Original scientific paper

Socialist Feudalism, Postmodern and Charismatic Religiosity

Jakov Jukić ; Split

Abstract

It seems that two great contemporary social crises — the collapse of socialism and failure of liberalism — have encouraged sociology of religion to start abandoning the unfruitful task of counting ecclesiastical facts and to withdraw from their pastoral interpretation. Therefore, this sociological discipline is slowly returning to the generalities set by its teachers from the classical period Following the same theoretical path, in the first part of his paper the author begins with the attempt to give a religious interpretation of Marxism, discovering in it two gnostic determinants — the gnosis of undeceivable cognition and the pleroma of communist society — which are, of course, expressed in their secular forms. Thus, the crisis of socialism — supported by gnostic Marxism — is a religious phenomenon because liberalistic secularization has thawed the very secular constitution of the socialistic order. Accordingly, the author fosters the opinion that socialism is a pre-industrial society with many features pertaining to feudalism.
Liberalism developed along a similar trail, especially in its most recent neoliberalistic version, whose ideas of secularization undermined the religious inspiration of historical socialism. The begginings of the crisis concerning the modernity of the liberalistic system — otherwise characterized by optimism, by the ideology of progress and science, by rationalism and political authoritarianism — become apparent with the arrival and realization of the second individualist revolution. A cold spell has been cast upon the original enthusiasm and optimism, bringing about the fall of all great systems of meaning. In the focus of attention are now only absolute personal freedom and complete ethical independence, the untouchable privacy of living, hedonism and indifference. This is what we are accustomed to calling postmodernism.
Development has not of course stopped at that point because the explosion of individualism craved for extremes. From individualism we have entered the period of narcissism, and then nihilism. In the end it has been proved that not only socialist feudalism but indeed the postmodern society reveals the features of old gnostic systems, ultimately causing its break-down.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

155215

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/155215

Publication date:

31.12.1990.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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