The essential problem of our times, for Europe and for the world, is that although the fallacy of the communist economy has been recognized… the moral and religious question it used to address has been almost totally repressed. The unresolved issue of Marxism lives on: the crumbling of man’s original certainties about God, himself, and the universe.
“The Spiritual Roots of Europe ,” in Without Roots: Relativism, Christianity, and Islam, 73-4
Reflection – Communism may seem to most people today to be, outside of a few small enclaves like North Korea Cuba China
Ratzinger rightly points out, though, that while communism collapsed as an economic system in the 1990s, its spiritual and moral underpinnings have never collapsed, but take new and strange outward forms in the world today.
Who or what is God, or is there a God? Who or what is man, the human person? What is the relationship of man to the world? Underneath the specific tenets of Marxist theory lie certain answers to those questions, namely, that there is no god, that man is the sole shaper of reality, that this shaping of reality is wrought through seizing control of the levers of power. Along with this can come a certain historical determinism, a sense of inevitability of social progress along this or that line, which can then be used as a pretext to rather ruthlessly suppress dissent.
Might makes right! This is the crude expression of the underlying stance of Marxism. Whatever group has the upper hand is thereby endowed with moral probity and can punish its enemies as it sees fit.
And so… opponents of same-sex marriage routinely receive death threats. Those who question the ‘consensus’ on global climate warming (oops, I mean change), are compared to Holocaust deniers who should be jailed. And yes, those who question the ideology of sexual libertinism by suggesting that contraception is not a good thing are to be driven out of public life, by way of government mandates.
Underneath all of this is a sense that is fundamentally Marxist, that the whole point of the human project is to seize control of reality and shape it to our unfettered will. The corrosive crushing power of ideology, when man himself, the human person is to be shaped and fashioned according to the agendae of those who are in power.
Excellent post. Fr. Ratzinger discusses the destruction of being to historicist blows in Introduction to Christianity (a book no doubt that you are far more conversant with than I). I found that book prophetic.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't spend the entire morning researching the Spanish Civil War, the Red Terror and the White Terror. Anyone who can look at those things and come up with the idea that "Might makes right" is an exclusively left wing phenomenon is being disingenuous. As for Ratzinger, you wouldn't have a copy of "The Ratzinger Report laying about?
DeleteWell, that's not really what either I or the Pope said, is it? What we are both saying is that underneath Marxism itself is a religious/moral question that has not been addressed at all, as the obvious fallacy of Communist economy has been exposed. The underlying question applies to all modern and post-modern people... and that's the problem we face.
DeleteWhat's your point about the Ratzinger report? Yes, I do have a copy. And?
Yeah but Barona's copy is just across town...
DeleteHe made some comments in that book that were just about prophetic regarding the state of the Church today.