One big thing since the post-Soviet Pax Americana is the indoctrination of the self. A kind of doctrine in which everyone is brainwashed into always thinking for themselves, and being themselves, and having their own opinions. It is a genius way in which to impose the dark ages upon a literate populace.
Because in thinking for yourself, you never study others, you become trapped in this tragedy of self-imposed genius, in which you are always the smartest person in a room populated by 1.
It is no wonder then that the Dunning-Kruger effect became codified in the language of science, it is an extraordinarily simplistic and yet effective method of brainwashing. Knowledge is suddenly shunned as lies, doctrine, authority and conspiracy, the only true authority which exists is the authority of one. Similarly, in this age of relativism, the only true knowledge is the knowledge which already emotionally validates preconceived biases. It is a tragic thing.
And some might say “Oh but don’t you do that too? Isn’t that what you do? How does being a Marxist suddenly exempt you from this?”
It does not, but seeing as how in early childhood I went to school in a former Axis country, where we were taught holocaust revisionism as part of the standard curriculum, I doubt my intuition was nurtured in the direction of Marx. I was embarrassingly old when I finally learned just how many people actually died in the holocaust.
I was by no means a fascist or an anti-Semite when I learned, I had just never considered it, I figured I had learned what there is to know, and that was that. It was not until I mentioned the holocaust to a historian that they basically responded “That number seems a bit low.” and then they explained to me. I felt as if I was Borat or something, it was bizarre. That is when it dawned on me just what backwardness we still find in the Baltics to this day.
I was also taught that Indians were cavepeople before the white Europeans came to America, I was taught that good and evil does not exist, that these were superstitions, and how immorality was produced by mental illness and genetic flaws.
I was taught that instead of good and evil, there is “social” and “antisocial” and that antisocial people are generally poor, homeless and uneducated, and that they consciously choose these things through immoral behaviors, and one big part of our schooling was also state-mandated protestant teachings.
The class was called “History and Religion” and would for the most part teach us how monarchism and the state church played vital roles in providing modern day civil liberties and democracy. At the time I went to school, the government would forcibly sterilise transsexuals, and it was legal to rape your spouse.
Statutory rape was also legal and I believe still is to this day, and just a couple of years prior to my birth, a veteran SS Officer was legally permitted to not only start his own political party, but even run in elections. This was accompanied numerous hate crimes, especially against recent refugees from the gulf war, and not to mention my own family.
Another disturbing detail was how commonplace it was for older generations to use Wehrmacht colloquialisms. For instance, when someone had their arm in a sling, they would say it had been “Stukad”, a reference to the wing shape of a German Stuka dive bomber.
And to clarify, this is not to say that I don’t acknowledge just how significant Lutheranism is, but Lutheranism is not just exclusively influencing Protestantism. Catholicism was influenced by this as well, Martin Luther was a Catholic and addressed other Catholics in his criticisms.
Most Catholics today read the bible in their own language, and do not pay for letters of indulgence, these are Lutheran ideas, and they affected both sects in very significant ways.
It is called the Lutheran reformation, not the Lutheran insurrection. That is because it reformed Catholicism as well. I don’t think many modern day Christians, Catholic or otherwise, would deny the joys of being able to read the word of God in your own home.
In fact, just today I finished the book of revelations. Turns out the devil is actually a dragon, not a goat. The slim head and the horns is generally mistaken for a goat, but the wings and the fire kind of add some context there. Turns out he was a dragon, and that apparently hell works sort of like a prison for supernatural beings?
So the devil isn’t actually in charge of hell, he just lives there. Turns out the angels are in charge of hell, and it’s their job to make sure nobody escapes through the shaft of the abyss.
He got sentenced to 1000 years in hell because of his troublemaking, and then came out and caused more trouble, and so they gave him a lifetime sentence because of his priors. It was a real eye opener to say the least.
Also turns out that Hades is kind of like the Sonny Franzese of the immortal planes. He got booked with the grim reaper on plague charges, as the four horsemen was a bit like the five families.
So revelations, or at least part of it, is a kind of celestial crime story about how Christ would crack down on all these supernatural criminals who ran prostitution and bootlegging rackets in Babylon and what have you. It was sort of like the untouchables except instead of Kevin Costner it was Angels.
Someone should make a prohibition era period drama about the book of revelations, and give it a sort of Sweeney Todd feel, I’d watch that. Like the Godfather, but with an emphasis on God, I bet that would spark some interest in the holy word.
And also I’m not sure how doomsday preachers got the end of the world from all this? The story basically ends with how they all go to jail, and things go back to normal.
Point is, Lutheranism sparked a wave of mass literacy and education that helped bring Europe out of the dark ages, and I think we can all be happy about that.
The biggest distinction between Catholicism and Protestantism is generally about the role and structure of clergy, outside of the church, ordinary Catholics and Protestants continue to live very similar lives.
This was not an exclusively Protestant achievement, it was produced just as much by Catholic scribes and scholars. Luther was not alone in what he saw, and many segments of the Catholic clergy were also appalled by the corruption and salaciousness that the church partook in.
That’s why, when you visit a cathedral today, they won’t claim to have the thorny crown in a back room, and that for the low low price of 19.95 Euros, you can get your own polaroid taken whilst wearing it. The Walt Disney approach to the Vatican is over, and do you know who’s especially pleased? That’s right; Catholics.
So if I simply sought to find my own preconceived biases, then I would probably not be a Marxist. I shudder to think what I may have become, given the hours I devote to study.
Rather I generally go with things that bother me. I frequently read things just to spite them, just to make sure I got the right idea. I feel more affirmation from studying what I disagree with than things I find agreeable, assuming I can somehow find the knowledge to test and dispute these things.
Frequently I change my mind, and often as years pass, I hold the opposite views that I used to. And the reason why is because I always approach with humility if I do not know something, I always assume the other side is correct until I find some evidence to dispute them, in doing so, I become steadfast in what may be proven, and I abandon things that cannot be proven.
I would never in a million years be myself and have my own opinions. I hold the opinions of other people, who convinced me of them through evidence and rational inquiry. To have my own opinions, derived from the self contained rationalism of my own mind, would be conceited guesswork.
As for the Christian stuff, that’s complicated, I have personal experiences that have opened my eyes to the possibility of other things, but I cannot in any meaningful sense reproduce this to others, so I do not expect them to follow suit on this basis. At most I can demonstrate the teachings of Christ through the benefits of good will and justice, by being honourable.
I think this is the point of faith. Instead of having some evidence at my disposal, I must devote my life to a higher path. I cannot rationally convince anyone, I can merely impress upon them the radical ways in which one can do good for others.
The presence of Christ must be proven in a way that puts food unto the tables of the hungry, and hearths at the feet of those who sleep in the cold. What a scientist may prove with a single experiment, a believer must prove with a thousand good deeds. Without this, our faith would be worthless.
That is why I enjoy Marxism. The Bolsheviks believed in the same thing. They taught the illiterate how to read, they fed the hungry, they housed the homeless, and they gave land to the serfs. They protected the innocent people who were gunned down at the square of St. Petersburg by the Tsar’s men. And their struggle and sacrifice echo in holy chorus.
This song commemorates 30 workers, who were brutally gunned down in Poland, for the crime of wanting to be free. For the crime of caring for others. For the crime of seeing themselves as equals to kings. For the crime of regarding their wives, mothers and daughters as human beings, as more than chattel to be traded among boyars and landlords. For the crime of peacefully taking to the street, and resounding to all that a better tomorrow is possible.
For this, the Polish state would deploy police and gun them down in cold blood. And for this, a war was declared. A war of rich and poor. All over the Europe this war was waged, like Cyrus waging the war on Babylon. A war in which massacres became skirmishes. In which helpless screams became gunshots, and in which tragedy became victory.
Instead of believing in themselves, in thinking for themselves, in living in their minds, they instead embodied the hand. The hand of justice. The great hand which has lead humanity through its labours, that may build and raze, that grants us the holy power of labour.
That permits us to harness the forces of nature at our beckon call, that shapes cities and draws maps. This hand, this hand of the people, became a fist.
And this is done when we unite, and come together, and pursue the truth. The truth that is hidden in stories, and ideas, and thoughts, the truth that shatters debates through testament. The truth of the world, rather than the truth of the self.
It is in this way, in which Christ took Rome, in which Cyrus took Babylon, and in which Lenin took Moscow.
The Soviets in Berlin, just like the Persians in Babylon, fought a great war against a cruel enemy, and in doing so, they emancipated the Jews and brought an end to tyranny.
And it is in this way that the workers of the world may unite, as we inherit the kingdom of God, this kingdom wherein the poor emancipate themselves from the rich. This kingdom of republics, comradeship, justice, and the only peace suited for a holy land, the Pax Proletarii.
Christ was never in the ornate and gilded churches of the abusive clergy of Imperial Russia, who would persecute Jews, ban the printing press, and impoverish the peasants with outrageous taxes. Christ was rather on the streets on the day that the workers stormed the winter palace, and brought an end to their heresy. The Bolsheviks did not abolish the Orthodox faith, but rather saved it from false kings.
It is only workers who may righteously govern the world, because just like Christ, we are the creators. We build, we manufacture, we invent, we toil and we shape the world. What God does with miracles, we do with work. This is what makes us in God’s image, because no other animal can create in such a way.
Revelations also speaks of the book of life, how all whose names are written into the book of life would not be cast into hell.
How all of us who remain to this day are written into this book. This book which demonstrably carries the names of humanity, not merely Christians, not merely compatriots, but all the peoples of all the world. Friends, family and foreigners alike, and it says that we are all saved, that we are all part of this world. So I cannot think of any more resonating sentiment to those who believe, than to proclaim that the workers of the world should unite.
That we may no longer be divided by war and emperors, that we may no longer stand idle at the wake of hunger and poverty, that we may no longer have our bodies worn and our pockets emptied by usurers and politicians. The only path forward is a path made by workers.
Just look at the world today, when Christ says to heal the sick, landlords instead are eager to evict them. To kick them out on the cold street, in exchange for cold money. To instead of sacrificing like the lamb, they engorge themselves like the beast.
Do not fall for the propaganda of the cold war, read for yourselves, and see what is possible when we stop practicing the falsehoods of churches built by monarchs and Roman emperors, who declare that they are greater than God, that they rule what God should rule.
The horseman of famine was a merchant, who carried scales and sold the labours of others. Revelations do not speak of a drought, or a locust, but a capitalist. Famine is capitalism, and Christ is a worker!
