There are times, however, when fundamental changes in technology, and,
consequently, in economic behavior (mode of appropriation) and corresponding
changes in socio-economic relations of production undergo rapid and
fundamental changes. It is only then that the traditional beliefs no longer
explain the world, as the old world passing makes the institutions and ideas
characteristic of the old world appear not just outmoded, but wrong.
It is during such times, historically, that things, institutions and ideas
once held permanent and sacred are challenged, tossed aside by the new
techno-class forces. The old class politics, political institutions and
ideologies, property-relations, and such are regarded as inadequate if not
decadent, and wrong. Consequently the changes in technology, the productive
forces were at once incremental and accelerated throughout the economy, sooner
or later result in the new social forces challenging the ancient regime.
New ideas evolve from the critique of the old. But the information that
directs these new ideas are the product of the new, evolving productive
forces, modes of appropriation and changing relations of production engendered
by contact, especially conquest by or conquests of foreign peoples, with other
cultures coming into contact and blending. These advances in science and human
reasoning explain adequately the new realities of the changed situation.
This type of evolution of social conditions and the rise of new ideas
occurred over several centuries throughout the Afro-Asian-Mediterranean world.
The rise of materialist philosophy in the Greco-Ionian city cannot, however,
be understood outside the context of the changes in the entire region, and
thus in context with and contrast to the religious ideological struggles in
Asia.
Philosophical materialism as it arose in the Greco-Ionian city-states is
special in that it is human centered rather than gods centered. Human senses
are valid, and human reason determinate. Thus the materialist philosophy is
human freethinking, therefore implicit if not explicit criticizing, or at any
rate ignoring the hitherto dominant religious ideologies and belief systems
handed from the past, by the authority of priests in the present.
The Greco-Ionian materialist philosophers opened the door to empirical
sciences to develop on a human, sensuous foundation. This materialist
epistemology – the recognition of the objective existence of the external,
material universe as the universal – dispenses with gods, spirits, ancestors,
astrological charts, ghosts, devils, karma, and thus creators. It directly
ignores, if not openly criticizes, the notion of any 'supernatural' causes in
nature or society. This undermines the authority of the priests.
It is because the authority of the priests, caste or not, is so deeply
entrenched in the psyche of the people by acculturation – passed from one
generation to the next by the very processes of socialization and upbringing.
Children implicitly trust their parents and for thousands of years the parents
accept the authority of priests and the teachings, and the authority of
prophets, oracles, priests, sorcerers, astrologers, poets, soothsayers and the
like.
These economic parasites thrive where there is darkness of ignorance and
superstition, and the ever-present fear of offending the gods, for whom the
prophets, poets, soothsayers, priests, astrologers, oracles, and such claim to
represent.
I am reminded of a passage in the prophetic book of Malachi where he said
that those who do not give a tenth of their yearly crops or/and animal
reproduction to the priests are in fact “robbing god"!
Speaking on behalf of the Levites (priestly caste in Israel who
appropriates as a religious tax ten percent of the peasants produce, cattle
offspring, and so on) Malachi thundered to the Jewish workers and peasants:
Will a man rob God? Ye have robbed me. But ye say: Wherein have we robbed
thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed
me, even this whole nation.
Now, anyone familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures (the Christian's so-called
“Old Testament”) is familiar with the jealousy, violence, and brutality of the
god Jehovah of Israel. It scared the shit out the Jews – the idea that they
had robbed this god and will be cursed by him as a consequence. In fact, in
the opening of his “prophecy” to the Jews, Malachi reminded them of the
consequence of Jehovah's wrath:
Was not Esau Jacob's brother? Says the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated
Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the
wilderness.
The rule of religious ideology in a culture is, however, the rule of
ignorance, superstition and fear. The rule of reason, on the other hand, when
put to the benefit of humanity, is enlightenment and freedom from the tyranny
of the superstitious ideas of religion, whether of a religious caste or of the
state.
Materialist philosophy is the human attempt to fathom the ontological
meaning: what is existence and who am I in the scheme of things, and by reason
the axiological issues regarding purposeful human activity, thus ethical, and
consequently political issues. There is no higher authority than human reason
and the scientific methodology.
Thus part of this essay is motivated to critique the contemporary or modern
myth circulating in certain circles that assert that the materialist
philosophers in Asia Minor – the Greco-Ionian city-states – derived their
materialist godless theories from Egyptian priests or/and Babylonian
astrologers.
The Egyptian priest as source of godless materialism (which is itself a
conceptual oxymoron) make the assertion that the atomist theory was “first”
articulated in the reactionary mysticism of the Mystery School by Egyptian
priests, for instance, by asserting, without an iota of evidence to support
it, that the atomist theory articulated by Leucippus and Democritus was
somehow “stolen” from the Egyptian priest's religious belief in the Atum – the
sun-god!
But the only thing that the theory of Atoms have in common with the belief
in sun-gods is a similarity in the English language of the spelling of Atom
and Atum! Otherwise there is nothing but an assertion that the two terms have
an identical meaning without a fragment of evidence to back it. They have not
produced, for example, a single document where the Egyptian priests in no
uncertain terms argue that the material universe is comprised of tiny
indivisible bits of matter of different shapes, and sizes and weight that
combine to form the elements.
In the political function of religion in Egypt, Babylonia, and Israel, it
was not possible that freethinking should arise in those kingdom-empires, let
alone that materialism and atheism was taught by priests. It is evident today,
by judging the reaction of priests to science over the centuries – Hypatia,
Bruno, Galileo, and the teachings of Marx, Darwin and so on, that the priests
thrive in ignorance and superstition as the basis for their authority, and
political power.
The Egyptian, Persian, and Hebrew priests presented the world-view
authorized by prophets and priests of the ruling classes, derived supposedly
from communication with a god. Thus the authority of the priests is based on
their ordination by institutions that claim the heritage of the founders of
their religions.
But, by contrast, the materialistic conception of nature, humanity, and
human history, is based on the recognition of empirical data by the senses,
analyzed by human reason and that alone is the certain basis for ascertaining
truth.
Bound-up with these issues or questions are the socio-individual
axiological issues and questions: how am I to behave toward the fellow members
of my community, whom I need to survive. What is the relationship between man
and men, man and woman, woman and women, family to family, clan to clan, tribe
to tribe, class to class, kingdom to kingdom, nation and nation?
The ontological and axiological issues are of course engendered by the fact
that human beings exist and must cooperate if they are to continue to exist.
The world-view of a given people is therefore practical theory that unites a
community and provides meaning and justification of leadership authority,
subordination and discipline. That is, an objective morality of rules of
conduct, regulating socio-individual behavior.
World-views provide human communities with explanation and justification
for needed leadership-authority and rules that regulate socio-individual
behavior. This need is true of all social animals, whether an ant colony, a
herd of herbivore animals on savannas or plains, birds of a feather which
flock together, carnivorous animals which must co-operate in hunting. Of
course, with the lower animals, such cooperation is based on the instinct
evolved in each species.
Homo sapiens base their social organization, however, on a conscious
division of labor: hunting, gathering, herding, horticulture, domestication of
plants and animals, agriculture, handicraft and industry – all of which
requires voluntary cooperation. These learned behaviors are reinforced by
culture rather than instinct. The level of development of the productive
forces of a community, their technology – from Paleolithic hand ax by
percussion flaking to the electric powered production of computer chips and
satellites – requires cooperation, and often authority and subordination and
an individual sense of duty to perform assigned tasks. Leaders prize
obedience, reliability, and discipline for efficient effectiveness.
Natural community based on kinship, hunter-gatherers, herders,
horticulturalists, and so on – natural religion – or so-called “animism”
explained the mysteries of existence to the satisfaction of ontological
issues; they evolved a world-view that reinforced the practical axiological
compulsion (morality, duty, discipline, obedience, division of labor, work and
rules of distribution of game hunted, roots, fruits, and herbs.
Religious Leaders – Shaman, Priests, and Prophets
The religious leader – medicine man or witch doctor, or rather in reality a
medical doctor – claims his or her healing power is based on channeling the
spirits into or away from human conditions, illness. They use various herbs
and/or roots to cure specific illnesses but do so while at the same time
mumbling magical incantations, so that the people cured think it was the magic
incantation rather than the medicine brewed that “healed” them. The medicine
man or witch doctor thus makes himself appear irreplaceable since only they
have the power to enter the “spirit world,” cast out demons, and so on.
As communities evolved from hunting and gathering and herding to the
domestication of plants and animal husbandry populations increased and clans
merged into tribes and villages. Tribes engaged in trade, property evolved,
and also wars between tribes, which gave rise to war-chiefs. (Hunters were at
the same time warriors, as the case may be.) These men of arms protected
pre-agricultural villages from tribes of marauders or led them in pillages and
sacking. (Joshua in the Book of Joshua was such a war-chief.)