Why I, a non-Marxist, study Marx - Marx as a religious phenomenon.
So far, this blog has been updated with the theme "Shinran and Dostoevsky".
And to learn more about Dostoevsky, I learned not only about his contemporaries in Europe, but also about Russia after Dostoevsky's death.
Dostoevsky...Evil Spirits."and'TheThe Brothers Karamazov.(at sentence-end, falling tone) indicates a confident conclusionChapter of the Grand Inquisitor."He predicted a miserable world of totalitarianism to come in the
And amazingly, what he preached in "Evil Spirits" and "The Brothers Karamazov" became a reality in Russia after his death. It shows how Dostoevsky saw the human condition.
The situation that Dostoevsky warned about in his works has become a reality.
Tolstoy also appealed for "non-violence" through his works, but in the end, Russia was pushed into an era of violence.
Is literature powerless in the face of overwhelming power? Is thought meaningless in front of a gun?
I still have to learn the history of the Soviet Union as well. I felt that I could not pass this place by.
That is how I learned about Soviet history, the German-Soviet War, the Holocaust, Cold War history, etc. last year.
But to be honest, I did not initially intend to study Marx.
First, it is too difficult. And too huge..!
How much time would it take to try to fight Marx? His writings themselves are enormous, but so are the ideas and history associated with them. I shudder to think how many books I would have to read. There are also sensitive issues such as ideological conflicts.
This is why I had avoided Marx, but through reading last year, I have come to feel that I cannot avoid him after all.
I am not a Marxist, but there is always something to see by facing Marx. That is what I believe now.
Marx criticized religion. Marx is invariably cited in atheistic forums.
As one religious person, what do I say to Marx's criticism of religion?
This is a big challenge for me. You could say it is a wall. It is a huge wall anyway.
I started reading Marx-related books last summer.
And as I learned more about his life and thought, I began to formulate a hypothesis.
That is, Marx's ideas and their influence on theIt may be a "religious phenomenon."That is to say.
The key here is.Not a "religious phenomenon," just a "religious phenomenon."It is.
The word "~~-like" means "like."
If we say, "Marx is a religion," then we have to argue, "Then what is a religion in the first place?" This is a complete dead-end course. If Marx is a religion, then the question of what makes it different from Christianity and Buddhism, as well as theological issues such as how to understand God in the first place, will also arise. It is too risky to add more difficult problems to Marx, who is difficult to discuss even by himself.
Rather, I would like to look at Marx from the perspective that he has much in common with religious phenomena in the world. I personally do not believe that "Marx is religion itself," and I do not believe that "Marx is a religion.Marx is a religious phenomenon.We see it as "the
Although Marx criticized religion, my hypothesis is that its reality is very close to religion.
The Soviet Union, which espoused Marxism, thoroughly suppressed religion, but I think this showed that it wanted to be the only religion by itself, to the exclusion of existing religions.
Marxian thought provided a grand narrative for Europeans who had lost their Christian worldview.
Religion speaks of the past, present, and future: where we came from, why we live, and where we are going.
And one of the most important stories of religion is,
Why must we suffer so much, and what is the point of all this suffering?"
It is called.
Marx explained why workers are so miserable. Marx said that it was because of the exploiters, the capitalists, and that after a history of industrial development, we have a miserable present, and he offered a narrative in which the workers will now play a leading role in transforming the future.
Marx's thought was truly about the past, present, and future, giving meaning to life to those who live in the present, and that is exactly the kind of life-changing influence it had on me.
In the next article, I will discuss "What is Marx in the first place?" with the help of commentaries, after which I will look again at the views of prominent historians about Marxism being a religious phenomenon.
I am not a Marxist.
But that does not mean that I intend to deny Marx entirely.
Marx was a giant thinker who lived in 19th century Europe. Few people in history have influenced the world as much as he did.
Marx had the magical power to move so many people around the world. I think that is a fact.
So what is the source of its magic?
Why did Marx's thought attract so many people?
How was Marx's thought developed?
Who was Marx in the first place, and under what historical background did he live?
I believe that learning about such things is a great clue to learning more about religion, or even about human beings themselves.
I don't know how long it will take me to get there, but I will take the time to update my blog about Marx.
I started reading Dostoevsky to learn about Shinran Shonin, the founder of Jodo Shinshu, but it turned out to be a very unexpected path.
However, I am sure that even today, and especially now that the ideological conflict of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union has disappeared, it is still very meaningful to study Marx.
We hope you will continue to follow our blog.
The above is "Why I, a non-Marxist, study Marx - Marx as a religious phenomenon".
Next Article.
Related Articles
