In our modern age in the West, ideology now largely replaces religion. The God-shaped void in the human soul must and will be filled with something. With Christianity now largely treated as irrelevant, ideology readily steps into the vacuum. Often, the ideology just slithers into the emptiness via materialist rewards, peer pressure, educational indoctrination, and popular culture. With the modern doctrine of the separation of Church and State cemented in place, even many professing Christians leave their religion inside the Church door, then lock in a set of ideological constructs, sometimes sprinkled with Holy Water or, in the Fundamentalist formulation, with the “Blood of Jesus”, to salve their consciences.
Tag Archives: Revolution
The Uses of History, 5 – From France to Russia, 1812-1917, 2
When Alexander had acceded to power in 1801, the idealists had placed high hopes that he, a young man himself, could be shown and persuaded that things had to change for the sake of the Russian people and the Empire itself. By 1825, the lower-grade officers (ranks below general – Generals and Marshals could only be upper-level nobles) had lost hope in Alexander or any of the established authorities of ever being willing or able to allow even the most modest reforms.
The Uses of History, 4 – From France to Russia, 1812-1917, 1
These were the seeds that were paid forward into the next hundred plus years (and right to our time) along with the hope awakened among ordinary folks and citizens for better days and more equal distribution of resources and opportunities. The shoots which sprouted would feed forward both openly where they could, and under the surface in states which maintained repressive, anti-democratic governments. These were the streams that would run forward to Karl Marx, Bukharin, and a host of others to engender the Socialist International, the trade unions movement, the powerful thrust by the bourgeoisie (middle class) to win its way to power and open the doors for all to be free and to fairly try their chance.
Psalm 73 – A Parable for Our Time, 2
far and wide, the world stage is set for some great emergence, some sort of great upheaval in human order and society. Nature itself seems to mirror this.
World.V.You 