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Why I am an Atheist and Other Works
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Kevin's review
bookshelves: z-bios-and-essays, theory-culture-religion, theory-socialism-marxism
Jun 30, 2023
bookshelves: z-bios-and-essays, theory-culture-religion, theory-socialism-marxism
Read 2 times. Last read December 2, 2022 to December 19, 2022.
Revolutionary Socialism’s Morality and Spirituality?�
Preamble:
--This review follows up on my review of the biography Without Fear: The Life & Trial of Bhagat Singh, which provides broader context of the Indian revolutionary executed at age 23.
--Singh’s brief essays collected here seem to be only a sliver of what he produced even given his short life in the middle of the storm, as the biography mentions he wrote 4 books in prison where the manuscripts were lost.
…For such a short work, it opens up plenty of dormant thoughts�
1) Personal Religion?:
--As Singh starts with a personal account of his upraising with religion, I will provide some personal context as well:
…I was born in Beijing, China, and do not remember learning about a conception of “Gǻ�/“rDz� until I immigrated to the West to start primary school. Then again, I don’t remember much of anything early on as my memories are a blur from too much moving. Perhaps I was vaguely aware of spirituality (maybe in the context of respecting ancestors?); more prominent would be the teaching of public service/revolutionary spirit (a tangible example being the schoolbooks I kept).
…I remember learning about “Gǻ�/“rDz� when starting primary school in the West, being impressed that day with the logic (“well, who created everything? There must be a creator to start everything�) and telling my dad. His unimpressed expression is more memorable than his actual reply (probably something like: “you should think about this some more�). I guess this was the extent of institutional religion for me, in contrast to Singh’s context:
2) Personal Politics?:
--My dad’s unimpressed expression and reply would return over a decade later, when I told him about the first “economics� book I was reading for personal interest (by free market fundamentalist Mises), listing the author’s claims of why free market capitalism is ideal. By abstracting away deeper structures and critical history (which Western primary education was already sparse on), Mises would target existing biases in Western state capitalist/imperialist world views.
...I remember reciting to my dad how free market capitalism hinders wars because both countries are freely trading with each other (i.e. the civilized ones), thus mutually dependent; imagine telling this to someone brought up in the context of China and its “Century of Humiliation� from Western/Japanese imperialism cloaked under free trade/civilizing mission (Opium Wars/Unequal Treaties/colonization/invasions):
-Ghosh’s trilogy of novels features vivid passages: Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire
-Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
--This vulgar “economics� was paired with my initial explorations of “politics� which led me to the “New Atheists�; yet another teenage boy hypnotized by edgy takes, reveling in a plethora of Hitchslaps, picking the lowest hanging fruit of “debunking� mass religion. This eventually eroded thanks to the clash between:
(i) New Atheist Sam Harris’s devotion to deciphering ancient texts in order to translate into US's “War on Terror� foreign policy, vs.
(ii) Critical history of imperialism I was learning (starting with Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance).
...I never properly closed this chapter as I wasn’t writing reviews back then (Hedges� I Don't Believe in Atheists was the last book in this debate that I bothered with).
--It’s crucial to note I was privileged to come from an immigrant context, which is a fascinating contradiction between:
i) Individualist escapism (in my case, with higher education and not refugees), acceptance of Western assimilation, while
ii) Still recognizing the reach of Western imperialism back “home�.
…While September 11 (2001 in the US� not 1973 in Chile, backed by the US) burst my Western bubble, I was equally as shocked by the reaction from the immigrant context, i.e. wait until you hear the violence Western imperialism imposes daily.
…For intros on US imperialism:
-Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
-American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News―From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror
3) Socialism and Institutional Religion?:
--Since escaping the reactionary red-pilling of ignorant default-liberals, I’ve been focusing on deciphering the underlying structures of real-world capitalism/imperialism and finding structural alternatives to fulfil social needs (“socialism�).
--I’ve kept some distance debating “religion� in the abstract. Maybe due to my upraising as an atheist/agnostic, I do not see much distinction in substance between religion and philosophy, esp. on the personal level, although I would use “spirituality� to describe the personal experience, whereas religion and philosophy are systematized institutions with societal consequences.
--Given how contradictory the real-world is:
i) I’m not particularly bothered by scientists who are (personally) religious (ex. Stephen Jay Gould, a natural scientist who does not bypass critical social sciences: The Mismeasure of Man) [Correction: Gould is not personally religious, but proposed “science� and “religion� can co-exist because they occupy different domains, i.e. “Non-overlapping magisteria”]
ii) I can support religious struggles for social needs (ex. Liberation Theology, the heretic movements described in Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, etc.)
--However, there are some strong critiques of institutional religion to synthesize:
i) Contrasting the animism (spiritual relationship with the natural world) of many pre-capitalist societies (from pagans to Native Americans) vs. capitalism (Enclosures, colonialism) weaponizing institutional religion to enforce dualism/dominion (objectifying the material world, so land/labour can be commodified and exploited; thus, land/labour markets are unique capitalist markets featuring “fictitious commodities�, i.e. nature/humans are not actually produced in factories for buying/selling in markets).
…This is introduced in Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, which references Caliban and the Witch. Naturally, I find attempts to synthesize animist spirituality with the scientific method compelling:
-The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
-Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
ii) Institutional religion’s role manufacturing social consent for the status quo:
--Marx’s famous passage [bold emphases added]:
…See comments below for the rest of this review�
Preamble:
--This review follows up on my review of the biography Without Fear: The Life & Trial of Bhagat Singh, which provides broader context of the Indian revolutionary executed at age 23.
--Singh’s brief essays collected here seem to be only a sliver of what he produced even given his short life in the middle of the storm, as the biography mentions he wrote 4 books in prison where the manuscripts were lost.
…For such a short work, it opens up plenty of dormant thoughts�
1) Personal Religion?:
--As Singh starts with a personal account of his upraising with religion, I will provide some personal context as well:
…I was born in Beijing, China, and do not remember learning about a conception of “Gǻ�/“rDz� until I immigrated to the West to start primary school. Then again, I don’t remember much of anything early on as my memories are a blur from too much moving. Perhaps I was vaguely aware of spirituality (maybe in the context of respecting ancestors?); more prominent would be the teaching of public service/revolutionary spirit (a tangible example being the schoolbooks I kept).
…I remember learning about “Gǻ�/“rDz� when starting primary school in the West, being impressed that day with the logic (“well, who created everything? There must be a creator to start everything�) and telling my dad. His unimpressed expression is more memorable than his actual reply (probably something like: “you should think about this some more�). I guess this was the extent of institutional religion for me, in contrast to Singh’s context:
What I wanted to point out was that the idea of disbelief had not even germinated in the revolutionary party. […] I saw only one man amongst them, who never prayed and used to say: "Philosophy is the outcome of human weakness or limitation of knowledge." He is also undergoing a sentence of transportation for life. But he also never dared to deny the existence of God.
2) Personal Politics?:
--My dad’s unimpressed expression and reply would return over a decade later, when I told him about the first “economics� book I was reading for personal interest (by free market fundamentalist Mises), listing the author’s claims of why free market capitalism is ideal. By abstracting away deeper structures and critical history (which Western primary education was already sparse on), Mises would target existing biases in Western state capitalist/imperialist world views.
...I remember reciting to my dad how free market capitalism hinders wars because both countries are freely trading with each other (i.e. the civilized ones), thus mutually dependent; imagine telling this to someone brought up in the context of China and its “Century of Humiliation� from Western/Japanese imperialism cloaked under free trade/civilizing mission (Opium Wars/Unequal Treaties/colonization/invasions):
-Ghosh’s trilogy of novels features vivid passages: Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire
-Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
--This vulgar “economics� was paired with my initial explorations of “politics� which led me to the “New Atheists�; yet another teenage boy hypnotized by edgy takes, reveling in a plethora of Hitchslaps, picking the lowest hanging fruit of “debunking� mass religion. This eventually eroded thanks to the clash between:
(i) New Atheist Sam Harris’s devotion to deciphering ancient texts in order to translate into US's “War on Terror� foreign policy, vs.
(ii) Critical history of imperialism I was learning (starting with Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance).
...I never properly closed this chapter as I wasn’t writing reviews back then (Hedges� I Don't Believe in Atheists was the last book in this debate that I bothered with).
--It’s crucial to note I was privileged to come from an immigrant context, which is a fascinating contradiction between:
i) Individualist escapism (in my case, with higher education and not refugees), acceptance of Western assimilation, while
ii) Still recognizing the reach of Western imperialism back “home�.
…While September 11 (2001 in the US� not 1973 in Chile, backed by the US) burst my Western bubble, I was equally as shocked by the reaction from the immigrant context, i.e. wait until you hear the violence Western imperialism imposes daily.
…For intros on US imperialism:
-Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
-American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News―From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror
3) Socialism and Institutional Religion?:
--Since escaping the reactionary red-pilling of ignorant default-liberals, I’ve been focusing on deciphering the underlying structures of real-world capitalism/imperialism and finding structural alternatives to fulfil social needs (“socialism�).
--I’ve kept some distance debating “religion� in the abstract. Maybe due to my upraising as an atheist/agnostic, I do not see much distinction in substance between religion and philosophy, esp. on the personal level, although I would use “spirituality� to describe the personal experience, whereas religion and philosophy are systematized institutions with societal consequences.
--Given how contradictory the real-world is:
i) I’m not particularly bothered by scientists who are (personally) religious (ex. Stephen Jay Gould, a natural scientist who does not bypass critical social sciences: The Mismeasure of Man) [Correction: Gould is not personally religious, but proposed “science� and “religion� can co-exist because they occupy different domains, i.e. “Non-overlapping magisteria”]
ii) I can support religious struggles for social needs (ex. Liberation Theology, the heretic movements described in Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, etc.)
--However, there are some strong critiques of institutional religion to synthesize:
i) Contrasting the animism (spiritual relationship with the natural world) of many pre-capitalist societies (from pagans to Native Americans) vs. capitalism (Enclosures, colonialism) weaponizing institutional religion to enforce dualism/dominion (objectifying the material world, so land/labour can be commodified and exploited; thus, land/labour markets are unique capitalist markets featuring “fictitious commodities�, i.e. nature/humans are not actually produced in factories for buying/selling in markets).
…This is introduced in Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, which references Caliban and the Witch. Naturally, I find attempts to synthesize animist spirituality with the scientific method compelling:
-The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture
-Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
ii) Institutional religion’s role manufacturing social consent for the status quo:
--Marx’s famous passage [bold emphases added]:
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.--ղdzܴڲ쾱� Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails [emphases added]:
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.
Bureaucracies and armies were made possible by agricultural surpluses, which in turn created the need for bureaucracies and armies. The same was true of the clergy. The clergy? Yes, surplus begat organized religion! Let’s see why.
Historically, all the states resulting from agricultural societies distributed their surplus in an outrageously unequal manner, to the benefit of those with social, political and military power. But as strong as these rulers were, they were never strong enough to face down the vast majority of impoverished farmers, who if they joined forces could overthrow the exploitative regime in a matter of hours. So, how did these rulers manage to maintain their power, distributing surplus as they pleased, undisturbed by the majority?
The answer is: by cultivating an ideology which caused the majority to believe deep in their hearts that only their rulers had the right to rule. That they lived in the best of all possible worlds. That everything was the way it was destined to be. That the situation on the ground reflected some divine order. That any opposition to them clashed with that divine power’s will, threatening to send the world spinning out of control.
Without this legitimizing ideology, the power of the state didn’t stand a chance. Just as the state had to exist in perpetuity, surviving the death of its ruler, the ideological crutch for state power needed to be institutionalized too. The people who performed and instituted the ceremonies that served this purpose were the clergy.
Without a large surplus there would be no capacity to create religious institutions with complicated hierarchies of clergy, since the ‘holy� men and women did not produce anything. At the same time, without organized religion the rulers� authority over the generation and distribution of the surplus would be very unstable and prone to insurrections by the majority, whose share of the surplus was usually tiny. This is why for thousands of years the state and the clergy were one and the same.
…See comments below for the rest of this review�
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4) Revolutionary Socialism, Morality and Spirituality?: --Let’s now unpack this passage from the aforementioned biography [emphases added]:
The greatest defect in radical socialists, according to Gandhi’s next-in-command, [prime minister] Jawaharlal Nehru, was their contempt for what might be called the moral and spiritual side of life. Their philosophy not only ignored something basic in man, but also deprived human behavior of standards and values. Ethical aspects, he said, ‘are ultimately basic to culture and civilization and give meaning to life. Nehru strongly believed in Gandhi’s dictum that ‘wrong means will not lead to right results�.i) Status quo Apathy:
--First, we can dispel the status quo (liberalism, i.e. cosmopolitan capitalism/imperialism) apathy, with its appalling Olympic-level mental gymnastics performed by status quo thinking. Of course, this is a life-time of conditioning, and we are all blessed with cognitive capacities to perform such epic feats. These cherished “standards and values� that provide the fruits of “culture and civilization� are the same ones that systematically drain the censored masses of their life potentials (consider the supply chain of global capitalism, before you assume you are simply self-sufficient and can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps�).
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.--Let’s not forget colonialism/imperialism/capitalism relies on divide-and-rule, where locals are systematically divided with some locals administering colonialism onto other locals categorized below them. This is why India’s political “independence� has not resolved its horrendous inequality and mass poverty. How comfortable it is to not interrogate this, and wallow in rhetoric of “standards and values�:
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.�
-Hélder Câmara
-The Doctor and the Saint: The Ambedkar - Gandhi Debate
-Walking with the Comrades
-Comparison between India and communist China: Hunger and Public Action
--We see this liberal abstraction here in the West as well, where the richest cities have appalling gentrification where some streets are decaying with homelessness, addiction and infection. Yet, real-world socialist countries regulating land/housing must be “aܳٳǰٲ�, while Western capitalism placing such essentials into land/financial markets for casino speculation is somehow “freedom�/“liberty�/“supply and demand�/“efficiency�, to amass fortunes from absentee ownership while others have the freedom to decay.
-Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism
--We should also note that liberal elites do not just extract some abstract “surplus labour� from the masses; innovations in “standards and values� from the masses are constantly extracted and commoditized.
ii) Revolution: Tactics and Strategies:
--Once we remove the liberal façade, we can consider the nuanced contradictions in revolutionary politics. A major debate is between tactics vs. strategies, where certain groups (in particular anarchists) focus on the morality of tactics (practice what you preach, build the future you want to live in) vs. the pragmatism/survivalism of “siege socialism�/“war communism�.
--I’ll be unpacking several works on this shortly, hoping to move this “debate� more towards a synthesis. The young Singh was in the middle of the revolutionary storm, so it is not surprising his rhetoric can gravitate towards the pragmatic modernism tendencies in “siege socialism�:
We believe in nature and the whole progressive movement aims at the domination of man over nature for his service. There is no conscious power behind it to direct. This is what our philosophy is.…This should be balanced with contexts outside of direct survivalism, ex. Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World.
Thanks for this review! Regarding Steven Jay Gould, he was not religious. He was raised in a secular Jewish home and considered himself an agnostic. He did however want to avoid simplistic "eternal warfare of science and religion" tropes and seemed to value the ethical traditions developed by some religions.
Elliot wrote: "Thanks for this review! Regarding Steven Jay Gould, he was not religious. He was raised in a secular Jewish home and considered himself an agnostic. He did however want to avoid simplistic "eternal..."Cheers Elliot, thanks for the correction! I assumed he must be religious from his proposal of "Non-overlapping magisteria", but of course this proposal works with agnostics/atheists as well as we obviously still have moral values/meanings of life, which do not have to be dictated by "science".
Any recommendation for Gould's science books? I still want to start with his more social science Mismeasure of Man, but I'm also curious of the Darwin debates around Gould, as I'd like to dig more into Darwin given his connections to Malthus vs. Marx, etc.
I have to admit I've only read Mismeasure of Man (which is great) and his science & religion book, Rock of Ages, which was helpful as I was transitioning away from my Jehovah's Witness upbringing. In retrospect I'm not sure how well it holds up but I do appreciate Gould's approach more than that of the New Atheists. His grasp of politics and the humanities was more nuanced, it seemed to me. I also have read some individual essays - the one he wrote on Kropotkin is quite interesting. I keep meaning to read more and have a collection of his essays, The Lying Stones of Marrakech, on my physical to-read shelf.
Elliot wrote: "I have to admit I've only read Mismeasure of Man (which is great) and his science & religion book, Rock of Ages, which was helpful as I was transitioning away from my Jehovah's Witness upbringing. ..."Ah, yes, Rock of Ages... I suspect I would find it similar to Hedges' I Don't Believe in Atheists in the sense that I side with Hedges/Gould vs. the New Atheists, while not prioritizing this particular debate (science vs. religion).
...I find the generalizations/abstractions in this particular debate to leave behind a mess, whereas social application ("politics and the humanities") offer clearer analysis (thanks for the heads up on the Kropotkin essay, which also makes sense given his diverse interests including of course evolution/natural history/anthropology (I'm assuming Gould was interested in Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution).
--Singh’s feature essay follows this leftist critique of institutional religion (citing anarchist Bakunin’s God and the State as well as revolutionary Marxists), first recognizing its social/philosophical roots [emphases added]: …and next condemning its abuses (ex. critiquing the various justifications of punishment: “retributive�, “deterrent�, “reformative�; this would be a neat section to expand) and irrational limitations [emphases added]: --Note that much of the essay, Singh is responding to allegations of “vԾٲ� directed at his personal atheist stance, which he replies with more personal reflections [emphases added]: