The Religious Text

You often hear talk of Marxism being like something with religious texts. This is often merely an attempt to disparage any close respect for these authors. However, it might have a point: due to the looseness with which the texts are often taken, the promotion of them often turns into merely a group where the texts merely function as something 'proferring' authority when convenient. In this way, the more extreme, offensive elements can be hemmed in.

However, more pertinently, what is a 'religious' text? It is not merely reducible to an 'important text.' Religious texts are texts taken as common currency within a given section of a community. In this way, they can unite diverse political strands, agendas or theologies. This, however, is problematic. In this way, this community is posited as an absolute while ignoring the overall historical period or situation. As a result, it tends towards 'mystification.'

Hence, generally religions tend to operate or be developed in this manner. This development reaches its peak in many Christian elements, which is often content to 'render unto Caesar' in the most liberal ways imaginable. Christianity is a religion which tends in this direction, a religion which hs been developed - especially in the West - into one about religious journeys that are less stringently connected to social forms than Islam or Judaism. It subverted things such as the 'law ' and for this substituted the particular or personal and a bunch of often conflicting and contradictory religious sayings, thus suiting an atomised capitalism. However, as capitalism often subverts or forms an obstacle to human conduct, it also requires a religion of consolations that weaken or undermine this personal direction. Hence, it ends up reduced and necessarily reducible to vague gestures.

Hence, Marx and so on criticised religions as 'idealistic' or lacking a connection to the overall society, for foisting their deity as a substitute and consolation for the ills of this accepted society. The deity is hence super-imposed on existence, in a categorical and constant manner. This is generally made transhistorical, and hence has no real 'history.' Hence, in this sense the religious text is an apt expression of such a community.

However, religious texts must go beyond this simple unity, and formalised it in the shape of a deity. Hence, this unity is stamped 'by' the mark of a deity, and hence people are forced to listen to this deity. As a result, this abstraction from particular human traits may only be made possible by 'religion,' here, by a mark of authority to it which can allow this to be official. This is generally 'superstitious,' or religious. Hence, they not only 'go beyond' this unity, but attempt to formalise it in the shape of a 'religious figure.' Otherwise, they are not positively religious.

Hence, their religious character is easily bound up with this social role. This element of society requires the 'religious' form, and habitually takes it. However, 'holy writ' has another aspect. It also serves as a sort of 'currency,' or turns the religious into a standardised object. The content of holy writ hence appears as an embodiment of the religious community, and hence as 'divine.' This can occur even if it were of human hand, and hence not by or involving a creature channeling God directly. In this sense, Christianity is a further development of this, by claiming a person who directly expresses God and hence culminates and completes the circle of finite creatures attempting from a 'limited' perspective to express the divine infinity. To dilute the latter would problematises the whole endeavour. Hence, the 'holy text' of organised religion represents a community's imagined sufficiency. The ghettoisation that Jews are accused of can also be found in the other major Judaic religions. In a sense, Marx is more critical of Judaism than Christianity and most others, and in the process also confronts the other major religions. He is not satisfied with merely leaving Christianity be, and then criticising its basis in Judaism. Hence, he substitutes for the conservatism of Hegel, and similar accounts of a transition from Judaism to Christianity, the hope for a radical change.

In the transition from Judaism to Christianity, a theological transformation, we can see clear parallels with the Hegelian schema. Hence, Marx again defends 'humanism' of a sort, or the progression beyond religion towards human empowerment. This is notably represented in his early writings on Prometheus. In this sense, Marx's critique of Hegel for religious belief is probably valid, although they were not alone in this. Hence, humanity does not set fictitious limits to themselves, such as God or the Idea. Rather, Marx diverges from Ecclesiastes to offer a more hopeful perspective of the human, one that is not utterly degrading to the self. Hegel also tries to do this, in a way. Nonetheless, in rejecting this transition, and characterising it as essentially the internalisation of alienated man - the Judaic replacement of humanity with alienated man - the early Marx touches on a profound point. Further, he associates this in part with a capitalistic society, a hedonistic and barren one, rather than the 'strictness' it might expect. Why? This internalized alienation leads not to less, but actually to more interaction with the world - indeed, to being lost in it, to rejecting things of human note. Hence, the introduction of 'idol worship' into Judaism, via Christ, is in some ways an inevitable concomitant of this dynamic. People eventually dissipate and become nothing, due to a belief, which hence is actually quite harmonious - religiously - with tendencies which might seem its negation.

Marx hence does not view such a straightforward progress, a raising to a higher level, as a model. If the 'historical materialism' of the Christian is their transition from Judaism, Marx seeks to avoid this foundation. And this attempt was clearly of interest, in his earlier works. Hence, his 'anti-Semitic' language is merely a part of his strenuous attempt to shed the Hegelian-Christian context and its concomitants. In this, he associated Christianity with the internalised form of an alienation and worldliness bred by the Jew, that as a result succumbs to illusions and is confronted by personal traits. As a result, Marx views as necessary the destruction of this general form, and of its ultimate basis and Judaic and racial foundations.

Religion is the absorption of the human into external forces, which are then raised above him. Hence, an organised religion - one which is assimilated into the social structure - requires also the systematic organisation of these external factors. This takes place in the form of the religious community.

However, a text is also cut off from the religious community in which it is 'currency' - it is a specific book, that faces the reader on its own, not a  communal form. Hence, religious texts are usually divergent from the communities which they give rise to. They are also often slightly incoherent - the Bible's contradictions are famous - due to this need to function in divergent forms. This appears as a 'religious' difference, as it is not reducible to this community and stands alone. It hence 'diverges' from the religion. However, this is not necessarily a difference which is purely 'religious,' rather one which is personal and concrete. It is, ultimately, a form of separation from this community, in favour of the concrete - expressed, as it must be, in the form of a personal separation. Hence, the religious tends to boil down to merely the attempt to weaken the stricter elements of a text, which however already weakens itself. To seek ultimate fulfillment from organised religion is an exercise in futility.

Nonetheless, what this ultimately leads to is the divergent and concrete elements having to be treated as a part of the religious. Hence, they must be religiously formalised, treated as a religion. This is somewhat inorganic. Marxism resembles this function. Hence, the apparent form of 'religious texts' in Marxism - the secular elements are given a religious format. Nonetheless, this is not native to them. It is valid that Marxism is often unsure about, well, itself and its theoretical structure, and hence reduces to merely a community with certain texts. This is, however, not necessarily its aim. It can, nonetheless, approach a 'religious' tone, and this should be avoided.

As a result, a 'religious text' is one which performs a complex yet problematic role. In religions, it might seem to be defiled, yet it partakes of this in some measure itself. Hence, caution about it is advised. A community around a belief must centre around the belief or theory, or it is reduced to a religion with texts as communal currency. This must always be avoided.

The Law

When people are involved in a capitalistic economy, they should never be expected to be generous to others while the others are engaging in economic activity.

In general, struggle against prominent people is not something that capitalism's economy can fully discourage. It is encouraged. If the opposite is to be primary, it is not only to substitute an imagined economy for the real one, but also must accompany some forgery in the economy. It is to have the image or airs of these people, without any actual need for such people. Indeed, capital sets all people a given task, there is no reason why any should 'succeed.' To posit capitalists a priori as a part of the economy, is to have a fictitious economy.

The economic hence seems in some ways a treacherous terrain, and often reduces 'religions' and so on to subservience. They often veer into liberal or 'reformist' terrain, the most absurd element in capitalism and indeed fitting to them.

Regardless of building a church on a 'firm' foundation, it is important that such a formation toe the line of capitalism. If not, mutual animosity would harm and undermine a group foreign to it. Their unified 'cause' could not be maintained.

While people are in a capitalistic economy, they should not be expected to have any necessary pity for or aversion to others' death. Insofar as they are economic actors, this may benefit them in a competitive atmosphere of mutual animosity. Given the 'bellum omn

A capitalistic situation is averse to many. They will therefore stay at a slight distance from it. Hence, part of people's relation to capitalism is always imaginative. As Christian conservatism and liberalism can attest. This is also a part of capitalism. To relate in this manner is to vacillate, to claim to 'enter' and then immediately recant this for milder terrain when called upon. It is hence to 'enter,' or engage with, then vacillate to an opposite thing due to mildness. In the end, it is 'imaginative,' or strays from its apparent place so much that it is barely there. Nonetheless, this kind of activity is also a necessary part of 'capitalism.'

It cannot truly invalidate that which you have heard of old.

Reptilian Poetry

Prefect

Like the autumn season
the stars light us,
as we walk, alone,
apart,
and the stars will not guide us
together in their dark quiet.

The weeping willow
turns its face upwards
in the cold wind.

For a change

Beneath the buried skull,
a quiet snake lies
ringed around it,
fangs to its tail.

There is no hope
without the snake
of death.

Death guides hope,
there is no other way.

Cry

In the dark hours,

the moon is the earth,

the light is the sea

that is now on earth,

like the tides that sweep

like the repose of air.

In the solitude

of the dark hours,

the moon is the earth,

the light repeats

like a circle,

the earth repeats

like a circle,

the sea is a circle,

the air reposes.

The sound of flutters

is like the birds,

the sound of birdcall

is like the gecko.

From earth, to sky,

the gecko moves like a stream,

and calls.

There are whispers on the air and walls,

symbols like the gecko.

From earth, to sky,

the air we see

is scaled.

The land, the gecko climbs,

to grasp at the air

it cannot reach.

Light

Air climbs

the building

like the gecko.

Quietly it calls,

quietly abates.

The gecko screams

in the lonely room,

the dark room,

like an archetypal fear.

In the dark,

with cries like laughter,

the reptile hides.

Mistflower

Lying in silence
as if to speak,
softly,
in some way.

Lying in silence,
as if to speak,
softly,
in some way.

Lying in silence,
as if to speak,
softly,
in some way.

Smoke

In the cracking light
tired, yet silent,
the spider finds his way.

Path

In this broken road,
on the outskirts of town,
the lights in the air
are misty.

Like a hologram,
the wind blows softly as if listening,
the wind blows, though none
ask where.

Silenes

The silene in your silence,
what is its call?
Does it speak
if you do not?

The whisper in the cave,
in the darkness of caves
it hides itself
in the wind,
and few would tread there.

Stars

Why is the light of stars
quiet in sunlight?
The wisps of air
flutter by,
the wisps of fire
flutter by,
the butterflies
flutter by.

All the world waits
for a sound
that cannot shine out,
except it disappears elsewhere.

The cry of the gecko
hides in your heart,
does it not?

Process

In the welcoming
candlelight,
the jackal flickers
like shadows.

The mechanical star
whispers softly,
then fades out,
to nothing,

as the process of art
should.

Tail

Pretentiously (?), the tail
is left.

The reptile moves away,
you find this.

Like a starlit crucifix, like Rome in years BC,
the tail is left here,
quietly.

Wanderlust

A man walked into the desert, tired and miserable.

In the desert, there were tantalising silhouettes.

In the desert, there were relaxing sand dunes.

In the desert, the shape of sand dunes turned into tantalising silhouettes.

The man could not tell one from the other. He surmised, perhaps the silhouettes lead to rest. The rest, too, leads to silhouettes. Yet he could not then rest nor pursue, but had to voyage on for truth.

In the desert, there were silhouettes by day and night, yet it did not seem to sate this. To tame the desert and its heat, people would give up their need or give themselves up and die.

He turned back, and looked at the city.

All he saw was rest, and the silhouettes. The one melded into the other, as darkness is also license.

In the darkness, he saw the next progression: license.

In the darkness, he saw what this progression conveyed: loneliness, hiddenness.

He accepted these things, and so the darkness.

The city lights faded by evening. They formed a sunset dusk, like a pang. It felt like blood before a death.

He watched a distant lizard in the desert, and drew it in deep, black ink.

The silver cord unbroken

A discussion recently came up with Zanthorus, involving Böhm-Bawerck's contentions about Marx. Zanthorus issued the following summary of Böhm-Bawerck:

Hopefully this clarifies to a certain extent where Böhm-Bawerk goes wrong in suggesting that the common property of commodities could just as well be that they are products of nature, or something absurd like the fact that gravity acts on them

We would like to examine this in more depth.

Marx contends that, when commodities are considered in an abstract manner, then the only common property can be that they are products of labour. However, Zanthorus notes a possible and opposed viewpoint, that commodities are also a product of other forces. Hence, that Marx might be hasty in this circumstance.

However, in doing this we must not ignore what becomes of 'labour' in this process. Otherwise, the commodity itself is lost sight of. The labour is action upon and involving the commodity. It is not cleanly cut apart from this object. If the commodity disappears, so does the labour upon it. The labour is specified by the commodity and interaction with it, hence when the commodity is removed you cannot properly speak of a labour process behind it - nor is it differentiated from a 'natural' object. Hence, to speak of 'being products of labour' is misguided. Once the abstraction removing all traits from the commodity occurs, we cannot speak of labour upon it instead. That vanishes with the traits. Marx essentially follows capitalism's 'logic' for a way, stripping commodities of all traits, and hence of all physical specifications and interactions, however they then wish to turn around and introduce the category of 'labour' as still remaining. This is an unjustified summoning. Marx wishes to derive the category of 'labour' or physical interaction from these commodities without physical traits. This is problematic.

We want to derive 'labour' from the commodity itself, however labour like all physical interactions is evacuated in the commodity without physical traits. To speak of labour on a commodity, we must speak of the physical commodity and the interaction with its traits. Otherwise there is nothing for labour to interact with, nor can we derive that labour could ever do so.

While Marx observes later how labour alters under capital, however this serves only to partially correct the earlier problems. The abstraction of capitalism does, indeed, mean that other forces that act upon commodities are hidden. To refer to capital being a 'mode of production' would be sleight of hand, like merely contending that despite the commodities being abstracted from they have traits and these determine value. Of course, Marx is correct from this basis to diverge from economics that after this abstraction wishes to make the fundamental economic form depend on people's evaluation of these void commodities. Nonetheless, if the physical traits are abstracted from, then labour and so on are also casualties. The only possible near-exception would be to a 'divine' or 'psychic' labour, that is to one which produced the commodity without participating in it at all or needing to. This would mean that the commodity could exist without such interaction. However, otherwise labour is abstracted from when we mention an abstract commodity.

To abstract from the commodity is also to abstract from the things touching it.

Marx hence wishes to abstract from the physical traits of commodities, then phoenix-like to resurrect them as if they presented a solution. It is like wandering into a desert, as Jesus did, and then promptly wandering out rather than surveying the area. The physical traits of commodities are extinguished, then return covertly in the form of the category of 'physical interactions with these traits.' It is a contradiction of such 'communism,' not of capitalism.

As a result, to criticise it as ignoring the overall interactions of the commodity and world around it is not that misleading. These also play a part in the commodity, and specify its place. Hence, they are also important. However, one might wish to examine the question of production in more depth. If we have an image of production without an object, we of course do not have an image of 'production' in any strict economic sense. It cannot be derived from commodities as such. Nonetheless, we hence have an image of 'production' as an action which might seem to have an object, which is actually objectless. This could be profound in some ways. Hence, production becomes reducible to private motions. While this cannot be acknowledged economically, it is nonetheless a general situation. Hence, people act, albeit without an object, and this process constitutes 'production.' What is the precise nature of this process? In any case, it presents a level of detachment from the external which can easily be decisive. Hence, instead of acting on an external object, production becomes something that constitutes merely actions. Due to the actions being ultimately directed in a void direction, the outcome is hence not the object in a straightforward way, but rather internal stimulation or the stimulating experience of the action. From this, an object or external thing must arise or be ejaculated. Hence, in the midst of this exploration of the commodity, we also happen upon a different or less clearly economic conception of 'production,' which is devoid of its object. Is this confined to capitalism? While the particular form might be,

A given form of labour is familiar and known despite the object not always yet being present, then it is carried out. Hence, it is a process repeatable without a specific object. One could hammer in a nail, or hammer a thousand. The specific nail is not intrinsic to such an occupation. Hence, in a way you still have a generic action or format, followed by this encountering 'objects' and stimuli. In this sense, such labour always has in part the character of labour devoid of a specific object. Nonetheless, it is not necessarily posited socially as abstract labour, as labour without properties. It hence is instead close to this other form of labour which is without a direct object, yet not posited as abstract. Hence, on the other side is posited a human form of action, of which the 'commodity' is merely a result of the stimulation of the action. The commodity hence represents here simply the general emission of this human action. Marx occasionally seemed to draw on such things, positing that labour should be its own end and focussing on the fulfillment of labour. However, this was usually not posited as an aspect of labour independent from the commodity, which springs incidentally from it. As a result, we have instead the possibility - though one which capital discounts - of labour carried on for its own sake and with the commodity merely a result of the stimulation of labour. Hence, the form taken by it and the direction of it is decisive. This is of interest.

Nonetheless, we may also finish the central points with a copy of a comment on their blog:

Böhm-Bawerck deals with Marx's logical exposition, however this is in any case the main part which is relevant later on. As a result, the rest is mostly optional, or follows. If it didn't follow from an analysis of capital, then it would be irrelevant to it specifically. It would be a dishonest association. Hence, Böhm-Bawerck would merely be highlighting the heart of Marx's work.

In general, it is valid to note that other factors go into the commodity. This is a basic factor of capitalism, that other things are subordinated to commodities, and to act as appendages of them. Hence, other factors are also important, because they contribute to the commodity. However, this is a limitation, as these factors cannot be economically integrated or given a notable status. This was somewhat relevant in times of Luddism and so on, where people were forced to sacrifice machinery and so on in order to demand more of a place for themselves. In any case, it forms a limitation in an economy which wishes to centre around something, yet cannot generally do so.

As a result, we may also note the inability of the economy to truly revolve around the 'commodity,' rather than being limited in this by human social relations. Conversely, by abstracting from these human aspects it can easily lead humans to death - the more humans participate, the more they eviscerate themselves. It is like entering a chamber of toxic gas, which is fatal to humans. Nonetheless, the commodity cannot be simply transfigured into human categories, once it is given. It persistently shuns this, as if to maintain this toxicity. In this it deserves some respect.

While the commodity is a fragile thing, being shattered as soon as it is formed, it remains through that a stubborn creature which shrinks from human society. Perhaps it may turn out just as reluctant, in its own manner, to participate. Like Gandhi, it is disobedient though civil, and occasionally beckons humans to throw themselves 'lemming-like' to their deaths, and strips them of their existence. From this perspective, the commodity was like a virus, not merely a stable and acquiescent social commonplace.