1917 + 100

This year is the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, an event which I know little about. Yesterday, I went to an event at a local bookshop, an author talking about his recent book on the subject. The author self-identifies as a Trotskyist: his book argues that the revolution started off great but degenerated into totalitarianism due to various factors (e.g. war) putting pressure on the new system - totalitarian oppression was not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the revolution.

During the Q&A session, an old rotund man wearing red corduroy trousers stood up to speak: he disagreed vehemently the author's Trotskyism. The late 20s and early 30s were not a dark time; Stalin saved the country from collapse; it was the Red Army, not the West, who finally defeated Hitler; Stalin got the country together, and showed how successful communist industrialism could be.

I've never met a real life Stalinist before. I'd heard the word, and guessed its meaning, but I hadn't quite accepted that it meant there are people alive nowadays who genuinely, fervently believe that Stalin was a good guy, a hero. Earth is weird. Thankfully, he was at least in the minority.

This is my second encounter with people from the Far Left. The first was in 2013. I was trying to get politically active but didn't know where to begin; I heard about the founding conference of a new political party called Left Unity, and decided to attend. I didn't know what to expect.

I couldn't make it through the whole day. The bickering over the minutiae of policies they would never implement. The heated discussions over wording which would only put off voters ('We're Marxists and we need to say that we're a Marxist party!"). Calling each other 'comrades' - this surprised me most at the time.

The whole thing had a very cultic, divorced-from-reality feel to it. At yesterday's event, someone invited me a meeting of the Socialist Party. As he spoke to me I was reminded of Jehovah's Witnesses trying to spread their gospel.

In his 'Nostalgia for the Absolute', George Steiner includes Marxism as one of the modern mythologies which attempt to fill the gap left by the decline of the traditional religions. Bertrand Russell described communism as a religion in his 'Proposed Roads to Freedom'. The first major history of communism was titled 'The God That Failed'. Christopher Hitchens likened his falling out of faith in communism to losing faith in God. 

Marxism has its belief in history progressing inevitably towards an apocalypse and a 'remaking': a global proletarian revolution and the establishment of a communist utopia. A belief which can stand next to the Judea-Christian and Zoroastrian apocalypses in its farfetchedness. Marxism has its prophets and false prophets (the Far Left seem to argue a lot about which of the Russian revolutionary figures was a legit prophet, and which was false). Marxism split into lots of sects: Trotskyism, Stalinism, Leninism, etc.

From my brief encounters with Far Left members, I felt like there was little to no questioning of whether Marx was actually right. Capitalism must be overthrown; that's a given, now we just figure out the details. Don't question the faith; just believe. Look at how bad capitalism is; it needs to be defeated.

Similar criticisms can be made of the die-hard capitalists. In 'Sapiens', Yuval Noah Harari describes capitalism as the most successful religion of today. All religions describe their rivals as man-made, whereas theirs is the truth come from Nature or God. Capitalism has its belief that it is the natural state of man remodeled for a technological time: humans once competed for resources to survive, now they compete for money. Businesses have quite a Social Darwinist outlook towards their competitors; the fittest survive; adapt to the market or perish! And capitalism has its mythic beliefs: economic growth can be eternal, even on a planet of finite resources; the Market, the collective will of all buyers and sellers, knows best and will reward the just and punish sinners; those with more money are inherently better than those with less; trickle down economics; by serving money, we help bring prosperity to all.

(I played with the idea of capitalism and communism as rival religions in 'The Book of Mammon', which I finished writing in December.)

I can't bring myself to share the modern political faiths. My earlier reading has coloured my worldview. I started following politics and current affairs after having read a lot of science fiction and so many books about religion. These two strands combined with modern politics to make the world look like a nightmarish dystopia full of strange new religions: the capitalists who cling to their beliefs against a rising backlash, and point out the flaws in the rival faiths. The various anti-capitalist sects, who spend their time pointing out why capitalism is a false faith, rather than outlining why theirs is the true way - when they do argue positively, I am reminded of the capitalist arguments, and of the various works of religious apologetics I've read. No one wanting to convert you gives the full picture: the best facts and statistics are cherry-picked for the greatest emotional appeal.

(There are also, of course, the adherents of the traditional religions, some of whom attempt to combine their old faith with the new: the Christian Capitalists who believe that they can serve both God and Money.)

Religious people can see the flaws, the plot-holes, the man-made nature of rival faiths. There are thousands of Christian websites pointing out the flaws in Islam, and thousands of Muslim websites pointing out the flaws in Christianity. Etc. One of the worse books of Christian apologetics I read during my religion phase was 'Evidence That Demands A Verdict' by Josh McDowell. Over 800 pages of fine print, this book is supposed to lay down in detail all the arguments and evidence in favour of literalist Evangelical Christianity as the One True Faith. I couldn't finish it: the leaps of faith, the false dichotomies and trichotomies, the out-of-context quoting, the sheer misrepresentation of the opposing side, the brazen dishonesty - all of this was exhausting and infuriating. In the introduction, McDowell said that he had never encountered anyone who could refute his arguments. There are many, many, many detailed refutations on the internet, which he has studiously ignored.

At the time I felt like this was very sinister, as though McDowell was consciously peddling dishonesty. I imagined that he justified this to himself by thinking that since Blasphemy Against The Holy Spirit is the One Unforgivable Sin, he would be forgiven his lies since it was in service to the light, and he may have converted people to Jesus or strengthened people's faith, thus making it less likely that they would blaspheme the Holy Spirit and be condemned irredeemably to Hell. 

(This kind of reasoning makes it very easy to justify atrocities using the Bible. If someone is teaching blasphemy, encouraging blasphemy, then they are taking away people's chances of salvation. With the One Unforgivable Sin, there's no "three strikes - you're out!". One Strike - Eternally Tortured! Hence the blasphemer is a threat not just to their soul, but to the souls of everyone around them. And blasphemy can spread, and thus so many souls can be doomed to eternal suffering. Better to wipe them out - God will forgive the killing. The Popes promised that God would forgive all the Crusaders' sins if they fought against the blasphemers who held the Holy Land.)

Now I'm not so convinced of his sinister dishonesty. In an interview, McDowell said that "the Internet is the greatest threat to Christianity" because it enabled people and children to encounter skeptical and blasphemous views that good Christians would do best to ignore. I now think that his faith is so strong and so secure, and he does not read genuine opposing views, only critiques his imagined caricatures of them, and he is totally oblivious to the dishonesty and intellectual acrobats in his book. He lives in a Christian echo chamber; the flaws of other views are pointed out, while the flaws of his faith are ignored. He cannot comprehend a well-meaning critique of his views; it could only be the Evil Other tempting him away from the light.

In recent years we have witnessed the Internet's tendency to radicalize: many people today get their news and views from social media. They are more likely to 'Like' news and views which supports their existing opinions; the algorithms controlling social media, programmed to encourage Newsfeed scrolling to generate more advertising revenue, know to send a person more content that they are likely to agree with and 'Like'. Differences of opinion on our personal digital feeds become less common, and so we become in severe danger of, through echo chambers and reinforcement, being convinced that we know The Truth, and that those with differing views are a monstrous alien Other, who hate what we hold dear and would bring ruin to us all, in service of their false faith. 

A leftwing journalist recently interviewed Conservative MP Anna Soubry; in the comments below the video were people calling him a traitor for giving this woman a platform and letting her voice her views. A leftwing blogger recently wrote about how he's come to admire a Conservative MP Ken Clarke; in the comments were people calling him a betrayer.

People are so convinced of their political views that they can barely stomach the idea of encountering genuinely-held alternate beliefs, rather than imaginary caricatures. I try to keep my news sources diverse; I 'Like' articles I disagree with, when I feel as though they've given an insight into alternate views. (Hence why I follow and 'Like' Breitbart and Guido Fawkes posts, for example.) The comments section underneath any news or views article nowadays is a depressing hellscape of opposing views, demonising each other, shutting down debate.

The main thing I've learned so far from following politics is that no one knows the best way to run a country or the world. We have flawed ideas which we can and often do, to our personal and social detriment, treat as absolute truth, as though attempting to satisfy the religious cravings left behind by the decline of the old faiths. People don't like the idea that no one really knows the truth; we want someone or something to believe in, to anchor us in a universe of stupendous majesty and chaotic unknowns. Is it possible that we can, as a species or society, overcome this desire for absolute truth, and accept that anything we believe now may in the future be falsified without a moment's notice? I highly doubt it.