical self reflection. Accessing dynamics of quantumlevel looking into living ideas of our existence. The digitalization of Marxism as a virtual landscape created by the ones who feed their insights of our shared high ideas into it.
What I like about your videos is that is doesn't just cover a single topic per video, but that it is a continues conversation, exploration of topics like civil religion and profilicity.
Excellent work as always. I look forward to your next video.
From what I remember from earlier videos, one of this channel's goals is to popularize philosophy. And this is one of the goals which is really hard to track progress on.
So I think some pieces of direct feedback may be pleasant :D
Plus just wanted to say thank you to professor Moeller and whoever helped him with execution.
Thank you so much, this channel finally started my journey into philosophy. And I totally love it. For now I just reading first book (Macintyre's "Avter virtue", because for person from orthodox family morality was the most interesting initial subject for me) and ordered second ("A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertran Russel). These are not particulary something pushed by this channel, but the fact that I started to do this at all is definitely in big part - your achievment. And I'm really happy that it happened with me.
Something that started as "learning my enemy" (watching lefties popular channels) ended up really just elevating me even if just a little bit yet :D
But for this year concept of "profilicity" was felt as something that expanded my understanding of the things around the most. So I would need to read about it closed in the future definitely
You got into philosophy because you wanted to learn about your "leftist" enemy"? What has that been like? If you're new to philosophy definitely get Moeller's book "You and Your Profile", it's very approachable and easy to read. Moeller has been my favorite philosopher as of late and I think he's onto something with profilicity.
@@mkultra4316 I got into philosophy firstly because it's valued highly in my family and by some another important for me figures. But it could've taken several more years if not for some exact occurence of events. Which was like:
-Ok, there are interesting content dunking on progressives who are stupid
-Ok, these people dunking on progressives are dishonest and probably as stupid
-What about more sane voices of the progressives, lets discover therm (because more sane voice of conservatives I could imagine ang generate myself)
-Ok, now part of their messaging make sense, but they are still totally incencere and push for false narratives
-Hm, what is this video in recommendations commenting on PhilosophyTube? (video from this channel)
-Ohm that is the most nuanced and measured content I seen to date, seems like something valuable!
Like yes, this is just a part of the journey. I tried to read Kant's critique of pure reason on my own some time in the past. But doing it I first of all got a context for most of the protagonists (whom i despised) and antagonists (whom i despised not less) of russian classic leature which I hated to be taught in school (because i live in russia of course) and started to make more sense to me, and second of all I was mostly disinterested in philosophy for a time as result (because it's written on too newbie-unfriendly manner and at least part of ideas is incorporated into contemporary content as some basis anyway) Also I read some pop-philosophy book which turn myself into determinist for the most part somewhere in university years
@@Dumadunala Which pop-philosophy book was it?
@@hazardousjazzgasm129 I don't think I could find out now, it was too long ago for me
Thank you for another wonderful video! Just a few thoughts...
In my understanding the deeper reason for civil religion, as envisioned by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, was that it is always an act of faith when I assume that another human being is as capable of experiencing herself as free as I am. Freedom can never be proven in the outside world, it is necessarily intersubjective, never objective.
This is also at the core of Hegel's analysis in the Philosophie des Rechts, where the inherent possibility of freedom of every individual needs society to unfold. This means that society not only needs faith, it is a vessel of the collective acts of faith of all free humans that form it.
This is by no means identical to what we see as civil religion right now. Capitalism can't see humans as inherently free, quite the contrary. In Capitalism you always start as a slave, your freedom is something you get paid in small change when you subject yourself to it.
The difference is, in a society that is enlightenent, every individual can at every point in time demand proof from society that the freedom she gives up comes back to her with interest. While in Capitalism you need to proof to it at any point that your work is worth the small bits of freedom it grants you.
So, I think at the core of our modern form of civil religion is a perversion of its original meaning. Neoliberalism is really Pseudiliberalism, with its own false prophets.
But I also think we need faith. Faith not in God, that is, but faith in humanity.
Great video professor Moeller! Love this channel.
-Eddie
Who tf is eddie
Oh right, hi Eddie
Your channel is amazing too. Keep up the awesome work comrade!
@@farzanamughal5933 he is one of the content creators of the Midwestern Marx channel
Sorry for the late comment. What would your response be to Slavoj Žižek's critiques of eastern religions like Taoism or Buddhism? I do appreciate the Taoist content on this channel btw.
This video was a great belated Christmas gift! Thank you for creating your wonderful content! Hello from Arizona ☀️🎄
44:45 What world was used for left? Religion, i am not native speaker and want to find out more about this.
Marx travelling to the future to the nowadays US: "I correct myself. Opium is the people's religion now."
It’s interesting you associate opium with the bourgeoise, because for people writing even prior to but generally around Marx’s time, principally Goethe, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, it was remarked that Christianity amongst the gentry was generally seen as an unfashionable and dirty historical artefact. In light of this, religion being the opium of the people would be more of a metaphor on opium than religion. However one can only assume that Marx did have the intention to say that religion is a discardable and arbitrary historical contingency that serves as a source of temporary pleasure and permanent fixation; and I see lots of people in the comments quoting late Marx on religion, it’s worth remembering than Marx’s views of religion shifted towards the end of his life.
Karl Marx in his early life he was quite Optimistic about Religion, especially came in contact with the Christian Sethian Gnosticism.
I'd suggest thinking about the Middle Class in its most obvious and extreme example. The Bourgeoisie of Victorian Britain were not exactly irreligious, if anything that, and Catholicism, had become the purview of the old aristocracy.
@@Cuthloch Catholicism in Victorian England, something tells me that comment is not factually rigorous, but Britain was certainly more atheistic than, say, France or Germany
Apparently my comments were being deleted because I included a link to wikipedia. I'd recommend looking at the Oxford movement, or really just being a bit more aware of historiography before telling someone they're not being "factually rigorous," though this is a youtube comment not someone's comps I'm not sure about how rigorous anyone is being.
I may mostly be a historian of long eighteenth century Britain, but I feel like I understand a decent bit about the later nineteenth as well. Regardless, some of the most famous British literature of that century and the following is Anglo-Catholic, a bit odd that common knowledge wouldn't get you there.
Ironically that wasn't even germane to my point, which was about the bourgeoisie, who were overwhelmingly Unitarian, Quaker, Presbyterian, or low church Anglican, instead of the aristocracy who had been vastly disproportionately high church Anglican or Catholic relative to the background population since the reformation.
If you're looking for philosophers talking about this you can even turn to Nietzsche, look at his stereotypes about "English," based on the fact he includes Hume here he probably means British, thought.
But anyway, if you want an example specifically from Marx look no further than Capital when he speaks about the religiosity of Victorian child workers.
@@Cuthloch workers’s piety I implicitly mention in my original comment. Tolstoy remarked that there were in his experience no working class atheists, which juxtaposed the Russian gentry’s swelling atheism, and this point is the reason for my comment in the first place. My understanding was that in the Victorian era the new catholic’s like Chesterton, CS Lewis, Tolkien et al weren’t around, so Christianity in England was still mostly Protestant. You mention the Quakers, but William Wilberforce along with most other quakers, was a Protestant Quaker.
I truly like your videos and your very objectiv, scientific like way of working on a certain philosophical topic... unlike, as you always mention, Jordan Peterson for instance... however, I can't help noticing that you have already talked about Identity and Authenticity a lot. So you have spoken about most of the thinkers that Jordan Peterson is constantly mentioning, why don't you make a video about Jung?
Is it the professor's view that this is how religion functions (in distinction to philosophy) or is he presenting Marx et al? I ask because I don't know anyone who studies religion, even an atheist who does so, who would agree with this definition of religion or it's function. Maybe it's about 1/4 right and perhaps more for certain religious sects - but it is so limited I can't help but conclude that it is a straw-man. It's not even a very good description of Christianity on the continent in the 18th and 19th century. So maybe it would be helpful to use a different term - fundamentalism is perhaps more accurate, but there might be others that are better informed. The rest of the video is quite good and I appreciate the work being done on identity, but I can''t really take this argument seriously as a critique of religion as a general phenomenon. Maybe someone can help me if I am missing something.
How is it a strawman?
Why do u prefer the term "fundamentalism"?
@@SkepticalMantisCHANNEL10 I don't want to assume that I understood everything said here. There is a difference between - "Let me talk about what it means when we say Religion is the opium of the masses," vs. "Because Religion is the opium of the masses, let's talk about it." The latter assumes that religion is the opium of masses and then explains why. If the latter is what is meant, it is a straw man because the definition, function, and character of religion(s) described there is a caricature. Anyone who studies religion as an academic exercise would reject such a definition outright. I would recommend the youtube channel "Religion for Breakfast" as a decent introduction. The argument made here is such that you could substitute many things for religion as well as drugs: sex, work, interpersonal drama, nationalism, property rights, as things that cause both conflict and can function as a form of social control.
I don't know if I prefer fundamentalism - I was thinking out loud. Certainly fundamentalism can function in such a way - but I'm also unsatisfied with that analysis. I did enjoy the video, and I think his points about civil religion functioning as cocaine is pretty spot-on.
These “isms” are flavors of the moment. There’re used by individual people for a time, for many random reasons and motivations, but then fade away in time. It’s all about us smucks! Thanks
have you eve heard of the Sitch & Adam Show?
you could be a cool guest if you do that sort of thing and talk about prolificity and civil religion to a wide audience
Adam already knows about him very well so they could actually agree a lot.
Yes! He should appear in more podcasts!!!!
What are your thoughts on the practice where youtubers set their camera in front of their bookshelves? I am curious if you are following the trend or it was just a convenient place to set your camera. Thanks for the great video!
I think it shows the speaker of as well read since it gives the appearance that the speaker is engaged with a variety of perspectives. Furthermore there is also an element of trying to engage with an audience passivly some Authors would show of their own books of or their friends in the background. Or by nodding to certain ideas for example by putting a copy of Das Capital, a youtuber could signal that they have knowledge or agree with certain ideas without people watching their full videos. This could also be done to enlarge your audience by displaying popular books.
Also due to TH-cam not having any restrictions of who can give out medical advice there is also a gap in trust which can partially be closed by showing of your supposed credentials in other ways like by having a lab coat on or a having a bookcase full of medical or scientific looking books. In a similar way shooting a video with a bed or kitchen in the background is less common since it can make the video appear less proffesional, since you also would not ask for medical or financial advice from someone in their bedroom.
A more material take would be that due to falling advertisment revenues for youtubers there might not be enough space in a house to have a shot with good lighting but without a bookcase, also for individual youtubers it might be a financial hurdle to rent out a sound studio to record shows. I think in the end it is partly curating a certain image (relatable, knowledgable, proffesional), but also the financial constraints that push youtubers into filming in either their office or their homeoffice.
It's his profile; it is what he is pretending to be.
This content is so good, that I almost feel it could need a more sophisticated platform than the occasional TH-cam videos.
i think that is the point of the channel i think, he is a university profressor on youtube
@@ariebaudoin4824 True, a university is a worthy (though exclusive) stage. Still, I would really enjoy Dr. Moeller's ideas in other formats, e.g. in public debates/discussions or maybe as a longer movie (like Žižek's 'The Pervert's Guide to Ideology').
No ,we need more videos like this on you tube.
or it is possible people could get something like what you describe organised. Good luck. But we must recognize that a lot of leftist today are philosophically illiterate and no help to anybody..
@@Djordj69 what kind of weird overgeneralization, how can you even say something like that, i have a lot of both left and right wing friends and i feel like it has verry little to do with how philosophically illiterate they are.
why is there so much discrimination based on political ideology on the internet?
Once again a really good video, thanks!
Now Im wondering, what is your position on the revolutionary practise/ Marxism-Leninism-Maoism? Just another "Religion", or a based strategy leading to a dialectical evolvement?
MLM is cringe.
@@empirelee7676 Based argumentation.
@@HugBugi
You are welcome!
From what I see, MLM is the only trend in modern Marxism that pushes the proletariat to take initiative in class struggle, through the promotion of Protracted People's War or Popular War. MLM reinstates the primacy of military seizure of power.
It seems to me that other Marxist trends today are passively waiting for a mass movement to arise, or hoping for a moment of insurrection/rapture that will change the balance of forces between the ruling class and the working class.
@@SkepticalMantisCHANNEL10
Isnt the whole point of this peoples war fantasy, that the revolutionary subject isnt the proletariat but rather the pesantry in pre-industrial societies? (which btw is in complete contradiction to what Marx thought).
Yes, notice how every Presedent in the U S and other leaders always use religion to show that they are to be trusted. It's basically living in a British ex colony where you must know the game of cricket and its terminology. Great work and thank you. Don't forget that it is faith, faith in the dollar that is higher than any religion when it comes down to it: 'in god we trust'.
yes reminds of an uncle that works with rich people so he had to learn stuff about golf even though he really dont give a f about it, it builds trust
Thank you once more!
I would love if at one point or another you could elaborate your views on the morality, refering to your thought-provoking book "The Moral Fool" as well as to the comment in this video: "Like Christianity in the past, civil religion today produces false relief from suffering: Sustains a capitalistic economy by focusing on moral, rather than socio-economic problems".
My question is, do you not think that approaching a socio-economic problem needs a moral-based approach? Meaning, it seems clear to me that for a problem to "a problem", it needs some codex of right/wrong. Is it not Morality? How do you distinguish between 'moral issue' and socio-economic problem'?
In "The Moral Fool" you note that your approach in criticizing 'moral mindset' isn't a moralistic approach, and I must say this point feels contradictive to me. Happy to hear your thoughts!
This episode was like taking a paracetamol for the hangover of the Christmas ritual indulgence.
Thanks I feel better now.
It's funny that you bring up Harris because he critiques religion but he would likely fall into Nietzsche's dichotomy where Christian people think agnostically and agnostic people think like Christians. Great video as always, thank you for some of the greatest philosophy content on TH-cam rn.
What about Gnostics what do people think of The Opposite of Agnostics which are Gnostics.
@@VisualdelightPro Are you talking about Gnosticism?
What do you make of Liberation Theology then? Which is influenced by Marx
Well, the algorithm brought me to you, and I have watched a few of your videos from my main account. (This is my commenting account.). I have enjoyed your breakdowns on the videos I have watched so far. This one, the Jordan P videos and the one on Wokeism. I am not a fan of the word itself because talking about being woke stopped being hip in 2015 ish. ;) JK, but it is true. There is always a new name for the right extreme to call the left extreme. The same phenomena will be called something new in 5 years.
Anyway, that is neither he nor there. I wanted to toss up a book recommendation since you talk about Civil Religion. My Constitutional Law professor has a recently published book about his thoughts on America needing a common civil religion again. It might be an interesting addition. Bruce Ledewitz, The Universe is on Our Side: Restoring Faith in American Public Life (Oxford University Press 2021).
Merry Christmas!
What is your definition of religion? You seem to define it as inherently superstitious-like it is just when people blindly accept something they are told uncritically regardless of if it even has anything to do with supernatural stuff, origin of the universe of life after death. If that's religion, most religious are doing it wrong. It just says you haven't read too much outside of the heurmanutical skeptics. You cannot seriously read Aquinas, Kalam, Tillich or even just talk to a regualr preist and come away thinking these guys have just completely sacrificed their critical thinking and have no reasons for their belief other than superstition. And the fact people are so willing to let it control every aspect of their lives gives it more credibility in my eyes, it at least suggests there is something there. No one does that with philosophy.
Most of the Enlightenment philosophers you say are mainly anti-religion were devout Christians, and their faith played a central part in their ideas (Kant, Hegel, Locke, Descartes). The same goes for the Islamic golden age and even the Greeks- Aristotle was a huge influence on the Catholic Church's thinking. And Hegel was by no means Anti-Religion; he literally viewed Protestant Christianity as the end of History for spiritual development. I get their religious views aren't highlighted in philosophy classes these days, but that is no excuse. Kant saw belief in afterlife as essential to his ethics.
And not to defend instutional religion too much, but presenting it as a negative force thst perpetuates oppression is just wrong and only works if you cherry-pick. It is just s fact that the Catholic Church is the biggest provider of healthcare, education, and care for the poor (outside of gov'ts) in the world. And charity is a major pillar of Islam as well. Churches have done far more for the sick and poor than any philosophy department (or Marxist government) ever has. And it isnt like any serial killers repent after reading Bentham the way so many have when they become religious.
And I dont see philosophy or even science as some major step forward and is just so much better than religion- there is no objective improvement in morals or thinking the way there is with technology. The 20th century was far and away the most brutal, savage, violent and oppressive in world history. And those evils were a direct result of the academia you praise as so enlightened. The Nazis appealed to genetics and evolution to justify their eugenics programs, and Soviet-style socialism killed tens of millions becuase the social sciences told them this was an inevitale step towards utopia.
Well-deserved criticism.
Basically, you demand science in general, and perhaps philosophy in particular to become a substitute for organized religion? I'll guess this lesson was wasted on you.
have you finished the video? He answered you int his video. Not gonna tell you the timestamp, though. You have to figure it out yourself.
Can you find the time to read and comment on Jonas Čeika's "How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the 21st Century Left"? You're far from the intended audience but that makes your commentary so interesting.
In his essay Junkspace, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has a striking analogue to religion as opium for the masses, which is "Identity is junkfood for the masses; globalization's fodder for the disenfranchised". I continuously relate that phrase to your and your partner's work on profilicity.
Isnt it quite a big distinction whether it is "opium OF the people" or "opium FOR the people"? If opium is for the people, it is being given to someone else, perhaps to induce false consciousness. If Opium is of the people, it is something people go to of their own volition. The people are either an object being acted on or a subject acting of their own volition.
You're equivocating
@@hazardousjazzgasm129Am i? Im not really making an argument, more just pointing out a distinction I think is rather crucial. There is quite a big difference between those two sentences, so its not good to jump between them.
@@molseren "Im not really making an argument" There's something we can agree on
23:00 « hegel's whole philosophy can be understood as a reaction to his religious education »
i suppose, alternatively, hegel's whole philosophy can be understood as a senseless blabbering as well .. but that would be about as pointless as understanding it as a reaction to religious education ... so what
Faschinating topic and speech! But I am confused. I'd like to hear more on which ground can we critique the civil religion of wokism? It's not like the old-fashioned organised religion with specific texts, dogmas, rituals and personell, but more like an unorganised movement. Also the old religion could be seen as a form legitimisation of actual forms of oppression, but wokeness seems to think of itself more like a liberation of those actual relations.
I think a distinction between formal state religion and underground informal religion is useful. For example, in Eastern Germany the Theological faculties where the breeding ground for resistanse against the enstablisment. So religion can be used as cocaine but towards a liberating route. It depends on who has the power. So not only religion is a opium for the people, but also politics can be.
If I may attempt to answer part of your commentary. I think both traditional religion and wokeism present themselves openly as forms of liberation. Traditional religion promises salvation, whereas wokeism promises the liberation of your individuality. However, both can be oppressive in different ways, yet also liberating in different ways.
The oppressive aspects of traditional religion should be clear to you I assume. Part of its liberating aspects were already mentioned in the video, coming down to a sedative effect that make life more bearable. Even if delusionary, it has a liberating effect. I would add to that a liberation from the pressures of critical thinking which can free up much time, and make orienting yourself within the world easier. Add to this a partial liberation from responsibility and self-care stemming from the fact that ''God has a plan'', and that many traditional religions provide strong social networks that provide intense care to all its members.
Something similar counts for wokeism. Wokeism may be liberating because it allows for individuals to express themselves in ways that wouldn't normally have been allowed, and live alternative life styles. It can also effectuate real life opportunities by granting access to jobs/institutions/public spaces that normally shunned marginalized people. At the same time it can be oppressive for reasons already mentioned and more. Being such a profilic doctrine, it can put pressure on people to constantly curate profiles and make themselves known as alternative, unique individuals. It can provide a real existential pressure in the fact that it puts so much responibility upon the individual to radically be themselves and take care of themselves. Also, being known for its lack of humor and obsession with abolishing laden identital expressions, wokeism can make it very hard for people to share opinions or engage in discussion. Sometimes favoring the marginalized over the normal it can put pressure on individuals and institutions alike to find marginalized aspects about them merely to be able to be recognized or appreciated by the general public (or general peer ;) ).
In regards to your suggestion to distinguish between formal/informal. The distincion may be helpful but again, both religions know these aspects. Merely with different emphases. Tradition religion was more formal, but also contained largely informal aspects in the form of passing its doctrine on via family and social pressure. In the case of wokeism it seems to spread more by these informal means simply because current society is more critical of 'paternalist' institutions now. At the same time wokeism does know many institutionalisations in the forms of women quota, the obligation to release diversity statements, help programmes for marginalized idenities, the prohibition of criminal risk profiling etc.
(whoops this became a big tldr). Anyway, hope this makes sense.
@@ekteboi4179 oh that was a response and thanks for that! Especialy the last paragraph was very helpful for me!
But let me put my random thoughts in order! Marx once critique the religion of his days by pointing out the real material social conditions that it hides and mystifies. On the other hand, wokism considers itself as transparent: "those are the oppressive social relations, lets fix them". Accordicly to Marx's thesis to Feuerbach:... the problem is to change the world...
So where should the current critique target? I think that what Moeller does, and what is also my spontaneous thought, is that we reveal the religious and mystical dimension of wokism, just as Marx does in his opening of Das Kapital: the commodity appears to be something platitudinous, but its analysis reveals that its full of mysticism and religion etc.
And I wonder, is this a valid critisim? Applying something totaly external (religion) to a movement that (thinks of itself) has nothing to do with it?
Its like moving the goalpost: you speak of religion- no, all you mean is material relations. You speak of material relations-no, you mean religion.
Hello professor Moeller. I was wondering If the concept of Civil Religion is something you have been developing and If I can learn more about It in your book?
I was also wondering If I can use the idea of Civil Religion for something I'm working on (giving you credits of course)
If you look up the term, it was first used by Rousseau. I'm not sure if the way he uses it is distinct from that. Rousseau seemed to be using it in the sense of an overarching set of religious values and iconography for an entire society. In the US it takes the form of In god we trust on the dollar bill, politicians talking about their religious beliefs, etc. Moeller seems to be defining something that isn't necessarily explicitly religious or subscribed to by a whole society, but any kind of belief systems no matter how large and small. It is clear what he's talking about in the video, but I think in some cases he should be using the term secular religion rather than civil religion.
Thank you, yet again, for a highly interesting and thought-provoking video. Loved it! :)
Certen dose, quite brilliant, haaaaaa. This is by far an excellent channel I have seen so far and especially when it comes to Marx.
Can Wenyi’s criticism of religion equally apply to philosophy? Or is there some relevant difference them making philosophy dominating your life more ok.
I will be thinking about the Mazu story for a long time. I wonder, does it mean that you should not dispel religious myths among people with tears in their eyes? Does it mean you should pray when you are crying, just as you should take medicine when you are sick, but not at other times? I sense that it is not just the Zen master's proclamation of atheism. The first part is as important as the second. (I'm not defending religion, by the way. I'm an atheist myself.)
I didn't watch the Mazu story in the video, but I'd like to answer your question. I think that one should support whatever means a person is using to cope with their pain in order to help them get better. About whether one should be using religion for that purpose or not, I'm inclined to think there must be more convenient methods, wich prove to be effective with religious people too.
A good alternative translation of "Aufhebung" in this context could possibly be "to cancel sth. out" similar to the way noise cancelling earphones cancel out noise by mirroring the external humming noises so they can't be perceived by human ears anymore.
i would like to see more nuance in descriptions of modern leftist thought on this channel than to reduce it to 'wokeism' without reference to what is being said or who is saying it. when describing centrist or right-wing thinkers mueller usually describes that persons position and abscribes it to someone, but when he speaks of wokeism he generally does not
im jus getting on this side, im assuming you watch a lot of his stuff, is it really just tha reductive? if so its amusing cause woke as it is now has barely anything to do with whatever people use to use it for. but this what happens when history is ignored ig. but seems like a decent channel.
@@Grimguapo i like the guy he has a pretty good point of view but the way he talks about wokeism specifically... like i think i know what he means but its much vaguer than the rest of his discussion. like here he talks about marx and thats fine, in another video he talks about kamala harris who i would not consider a leftist by any stretch, so like... i cant think of a modern leftist whose opinion he considers at any length, to reduce the whole leftist point of view to wokeist civil religion by only really talking about that... sort of ignores a diversity of opinions there
@Carefree Wandering what is the Song in the end called pls.
Liebe Grüße
th-cam.com/video/Koq-G8Ose4k/w-d-xo.html
Han, I forget who I heard it from, perhaps Chris Hedges, there is a view that religion is a response of the suffering of the oppressed, that it embodies many of their experiences and sentiments. Is that something you have found in religion?
Very interesting, 👍👍
Thank you very much for this video. I would be most interested in hearing more about culture and tradition as well. Living in Japan, these two seem to me to have very similar qualities to religion in other regions.
I think more and more on Karl Marx is needed. Besides David Harvey, your content is very good to explain what Marx was talking about and how rich his thoughts were.
Oh, interesting--without additional context, I would have interpreted the Wenyi story differently, considering it an allegory about form and emptiness, similar to this Zen saying:
“When I first began to practice, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers. As I trained, mountains were not mountains; rivers were not rivers. Now that I am established in the way, mountains are once more mountains and rivers are once more rivers.”
what a great video!
Now I'm addicted to philosophy videos
Loving this Christmas special!
This is absolute 🔥... amazing
I am Anabaptist pastor who works primarily with marginal communities in the semi-rural context.
This lecture is a must for any critical thinker peering out beyond late stage capitalism
Religion as ideology, Faith as Praxis. What's it have to do with Christmas? And has Islam, Judaism, and the eastern religions dilude their subjects in the same way?
That was interesting!
I'm not sure is so easy to separate moral and socio-economic issues as you describe towards the end of the video
It is.
Awesome video man! Would love to have more content related to Marx.
Wonderful final message. Great video.
10:15
People always hated intelectuals.
It happens to Socrates, to Epicurus, to Confucius, to Machiavel, to Marx, etc.
0:30
Selling stuff?
Wonderful video as always!
As you point out in the video, Marx theorized that religion would disappear along with, and only along with, changes in the material reality which produced the religion to begin with. As you say in your pinned comment, Marx's point is that "eternal truth, religion, and traditional morality will all become obsolete and disappear because their socioeconomic foundations will have disappeared."
I was wondering, and maybe you go in depth with this in your previous videos on Wokeism which I would have to go back and watch to make sure, what you believe are the material conditions which produce Wokeism/Populism as civil religion, why they manifest as such (in their content), and what material conditions would need to be changed (and to what) in order for this "cocaine of the people" to be made obsolete.
Thank you!
I think the Zen Buddhist analogy here is weak.
You've mentioned since the beginning of the video,
that the word "religion" in this context (i.e., in this dictum "religion is the opium of the people"), refers to Christianity.
In this European/Judeo-Christian context, religion require a form of, as you stated, "totalitarianism" of belief or worldview.
But the thing is, in Buddhism the core practice is never about belief (or to put it in a more Buddhist term "attachment"), but about detachment, and rigorous meditative practice to develop a capacity of detachement.
I think you overstretched the European/Judeo-Christian context into Buddhist one, where the analogy didn't work as well.
In my understanding, the two stories of the Buddhsit Zen masters, is maingly about a specific Buddhist concept called "sunyata" or "emptiness".
As I said, I think it the use of this stories as a critique of Judeo-Christian type of religion is overstretching.
Personally, I would like to know not only the underlying Chinese text, but I would like to know even the underlying Pali-Sanskrit term.
Your translation of the word 心 as "spirit" is, in my view, extreme odd.
Because one of the main teaching of Buddhism is about "non-self" (anatta ; lit. "no-self")
If "spirit" here is used to refers to Judeo-Christian concept of "soul" or "spirit" that is what make the analogy weak.
Other than this minor nitpicking, the whole video is great. Thank you for your great collection of works.
Amazing video, as always!
Thank you for the vid. I hope to listen-to/watch-it again and take notes while doing so. It clarified to me
- what Marx actually meant by 'Opium of Masses', and how it is important to understand Marx's response to Fuerbach
- how it is important to keep in mind that Jiangxi Mazu Daoyi Chanshi Yulu convo of saying 'Buddha and Spirit exist within another' first, then of following it with "Neither of them exist".
It does seem to me that your use of the word "Populism" is confusing to someone in a part of the world like US, cuz that word here is used as a way to refer to a kind of a conservative labor-centered collectivism.
I don't think that's really true. See the use of the word to refer to Bernie or the Populist Party. The overwhelming sense of the word in the US is politics centered around antielitism.
Wondering what you take is, if you’ve read it, of John McWhorter’s recent book ‘Woke Racism’ which makes the analogy of woke-ness as a new religion. Similar to a point you made in this video.
Loved this video keep them coming !
I think religion was meant to bring structure and order, goals and standards, quality control if you like, to spirituality. The toxic effects you speak of, are those which happen when religion runs away with itself, divorced from the spirituality it is supposed to serve, treating like an end and not a means.
I think that once capitalism is overcome, this will not make religion obsolete, but will force all the churches to refocus on spirituality and to really prove to believers that they can offer them the spiritual insight they claim to.
In the Pokemon Go augmented reality metaphor that Zizek made, He said the Jew is the Pokemon figure which was funny, I think it applies more to wokeness. In institutions the men are really Pokemon. I've seen myself looked down on like that with overconfident false understanding often and I don't like it.
I'm having a hard time discerning what narrative that has moral proscriptions ISN'T religion.
For example, my current meta narrative of human psychology compels me to think that pre-pubescent children cannot consent to sex and thus I am morally opposed to pedophilia. Is this necessarily a religious position?
You're usage of religion may have a problem of over-inclusion OR I'm misunderstanding the range at which your usage of religion stops.
Not getting into pedophilia, but the field of human psychology is definitely a religious one based on social control.
I love the last line!
He claims that "there is a risk, if you invite God into your home, of religion defining and dominating your life..."
Well, what about the very well-supported research that shows that religious people have substantially better physical and especially mental health outcomes?
If God is characterized by what humans tend to value, namely loving, creative and intelligent, then how come Christianity is considered "slave morality"?
Because God's character doesn't dictate what its institution or practitioners teach, it is just part of the dogma. It can be the other way around tho, I heard somewhere that religion is very interpretative.
Your seventh critique is interesting; tying everything to a single reference might seem parasitic or totalitarian; however, isn't it also legitimate to demand that there be a Ground for BEING?
And if that Ground is God, then by necessity God DOES affect all aspects of their life.
I'm not religious myself, but for better and for worse, religions can be very very good at producing cooperation within ingroups. Religious people tend to look out for each other more, and even as some rituals may seem silly, the communal aspect, bringing people together and making them feel like a part of a bigger whole fosters a certain level of compassion that can help a lot.
On the flip-side, for *outgroups,* it tends to lead to condemnation, vilification and terrible, *terrible* conflicts. Some of the worst behaviors we saw humans do were committed in the name of religion.
Also, even just that first part can go too far, swinging easily into the negatives. Brainwashy cults that may be designed to keep people unquestioningly loyal and control them, possibly extorting them in the process or even going so far as to end in ritual suicide... Stuff like that is absolutely crazy.
So I gotta wonder whether it is possible to have your cake and eat it too here: Could there be a way to give rise to the compassion and community benefits without diminishing capacity to be (constructively) critical of the organization of that community?
To be clear, there are plenty of people who are compassionate and kind without needing to be religious. However, it seems like something about religion can help a lot.
And I think that is probably a combination of a base set of principles you can trust everybody to share with you because they are "god-given" or whatever, and a sort of forced set of community activites which enforce people meeting and being more likely to have some active interest in the wellbeing of each other.
The first thing seems to be extremely difficult to make work with being free-thinking. The second thing seems to be difficult to make work with being free-acting. So maybe it's just not possible...
Certainly it seems like *some* concessions would have to be made if your goal were to foster such community thinking.
To some extent I really think it might be a matter of forcing people to their luck. Like, on their own, people seem to tend to avoid confrontation. - Not just *bad* confrontation. ANY confrontation. Because you always have this note of "what if I'm annoying" or "what if I'm offensive" or "boring" or "unlikable" in there. A base reluctance to interact. Obviously some people have this more than others, but I genuinely think an ever more secular society actually makes this worse. - And then you don't even dare ask for help even if you really need it and others are very willing to give it.
People tend to underestimate the willingness of other people to help and overestimate how annoying they are to others.
I'm saying all this, btw, while being in that boat of not really engaging a whole lot with people who are physically near me. And of not being religious what so ever. I can't bring myself to go out and meet these people. I don't even know how to *start* doing that. Just randomly burst into conversations and go "hi I'm [me] how is it going" to what effectively are strangers even if I have seen them thousands of times? Just seems so awkward.
Some sort of pretext to do this would be great. And sure, religion isn't the only way to do it, but it seems to be quite an effective one. I reckon it's a much better ice breaker to ask, Iunno, perhaps "what's your fav bible passage" or something than to go "oh the weather sure is nice innit"
(Not that most "casually religious" Christians these days are likely to know enough about the bible to even engage with that first idea either. The world has become a whole lot more secular. For better and for worse)
"Could there be a way to give rise to the compassion and community benefits without diminishing capacity to be (constructively) critical of the organization of that community?"
I think this is possibly Zizek's whole project with his critique of ideology. He makes a very good point that critiquing ideology can turn into it's own form of ideology, and even when we think we've escaped ideology we tend to come right back to it. So in regards to religion, it being a form of ideology, there's the urge to cut out the rot while keeping the fruit. I'm pessimistic about that, it may be possible that what good comes from religion is ultimately what's baked into it.
In Islam they also say "i love you in God" ,, which even love must be throught God.
Dr. Moeller, I'd like to take an issue up with you with regard to your statement about the Catholic church and The Philippines. You claim that the Catholic Church is incredibly wealthy in the Philippines which has a populace that is largely poor, however, that is a largely incorrect and generalized statement.
As someone who actually lives in the Philippines, the only reason why the Catholic church is "well-off" is large because of donations from both rich and poor alike. The Church does not force people to donate, merely encourages them. If the Church has no money, it literally would not be able to function as a religious organization as it would not be able to maintain its Churches, much less feed its priests. If people chose to stop donating (cuz free will exists), the Church would have difficulty operating. Now, why is my country largely poor? That is not because the people donate excessively to the Church but because of larger societal and governmental problems too long for me to explain here. (Ex. political corruption and poor education)
I hope this changes your perspective a bit.
I was under the impression that the purpose of zen stories where the wise master says something that sounds "pragmatic and atheistic" to us is actually intended to shock the student into perceiving the "faith" with a new clarity. Like, master, you could say that the door is just a door with no spirit, but I never could. But also it could be making a point about dualism or objectification. As in, to say the door has a separate "spirit" to the window or the monk or the Buddha is wrong.
cmon mattd8725, Zen is not about adherence to a faith (or dogma) as you name it. It is about searching for a deeper truth and is in this sense no different in intent from philosophy. Zen goes deeper though and looks for realisation, which is an entirely wider matter.
@@virabadrasana I didn't say dogma, and also terms like deeper truth or realisation don't mean anything to me. But what I say here is that Zen Koans are not just little snippets to be read in translation at a great separation of time and space, but part of a lifestyle practice where a relationship between a master and student is essential.
consume responsibly....now that's a great topic for another video. looking forward to it.
Fantastic video. Like another commenter mentioned, I would love to see a video on Heidegger. In particular I’d love for you to explore a Heideggerian ontic experience of being in the digital world.
As a Marxist, I do think that Heideggers ontology offers a really interesting conversation with the Marxist subject (if there is one, and I do think that there is). Since you do a lot of work on Marx, perhaps a conversation with Heidegger would be interesting!
I look forward to more of your content.
I don't like the word totalitarianism, far to vague.
Btw would you consider YOURSELF a materialist?
I think it would be very usefull if you could upload these videos as a podcast as well. Großartige Inhalte auch für Einsteiger wie mich!!
Religion must be seen separately from faith. Philosopher and scientist are both guided by faith. Faith in their method, faith in the ability to uncover truths (in the sense of Popper). Religion on the other hand, is an instrument of power and the place where faith dies.
Your pronouncoation of xin was spot on :o
I think saying "the prime function of Christmas today is a ... practise of consumerism" raises a strange point. I personally think that philosophy today and historically has had a ubiquitous problem of assigning agency where there is none. It cannot be denied that Christmas is currently quite consumeristic. But it is a stretch to say that someone intended it that way.
Nah agencies so post-ww2 forward have definitely intended for and shaped the holidays to be this way, doesn't even take much searching to find this. Holidays don't come out of thin-air, they're perhaps the pinnacle example of agency both for individuals & groups. You can even argue that there's a very specific architect in this case; Edward Bernays
That's interesting, assigning agency where is none could be sourcing from a bias towards religion, and towards human behaviour too.
Although, it may havenbot been the intention to assing a purpose on something that isn't designed to have one, but to make sense of something that currently happens in human thinking.
@@VashdaCrash There is also a tendency to assign agency in religion; it is more surprising to see it in less religious thinkers. It could be related to post hoc explanation, which has been observed in psychological studies of intention. It could be related to pulling out explanations for the unknown from thin air. It could also be related to the human tendency to anthropomorphise anything frightening.
@@HxH2011DRA I'm not referring to the institution of holidays. Consider a metaphor of hot gas. Many particles colliding with each other at different angles. We can imagine the individual particles to have individual agency. Yet even then, the gas overall will do something unexpected. Likewise, Christmas is nearly guaranteed to become something unexpected. The only way to get at the future of a major social phenomenon is to predict large scale group behaviour.
Although it appears one Edward Barnays was an effective propagandist, I cannot find any clear connection to Christmas.
@@warrendriscoll350 Now that I think about it, this supposed intention of Christmas is actually coming from agents of the mass media, which don't have anything to do with any of this. It's their huge influence what made this and a lot of thinkers see it that way.
In other words, they have quite possibly been bamboozled.
I would point out "on the door he had written "spirit"
"on the window he had written "spirit"
"on the wall he had written "spirit"
your interpretations are wrong, you are not understand meaning.
The window lets light in, Zen is Light. The Monk as you said in a Very Small Temple, in 1400Th Century
Those were evil times.
The Door in a enterance, "Spirit" writ on it repulses enemies
"on the wall he wrote "Spirit" Here the Wall is the Very Temple itself.
The temple, the people of the temple, and the reason for for the temple.
The master's words as you wrongly interpreted as serious are not.
The master is being contrarian and sarcastic,
My source : alan watts and Swami Vivekananda writings, and 1986- present member Vedanta Society of Northern California
Fantastic video