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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   34054 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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Communism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible because Christianity’s is individualistic. Every soul matters. Every soul is redeemable. There are no chosen people. Every person is worthy of god’s love.

These ideas are destructive to communism, which is a collectivist ideology. Christians are saying that you should love each other, and that people are all, each, valuable individuals—communism says you should love each other insofar as it serves the emergent gestalt that sits on top of it.

How to integrate this into a functioning society: hardcore individualistic ruthless capitalism is in tension with the morals of the religion. Christian ethics act as a governor which serves to prevent stuff like becoming a wage slave to Amazon, and aborting your children so you can keep working.

You need both of these things, although the “hardcore ruthless capitalism” I’m talking about is not so much a “thing” as it is the base state of human existence. You have the base individualism, free association, etc. and then are Christian morals on top of it to make it all work.

Obligatory John Adams quote.

Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Great quote, and exactly right.

These ideas are destructive to communism, which is a collectivist ideology. Christians are saying that you should love each other, and that people are all, each, valuable individuals—communism says you should love each other insofar as it serves the emergent gestalt that sits on top of it.

I think a communist would say that the opposite is true. To that extent the dichotomy of individualism and collectivism is just wordplay.

Every communist values the individual. That's why they want communism. More freedom. More liberty. More happiness. They see the individuals freedom impeded by capitalism and, outside of catholic communists, religion. If love for our fellow men were elevated above love for money or our preferred rendition of Abrahamic religion, then we could much sooner get together and work towards a global change for the betterment of humanity.

Instead we get Christians with proclamations of moral supremacy, because they believe in abstract logical concepts. Or capitalists with proclamations of factual supremacy, since they can allege to best predict the outcomes of society. Neglecting to mention that these outcomes are derived from material conditions born from the very system they support.

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