Part 2 of ‘Grief & Healing Under the Capitalist Mode of Production’
Perhaps the easiest way to move forward after the loss of friends, family, comrades, and our fellow proletarians—would be the cop-out of religion, or some spiritual alternative that serves the same role. The opiate of the masses has been with us for millenia. And for millenia, it has helped us handle the loss of loved ones.
But I think it’s a bit of a shortcut, a desperate grab to try to find larger meaning or spiritual recompense in something so horrible.
Now don’t get me wrong—sometimes shortcuts “work”. Many slave revolts and movements for justice have been crucially supported by religious convictions. But these shortcuts elide over the deep loss that we feel, and give people a way out of having to face those creeping thoughts of dread and painful grief. This allows people to carry on and fight for a more just system, but I suspect it also diminishes our humanity and human experience. I’ll accede: sometimes it’s better to act in such a stunted way, if it is genuinely the best means to short-term survival and liberation.
But for the long-term health and effectiveness of our movement and our selves, I suggest that we start early in developing ways to curiously and bravely explore our humanity in these moments of loss—setting aside the insufficient tactics of religion and spirituality.
People might try to satisfy themselves with the idea that when people die, their soul finds some eternal peace. But they are no longer with us, and that hurts! Or people might soothe themselves with the idea that their loved one came from matter in nature—stardust—and have now, in death, returned to matter in nature. From stardust to stardust, sure, but the reason I loved them is not because they were mere matter in nature!
There’s no need to satisfy ourselves with easy shortcuts—to convince ourselves of fantasies, or to cut off our exploration of our emotions through rhetorically soothing, thought-stopping stories. This, even if it feels like it makes it easier to go through life after loss. I have compassion for those who feel the need to do so, but I think they are simply separating themselves from reality and our rich emotional life—in ways which are ultimately harmful to the full development of individuals and society.
Perhaps by exploring down a materialist, pragmatist, humanist path, and reporting back on what I find, I might make it less scary for others to also try to take that route.
I doubt that going down this path will uncover anything as immediately comforting as the fantasies that religion and spirituality can conjure up for us. I think most people have a gut instinct that this is the case—maybe it’s why people avoid exploring down this humanist path in the first place.
That being said, I think there is something holistically comforting, satisfying, grounding, and vividly clarifying about exploring and grasping at the truth. If anything can be said to be truly “spiritual”, perhaps it is this way of elucidating where we fit into the world, and into the social relationships we find to be meaningful.