Carlo Suarès : Critique of Reason Impure : The man who tried to think himself

(Extract from Critique of Reason Impure)

(Extract from Critique of Reason Impure by Carlo Suarhs. 1955 Stock Edition)

a) Action, Church, Religion, Myth - In April 1951, an American general proclaimed the need to wage war on China, to "liberate" it from communism. On the same day, Soviet producers received at Cannes a ban on showing a film about China, "liberated" by communism. Wherever we seek to flee these two "liberations" at the same time, it is impossible for us to base our judgment on facts, grossly distorted by propaganda. There is more information than that of the news. Churches, states, political parties, business groups, fight with lies and fake statistics, denouncing their enemies, silencing their own crimes. And, in this Babel, even though we do not stop keeping our minds in suspense, but because we do not allow ourselves the right to remain in suspense, above and outside this chaos, we see every day that 'There have been times when we have given credit here, shrugged our shoulders at the cable news there, while one such, which we believe, has gone in the opposite direction. It so happens that in the course of these daily provocations, we could not help thinking about them, that is to say, interpreting them according to how we thought ourselves. Because, while we tried to remain suspended, and, at the same time, by human solidarity, to remain so only for the time of a judgment, it turns out that the judgment was already there, come we do not know very well from where. We found ourselves inside a camp, preparing our weapons, not because the enemy lacked virtues, but because they applied them elsewhere and otherwise. Justice, honor, sincerity, loyalty are everywhere. Blind, they go where we put them. We put them where we give up our free will: blind they blind us. The virtues, ends in themselves, presences in us become presence to ourselves, deny their own goal and destroy the very sense of action that they awaken in us.

We cannot, here, mature too much. The indignation of some, fear, hatred, sordid interest, cold cruelty, bad faith of others, would be very simple elements, if they were not shared, mixed, confused, entangled everywhere, in these categories of consciousness that psychologists, by calling them unconscious subconscious, or whatever, have justified. We cannot, we say, mature too much here, seeking his course of action, for it has not yet been demonstrated that the inner heartbreak of the man who wants to be a man has a solution.

Claude Aveline, on numerous occasions, expressed to us the anguish of the man who, knowing how wrong it is to judge men as individuals or as groups - because the generalizations by which we represent them are always nonsense, often crimes - is however forced to base its action on a judgment, without which there would be no action. This anguish, Aveline seems to direct it from then on, towards a fight, where the adversary is less such a man or such a grouping, than these Institutions, still ill-defined, which are formed, we do not know how, condensation, around ideas, beliefs, political, social, religious movements: the Churches.

In "La Voie Libre", Aveline, after having noted the evils and dangers that Capitalism makes us run and that he will not stop denouncing, he says, until the end of Capitalism or his own, writes: But I must come back to another question, insofar as it concerns the Great Response to these dangers and these evils ... It is about communism. Not communism in itself, socialism defined by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and which, with more or less happiness in its applications, will put an end to the great capitalist imposture. But of communism which manifests itself before our eyes through the policy of the USSR of popular democracies, of its parties. Ours in mind, because, in its own words, we have to worry first about what is happening at home. In short, of a communism like Church, such as I could describe it by wishing warmly that it ceased to be it. No principle, no serious argument hindered, should still hinder this moult, which would be in the order of nature and reason [ 1 ].

The trial of the Kremlin's policy not being within the framework of our work, we will only draw from the essay by Aveline some general ideas. Let us first sum up the question in a few words. A powerful state, the USSR is today established on a doctrinal basis. This doctrine, this body of ideas, was first developed by Marx and Engels, then by Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Plekhanof, etc, etc ..., etc ... Marx and Engels died before having seen the application of their theories, Lenin very soon after. It was about this: the working class, the proletariat, had to proclaim themselves the heiress of power, following certain analyzes, made especially by Marx, on Capital, surplus value, and, in general, the material causes of the process of history. And this proclamation led to the revolutionary seizure of power, by a coup, since it is obviously that those who hold power let go only when forced and forced. This revolution was only possible, and had meaning, only on an international basis. After taking power around the world, the proletariat would have proclaimed the advent of a classless, stateless society. The state, defined as the personification of a ruling minority, was to disappear in a communist society that had reached its upper phase. The economic basis of this Revolution was the pooling of the means of production.

Indeed, if we put all the means of production on the planet in common and if we distributed this production, material problems would be solved, while they will never be solved as long as the means of production belong to a minority seeking personal gain. The human function of production is entirely distorted when the aim of production is the benefit of a minority. Seeing themselves threatened in their wealth, the great Trusts which, in 1918, had unseated the young feudal German and Japanese (who had competed with them on all markets) launched against the USSR in the shadow of censorship, a war which lasted four years from 1918 to 1922. The invaded USSR defended itself as only the armies of the French Revolution had fought. The public was hardly informed of these "incidents" which took place behind a "cordon cordon" which, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, was blockading this Revolution. Be that as it may, it turned out in 1922 that the USSR was not beaten, but that, on the other hand, the Revolution was stifled in Poland, Austria, Hungary, in short everywhere outside the USSR , who remained surrounded and boycotted. A few years later, exactly on the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, two theses, forced by the turn that history had taken, clashed among the leaders of the new state: Trotsky wanted, like the Armies of the Republic, to carry, by arms, the Revolution in Europe. He claimed that socialism, established in one country only, became national socialism (or national socialism) and turned its back on its own essence. Stalin prevailed over him, at the head of a group. The majority who followed them judged that the country, exhausted, had an urgent need to regain strength and that new wars would jeopardize the Revolution. Trotsky, finding that he was eliminated by historical necessity, fled and died in exile. As a result of this drama, almost all, if not all, theorists of the Revolution were assassinated. It is useless to recall the numerous and mysterious trials which accompanied, and still accompany, the executions of those who are not in the "line" of the ruling party. The leader of this party became the apostolic successor of the doctrine. Like the Pharaohs, who erased the names of their predecessors from monuments, Stalin managed to delete Trotsky's name so well that the new generation ignored it.

Can we now see how the Church was formed? And do we see why this Church, inevitably, fatally constituted, is inevitably, fatally, goal and end to itself? And Claude Aveline, who warmly wishes it to cease to be so, on what does he rely when he declares that no principle, that no serious argument were preventing this moult? Any institution based on a doctrine, because this doctrine arouses enmities around it, must necessarily choose the interpretation that will safeguard it as an institution. Immediately, it is obvious that it is the institution that matters: the doctrine is only there to support it. To establish its power, a doctrine - especially if it is free - must use means that oppose its ends. To wrest power and to confer freedom are two acts of absolutely opposite meaning. And the sense of power immediately prevails, because the loss of power would be the death of the doctrine. It is the power which is engaged in the real, in the event, in the problems to be solved, not the doctrine. The doctrine was there in advance, prefabricated, ignorant of the event that would arise; in fact, immediately in power, it is no longer in power, it is something else that reigns: politics. But his power, immediately born, has a name, the name of doctrine. There was previously a doctrine and a name; the name stayed.

The name, grafted into power, will interpret the writing of the doctrine every day. The name will be the interpreter, and the power will be its executor. So do Bonaparte in the name of the Revolution, the Vatican in the name of Jesus, Stalin in the name of Marx. Vice is neither in Jesus, the Revolution or Marx, it is in doctrine, in the mere fact that there is doctrine. The more solid, tight, defined the doctrine, the more it will be nothing but its own betrayal, the instant it is established. And that, Claude Aveline does not seem to see him, who says that his trial is not "communism in itself," defined "socialism (it is we who underline) by Marx, Engels, Lenin. If he is a follower of this doctrine, as he asserts, his judgment is flawed from the start. Express, as we did above, that if the means of production of humanity were pooled, for the distribution of consumer goods, all problems would be solved, this is not a doctrine . This is only to note in a simple and elementary way the fact that our statesmen, businessmen, generals and specialists of all kinds, sow misery for ends which are proper to them. Doctrine begins with the definition of means. It even begins as soon as we try to define anything. When Claude Aveline says "capitalism", the content of this word is not at all what it is given by such an economist from Washington or London. It is defined, probably, according to a doctrine developed by Marx some ninety years ago. This "capitalism" has evolved since, so as to escape all definition and even all observation. To what extent was Stalinism not itself a prisoner of an economic process which crystallized a state out of the necessities of state capitalism? Today, there is not "one" capitalism, there are a hundred capitalist modes in force, which are inextricably entangled. Here we are, as we showed at the beginning of this work, before words without real, objective, stable content.

This last observation finally gives us one of the keys to our analysis: Aveline, in fighting an orthodoxy (a Church) proves to be heretical in relation to this Church, that is to say that he is outside this Church, but in the bosom of this Religion. This Religion is expressed by doctrines, the words of which do not have a precise content, but according to which Aveline "thinks", prior to the action which he intends. There is presence to itself, therefore appearance, therefore image, the elements of which are those of a body of doctrine. Everything happens as if a doctrine has pumped, snatched up a part of its ego, has given it Marxist form and presented it to itself, with all the more intensity that this ego, which thinks itself, doesn't is not him: he is Marxism.

Here we are squeezing more and more closely the religious fact, which makes us tackle the second essay of "La Voie Libre", that of Jean Cassou, and the third, that of Martin-Chauffier.

Jean Cassou, with his essay, has attracted the privilege of being vilified, dragged through the mud by the Stalinist Orthodox. One of them, a sincere man with a very keen sense of honesty, told us: three of these writers may deserve some kind of esteem, but Jean Cassou is despicable.

While Aveline does not question Marxism-Leninism; while Martin-Chauffier would like to integrate the communist man in order to lay the foundations of social justice; while Vercors, noting with sadness that his communist friends do not want his collaboration, nevertheless declares to them his unshakeable loyalty to their action; in short, while the consciousness of these three writers "thinks" and defines itself, as a social being, in such a portion that they consider it necessary to fix, which, although limited, each in its own way, engages them, their dictates an action, assigns them a position, inspires them with judgments; the conscience of Cassou, she, suddenly and completely indignant, exasperated by these discussions, these observations, these explanations, these words, these words, suddenly suddenly intolerant of any jargon, any idea, and even no longer wanting to know anything, no longer believing in anything I proclaim no faith [ 2 ]; send the adversaries back to back a strange complicity unites the USSR and the United States [ 3 ] To choose between the two blocks is to choose between two lies [ 4 ] and describes them as they appear to him now, no more in the important and serious aspect of men and institutions which manipulate the destiny of humanity, but like buffoons.

Things have come to such an extent , he says, that in each of our fellow Communists of the day before we find today a man armed with a method and driven by a behavior in which we recognize the characteristic features of the the most primitive and fanatical religious mentality [ 5 ] They arrive at the highest degree of mystical hysteria [ 6 ]; their behavior is determined, dictated by the supreme and infallible powers of their church, whose ordinances, in matters of literature, aesthetics, circus or meteorology can shock your reason and contradict the whole evolution of human civilization: it you must submit to it without restriction and solemnly renounce your mistakes [ 7 ] and the points of this program can only be formulated in communist language. In the liturgical commuunist phraseology [ 8 ].

Let us leave there the description of what, according to Cassou, this Circus Church. Martin-Chauffier will tell him earlier that this is not a Church. In the reflections which will arise in us this debate so vast and so complex, we will try to develop the object of our work. From the very breast of this anguish of four writers, of four of the most worthy men of our time, whose conscience has always wanted to be personal, honest and free, and largely human in the social, from the breast of this anguish which is ours, perhaps we will see some clarity arise. Because the debates are hardly started, and scrambled from the start by their very purpose: capitalism, communism. We have indicated, with regard to Claude Aveline's essay, that it is less interesting to criticize the policy of an Institution for opposing the doctrine on which it is based than to go and search in the very existence of any doctrine, the reasons which will force it to oppose itself, to its establishment. However, a doctrine is not a natural product, like a tree or a stone. A doctrine is the product of thought. And adherence to a doctrine stems from the adept's need to "think" himself. Why does he feel this need? We have seen Descartes "think" to themselves in order to live as pleasantly as possible. We will see Sartre "think" himself in spite of himself, and pushed by the philosopher in him, in order to live in the most anxious way possible. We have seen Descartes "think" of himself because he has defined himself "thing". We will see Sartre declare that he cannot "think" himself, because the being of man is nothing, and, by this means, "think" himself all the same, a philosopher.

This is the substance of the debate. To think, we wrote at the beginning of this work, quoting Julien Benda, is to think of something. If I "think" myself, I must "think" something, otherwise I would be nothing. And this something can only be something external to myself, without which I could not apprehend it. I cannot, in fact, present myself to myself a representation of myself, if this representation is not objective in my mind. This thought of myself, I am forced to constitute it with elements. And these elements are necessarily static, as long as I can see them. But, the more I reflect and realize that "I" is not such or such identification by virtue of which I "thought" myself without knowing it (in the manner of "me" who sought flower water from orange tree in a dream, or of the child to the instant "for me") more there opens in me an interior abyss, which is abyss because it is unthinkable.

And, having broken my various and successive identifications with everything possible, I have to admit that the being of this consciousness which has rightly refused to recognize itself wherever it found itself, is only a nothingness to oneself, forever fleeing from his own investigation.

This is where the dizziness begins and, in a medical way, these self-extensions, these identifications with an overcoming, or with an overcoming, are offered: one human, the other divine. Apparently - and, as we refrain from situating them, we will want to take this only as an attempt to clarify - Aveline and Vercors opt for the first medicine, Martin-Chauffier insists on both, Cassou refuses them both . He refuses them, because with each rejection of something by virtue of which he might have thought - or had thought for a while - the non-something resulting from this operation, far from him make you dizzy, amuse. Yes, amuse him. And this game, which is an act of spontaneous creation ("I have a certain taste for free creation") [ 9 ] is also a work, and is certainly the action of a revolutionary consciousness. But the word action no longer has the meaning that we give it in general, because we no longer know where or how to define this action which wants to be uncreated. He uses the words "patriot" and "democrat", but he is neither patriot nor democrat, it is his heart which is: "all patriotic and democrat heart loving national independence, social justice ..." etc [ 10 ] There is more than a nuance there, there is a refusal to systematize. And these principles, which he wants us to cultivate as we fight for them "are principles of human and universal value" [ 11 ]. Their definition will go little further, so obviously will not help anyone to "think" themselves. Nor to think about the revolution. The prefab theories are not factors of revolution.

Where is the fundamental dogma of Marxist doctrine today: that of the historical function of the proletariat? The workers' movements constituted the very nerve and the current, the development of the various nations. In accomplishing themselves, the workers' movements accomplished the nation, and their composition and their convergence tended to the advent of universal democracy and consequently to world peace. Today they only tend to become, like the nations themselves, "satellites". We want to persuade them that they can only manifest themselves under the effect of propaganda and the police and through the rescue, or control, or oppression of the Red Army. Well, they have to find their truth. They must find their revolutionary sources. This is the first condition to be fulfilled to enable any nation to become aware of itself ... [ 12 ] As for the cause of the revolution, it may seem that it has nothing to gain from this enslavement. It may seem that if our people have produced some revolutions - quite resounding - in their history, it is because they wanted and made them and not because they received them in prefabricated form. And it is that by doing so, he strove for the full development of his character, tended to his highest creative power, to his most complete freedom. [ 13 ]

These thoughts are of the utmost importance. Just as an individual acquires a feeling of real freedom when, by the full development of his personal character, he finds himself stripped of all external elements (social, religious) which he has recognized as crystallizing his conscience to the extent where, paradoxically, he was not himself, but the follower of some doctrine; in the same way the people (and not such or such class of the people, chosen, elected, as having to be, as being in charge of revolutionary mission); the people, such as it can find itself, suddenly aware of its freedom under the blow of the events, and integrating within it all those which will feel integrated into him, proletarians or merchants of the halls, employees or shearers of dogs, the revolutionary people will be the place and the receptacle of a spontaneous, unexpected, imperishable and creative force. Revolution = Freedom = Creation. This is, it seems to us, the meaning that Cassou gives to the Revolution. Since the philosophers of the 18th who had instilled in consciences this sense of creative freedom, to which we owe our Revolutions, this renewal had not been felt. Cassou has tried to express it, we find it despicable, and no one has understood what he meant. We admit that this awareness, made up of endless dispossessions, is difficult to understand. Our minds can only proceed by accumulations, and the real Revolution appears to them, therefore, as an idea impossible to conceive. It is, indeed, because what I imagine today, tomorrow will be old in the face of the new event, and because of this, will prevent me from seeing this event as it will be in its reality and the revolutionary that I will always imagine myself to be only a theorist, a doctor, a metaphysician.

And here we come to the quarrel of Martin-Chauffier, whose acute mind and unshakable conscience, take the opposite path to that of Cassou.

Here is the quarrel: after having spoken of the fundamental opposition between providential Christianity and atheist Marxism [ 14 ] and violently sided with the deacons of the new church [ 15 ], Martin-Chauffier, resuming himself, recognizes that this term of "New church" is held by the attendants for "a worn slogan" , and readily admits that this is not really a new church, a new religion, but an idolatrous worship which distorts by its practices and by its liturgy, the Marxist-Leninist thought, which is self-sufficient, without these parodies of the sacred . Let us return to Claude Aveline the homage of invention - continues Martin-Chauffier - it was in his essay on the Hour of Choice: Churches and Man, that he was the first to treat this rapprochement between the Catholic Church, the Communist Church and the Capitalist Church . He treated him as an anticlerical and an atheist ... and opened the way to Jean Cassou, an atheist with such a good complexion, who, in "Esprit", gave, from the behavior of churches, a definition similar to that of Aveline ( how would it be otherwise?) . No offense to both - they do not learn it today - this definition accentuated by Cassou who, obviously, is inspired above all by communism which became Stalinist, if it also targets the Catholic Church , only reaches an entirely external representation, and neglects he realities of true religion: "A Church - writes Jean Cassou - imposes dogmas, and when it proclaims a fact, this fact takes on the appearance of a dogma and cannot be subjected to critical study ... A Church prohibits free examination, and, for greater certainty, extends its authority to all areas, including biology, painting and probably circus and gardening. In her anxious concern for power, she becomes totalitarian. Through its associations, its patronages, its bubbles and bulletins, by a whole mechanics of formulas and ceremonies, it spreads in all the mediums, influences the private and public behaviors and forms of each individual who falls under his cut a new man, in one piece, of a single piece, and each reaction of which will become calculated and expected ...No doubt Cassou does not ignore ... the" freedom of the children of God who, apart from dogma - explanation of the Holy Scriptures - retain their free will in philosophy, in political, sociological, as in painting and gardening, and do not hesitate to use it. How can we imagine the Catholicn "in one piece, in one piece" when we find them in all the camps, whatever, in earthly order, the question disputed or the enterprise offered? I know very well that in writing this definition, of which I quote only the beginning, Cassou thought of this artificial religious framework around which the new temple is built, as if there was a need for a Rome when it is not guardian no revealed truth.

Martin-Chauffier condemns capitalism thoroughly and without reservations. On the other hand, it only criticizes Communism, and in particular the French Communist Party, in its modalities, its procedures, its methods, not in its doctrines nor in its ends. I continue to think, he says, that a new form of civilization, heir to old values ??and turned towards progress, alive at last, cannot do without the economic and social contribution provided by Marxism. If, at the freedom of man and his dignity suffices - provided they are applied - the slowly developed definitions through centuries of constructive disputes between Christianity and what I call rationalism (particularly the research of 18th century philosophers) (although there is also a Christian rationalism and Marxist rationalism), it is quite different from social justice, the very foundations of which have not been laid [ 16 ].

And, to complete the documents of this trial, let us finally quote this short declaration by Cassou: I agree to declare myself a Christian as subscribing to the maxims of the Gospel [ 17 ].

The substance of this debate deserved not to be left in the shade. What does the public care about positions that are less defined than described and less described than vaguely experienced as the consequences of psychic and mental adhesions to some religion of which everything that is said escapes - and wants to escape - judgment? If Cassou, sometimes letting himself be carried away by the pleasure of his pen, describes men "in one piece, in one piece", Martin-Chauffier triumphs without difficulty by showing him that the Catholics are not so Chauffier triumphs without difficulty by showing him that the Catholics are not so made. However, he neglects to tell us that they share this privilege with any human being, however primitive, wild and stupid it may be, and even with a considerable number of animals. Any animal likely to be trained undergoes a "good", "bad" tax, and complies with it insofar as it knows how to make itself persuasive - by sugar and the whip. The most elementary psyche is accessible to the notion of a good-evil opposition and, immediately, is no longer in one piece, in one piece", but in two tenants, in two pieces. And Martin-Chauffier shows us that, on this point, a very complex psyche - his own - is not otherwise constructed: by division. His first and better half, the one who takes identification with him, the self-Martin-Chauffier, resembles that of Descartes: constantly retaining the religion in which God has given me the grace to be 856/5000 educated from my childhoo dWith this difference however, and which counts, that Descartes says to retain his religion, but that Martin-Chauffier declares to be retained by it, to have abdicated in it his free will, and to have entrusted it to an interpreter . His "For the rest" (see Descartes), his second half, he then feels free to let it go where he likes and behave as he pleases. This freedom consists in seeing things as they are not: to the Communist he grants a kind of superintendence over the strictly material organization of the world, of which the Communist can only do; as for the Church, he wants to persuade himself that his Kingdom is not of this world, which is so manifestly contradicting the facts, that this point of view would be heretical if Martin-Chauffier did not thereby escape excommunication.

Retaining immediately, in this case, what matters to us - self-perception as opposed to self-knowledge - note that, in this consciousness split in two, self-perception, identification, emerges from the game. where there is no free will. Free will means first thought, then freedom, then judgment based on this freedom of thought. Thus Martin-Chauffier reveals to us hat he "thinks" where he does not think, that his being is engaged where he is not. It comes back to us that during an interview with a friend on the conditioning of the spirit, Martin-Chauffier rose dramatically from his chair, and, walking with agitation, exclaimed: "You will not convince me, and if you did, you would commit murde r. He will certainly not be angry with us for revealing this deeply moving moment of a human conscience. This Christian probably knows that the bodily death illustrated by the myth of Jesus is not pain; that the tears and the sweat of blood and the terror before the chalice of death are those of the true abyss, of the only abyss that is: the death of conscience. A crucified god, suffering a thousand physical deaths, such is the pagan myth; a dying god, launching the cry of distress of a conscience deprived of itself, that is the meaning of the Christian myth. But, here again, Martin-Chauffier shows us that an adult consciousness, evolved to the limits of the complex, behaves in the same way as an elementary consciousness. The Martin-Chauffier-pour-moi-catholique feels dizzy at the idea that he might not be him, just like a child starts to cry if we tell him: you're not Jean, you don't 'm not Marie. Descartes says it: his words "educated from my childhood" leave no doubt about the continuity of this identification. Descartes, Martin-Chauffier literally "are" the consciousness which results from an unthinkable according to which they imagine themselves to think. To understand this stratagem of consciousness, we have only to refer to the unthinkable cause of the dream which served as an example: this cause was a noise under the window of the sleeper, and was unthinkable under penalty of awakening.

This cause, unthinkable, therefore unthought (let us specify: consciously unthinkable, therefore consciously unthought) had engendered a consciousness which "thought" was thought of as the necessity, in the pure state, of a for me in search of flower water orange tree. Here, at Descartes and Martin-Chauffier, the unthinkable is the Unthinkable in short. It is the mystery of the existence of the Universe. Better still: it is the impenetrable observation that something exists. Better still: it is the unthinkable "there is". And immediately, hastily coming to the aid of the thinker, who refuses to die on the threshold of this unthinkable, the word God, made of nothing, empty of meaning and content, "locates" the thinker, who, for lack of real elements to thought is reduced to being situated only in relation to oneself, hence the notion "I am".

If it is true that what is well conceived is clearly stated, what is not conceived at all is stated with the extreme lightness of an empty mind. Billions of words have been devoted to theology, that is, to the science of the inconceivable. Inconceivable by definition. The human mind has been tortured in every way to give proof of the existence of the inconceivable - existence which comes under meaning - but by calling it God, which makes it escape the most sought-after meaning, the least seizable. Curious philosophical comedy, which brings out one, two, three, ten proofs of the existence of "God", whose definitions - Absolute Perfection, Supreme Being, First Cause and other words without content - are inconceivable, without which we would design God. We ask Descartes, Martin-Chauffier: Does God exist? They answer yes. We ask a Communist, Jean-Paul Sartre: Does God exist? They say no. But everyone knows that this word is inconceivable. We would then wonder what they are playing, if, despite themselves, we did not see clearly through their game.

We were recently told that a reader of the organ of the Soviet government, th e of Moscow, having written to this newspaper to ask if the belief in God is compatible with the fact of being communist, had received, like answer , in the columns of this daily, a kind of sermon where the editor showed him that if this reader believed in God, it is because he did not believe enough in Science, and reproached him for his lack of faith. If this editor was a communist according to the wishes of Martin-Chauffier, he would have replied: "we are a public works company, a production and distribution cooperative; your question does not concern us; it is absurd to address it to us. But if he does not answer in this way, it is because the Marxist-Leninist doctrine and its ends, with which Martin-Chauffier declares to agree, do not, they, at all agree with Martin-Chauffier. He would like to "integrate" them, they would like to "liquidate" it. He would kike that "the definitions slowly elaborated by centuries of constructive disputes between Christianity ... etc ..." be companions on the road to "social justice whose very foundations have not been laid"; they would like these idealist definitions which, to borrow an appreciation of Marx on Hegel, "to walk on the head", to be completely overturned and replaced by a dialectical (constantly moving), materialist, experimental, scientific conception of man and its place in the Universe. There are two structures of thought there that can never mate. Martin-Chauffier thinks that he agrees with the theory of Marxism and not with those who apply this theory. Let us therefore take up the Anti-D|hring [18], that is to say the very foundations of philosophical Marxism.

We know that the manifesto of communism was signed by Marx and Engels; as for Anti-D|hring: the conception exposed in this book having, for the most part the largest, was founded and developed by Marx, writes Engels in his preface to the second edition of September 23, 1885, and for the least share only by me, it went without saying that I did not write this presentation without his knowledge. I read the entire manuscript to him before printing: for the second chapter of the part devoted to political economy (on critical history), it was written by Marx.

Here we are, with Anti-D|hring, at the sources of this thought. It is (if it is necessary, to situate it, to use barbaric words in vogue today) more phenomenological and more existentialist than are the treatises of our new metaphysicians. It is exactly at the breaking point of all so-called idealist philosophy, where Hegel led it and where Marx and Engels overturned it. They took hold of the abstract movement contained in " The Phenomenology of the Spirit " and plunged it into ... the phenomenon in general. In order to fully grasp the irreducible opposition of this thought and of what is called Christian rationalism, we must here summarize it somewhat; then indicate how, parallel to this line of thought, a Christian, emotional, neo-romantic existentialism developed with Kierkegaard and Heidegger (related to Dostoevsky); to follow this double line as far as Sartre, through his attempt at phenomenological ontology; finally return to the positions that Cassou and Martin-Chauffier occupy: one in relation to the Gospels, while subscribing to their maxims, he consents, without God, to declare himself Christian; the other in relation to the dogmas of the Church, while he declares that the very foundations of social justice have not been laid. Let us leave aside for the moment this aspect of their quarrel and summarize what has just been exposed, remembering what we wrote above, about the priests of Nemi.

We said that the Believer is one who perceives himself as part of a representation whose theme is the existence of a transcendent life, which he does not know, but which he imagines can be captured through objects (bread, wine, relics, etc.) and gestures (rituals) and then absorbed (by touching, absorbing or formulas). There is always there an imaginary transfer of vitality. The objects and symbols of worship are supposed to take on them, in them, by the care of a clergy, the transcendent part of the Believer and to lead them into an absolute transcendence, this transfer being, therefore, a substitution of suffering. It follows from this analysis that there is no organized religion that is not idolatrous and fetishistic. They are more or less crude but they are all. In conclusion, Communism is therefore neither a religion nor a church, since, rightly or wrongly, it entrusts only reason with the task of solving our problems.

It is all too true that the application of a way of thinking becomes doctrine, that a doctrine becomes political, that a policy becomes police force, coercion and the like. We have commented enough on this process about Claude Aveline's essay, to return to it no more. But this shaping, this conditioning of individuals in view of an end which is only an end to itself, which, more and more abstract, anonymous and inhuman, is only a series of means in path of self-destruction (the means being the opposite of the end). If we want to examine it as it is, why do we confuse it by calling it religion, or pseudo-religion, or idolatry? It is only by extension, by using a way of speaking that is not specific to writers that we can say "the cult of Stalin" or "idolatry around Stalin's photos", in the way we speak of worship or idolatry around movie stars or cyclists. The fact that a Stalin is the star of the stars at home does not change his nature, in any way transcendent, of star; that the Stalinists agree to speak the same jargon and repeat the same slogans, this fact, insofar as it exists, does not become religion: it is conditioning for an end; and we will see that in the last analysis, a conditioning of this kind, or of an analogous kind is the result which all civilizations propose, as we are taught that they must be, by definition. So we must carefully examine what we mean by civilizations, and question the value of the process of accumulation and conditioning which, like a river deposits its alluvium, constitutes what is called social heritage, culture, etc. Everywhere and at all times.

* * *

b) From Engels to Sartre via Kierkegaard and Heidegger . - Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) is far from receiving today the homage corresponding to his real contribution in the field of thought. J. Molitor, in an introduction to volume II of " The Holy Family " [ 19 ], work published under the name of Marx, but in which Engels had collaborated, writes: once again, it appeared that, in their association, Marx was in first place and Engels was too willing to step aside, out of modesty.

It is very rare to see the name of Engels appear today in one of our works of philosophy, while in the USSR the apostolic Marx-Lenin-Stalin succession, invented and imposed with simplifications, accommodates not be based on any thought that we can grasp or even discover, within the framework of our studies. So we have to go back to the origins, largely taking into account the state of thought and science in the middle of the last century.

The Anti-D|hring is the criticism of a philosophical system presented by a certain D|hring, whose name would no doubt have disappeared without Engels. This work is therefore very cluttered by the presentation of the system that he criticizes, but his interest is no less for that, on the contrary:

1 0 Mr. D|hring ... deals with all possible things and a few more writes Engels; in the latter, there is a constant effort to maintain thought in the thinkable, in the real, by an acute analysis of everything that is ideological, that is to say of all the concepts expressed in words without content; 2. Engels does not aim to oppose another system to M. D|hring's "system", but to oppose abstract conceptions of a pure ideology, claiming to release reality not from itself but from its representation, a scientific and impartial way of thinking. When an ideologue of this kind - writes in essence Engels - constructs a morality and a right (and defines human freedom) not by drawing them from the real social situation of the men around him, but by deducing them from concepts, the materials he uses contain only a few scraps of reality, mixed with borrowed "ideas" and personal fads. "Hegel" - says Engels - was the first to explain exactly the relationship between freedom and necessity. For him freedom consists in understanding necessity. "Necessity is only blind as far as it is not understood". It is not in the dream of an action independent of the laws of nature that freedom consists, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility, thus given, of making them act systematically with a view to determined ends. This is true both of the laws of the outside world and of those which govern the bodily and intellectual existence of man - two orders of laws which we can separate at most in thought, but not in reality. Freedom of the will is therefore nothing other than the capacity to make an informed decision. It it follows that the freer the judgment of a man concerning a given question, the greater the necessity which determines the content of that judgment.

We see how this conception of freedom - and therefore of man - is at odds with the metaphysical and Christian notion, which Martin-Chauffier would like to fix as a permanent value. Here, human consciousness is a process of nature which, by reflexive action on the set of laws of nature is known from the fact that it is perceived in its conditioning and as conditioning; there, consciousness emanates from its pseudo-notion, extratemporal, of itself, as an immortal soul, etc ... Here, there is adherence to the movement of the world, at all times, to a limited extent by state of science at that time, and perception of human relativity; there, there is a human absolute, defined divine, and inconceivable; here thought applies to the thinkable, there the postulates of its rationalism are irrational. What can we say except that the consciousness of the limited and conditioned being, locked up within the framework of its thought, here does not feel the anguish of its tragic adventure, and there suffers from it? And how can we be surprised - the Marxist position being valid - at the flowering of these desperate existentialisms, Christian or metaphysically atheistic, sinking into confusion? In truth, the spirit of confusion has also invaded the other derivative of Marxist thought, that known as revolutionary.

This double deviation in dead ends arises, in our view, from the fact that in the days of Hegel, Engels, Marx, psychology did not yet exist as a science. These philosophers had discovered a deep law of nature, that of the contradiction existing in things and phenomena themselves, a contradiction which constantly arises and resolves. As soon as the contradiction ceases, life also ceases, death intervenes, says Engels. Knowledge of this contradiction in movement is the goal of all sciences and to see in history the very evolution of humanity according to a movement whose mission is to recognize the laws is the characteristic of Marxist materialism. According to these philosophers, thought itself obeys this law of internal contradiction, which the work of Hegel was intended to prove. Engels, by adopting this conception, imagined himself covering all areas of knowledge, because he saw in man only a "bodily existence" and an "intellectual existence".

These two aspects, as we know today, gave this psycho-physiological aggregate that is man an erroneous aspect. For it is the psyche, not the thought, which obeys the law of contradictory movement. It is the psyche which, after having sought to save nothingness from its existence by associating itself, under the name of soul, with unthinkable concepts, clothed in religious taboos, undergoes today what in chemistry has undergone the atom, and ceases to exist as an indecomposable element . The error of Engels and Marx - inevitable for the time - was to believe, after Hegel, that there can exist a thought animated by a contradictory movement. They constantly confuse thought and consciousness. Following them, the Marxists, to this day, confuse man and thought, despise psychology instead of establishing it on revolutionary bases [ 20 ]; as for consciousness, which has become "unhappy", it seeks in vain to surpass itself by accumulating verbal contradictions, of which it wants to convince us that because they are neo-Hegelian they have a meaning. But, despite their error, neither Marx nor Engels ever fall into that of Hegel, D|hring, Sartre, which consists in granting to philosophical, abstract thought, any value. They would like to do away with philosophies; they declare them useless; they deny them any power of knowledge, because they are necessarily expressed only in logical categories. Putting away, classifying the objects of thought, that is the first step of any philosophy. Now, a philosophy, like that of Hegel, which wants to prove that thought is a movement, imagines that the logical formula of this movement, not only explains it but implies it. And if it involves movement, it becomes an absolute method. But, asks Marx what is this absolute method? The abstraction of movement. What is movement abstraction? Movement in the abstract state. What is movement in the abstract state? The purely logical formula of movement or the movement of pure reason? To pose, to oppose, to compose, to formulate as thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or even to assert oneself, to deny oneself, to deny one's negation [ 21 ].

Here, as an example, a small entertainment to which this abstraction is nowadays engaged: We had defined in our introduction , writes Sartre in "Being and Nothingness" (p. 85) consciousness as "a being for which there is in his being question of his being as this being implies a being other than hi m. But after the elucidation of interrogative behavior, we now know that this formula can also be written: "consciousness is a being for which it is in its being consciousness of the nothingness of its being" .

The word "being" being the very essence of abstraction, one wonders why thought contorts, turns and turns, asserts itself and denies itself with such ardor, if not to adhere to him to the point of convincing himself that logical categories have a mysteriously timeless existence somewhere. If one spoke only to say something, one could simply say that there is no consciousness which is not always involved in some relation, so that coming to elucidate its very relative nature and made up only of consciousness, its relations are forced to note that it does not exist in itself. Not to exist in itself, that would be the meaning of this "nothingness". But, by virtue of a series of negations of negations, Sartre would like us to think of a "consciousness" for which he is "consciousness" of the nothingness of his being. Not content with "defining" (he tells us that it is a definition) consciousness by consciousness, he would also like consciousness to be consciousness of nothingness, as if consciousness of nothingness was not "something". However, contrary to what this gymnastics could suggest, and thanks to a Bergsonian return of "fluid thought" Sartre writes: creation is an evanescent concept which can only exist by its movement [ 22 ] (but how can an evanescence to be a concept, and a concept without an object?) and adds that consciousness, as the annihilation of being appears as a stage of progression towards the immanence of causality, that is to say towards being cause of self [ 23 ]. Which, in the most favorable interpretation does not make sense, because a "being cause of oneself" is unthinkable. We could just as well say anything: that nothingness is a being progressing towards its own cause, or that the cause of nothingness of being is being destroying its cause, or indulging in any other juggling of words acting on the mind like magic formulas to the point of dizziness, to ecstasy. Once reason has succeeded in posing as a thesis - quips Marx about quips Marx about this other victim of Hegel, Proudhon - this thesis, this thought, opposed to itself, splits into two contradictory thoughts, the positive and the negative , yes and no. The struggle of these two antagonistic elements contained in the antithesis constitutes the dialectical movement. The yes becoming no, the no becoming yes, the yes becoming both yes and no, the no becoming both no and yes, the opposites sway, neutralize, paralyze themselves. The fusion of these two contradictory thoughts constitutes a new thought which is the synthesis. This new thought still unfolds in two contradictory thoughts, which in turn merge into a new synthesis. From this childbirth is born a group of thoughts. This group of thoughts follows the same dialectical movement as a simple category, and has for antithesis a contradictory group. From these two groups of thoughts is born a new group of thoughts, which is the synthesis. Just as from the dialectical movement of simple categories is born the group, so from the dialectical movement of groups is born the series, and from the dialectical movement of series is born the whole system. Apply this method to the categories of political economy and you will have the logic and metaphysics of political economy . [ 24 ].

Apply it to psychology and you will have the metaphysics of psychology.

The ordinary man does not think he is advancing anything extraordinary by saying that there are apples and pears , writes elsewhere Marx [ 25 ]. But the philosopher, in expressing this existence in a speculative way, said something extraordinary. He did a miracle: from the rational, unreal entity, the fruit, he produced the real natural entities, apples, pears, etc. In other words: from his own abstract intelligence that he represents to himself externally to himself as an absolute subject, here the fruit, he drew these fruits, and in all existence that he states, he performs a creative act. The speculative philosopher, it goes without saying, can accomplish this continuous creation only by intercalating, as being of his own invention, properties recognized by us as really belonging to the apple, to the pear, etc by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, that is to say to abstract rational formulas: by finally declaring that its own activity, by which it passes from apple representation to pear representation, is activity itself of the absolute subject, the fruit. This operation, it is called, in speculative language, to understand the substance as subject, as internal process, as absolute person, and this understanding constitutes the essential character of the Hegelian method .

These observations are very important and enlighten us on the process of any personal consciousness associated with thought. Let Marx and Engels identify their conscience and their thought, but strive rigorously to think only of the thinkable; to manipulate only dishes having a real content, designating the phenomenon itself, this identification does not cause any transfer of themselves, of their ego, in any mystical, mythical, speculative representation of existence. They do not "think" themselves during this action: they simply think. But whether Hegel, D|hring, Proudhon or Sartre erect their reason into categories and, through more or less "evanescent" concepts indulge in a speculative pseudo-creation, here is their thought, ceasing to apply to the thinkable, s takes hold of their subjective being and transports it into a metaphysics of themselves by which hey do not cease to "think" themselves, while not knowing it, while defending themselves from it. Sartre refuses to "think" himself as a waiter or something else, but entrusts to his philosophical reason the care of thinking-himself-not-thinking-himself, which installs the self-Sartre, or rather the for-me- Sartre in a state all the more invulnerable that he keeps appearing to his own eyes under the multifaceted, inexhaustible disguises of the outside world. Marx saw it in a penetrating way: these speculative philosophers, by declaring that their own activity, by which they pass from one representation to another is the very activity of the absolute phenomenological world (abstraction made taboo by the word "to be"), Transform their speculative language into "person" and reconstitute in sum the Mystery of the Incarnate Word.

It is hardly necessary to venture very far into the voluminous treatise of Sartre to see how the miracle occurs. By adopting from the start, by way of contradictory terms, " the finite and the infinite ", or better, " the infinite in the finite " to replace being and appearing, Sartre locates his thought on an unreal opposition of the two terms which compose it never meet. Indeed, the finite is thinkable, the infinite is not. Infinity is only a sign. This sign escapes all representation. It is therefore not a concept with content. To apprehend him, Sartre himself will become more and more evanescent, and, from weary warfare, after three hundred and twenty-five thousand words, will dive into this unthinkable thought, and will reach out to Descartes in invoking the metaphysical content of all intuitive revelation of being [ 26 ].

If we take Hegel's most abstract words for what they are, and not for the representation of something of which they are only the expression, we would say, after him, that being pure, being abstraction pure is nothing, not by imagining saying that there is a pure being, which is pure nothing, but by really saying that the words "being pure" being a pure abstraction, are a nothing, because they do not represent nothing and you cannot imagine them. One would infer from this that to speak of what is not conceivable: of being, of nothingness, of the in-itself, "and of some other things still" is nothing but chatter. If Sartre had chosen as terms of opposition, not the finite and the infinite (terms which imposed themselves on him because beforehand, he had proposed to solve the human problem as a philosopher, by the study of a "science of being", which already implied a system); if, we say, Sartre had confined himself to simple notions, in real opposition to each other, such as, for example, movement and resistance to movement - or mass - his thought would have had the possibility of relying on physical science, in its current stage, and to push further the researches of Marx and Engels on the contradictory, vital movement, which they affirmed that it is the essence of all that is, which they called dialectic , and that the state of knowledge at their time did not allow them to search the psyche. It is precisely to this research that the second part of our work is devoted. We take up there certain developments of our "Psychological Comedy" [ 27 ], by perfecting them. But, as it seems useful to us to use the expressions "for-me", "for-onself", firstly because they are easy to grasp (as we saw in the case of consciousness -for me-doll of the child, and in the case of the dream) and then because they situate us in relation to the philosophies which have followed one another for about a century, we are obliged to insist first on the criticism of the category called "in-itself" that, since Hegel, speculative philosophy, opposes to "for-itself".

"In "in itself", writes Engels [ 28 ], consists in Hegel of the primitive identity of the not yet developed contradictions which are hidden in a thing, in a phenomenon, in a concept; in "for onself" the distinction and separation of these hidden elements are manifested and their conflict begins. We must therefore represent the primitive state of immobility as a unit of matter and mechanical force, and the passage to movement as separation and opposition of these two elements. What we have gained from this is not proof of the reality of this fantastic primitive state, but only the possibility of understanding it under the Hegelian category of "in-itself" and of understanding its cessation just as fantastic under the "for-youself" category. Hegel, help.

But it is Jean-Paul Sartre who rushes to our rescue, by mobilizing St-Anselme and Descartes: If the being of phenomena is not resolved into a phenomenon of being , he writes [ 29 ], and if yet we can "say" nothing about being that by consulting this phenomenon of being, the exact relationship which unites the phenomenon of being with the being of the phenomenon must be established above all. We can do this more easily if we consider that all of the preceding remarks were directly inspired by the revealing intuition of the phenomenon of being. By considering not being as a condition of disclosure, but being as an appearance which can be fixed in concepts, we understood first of all that knowledge alone could not justify being, that is to say that the being of the phenomenon could not be reduced to the phenomenon of being. In a word, the phenomenon of being is "ontological" in the sense that we call "ontological" the proof of Saint-Anselme and Descartes. It is a call to be; it requires, as a phenomenon, a foundation that is trans-phenomenal. The phenomenon of being requires the transphenomenality of being. This does not mean that the being is hidden "behind"he phenomena (we have seen that the phenomenon cannot hide the being) nor that the phenomenon is an appearance which refers to a distinct being (it is "in as appearnace" as the phenomenon is, that is to say, it is indicated on the basis of being). What is implied by the foregoing considerations is that the being of the phenomenon, although coextensive with the phenomenon, must escape the phenomenal condition - which is to exist only insofar as it is revealed - and that, consequently, it overflows and establishes the knowledge that one takes from it .

Here. If Engels had encountered in Hegel such a clear explanation not of "in itself", of "being of the phenomenon", or of "transphenomenality" - because these words have no more content, or meaning, that the "absolute perfection" of Descartes - but of the disposition of mind peculiar to speculative philosophers, he would have criticized their writings less than their behavior. Their starting point is always, by whatever name it occurs - acceptance of a revealed transcendence, or revelation of an accepted transcendence - a pseudo-thinkable interpretation of the unthinkable. This one, through "intuitions", "revelations", or "revealing intuitions" and thanks to a succession of tautologies "evanescent concepts", or reversals of propositions (identity, in Hegel and Sartre, of being and nothingness, seasoned with evanescent nuances) seizes the consciousness of the philosopher, and, drawing him into a circus representation as complicated as possible, with conjuring, tightrope exercises, balancing act and juggling of all kinds, shows him by this activity that if this philosopher "thinks" of transcendence, it is because transcendence thinks in him. Such was Hegel's goal, such is that of Sartre. To the cogito of the "thing that thinks" was coupled, doubling it with all its prestige, an immortal soul: that same infinity in the finish of Sartre, soul-in-thing. And while in Descartes the "thing" implies transcendence, in Sartre, according to the easy stratagem, of negation of negation, practiced ad nauseam behind Hegel's trailer, transcendence implies "thing" The reverse and "transphenomenalized" tautology becomes: I think a "transphenomenalized" phenomenon, therefore the transphenomenalized" phenomenon of the phenomenon thinks me. Or: the proof of what I say is that what I say proves me. More simply, Descartes imagines that absolute perfection exists because he thinks it. The unfortunate thing (as we have seen) is that, for a philosopher, thinking and conceiving are two distinct, and even opposite, and even enemy phenomena. Their efforts tend to eliminate each other. It is in this comedy, and only there, that we must seek and find this contradictory movement of thought: I think what I do not conceive (transcendence, God, etc.) therefore what I do not conceive of myself think (I am transcendent, immortal soul, etc.).

* * *

CRITICAL AND CRITICAL CONCLUSIONS
FUNDAMENTAL OF CIVILIZATION
SAID CHRISTIAN

Since the beginning of this book, we have not stopped researching the causes of the current crisis. We started by establishing that our social world is of such complexity that it escapes our representation. We then showed that contemporary science reveals to us a Universe which also escapes all representation. We thus noted the existence of an Unthinkable, the threshold of which can never be crossed by our reason, from the fact that in this space-time is dissociated. But we have seen human consciousness associate with this dissociation by affirming the identity of being and thinking. This error, as natural as it is - since, to know himself, man has only his thought - has generated, over the centuries, by religions and philosophies, an extraordinary confusion, by directing the search for Knowledge towards the Unknowable, and thought towards the unthinkable, instead of pushing it resolutely to criticize its instrument of investigation: the impure association thought-consciousness of being. Having established that it is useless to lament the deep crisis which calls into question today, the survival of the human species; that it would be more profitable to try to think right, instead of indulging in speculations on words having no content; we have analyzed, in a series of surveys, ways of "thinking", ranging from the sleeping dream to the waking dream of believers and philosophers, and we have come to the following conclusions: 1 0 the most subtle minds fall into the trap of " to think "of what they do not understand; 2 0 more or less consciously, the content of these false thoughts is none other than the thinker, in his presence to himself. In other words: each time that man imagines himself to think the unthinkable, it is only himself that he designs. If it is conceivable, it is because it is defined by associations. It is his associations that make him present to himself. The more he annihilates himself, the more he perceives himself. The less it exists, the more it feels to exist. At the extreme of this perception we have seen, in search of orange blossom water, a consciousness perceiving itself, in the state of fixed idea, obeying an absolute necessity, without any freedom, of the fact that she has conditioned herself and fixed herself, covering herself with darkness, in order to protect her sleep. This consciousness, we saw in a simple state to be only the refusal to think the thinkable. Because the thinkable, if it were thought, would assassinate, would project into nothingness this consciousness-seeking-of-orange-blossom-water. And we have seen Descartes carefully protect himself from this disappearance of himself, prefabricating himself in every detail. We have seen Martin-Chauffier, on the threshold of his own destruction, refuse to think the thinkable. And finally Sartre, in his will to think himself unthinkable, to die to himself only on condition of seeing himself die (which means not to die) to throw himself, all phenomenologist as he is, into a transphenomenological revelation .

Chaufrier seems not to grant so much virtue. We certainly suffer from an ambiguity with regard to the human person. If this person can have no limits ("be perfect as the Father is perfect"), Knowledge would consist in annihilating our limits, that is to say everything by which we can conceive ourselves, therefore all that can situate us in relation to the unthinkable. Total, absolute Knowledge would be a state of perception of everything that is not Knowledge, of everything that constitutes the very substance of a consciousness which conditions itself in order to perceive itself. We would come back to saying this: that to think the thinkable would be an awakening where this thinker would no longer exist. To no longer be situated according to the unthinkable would be to go beyond the stage of religious representations. On the other hand, to have faith would be to refuse the outcome of faith. To believe in Jesus would be to refuse to fulfill Jesus. The ambiguity about the person fixed the revelation, engendered the sacred, located the human below the divine, sent Jesus to Heaven, neutralized his proclamation of human and divine unity, denied that he had laid the foundations of social justice, and lowered too many Christians to the level of these primitive civilizations where it was enough to eat one's god to secure an eternal life.

The ancient Mexicans, writes James George Frazer, even before the arrival of the Christian missionaries, were familiar with the doctrine of transubstantiation and applied it in the solemn rites of their religion. They believed that their priests by consecrating the bread, could make a transformation containing it substantially the body of their god, so that all those who ate consecrated bread entered into mystical communion with the divinity by receiving themselves a portion of the substance divine [ 30 ].

At the feast of the winter solstice, the Aztecs first killed their god Huitzilopochti in effigy, and then ate it [ 31 ].

In the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean, the most famous and widespread rites have had, according to Frazer, the death and resurrection (occurring every year) of a god. It was called Osiris, Tammouz, Adonis or Atys, depending on the country. The cult of Adonis , he writes, was in honor among the Semitic peoples of Babylon and Syria, and the Greeks borrowed it from the 7th century BC. JC The real name of the god was Tammouz, the name of Adonis is simply the Semitic Adon "lord", title of honor that his worshipers addressed to him. But the Greeks, by a misunderstanding, converted the title of honor into a proper name [ 32 ].

The god Atys was to Phrygia what Adonis was to Syria The legends and rites of the two gods were so similar that the Ancients themselves identified them sometimes ... The birth of Atys, like that of many other heroes, was said to have been miraculous. Her mother, Mana, was a virgin [ 33 ].

When we remember the frequency and the address with which the Church was able to graft the new faith onto the ancient trunk of paganism, we will conceive of the idea that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ had entered upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Addonis, which, as we have reason to believe, was performed during the same season in Syria. The type, created by Greek artists, of the inconsolable goddess, carrying her lover in her arms, resembles, and perhaps served as a model, the Piet` of Christian art ... In this respect, a famous mention of saint Girtme could be significant. He tells us that Bethlehem ... was shaded by a grove belonging to Adonis ...

Let us not forget that Beth-Lehem means in Hebrew, house of bread, that Adonis was the "spirit of the wheat", that Jesus would have said "I am the bread of life" and that his worshipers eat it under the shape of an ostia made of wheat flour. The borrowings made by the god Jesus from the god Mithras are at least as important. The two religions were in competition for a long time and, in certain aspects, it was Mithras who won, subsisting under the name of Jesus.

Our Christmas feast, writes Frazer, retains an instructive remnant of the long struggle; the Church seems to have borrowed it directly from its pagan rival. In the Julian calendar, we looked at December 25 as the winter solstice and the nativity of the sun ... The ritual of the nativity, as it was celebrated, it seems, in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The faithful retired to certain secret sanctuaries, from where they left at midnight, with a shrill cry: "The Virgin gave birth." The light believe s. The Egyptians even represented the newborn by the image of a small child whom they showed, on his birthday, to his worshipers, at the winter solstice. The Virgin who had thus conceived and who gave birth to a child on December 25 was the great oriental goddess that the Semites called the celestial Virgin or simply the celestial Goddess ... The Gospels say nothing about the day of the birth of Christ, also the 'Didn't the early Church celebrate it ... at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century, the Western Church ... adopted ... on December 25, and the Eastern Church later agreed with this decision. The change was not introduced in Antioch before the year 375 of our era.

Viewed objectively and without passion, the Roman Church appeared in 1950 as having made a visible return to paganism. The Virgin Mary whom, until now, we still hesitated to induct in her true nature of goddess lives in flesh and bone, for Rome, since 1950, in a sky that astronomy does not know. Astarti, a virgin and mother, has resumed her body, her face, her home and her functions. At the proclamation of this new dogma, it comes back to us that a very intelligent and cultivated Catholic spirit, worried about it and questioned in this matter a Dominican Father, whose opinion is authoritative. He replied: - Do you not already believe in the existence of the Glorious Body of Christ? Believing in two Glorious Bodies instead of one does not change anything. - Ah, yes it's true, replied the other. And we didn't talk about it any more. Thus replied the dragon to our dreamer: - Do you not know that orange blossom water is extracted from stones? - Ah yes, that's right, the sleeper had noticed. And, having admitted one absurdity, why not admit two? The Dominican Father's mental subterfuge was the word "Glorious", deliberately vague, magical, supernatural. Having admitted that a body becomes "Glorious", it is no longer necessary to grant it thinkable content, to accompany it with any representation; it escapes the conceivable; in other words, we no longer think of what we say. We no longer think at all. Because we know that this material body could not find a place in the Universe as it is. As well, we have seen, on the subject of this dogma, numerous and learned comments develop very complicated philosophical and theological considerations, rise to the heights of symbolism, identify the Virgin Mary with the eternal cosmic substance, etc. and all the better to ignore in this way the raw fact of this woman hanging somewhere, between one planet and the other, or standing on the moon, as represented by her iconographers.

Let us not return here to the word God. We have seen enough that it has no content; and that if one is granted, this content being a representation, an imagery of the unthinkable, is pagan by definition. The psychic process of this dream is curiously identical to itself through the ages and the continents. In its mythical aspect, the worship of the god Jesus can be summarized, with a few nuances, in the very words that Frazer devotes to Osiris, both Sovereign and Judge of the dead, and god of the wheat: By placing their dead in the grave , they (the ancient Egyptians) entrusted them to the care of one who could transform their dust into eternal life, as he sprouted the seed from the ground. The effigies of Osiris stuffed with wheat, which have been found in Egyptian tombs, provide eloquent and unequivocal testimony to this faith. They were both an emblem and an instrument of resurrection. Thus, from the germination of the grain, the ancient Egyptians drew an omen of human immortality. They are not the only people to have built the same hopes so high on such fragile foundations. A god who thus nourished his people with shreds of his own body during this life, and who offered them the promise of an eternity of bliss in a better world to come, naturally held first place in his affections. [ 34 ]

Nothing could betray Jesus better than making it a god and its precepts than making it a cult. We took advantage of the fact that its language was symbolic, to keep only the symbol and empty it of its content. We exploited his cultural weakness - because could he analyze, as we do nowadays, the secret motives of the psyche? - to give a concrete, literal, barbaric meaning to the simple and natural truth that in Rabbi, he had learned to express in the Jewish way, using the allegorical words of the Torah. This religious distortion of the truth gave rise to a prestigious mythical representation on the hills of Jerusalem which, despite its brilliance, has only the value of a dream. Through this dream - the way reality is annihilated by it - the truth of this drama of consciousness is overturned, overturned, hidden by the mythical interpretation which is rigorously opposed to it. This opposition is expressed by an analogy, by a sort of resemblance, just as we saw above the roller skates of a dreamer recall the noise of the engine all the better as they removed consciousness. Myth is a representation of truth, with the aim of hiding it. This goal is unconscious in subjects where spiritual experience takes place - even if they were a Buddha, a Jesus - but becomes, for the religion based on them, a faith kneaded in bad faith. Here is the reason: a Buddha, a Jesus (nowadays, a Shrn Aurobindo, a Rbmana Maharshi), in contact with what we have called the unthinkable living mystery of "there is" ("there is" a Universe, and this is even impenetrable) have, from the mere fact that they have experienced, felt, perceived this something, generated in their consciousness an identification "I am": I am the Way; I am the Truth, the Life; I and the Father are one; Shiva, Mahbdeva, You and me in You etc ... etc ... Now this identification which, for the flock, is the proof of the proofs, the miracle of miracles, is not, according to the thesis that we will develop in the second part of our work, that the testimony of a partial bankruptcy: bankruptcy on the threshold, the "I am ..." whatever the continuation of the speech, being always the affirmation of a for-me. And the more narrowly bankruptcy occurs, with a clear vision of reality, the better it betrays that vision. Thus, on the verge of waking up, our dreamer would exchange his roller skates for images getting closer and closer to reality, until, perhaps, dreaming while awake that the car whose engine bothers him. far prevail. As long as there is identification, there is dream. In Jesus the identification is obvious.

It does not waver, the consciousness is located outside of itself in a reflexive and anxious position, only near death, when the "will of the Father" is opposed to the consciousness of the for-me , which, on the cross, finds itself all alone, abandoned to itself. It is on this error, on this identification, that rushes like crows, like vultures, for-me thirsty for eternity, while if we want to give its price to its dramatic experience it is necessary on the contrary to eliminate all the elements of his dream and passionately researching what this man actually meant at the cost of his life. It is here that we come up against the opposite passion, of Christians in general and of the Roman church in particular, which continues to erect dogmas, sacred taboos, interpretations of "holy" scriptures, the crazy equivalent of roller skates, and orange blossom water extracted from the stones. Here, in a few quick quotes, what to hide at all costs:

We stone you for blasphemy, and because you, who are a man, you make yourself God. Jesus answered them: is it not written in your law: I said: You are gods? ... (John X, 34.)

And do not call anyone on earth your father; for only one is your Father, who is in heaven . (Matt. XXIII, 9.)

... that all may be one, as you, father, you are in me, and as I am in you, so that they too may be one in us ... (John XVII, 21.)

If it is true that there is a feeling of identification with Jesus with the "Father", it is to betray this eminently Hebrew spirit that to attribute to him the notion of a difference in nature between him and other men. Yhwh is his Father in the way it says, in the exodus: "Israel is my son, my firstborn." Jesus perceives this filiation as asking all human beings to identify with the movement of the "spirit" that blows where they want, and not with the density or resistance to the movement. Despite his allegorical language, there is a revolutionary truth there which opposes the "sons of the Mother" and, in general, the static myths of Asia; there is a dialectical, anti-metaphysical position, a call to human unity integrating the divine, rejecting in advance any church, in opposition.

And here, in simple terms, the translation of this position: But I tell you not to resist the wicked ... But I tell you: Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who you hate ... If you love those who love you, what reward do you deserve? ... And if you greet only your brothers, what do you do extraordinary? (Matt. V, 39, 44, 48.)

Let the Church of Rome let Moscow know that it intends to apply these precepts, and that Christians have enough faith in their god to bet on his teaching, whatever may happen.

But back to the sermon on the mountain: Do not worry for your life of what you will eat, nor for your body of what you will be clothed ... Look at the birds of the sky: they do not sow or harvest, and they do not collect anything in attics And why worry about clothing? Consider how the lilies of the fields grow: they do not work or spin ... So do not worry, and do not say: what shall we eat? What will we drink? what will we be wearing? Because all these things, it is the pagans who seek them ... etc, etc (Matt. VI, 25/32.)

Let this so-called Christian civilization declare itself openly pagan, and may true Christians find themselves believers or unbelievers ... If I don't do my Father's works, don't believe me. But if I do them, anyway you won't believe me, believe in these works ... (John, X, 37/38.)

And finally here is a passage, so admirable in its poetic naivety; so total in his conception of human unity, both spiritual and material; so precise in its precepts (because not only what we do to the smallest among us, it is to Jesus that we do it, but what we omit to give him, it is to Jesus that we refuse it, and we see to what extent the reversal of this proposition rejects so-called charitable works in hypocrisy); that we think we could not do better, to conclude our criticism of impure thought, than to cite it in full, as an example of pure thought, incomparably. The reluctance that we could have to copy a page so well known in the Gospels falls by itself, if we remember our friend Martin-Chauffier, this Christian who declares that the foundations of social justice have not yet been asked.

When the Son of man comes in his glory, with all the angels, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be assembled before him. He will separate one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those who will be on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me. The righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and gave you food or thirst, and gave you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in; or naked, and have we clothed you? When did we see you sick or in prison, and went to you? And the king will answer them, Truly I say to you, whenever you have done these things to one of the least of my brothers, you have done them to me. Then he will say to those who will be to his left: Depart from me, you accursed ones; go into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and for his angels ... For I was hungry, and you did not give me food; I was thirsty, and you didn't give me a drink; I was a stranger, and you did not take me in; I was naked, and you did not clothe me; I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. They will also answer: Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did we not assist you? And he will answer them: I tell you the truth, whenever you did not do these things to one of these little ones, it was to me that you did not do them. And these will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matt XXV, 31/46.)

1 Book cited, p. 15/16.

2 Book cited, p. 82.

3 Book cited, p. 87.

4 Book cited, p. 89.

5 Book cited, p. 62.

6 Book cited, p. 63.

7 Book cited, p. 64.

8 Book cited, p. 68.

9 P. 80.

10 P. 60.

11 P. 70.

12 P. 91/92.

13 P. 66.

14 P. 115.

15 P. 124, 125, 126.

16 P. 136/137.

17 P. 71.

18 M.-E. Duhring upsets Science (Anti-Duhring), by Fr. Engels.

19 V. Complete works of Marx, published by Alfred Costes, 1927 edition.

20 See our essay on dialectical psychology ( La Comidie Psychologique).

21 Karl Marx: " Misery of Philosophy ".

22 P. 681.

23 P. 714.

24 Misery of Philosophy .

25 The Holy Family , volume III.

26 P. 695.

27 "La Comedie Psychologigue", in Josi Corti, 1932, out of print.

28 Anti-D|hring .

29 " Being and Nothingness ", p. 15/16.

30 " Le Rameau d'Or ", ed. abbreviated, p. 460.

31 " Le Rameau d'Or ", ed. abbreviated, p. 461.

32 P. 305.

33 P. 328.

34 P. 361/2.

La solennelle duperie des mots sans contenu par Carlo Suarés - 3e millinaire

Carlo Suarès : Critique of Reason Impure : The man who tried to think himself (Extract from Critique of Reason Impure)

Carlo Suarès : Critique of Reason Impure : The man who tried to think himself

(Extract from Critique of Reason Impure)