The Twilight of Capitalism by Michael Harrington (Part I: The New Karl Marx, Chapter 6)

Chapter Six described Marx as “The Spiritual Materialist.”  Marxian thought is not mechanistic. Indeed, the young Marx was a humanist, interested in the usual philosophical questions about the nature of man and society. He was hardly totalitarian, as much as hard core revolutionaries and condemning reactionists would portray him.  Both Stalin and the Popes were dogmatists, convinced of their own intellectual superiority. 

When push came to shove, Stalin reopened the Orthodox Churches during the Great Patriotic War, although afterwards he reverted to type and persecuted religion. Marx the humanist would not have done that, not because he was secretly religious, but because humanism is not dependent on religion.

The reverse is true, any religion that is not also humanistic, especially those Christians with anachronistic ideas of sin and authority.  Marx’s humanism uses Hegel’s questions, but finds different answers. Perhaps the same questions can be used to reform religion, from Theodicy as a meme and democracy as a practice.

The Grid-Group Theory is proving useful in discovering the anachronism in Christian thinking.  I wonder how Marx would respond to it.  The ideals of Marx are useful here as well, but that is a topic for another day which is covered in my books on the subject.

Marxian humanism rescues man from being an object of capitalists to a higher, self-aware species.  It is a departure from idealizing the world, instead having the world be the source of ideals. This focuses moral theory on man’s experiences. Religion should do the same and even acknowledge Marx when doing it.

Humanistic thinking will overcome the tendency toward populism to create useful idiots of the masses, the latest incarnation of that being Trumpism.  Populists believe in the evil of their enemies (as sectarians often do). Guevara was over optimistic, which led Cuba to an unworkable Communist system that still maintains today, although some free market activities have improved maters. One of the factors that led me to my Inter-Independence was the failure of the Cuban system, and other bureaucratic systems, to provide basic needs adequately.

Man needs to be seen as he is and Marxian theory helps do that, as do others who rely on experience over ideals.  For example, one could use Grid-Group theory to develop a sense of the Heroic way of life, which moves people from one way of life to another. 

Marxian relativism is not relativistic at all. Dogmatic absolutism can only be applied to members of the group, not to mankind as a whole. Marxian thinking sees the potential of man and even religious socialists share that optimistic viewpoint, however it is one that will not materialize without action.