Socialism and Myth: (Gramsci: Cultural Writings)

 

In the first of Antonio Gramsci’s letters on politics and culture, he claims that socialism has “an integral vision of life:.. a mystique, a philosophy, [and] a morality.” These three traits can be compared to Christian myth even though Gramsci was opposed to the Catholic Church and Jesuit pedagogies. Let’s start with a mystique. The mystique of socialism which Gramsci is referring to is likely class solidarity and the collective power that it brings compared to the awe of God and spiritual solidarity. The philosophy is probably the most complicated of the three. It would take much longer than a journal entry to properly explain the entire philosophy of Christianity, not to mention different interpretations of biblical texts. To keep it short, socialism is materialistic in its view of the world while mainstream Christianity accepts both the physical and the metaphysical. The morality of Christianity is more complicated than that of socialism. The morality of socialism is essentially equality in most regards with exceptions such as Bakuin’s shoemaker compared to Christianity which is the most varied part of Christian philosophy. For a vast oversimplification, I will say: obey God and the golden rule. 

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