Category: English
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Irvin Studin
President of The Institute for 21st Century Questions
Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of Global Brief Magazine -
What is “the religious reflex”?
Question to AI: What is “the religious reflex”?
AI response: “The religious reflex” is a Marxist concept describing how religious ideas and the supernatural are mirror images or reflections of real-world social and economic conditions. [1, 2]
Origins and Meaning
· The Real World First: Karl Marx famously stated in Capital (1867) that “the religious world is but the reflex of the real world”. [1, 2]
· Inverted Reflection: Just as an image in a mirror is a projection of a physical object, religion is an illusory projection of human social relationships, alienation, and earthly distress. [1, 2]
· Causal Direction: People do not invent religion out of pure imagination; rather, oppressive or confusing material conditions (such as class exploitation or capitalist commodity fetishism) cause the human mind to generate supernatural explanations. [1, 2, 3]
How It Works
· Social Alienation: Under systems like capitalism, humans are dominated by economic forces and products of their own making that feel distant, powerful, and out of their control. [1]
· The Supernatural Mirage: Because these earthly social and economic forces feel foreign and inexplicable, people project them outward onto divine or cosmic entities. [1]
· Persistence: The reflex remains active as long as real-world human relations remain unintelligible, exploitative, and alienating. [1, 2]
Elimination of the Reflex
· Changing Material Conditions: According to Marxist theory, trying to ban or debate religion directly is ineffective.
· Rational Society: The religious reflex will only vanish when everyday social and economic life is consciously, reasonably, and freely organized by associated humans in cooperative, transparent ways. [1, 2, 3]
If you’d like, I can dive deeper into:
· How this relates to Marx’s idea of the fetishism of commodities
· The famous phrase “religion is the opium of the people” in its original context
Comment by Enouranois: On the subject of opium, I might add that (I think) like most people I was until relatively recently unaware of the fact that opium has the effect of delaying ejaculation, which obviously amounts to a marketing advantage given the reality of many males feeling disadvantaged by wives’ and/or girlfriends’ possible expression of lack of satisfaction with their sex life (whether directly, or, probably more commonly, indirectly articulated) (and which obviously transmits to the relevant males also). Of course in the longer term resort to opium can destroy all ability to engage not only in sexual intercourse but in anything. British colonialists, it seems, were aware that this is a phenomenon that exists for Chinese people as much as for anyone else and so exploited their links with India in order to deluge the Chinese market with opium. Can there be any forgiveness for this policy? It seems to me that possibly the most conspicuous advantage that the world has derived from Britain’s success as an imperialist is the reality (not yet completely fulfilled) of English being a global lingua franca (more successful than Esperanto, which reached the status of state policy only in the former Yugoslavia, and that very temporarily). Of course growing up as a white person of British extraction in Australia in the 20th century I concede that my experience of the effects of British imperialism has been much more favourable than that of the majority of the world’s inhabitants, but there it is. That is my reality. What does the future have in store for me, my family and my milieu and for humanity in general? I am optimistic, but am I deluded?
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Capodistrias, BRICS and “the West”
The realization that an interlocutor is seeking to implicate one in a “divide and rule” scenario and so exploit one’s disagreements with another “player” in order to secure mastery over both parties is a sure killer of trust but is also a perennial reality not only in politics but in life generally.
Opposition to doing it is prevalent in religious ideology not only of Christianity but of many other religions also. Admittedly not all religions. It is is sometimes said that hypocrisy is inherent in the religious reflex and this is true enough not to be useless as a rule of thumb.
26th January 2028 marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of the modern Greek state, in Aegina, Greece, and the 240th anniversary of the beginnings of “Western civilization” in what is now called Australia and was then (and is still today) called New South Wales, with the establishment of a British penal colony at Port Jackson, today’s Sydney.
The date is controversial (and accordingly challenged) in both countries but also defended by a section of the relevant populations in the name of upholding “national sovereignty”.
The challenge takes the form in one instance of mobilization of crowds of hostile antagonists demonstrating in a variety of legal and illegal ways, and in the other through neglect, of historic buildings and monuments and the encouragement of apathy and cynicism.
One case involves the evolution of a prison into a new modern country, the other the evolution of a new modern country into a prison (to some extent actually and not just rhetorically).
Here is a flash of relevant insight:
From Shelley Dark’s “Son of Hydra”, p. 382
“I have news of Greece,” says Ando. “From the newspapers. Would you like to hear?”
“You know I would!” I lift my voice.
“You know the new Greek king is a Bavarian – a Roman Catholic? His taxes are higher than the Sultan’s and the foreign debts remain. It’s a disaster – no constitution, no democracy. They sentenced our Hydriot war heroes to death and only pardoned them under pressure.”
Damos says, ‘Didn’t you hear that Ghikas’ friend, Spryidon Trikoupis, is petitioning the English king to pardon men who fought in the revolution?”
Bitterness heats my face. (thinks Ghikas) ‘He had a chance to do something when we were in Malta. He’s forgotten we exist.’
Ando continues. ‘Well, they shifted the government to Athens, still in rubble. And they speak French instead of Greek. They wear western dress.’
I struggle to picture this.
‘Hydra is in a worse position than before the war.’
I place my mug on the table. ‘So, Ando, are you still Greek?’
‘Even if I were to be given a pardon, Ghika, I will stay in New South Wales. I sell my first crop of wheat this year. One day I will buy my own land.’