Alternatyvi modernybė? Marksizmas, modernioji ideokratija ir sekuliarinė bažnyčia

Abstract

Marxism has its roots in religion. Having originated as the climax of the justice-and-equality-for-all route to modernity, it skillfully adapted to the frame of mind and basic needs of the changing world. In fact, the origins of Marxism lie in the Enlightenment idea of ideology as a science of ideas capable of changing the world around us, rather than becoming merely one more interpretation of that world. Prometheanism and belief in progress intrinsic in Marxism renders this doctrine a legitimate heir to both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The modern political and moral sensibilities to which Marxism appeals would suggest classical Liberalism and Marxism to have been friends, if not brothers in arms. The trouble Alternatyvi modernybë? Marksizmas, modernioji ideokratija ir sekuliarinë baþnyèia 15 with Marxism is that it lends itself to many interpretations, each of them claiming to have access to the ultimate truth. Because of its integral relativism – a trait which is inherent in this doctrine and which quite logically tends to transform itself into dogmatism – Marxism has no value-and-idea center in its symbolic organization. What people who are out of touch with the theory and practice of Marxism describe as a solid, well-substantiated and consistent theory is in fact an adjustable and highly ambivalent doctrine. Derived from the great Western economic and political debates and influenced by the eminent economists and political thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Marxism has always been oriented to the West, its economic, political and intellectual developments. The astonishing fact that this overtly West-oriented and Eurocentric doctrine nourished by theoretical thought and social change of the nineteenth century became institutionalized in backward and non-Western countries can only be explained by the relativistic and exclusive character of Marxism...