Essay:Dogmatism, Cults, and Religion: A Marxist Perspective
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Introduction
Two years ago, I released my first essay onto ProleWiki titled Dogmatism, An Anti-Marxist Tendency. As such with any essay, an essay exists within the confines of a particular person (or persons) which shows their particular experience. Back in 2022, I was only on the stepping stone to truly understanding theory, dogmatism, and ideology.
Aside from grammatical and spelling issues, the essay primarily focused on analysing dogmatism within the context of Marxism, such that it completely abstracted from the confines of dogmatism in general. This dogmatism, which is prevalent in religious organisations, cults, etc. must also be taken into account. One grave error a Marxist can do is abstract information rather than apply the information to a specific context.
As such the three characteristics I've given in regards to dogmatism, that being;
- regarding statements as 'fact' without evidence,
- utilising a false premise in order to justify their statement,
- and (typically but not always) striving for purity fetishism,
are incomplete analyses that require further work. Therefore, this essay will analyse dogmatism in general. Within the context of ideology, not just Marxism. Therefore this essay serves as perhaps as an extension of my previous essay, though I do not recommend reading my previous essay, as I will begin to analyse from scratch.
Why Do We Need to Analyse Dogmatism?
Dogmatism, as it exists within the context of Marxism, is indeed vehemently opposed. However this dogmatism, however it exists, it certainly does not exist within Marxism alone. It exists within other ideologies, within pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, cults, and organised religion. This dogmatism, of which I will touch on, does not only talk about dogmatism, but also talk about those who call a particular group dogmatic.
To begin, we will not look at dogmatism. But why? Isn't that what this essay is about? The issue at hand is that dogmatism isn't a nuclear unit. It is divisible, it is a process. A process which transformed due to human need of productivity. To look at dogmatism at face value is to make an incorrect analysis. This is a mistake which I made earlier. I looked at dogmatism within the context of human society, starting with pre-class society. However we must begin in a different standpoint, with a model that can accurately define dogmatism from the perspectives that exist within capitalist society today.
Facts and Truth
The existence of a truth is something which concerns philosophers, scientists, and practically anyone who possesses a rational mind in today's world. Capitalists see some sort of "truth" within its system, Marxists see some sort of "truth" within its socialist framework. What differentiates the Capitalists and Marxists in this case?
The search for truth is within the groundwork of idealism and materialism. The division between materialism and idealism should then be considered in order to find a specific "truth" which can be considered a truth. As a marxist, we side with materialism, to be specific, dialectical materialism. Diamat as it will be shortened from now on, lays a framework and a model of which we consider it to be a superior model to mechanical (metaphysical) materialism, and idealism consequently.
Whichever is more right will matter less as this essay continues, not because of them being less distinct, but rather within the application of a "truth" being used in the context of society. Under marxism, the criterion of truth exists within the context of reality. This reality, which exists independently of our consciousness, means that there exists truth which cannot be observed by using our body alone (e.g. the eye cannot see germs or microbes).
Thus we can reason our understandings of a "truth", and the criterion of truth. Truth can be understood as something which exists that proves something. So through truth, we can negate it, an untruth, or falsity. Falsity can be understood as the reverse of Truth. As such, the criterion of truth is our interpretation which solidifies Truth. Although truth exists, the criterion of truth dictates the truth in question. The truth cannot exist without the criterion, and the criterion cannot exist without the truth. Though they sound opposites, given that criterion is our interpretation of a truth which should be objective, making it subjective, they exist in a link, a relationship.
This relationship is known as the 'subjective-objective' distinction. Note the hyphen in this case represents a link, and not necessarily intended to combine two terms into a single word. If the subjective operates with the objective, and vice versa, it would imply that this relationship means nothing, that we lost our meanings due to this antinomy. In other words, this is a chicken and egg scenario. How do we resolve this antinomy? Marxism solves this antinomy through one thing, praxis. Marxism is a criterion of truth, and the truth that exists. The practice, which concentrates from theory, is then put into reality. Our mind works with our hands, our voice, etc. which then consequently allow a truth to be clearer. If this theory does not work, we will try another. It is how Marxism learns and evolves, much like the sciences of other fields.
This also means idealism, as a criterion of truth, cannot perform as well due to it not overcoming the 'subjective-objective' distinction. In other words, the meaning of idealist concepts is subjective, and it can only be treated as so, because there exists no such 'objective' idealism, though idealism certainly can base itself on objective things, which we will consider later.
Evidence
Let us delve a little bit deeper on what this 'praxis' is. If we have a method which we like to perform, but this method has never been tried, we therefore have no possibility of getting it right. The chance is near 0. Of course, this example wouldn't exist in the real world. Chances are, we always have a method which exists in the context of reality. And thus we can gather something which reinforces that particular method, that being evidence.
Since it reinforces a particular method, that method being the criterion of truth, it is clear that evidence reinforces the criterion of truth, but not necessarily reinforces the truth. This is because in our analysis, the objective is something that exists, and we do not need to consider reinforcing it. The evidence of which it exists means that it can be skewed towards a particular subjective. In the case of Marxism, we would look at a graph such as Figure 1 shown, we would the see rate of profit tends to drop. We can analyse this more clearly by using constant capital as a metric. By seeing the increase of constant capital, where variable capital remains the same, or in more real-world terms the increase in technology means that less time is needed to produce commodities therefore can be sold at a cheaper price. In the long term, this harms capitalism. This is Marxism using empirical evidence in order to seek the truth. And this truth, objectively, exists. The rate of profit is tending to zero.
Now let's consider the other side of the 'truth' coin and consider idealism. If evidence is reinforcement for the criterion of truth, that means for idealists, finding evidence requires nothing more than observation, an easier task than simply searching for empirical evidence. There is an old philosophy joke about Plato defining a man as a "featherless biped". As a result, Diogenes plucked the feathers out of a chicken and said: "Behold, a man". We can extend this joke to seeing the absurdity of idealist evidence, which only lays in observation.