Daily Times

“Is religion still possible after Auschwitz?” Herbert Marcuse inquires. The question under present conditions needs to be reframed to be posed again; “Is religion or civilisation or both still possible in a post 9/11 world suffering a consistent Holocaust by imperialism?” The answer has its affirmative and negative dimensions and can be grasped in its dialectical relation alone.

Marx venerated religion by bestowing the title of a ‘heart of a heartless world’ upon it.  Its two fold character revealed by him contains a progressive and a regressive content. Religion offers a promise of freedom both from exploitation and objectified labour yet the dominant interests have shifted the prospect of freedom to heavens making the misery of the world transcendental, ordained by God, turning it to a powerful tool of domination.

What are the future prospects of its survival? Being a reflection of human deprivation its fate is intimately connected with the continued oppression and injustice, a ‘soulless situation’ subjugating humanity. For Freud civilisation is a substitute name for repression. However, in recent times the mounting or surplus repression has transformed itself into an outright oppression; a stylised barbarity that promotes the ideology of death which “conceals the fact that life has ceased to exist”.

Since the realisation of capital needs a state of permanent war the incidences akin to 9/11 are merely tips of an iceberg founded on innumerable human cadavers. Capital, akin to cyclops abhors human interruption. Instead it needs an unconditional participation of its labour power to multiply itself. Nevertheless with the advent of modern technology the human horde is redundant. The narrowing down of consumers’ buying power, the overproduction and falling rate of profit have made a capitalist war a sheer necessity.  It turns everything including human beings into commodities; they too can be removed from the productive process. The blitzkrieg of death remains inherent in the system.

During the pre- capitalist era human life remained of little significance. Due to its dependency on human labour power, in the initial phase after its advent capitalism maintained the romantic aura of its pre revolutionary idealist slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity alive. However, bourgeoisie lack  insight into the true nature of the society it creates, hence is unable to understand its class situation and ends up violating its much hyped norms. Far from the actual manifestations of freedom and equality, the promised freedom and equality remain mere range of unexplored possibilities, non-realisable under capitalism.

Ever since western philosophy has given up on its idealism the interpretation of death has met a drastic change as well. A mere organic fact of decay has become the telos of life which is not only glorified but celebrated too. A token of unfreedom is projected as freedom to be embraced if not gleefully then humbly as inevitability. Life ceases to be an end instead earning the livelihood takes precedence. Once death a biological fact is meekly accepted and glorified as an ontological essence, and not a scientific limitation it refuses to shed its terror that impedes the growth of life and the probability of ‘exhausting the limits of the possible’.

With the advent of modern technology. the human horde is redundant. The narrowing down of consumers’ buying power, the overproduction and falling rate of profit have made a capitalist war a sheer necessity. It turns everything, including human beings into commodities; they too can be removed from the productive process. The blitzkrieg of death remains inherent in the system

In everyday life death is deemed as  necessity, a state of powerlessness which cannot be overpowered. However, in reality “there is no necessity — there are only degrees of necessity. Insight into necessity is the first step to its dissolution… comprehended necessity is not yet freedom” (Marcuse). Freedom demands victory over necessity, upon imposed scarcity and deprivation. The longer the necessity prevails; freedom for humankind will remain elusive.

The idea of death as liberation can be haunting yet deceptive:  mere escape under the conditions of scarcity. Life based on alienated objectified labour and premeditated pleasures may not be the life one wishes to live yet it remains precious, worth fighting for. For religion and idealistic philosophy life begins after death, hence it becomes an ultimate objective of human life. Both Jesus and Socrates gleefully embraced death. In actuality, they accepted the right of the established reality, of the state over them. When conditions, as realised by both historical figures, needed a change of subjugation to coercive law meant that religion and philosophy were in fact hand in glove with the same reality against which they struggled all through their lives.

If the real essence of life is to seek redemption beyond body, that means the renunciation of pleasure through self-abnegation. This leads to another argument about those who do not postpone their worldly pleasures and still dominate the world. For them, a minority, the renunciation of pleasure is renunciation of freedom, on the other hand for a majority such a renunciation is recognition and submission to the political order of the dominant minority. Under these conditions death and redemption develop their social utility; they become instruments of repression. Accepted as faith, the majority finds itself prepared to surrender the right to live.

In an antagonist society death becomes a symbol of hegemony. Nothing is complete without the fear or threat of death. Either it is a court, a state or the imperialist power demanding a clear verdict of ‘with it or against it’, commands the sole authority since it can dispense death, the last laugh over life. This is where the mutilation of public thought comes into play. Through its monopoly on judicial violence the expropriator does not need a justification for his act no matter how hideous it may be.

For human history overcoming death is a matter of species’ survival. For society it’s not merely a biological phenomenon; but an institution which determines how according to his class one will die, in scarcity or in abundance. Those who live in scarcity have little choice to follow Nietzsche’s advice of dying at the right time and dying victoriously. The tragedy does not halt here; it goes not only to the level of offering a willful consent to the predators but receiving death as God’s will, the executioners can be absolved of their crime. It justifies the guiltless coercion of the established reality.

“Compliance with death” Marcuse succinctly states “is compliance with the master over death; the polis, the state, nature or the god” and imperialism. The death toll in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Middle East, North Africa and Ukraine is an eye-opener for those who consider capitalism more invincible than death. Apparently it seems so, but humanity is in the habit of eyeing only one side of the portrait that it will take an ardent conscious effort to shift its thought to the possible antithesis.

Under the prevalent Orwellian conditions, especially under the spell of the spoken language it is difficult to come out of its rationality which is starkly irrational. No new language can be created unless it does not exist already. From Gaza to Caracas and from Tunis to Kiev one can hear the voices of dissent. In pre-capitalist zones where economic elements are closely knitted with politico-religious factors the language of protest has all the connotation of religion with a desire of death wish. The energy harboured by the Thanatos needs to be directed to Eros. Under the possibility of liberation of Eros and economics humanity will be able to discover its Marxian sensitivity that fights against death and its perpetrators.

The writer has authored books on socialism and history. He blogs at saulatnagi.wordpress.com and can be reached atsaulatnagi@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 13^th 2018.