"Can Religion save Democracy from Neo-Liberalism And Liberalism?

[suurfer]

If Rory does the emojis, why shouldn't I too?


Can Religion save Democracy from Neo-Liberalism?

"Democracy, as a progressive realization of the egalitarian ideal, is struggling to function properly within the contemporary age, predominantly due to the insatiable individualism that western society currently fosters.

Neo-liberalism - an economic ideology that celebrates consumerism and individual autonomy - has allowed us to recognize that even democratic regimes can degenerate into tyrannical institutions.

The nature of the problem is curiously paradoxical.
Democratic culture is fundamentally based upon the principle of the equality of condition.

But the principle of the equality of condition has resulted in making individuals feel independent, and has thus produced massive social atomization.
- Every individual is primarily concerned with his or her own material interests.
As a result, the complete loss of social solidarity renders it impossible for democratic culture to flourish.
- At the same time, increased societal atomization makes it extremely easy for governments to deceitfully manipulate public opinion, mainly for their own gains."

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2010/08/06/can-religion-save-democracy-from-neo-liberalism

 

[suurfer]

Liberalism has eaten itself – it isn’t very liberal any more

"What is at the heart of a liberal society?
It is to uphold that we have a right to offend and a duty to tolerate offence.

George Orwell said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
In discarding Christianity, we kick away the foundations of liberalism and democracy and so we cannot then be surprised when what we call liberalism stops being liberal.

Although liberalism has won, it is now behaving like the established church of the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries.

So many who declare themselves to be liberals really aren’t.
-- Five minutes on social media will give you a window into a society that condemns and judges, that leaps to take offence and pounces to cause it – liberals condemning those who don’t conform as nasty and hateful, the right condemning liberals as fragile snowflakes.
-- Five minutes glancing at people’s Facebook updates will show you a society hooked on individual achievement, a society hooked on self-worth and pride."

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ish-religious-liberty-christianity-tim-farron



Tim Farron, identity politics and Christianity
https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2047/11/30/tim-farron-identity-politics-christianity

 

[jaF0]

All y'all church fuckers need to get the fuck off'n my planet.

Religion is the root of all evil and the root cause of most wars.

 

[suurfer]

I doubt that many posters will reply.

Too intellectual for them.

I should have posted one of those "Trump good versus Trump bad" or artsy fapping threads instead.

 

[suurfer]

All y'all church fuckers need to get the fuck off'n my planet.

Religion is the root of all evil and the root cause of most wars.

Gosh you post such radicalized and stupid comments.

 

[jaF0]

Religion is for stupid people with no moral backbone who need the crutch of some 'super being' to prop them up.

 

[suurfer]

Religion is for stupid people with no moral backbone who need the crutch of some 'super being' to prop them up.

You didn't read the quotes, obviously.
I guess they're too unsophisticated and stupid for your superior self.

 

[Kantarii]

All y'all church fuckers need to get the fuck off'n my planet.

Religion is the root of all evil and the root cause of most wars.

What a prime example of the so-called tolerant Left.

Hahaha You say it’s “your” planet like you own it.

Excuse me while I step outside and piss on it.

 

[suurfer]

Religion is for stupid people with no moral backbone who need the crutch of some 'super being' to prop them up.

1. The articles are not necessarily about religion.

They point to the fact that rejection of any system of spirituality,
combined with consumerism & materialism
and with radical individualism (which, paradoxically leads also to tribalism)

have led to the current dysfunction in Western politics.


2. The other thing is that neoliberalism and liberalism might differ in terms of economic doctrine (free market vs. state)
but they share similarities in terms of changing individual mentalities and community functioning.

 

[phrodeau]

If "social solidarity" is any kind of goal we should pursue, Christianity is definitely not the way to go about it.

 

[suurfer]

See? That's why I'm so furious.

There used to be a time when, whenever I clicked on Lit., I would come across at least one mentally stimulating topic.

Now all I see are dumbed down threads or memes,
no desire to think or engage in a debate.


And it's not annoying or tedious posters like me or "the racists" who have led to such a situation.

 

[RoryN]

https://i.imgur.com/XoXKrVV.gif

Gotta love it when someone does nothing but quote someone else, then pretends they're of the same level of intelligence by proxy.

 

[suurfer]

https://i.imgur.com/XoXKrVV.gif

Gotta love it when someone does nothing but quote someone else, then pretends they're of the same level of intelligence by proxy.

I explained my understanding of it in post #9.

I'm not the brightest bulb in this forum, but at least I tried.

You obviously feel insecure and not up to it,
hence this post instead of deconstructing their ideas.

 

[RoryN]

I'm not the brightest bulb in this forum

.....

 

[Ann_Tagonist]

^
Buffoon.

 

[suurfer]

"Can Religion save Democracy from Neo-Liberalism?"

I'm not particularly keen on formal religion either, but he makes good points if you substitute 'spirituality' for 'religion'.

What I also liked about him was that he didn't engage in the typical Left versus Right split. He made objective comments and criticisms of both.
Another good quote from the article:


"In sum, it is evident that the crisis democratic culture finds itself in stems from the limited social parameters of neo-liberalism, which has brought with it massive inequality, atomization and injustice.
--- With the failure of the secular creeds – socialism, communism – to challenge neo-liberalism’s social ills, it may at first glance seem that democratic culture, lacking an antidote against the negative restraints of the neo-liberal virus, is doomed."

 

[Emerson40]

^
Buffoon.

http://store.lonestarlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/buffoon.jpg

 

[suurfer]

Another FANTASTIC article from the site, which tries to explain the current crisis of Western politics and postmodernity, by putting it all in historical context:

Right or wrong, it's up to those who know History to judge. But it makes one think beyond the tedious 'Right bad versus Left bad' repetitive, neverending shit.

Renewing the Social Contract
https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2019/09/02/renewing-the-social-contract

 

[RocketLauncher]

1. The articles are not necessarily about religion.

They point to the fact that rejection of any system of spirituality,
combined with consumerism & materialism
and with radical individualism (which, paradoxically leads also to tribalism)

have led to the current dysfunction in Western politics.


2. The other thing is that neoliberalism and liberalism might differ in terms of economic doctrine (free market vs. state)
but they share similarities in terms of changing individual mentalities and community functioning.

I agree that consumerism, materialism and radical individualism have played a part in the current dysfunction of society, not politics. Little if any governments exist without corruption and it's this corruption that causes majority of societal dysfunctions. Religion is subjective and should, rightfully, have no place in politics. One can't define one's politics by one's religion. Farron seems a little butthurt about this and comes across as petulant rather than insightful.
Before technological improvements in communication the church was where people would gather to exchange gossip and socialize. Church is no longer the hub of every community. I feel the lack of these important social gatherings, us being pack animals after all, are creating an ego driven society. Religion may be the answer to some and sitting down to a family dinner every night might be the answer to others. Declaring Christianity as the only religion capable of saving mankind is narrow minded and saying such jibber jabber shows that Farron suffers from some rather grandiose delusions.

If "social solidarity" is any kind of goal we should pursue, Christianity is definitely not the way to go about it.

Agreed. There are a myriad of ways to do this. Christianity may play a small part in it but only to a very select part of the global population.

 

[suurfer]

I agree that consumerism, materialism and radical individualism have played a part in the current dysfunction of society, not politics.

Little if any governments exist without corruption and it's this corruption that causes majority of societal dysfunctions.

Great points.

Religion is subjective and should, rightfully, have no place in politics. One can't define one's politics by one's religion. Farron seems a little butthurt about this and comes across as petulant rather than insightful.
Before technological improvements in communication the church was where people would gather to exchange gossip and socialize. Church is no longer the hub of every community. I feel these important social gatherings, us being pack animals after all, are creating an ego driven society. Religion may be the answer to some and sitting down to a family dinner every night might be the answer to others. Declaring Christianity as the only religion capable of saving mankind is narrow minded and saying such jibber jabber shows that Farron suffers from some rather grandiose delusions.
.

I'm not sure what his exact point about religion was, whether he was referring to it's place in everyday life or governments.
You pointed out correctly, his solutions are most probably flawed.

If one were to focus on the functional parts:
I think that he made some good observations about some of the flaws of contemp. Anglo-Saxon society.



=========================

Don't get me wrong, I think a lot more of societies in former British colonies than I think of my own. But I'm painfully aware of some of their flaws, because they Can be demoralizing:

1. Their main values are individualism and self-reliance.
Great values, but not when combined with the puritanism/protestant ethic of early settlers, and the neoliberalism that started in the 70's.
They morph into cut-throat rugged individualism and overvaluing of material achievements.

2. The compartmentalization of life.
You go to work, then go hiking or get shit-faced during weekends, and that's it.
If you want 'spirituality', you join a book club. Even Church attendance resembles a club.

I'm just as allergic to the institutional side of religion as atheist folks, but how do you fill that existing spiritual void?
'Spirituality' is such a pretentious word. I'm referring to an all-encompassing belief system that gives your life coherence and keeps you from being swept back and forth by the vicissitudes of life.

 

[suurfer]

1. Their main values are individualism and self-reliance.
Great values, but not when combined with the puritanism/protestant ethic of early settlers, and the neoliberalism that started in the 70's.
They morph into cut-throat rugged individualism and overvaluing of material achievements.

The shittiest scenario is when countries who historically valued rugged individualism,start adopting a socialist mentality.

Then the respect for one's privacy that I so admire about the West is gone.
You'll have neighbors or random acquaintances writing complaining over nonsense to the Big Brother, 'for the greater good'.

 

[bellisarius]

The above articles are written from a UK perspective. Some of that thought does apply to the US and other Western nations, but not all. A great deal of what is going on in the UK, and Western Europe as a whole, is a struggle which they may be doomed to lose. That is the demand on the part of the "progressives" to make the sacrament of Diversity the highest of all religious acts. The problem is they started down that path a little late in the game. European nations were at one time homogeneous. People identified with their nation and it's more's. It was easy for a Brit to uniquely identify as such, and the same with a Frenchman, no more. The new immigrants to Europe are not assimilating, they don't identify with their new nation.

The US avoided that problem for quite some time. The US's national identity was based on ideals contained in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. New comers assimilated readily into the national fabric by embracing those ideals. National origin wasn't the factor that they identified with, rather the ideals that the US struggled towards albeit some times imperfectly. The US is beginning to see some of the issues that Western Europe is struggling with, they just aren't as profound yet.

I, just like the founders of the US, take issue with the notion of democracy. As one author (Heinlein ?) put it, "Monarchies rot from the top, Democracies rot from the bottom." And that is precisely why we were founded as a Republic.

Re. the Godless Society. That entire notion can be traced back to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel the putative father of Communism. Hegel argued that the State is the highest manifestation of God on Earth. It was an easy leap for Marx, a student of Hegel, to posit, "Who needs God?" And indeed if you looked at the national celebrations in the former USSR they were more like religious processions than secular celebrations. The observation here being that humans tend to gravitate towards the spiritual and stripped of one God will eventually find another. I suggest that the State posing as, and being accepted as, God is a damned dangerous situation.

The modern "progressive" is busily attempting to destroy the very foundation of Western Civilization and they are doing so without having anything to replace it with. Or as Jordan puts it, they are behaving like "Chimps with a wrench trying to fix a military helicopter." They are degenerating into Tribalism that more and more is taking on the aspects of street gangs. Virtually anything they do that yields positive benefit is merely accidental. Destruction can take place in an instant and requires no intellectual thought, indeed it can be argued that it requires no thought at all. The act of creation is a long and arduous process. The history of mankind is punctuated by long periods of darkness after the destruction, natural or otherwise, of that which came before. It should also be noted that Tribalism by it's very nature is the antithesis of Individualism and that tribes eventually turn on each other. An excellent example of that is what happened to the American Indian. Other than disease for which they had no natural immunity the greatest cause of death among the American Indian was other Indians. Only on rare occasion did they form alliances that led to some success, and after having achieved that success they immediately fell upon each other once more.

Liberalism, classical Liberalism, is a necessary and valued component of any political structure. They are the counter-balance to authoritarianism. But the modern "progressive" is NOT a liberal. They are becoming more authoritarian than those that they rail against. The future of freedom is at stake and they must be utterly destroyed as a political entity.

 

[someoneyouknow]

Religion can't save boys from being raped by priests.

How in the hell is it supposed to "save" democracy?

 

[jaF0]

Hey, 'religion' brought us .....


https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/02/16/20/494B1E9300000578-0-image-a-36_1518813473114.jpg

 

[SpeareChucker]

All y'all church fuckers need to get the fuck off'n my planet.

Religion is the root of all evil and the root cause of most wars.

I have to agree with the idea that when presented and slapped in the face with
Nihilism, moral relativism and Platonic ideal that religion provides an anchor
for those who just cannot get over the idea that nothing is real and
right, or wrong, is an individual, not a group judgement.
It could, if not rescue, at least stabilize.

And before you call me a church fucker, btw,
such an elegant and well-concieved retort,
I am an Atheist. Not the preachy kind,
but certainly the "aware" type...

Religion, per se, does not "cause" wars.
It is merely a justification
when war is entered.