Moral Socialism

As Orwell has implied in the quote I posted before, the concept of Socialism, as a moral good, has more to do with religion than politics.

Indeed, these days politics has more to do with religion than politics. This is possibly due to the decline of Christianity in the West. People turn to something else to believe in, and believe in fervently. Hence politics becoming more fundamentalist and less debatable.

The first political Socialists were Protestant Christians in the English Civil War. The first communists were the Anabaptists in Germany in 1534.

The dream of a classless society, of an end to scarcity, of justice for all, is the same as the dream of the Kingdom of Heaven, or Nirvana. It is a profoundly human dream that has been with us since the beginning of history - we are social animals who wish to rise forever from the pain of nature's limits and social strife.

Paradoxically, within that dream of a classless society is the dream of the collective, of brotherhood (or sisterhood) and the bonding with other humans that, as social creatures, we crave. Bonding requires more than friendship. It requires 'being', a sense of being in a group, like a baby in a womb.

Which brings us to Nationalism. Again, like Socialism (and all the other 'isms') it is a moral, rather than political force. It arouses the passions and inspires sacrifice and martyrdom, among other things.

Clausewitz said that war is politics in another form.

Politics is religion in another form. It all stems from the passions. Reason is used in its arguments, but it is not reason that inspires rallies and demonstrations, and it is not reason that holds a political or religious group together as a band of believers.

Schopenhauer believed that humans were motivated by primal urges, and that Reason was just the clothing used to cover our naked passions when out in public.

He was right.