"brihaspati" wrote
Quote:European secularism was essentially about factional infighting within the then prevailing totalitarianism - that by the Church during the middle and late middle ages. The church was formed as a compromise between the Roman empire and its disgruntled elite. So Constantine gained the support by intellectual and other elite for imperial stability, and the disgruntled in the form of bishops and "Christians" gained vicarious power.
This foundational fight has remained within Christian Church from the beginning. The "empire" tries to impose a common set of beliefs which is however not indigenous and has lots of elements derived from a completely different socio-geo-political root. Therefore various region and subgroup components of the empire cannot adjust easily, and they form "reinterpretations" of the dogma as an ideological reflection of the underlying political struggle. Germans chose Arianism [or even if Arianism was by accident they insisted on maintaining the distinction in contrast to the "Roman"] against Italian Roman. Italian Roman Church fought against Greek-Byzantine Church.
Many try to see in Renaissance-Reformation a break with the Church. Not really. This was again primarily a factional fight started by regional powers against other European powers trying to use the mantle of the Church-empire to centralize power and resources into their own hands. The Northern rim - Germany, Netherlands, and their extensions England were being marginalized by the Mediterraneans - Spain and France - who had greater power over the Papacy. This was reflected in the schism led by Luther and the whole Protestant ring of fire.
The so-called "scienctific revolution" and "secularism" arose out of this struggle [okay there were other happy coincidences that helped - like the fall of Moorish Spain, and Constantinople - displacing and disseminating a lot of knowledge previously prohibited] as a tool to discredit the pre-existing ideological faction in power - the then Catholic Church. You can see, that in essentials the basic attitudes towards society and humanity in fact did not change much in its philosophical basis - there are wonderful nuggets of "racial conceptualization" or underlying superiority of the "faith" itself to all others - in the "rebels", including Luther. Even the "enlightened", liberal, Protestant Anglicans in the early stage show extreme prejudice racially and otherwise, and found nothing wrong in the most brutal forms of slave trade.
Communism or Marxism was the latest in the long line of this intra-"Church" conflict. It rose primarily within the frontier conflict zone of Catholic-Protestantism in Germany and England. When the Protestant factionalism was well-established, those of the elite/intellectuals who felt marginalized even within that world-view would be forced to look for a new "interpretation" - something even more radical that gives them the political inheritance distinct from Catholics or protestants.
But the drive remains the same : its is all about justifying imperialism in newer forms, creating distinctions in identities that give higher status to being European, and thereby ensuring or justifying one-way or net flow of global resources back into Europe.
The irony is that with each factional deviation, the message gets both diluted as well as found to be more attractive and adaptable by non-European disgruntled elite in non-European societies. Ultimately therefore even more deviations happen according to the needs of the imperial vision of regional elite in other parts of teh globe. That was how Soviet Communism evolved and from which Maoism under the label of Sinification of Marxism deviated out further.
The Pope should have recognized the ideological vacuum that has developed in Europe, when Europe constantly needs a reinvention of its basic racial/identity based claims towards global domination and imperialist extraction of resources. There has been too much deviation, and too many factional reinterpretations. In the process the ideology has lost its original purpose and function - that of unification to support renewed imperialism. Moreover, the danger is that alternative frameworks for imperialism - sharing similar claims of origins and memes - like Islamism - can fill up the vacuum. Where does it leave the factions of the pre-existing Churches?
I would not be surprised if there are attempts at convergence between the various "factions".
In India the reflection of this is going to be different. Here it is about competing with other factions for the "harvesting" of souls - all the more important because India shows signs of economic resurgence. Imperialist ideologies will be increasingly active and hostile towards the indigenous - because they need to weaken the indigenous to prepare for the next phase of imperialist revival.