9-28-2010

"[For Marx], religion is a symptom of a sick social system, which is used by both the ruling class and the exploited workers as a means of obscuring the root problems of economic and political inequality."

Nye, Malory. Religion: the Basics. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge, 2008.

In this passage, Nye refers to Marxism, and how it does not view religion itself as the cause of economic inequality, but rather is a symptom--that it is not the Church that causes a divide in class, but that the Church hierarchy clearly is a gauge of this inequality. Later Marxist writers will go farther, to say that religion perpetuates inequality, but still is not the cause. There is little to comment on by Nye himself, as he is seemingly absent from his own writing (as usual).

However, one must wonder whether these Marxist writers are "trapped into an ideology that tells them they are free." Truly, as much as communism/Marxism marks itself as an international movement, they fail to recognize that in other nations, it is religion that leads to equalization and revolt. In Buddhist countries, it is often monks who fight back for the lay populace, as their welfare is intimately intertwined with theirs. I think these writers can be used, but within their own context.