A Bit on the Coming into Faith via Suffering and Commiseration.

A rushed stream of consciousness.

This one is me putting my stream of consciousness into words regarding the circumstances of some who come into faith without quite engaging in scientific naturalism. What is dismissed as non-scientific garbage by some, the means and conditions that bring one to, say, the Christian Faith (or any Faith) are varied. For some it comes about by revelation and (sometimes gradual) experience (as is often the case of renown mystics). Having listened to the stories of my grandmother and other family members who left Jamaica at a young age to fill the gaps in the UK’s labor force during and after World War II, as well as the stories of those who did not leave Jamaica, the way they (and others) navigate and relate to their faith are inextricably tied to history and experience. When we particularly look toward the relationship the Rastafari have with their faith, we do not quite see the same sort of methodological processes notable theorists have (whether it be Marx or Nietzsche) to come to similar conclusions¹.

When Nietzsche and many others (like Simone Weil for example) state that Christianity is a Slave religion or a religion for slaves, this may not be in the derogatory sense and it may very well be acknowledged by the believers themselves (Simone Weil again as an example). For the Rasta in particular (and to some extent the other Christian groups within Jamaica), the understanding of the Master-Slave morality (somewhat as Nietzsche, Hegel and Kojeve understand it), the class antagonisms, and the often explicit belief that they live in Biblical times or that the story of Bible is replaying itself now (or that we are in the times of Revelations) almost in a literal sense comes about through, seemingly, lived experience. These understandings are also made quite audible in the Rasta’s reggae. When we speak Nietzsche’s or Kojeve’s understanding of the Master-Slave moralities, briefly, we refer to how the Slave and Master come to find what is moral, immoral, and their relationship to the Will. Where the Slave often emphasizes turning the Will to Power inward, the master directs the will to power outward and this also informs the values and general sentiments had among the Slave and master. The slaves find themselves good as, when compared to the master, they are humble, without excess, and abide moral frameworks befitting of a Slave (one may say this is a means to find one’s slavery bearable). However, certain values such as freedom come to be valued by the Slave as, say, their autonomy (when compared in relation the Master) has been stripped away and Desire (if understood as lack here) would have the Slave wanting for freedom, autonomy, or recognition. When we then use Kojeve’s understanding in how the self-consciousness requires not only (animalistic) Desire but also human Desire in such that Self-Consciousness is brought about. Human Desire is differentiated from the animal’s Desire in that the animal’s supreme Desire (a desire for a value) is its animal life. For the human, Human Desire goes beyond (and thus abandons) the desire to preserve its life. The consequence, however:

Man’s humanity “comes to light” only in risking his life to satisfy his human Desire—that is, his Desire directed toward another Desire. Now, to desire a Desire is to want to substitute oneself for the value desired by this Desire. For without this substitution, one would desire the value, the desired object, and not the Desire itself. Therefore, to desire the Desire of another is in the final analysis to desire that the value that I am or that I “represent” be the value desired by the other: I want him to “recognize” my value as his value. I want him to “recognize me as an autonomous value. In other words, all human, anthropogenetic Desire—the Desire that generates Self-Consciousness, the human reality—is, finally, a function of the desire for “recognition…. Therefore, to speak of the “origin” of Self-Consciousness is necessarily to speak of a fight to the death for “recognition.” This fight to the death does not result in physical or immediate death because the winner, the Master, in wanting to be recognized requires one to recognize him. Now, what occurs then is that the Master is recognized and the subjugated Slave is to serve him, “[the Master] must leave him life and consciousness, and destroy only his autonomy.²

 The Master does not recognize the Slave in the same way the Slave recognizes the Master as the life of the Master is not quite as dependent on their recognition of the subjugated. “The relation between Master and Slave, therefore, is not recognition properly so-called… The Master is not the only one to consider himself Master. The Slave, also, considers him as such. Hence, he is recognized in his human reality and dignity. But this recognition is one-sided, for he does not recognize in turn the Slave’s human reality and dignity. Hence, he is recognized by someone whom he does not recognize. And this is what is insufficient—what is tragic—in his situation.” Further tragic is the inability of people to exercise their Will to Power through creative outlets. If we speak of those who are in circumstances where they are very much aware they would like to externalize (or perhaps even internalize) their Will to Power but are unable to, then ressentiment and sickness come causing strife. Quite a many people work shitty jobs when they would much rather be doing something else but having been relegated to poor living conditions and labor, they must make do with getting by however they can. This can take the form of faith or other outlets like exercising or drinking and other substance use. Cioran notably remarks that is because of man’s sleep and forgetfulness that one is capable to go about not confronting this terrible reality in which the working man works day in and out with a rather consistent schedule. If such a person did not sleep and did not forget, they would not be capable of living through such a tragedy, this bondage. Sleep gives a sense of discontinuity between the days of toiling and strife whereas Cioran, with his insomnia, notes this feeling of sameness and the absence of change—there is only repetition. This ties into how Cioran reaches the idea that man will be incapable of transcending their suffering and activity. Sleep and thus man’s inability to understand or understand history that history has been cyclical, prevents man from breaking free of this cycle. Not understanding this, man and his kingdoms rise and fall in attempt to return to Paradise. Those driven to internalize their will to power then long for the messianic age (or the totally Other) as they wake, sleep, toil and till day in and day out. This is the position in which the Slave finds himself in.

Them say them love

And them live in hate

Them say no steal

And them a thief your head

They say no lust

And them live like a whore…

They favor sheep

But them a wolf

See them there

Them favor Christ

But them an Anti Christ³

These lyrics, among many others, show an awareness of this Master-Slave dynamic—these songs of pining for freedom and autonomy or the lamentations of the horrors of slavery and oppression (downpression⁴) by Babylon. When Nietzsche critiques Christianity, we must remember Nietzsche is nuanced in his critique in such a way that his critique cannot be reduced in such a way to suggest he completely dismisses Christianity or hates Christianity as some seem to suggest. Due to the history of Christianity in, particularly, Europe, the moral frameworks came to be universalized and made objective such that even the Master sometimes found himself abiding by what the Slave’s morality and its will to power driven inward (more or less the only direction made feasible). With this in mind as well as how the Master is historically shown to be capable of weaponizing the Slave’s relationship to his morals, sentiments, and values, the lyrics above cannot only be read to be calling out religious authorities that can be found to say one thing and do the other. Instead, we can find the Master (Christian or not) suggesting the Slave to be one way while the Master can and does do the opposite of what he says. Particularly when we speak of stealing, it is not a farfetched or unpopular idea that the politicians come to steal money via corruption, lobbying, tax leeching, embezzlement, or the pillaging of other nations via war, and so on without them having a comeuppance. Whereas, as often as been the case, a pauper may steal a loaf of bread or a miniscule amount of money only to get some absurd prison sentence (but also face social shame among his class). The Slave does not even have the right or guaranteed means by which to satiate even his animal Desire; the Master comes to satiate both the animal Desire and Human Desire. When we find how the police apparatus always sides with Capital and the bourgeoise, the powers that be are quick to attempt to quell the calls to violence and looting by promising to hear the Slave out diplomatically—that is, without violence. Their grievances are meant to be transfigured into votes. These are lies. The Master is sly soothsayer. They do not recognize Slave. They will tell the Slave to be like a sheep but this favors the Master, the wolf, and this is understood by some by personal experience—without reading Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and so on. As time and time again shows, what is written by Kojeve and Marx to be right, that non-violence very often favors the ruling class (the one who builds and maintains a system by means of oppression and violence, direct or indirect). We can even go back to Rousseau, Hobbes, and the earlier political theorists where, not unlike Kojeve’s explanation, man is born free and yet man finds himself in chains everywhere. If we understand the “savage” (as Rousseau terms the yet-enchained human in the state of nature) as lacking reason (I personally would go about differentiating reason as civil society would have it—perhaps—the reason that comes about via the Human-I or Human Desire as opposed to the animal Desire), then we find:

 Were it true that commiseration were merely a sentiment that puts us in the position of the one who suffers, a sentiment that is obscure and powerful in savage man, developed but weak in man dwelling in civil society, what importance would this idea have to the truth of what I say, except to give it more force? In fact, commiseration will be all the more energetic as the witnessing animal identifies itself more intimately with the suffering animal. Now it is evident that this identification must have been infinitely closer in the state of nature than in the state of reasoning. Reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what isolates him and what moves him to say in secret, at the sight of a suffering man, “Perish if you will; I am safe and sound.” No longer can anything but danger to the entire society trouble the tranquil slumber of the philosopher and yank him from his bed. His fellow man can be killed with impunity underneath his window. He has merely to place his hands over his ears and argue with himself a little in order to prevent nature, which rebels within him, from identifying him with the man being assassinated.⁵

Reason here then, to me, appears to come about as a means to justify the Master’s position within civil society. The one who is often the furthest from the danger of being assassinated or robbed is not the Master but those not recognized by the Master. Instead, we have the Slave vying for recognition amongst the other Slave or the Slave simply vying to satiate the basic animalistic Desire (that is, basic subsistence and comfort). Those not quite desperately trying to meet their basic needs come to abide by what is given to him, pre-packaged, as reason or the notion of what is reasonable. Not stealing, the abiding of rules, and denial of what Rousseau would call passions or natural sentiment are thus reasonable within civil society and a “necessary” sacrifice for the social contract. Reading both Kojeve and Rousseau, the two seem more or less in agreement what is basically the subjugation of man and the bringing about of the Master-Slave dynamic.

Rousseau, not unlike Marx, also notes the role the division of labor contributes the inequality between men. What differs most is the terminology and their methodology, but I am sure you can pick out nuanced differences if we are to analyze more than just selections like how Rousseau focuses on what may be the origins of governance and the social contract. One notable thing Rousseau speaks about is how it is much more effective to bring about men into mental subjugation than physical subjugation. Law, morality, virtue, and morality prevent these men from undoing their subjugation or from fleeing subjugation. Those who come to benefit most and be the staunchest defenders of the subjugation of man and it is they who did and continue to defend some of the origins of the inequality of man: private property. “The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!” In various parts of the world, the complete enclosure and privatization of all things has yet to occur—though the bureaucratization and commodification of all things encroaches. Among the Rasta or, well, among many communities in the second and third world there still exist communities that hold things in common to some extent and the social bonds between people are not quite as atomized as they are in, say, much of the US, UK, and so on. In regard to the Rasta, most of their ideas and goals are not unlike the Marxists in the abolition of private property, capital, and the inequalities of man propped up by capitalism or civil society⁶. What we can see in the Rasta’s reggae are many biblical parallels to their current situation and how the people who seek to oppress and subjugate. Something worth noting is that the Rasta sometimes mention that their church is not inside a building but nature or the flora more generally. So, in saying “My father’s house of worship has become a den of thieves”, this includes not only the physical institutions that are churches but that these thieves have made a den on Earth. Jesus, in expelling the thieves (merchants) from the temple, is an exemplar and we should come to expel these thieves from the Earth. “Strike the hammer of justice or let my people be. They tells us of a heaven where milk and honey flows. Stealing in the name of the Lord. They say this place called Heaven. No rich man cannot go.⁷”

Figures like Moses and Jehoshaphat are invoked in such a way that their struggles are immediately relevant for the believer. Despite the poverty of Jamaica and the Rasta especially, we hear reverence given to Jehoshaphat who, becoming king of Judah, abolished the false idols and there seems to be the notion that false idols include money (the thing of Pluto). “Down in Jehoshaphat money will be scattered all over the land and no-one to pick it up.⁸” We could speak of money’s relationship to the political economy, labor-power, the labor theory of value, and so on that support the idea of money (or the flow of capital) being tied with various sins such as incontinence, fraud, exploitation, and murder. When we look toward protests in the world’s periphery like Rio Tinto in Serbia or the bauxite mining in Jamaica, the people are already very well aware that these businesses are not there on their behalf. To some extent, they are aware, “Capital is the growth of capital, but it can only accumulate by defrauding its sole benefactors, its “parents.” The more fully capital develops, the more massive its debt, and the greater the treason. This treason is nowhere more clearly manifested than in capital’s apocalyptic wastefulness. Capital does not merely steal from the workers; it undermines the very sources of its productivity, squandering the earth and the workers from which it draws strength. Capital is a traitor to its kin, a fratricide and a matricide, rightly placed in Cocytus alongside Cain.”⁹ However that may be something to expand upon another time. The connections that can be made here can support this disdain toward money and making Earth, the peoples’ church, a den of thieves and how the Slave (without autonomy or the sort of capital the Master comes to have) yearns to abolish or sublate (aufheben) the circumstances the Slave finds himself in: a state in “which man is humiliated, enslaved, abandoned, and despised.” In other words, to transform the sighs and groans of the oppressed into the actualization of happiness — real happiness.  McKinnon in quoting Max Horkheimer, “the concept of God was for a long time the place where the idea was kept alive that there are other norms besides those to which nature and society give expression in their operation . . . Religion is the record of the wishes, desires and accusations of countless generations."¹⁰ Those of not just the Christian faith are often situated, ideologically, in favor or opposition of the idea that they should pursue, essentially, the immanentization of the Kingdom of God (read: actualization of happiness and doing away with what we may call oppression or giving back autonomy to the Slave as well as that longing for justice to be done on Earth). Or sometimes the manner by which a religious group wants to seek change varies. For some, like the Rasta and many other Christian groups, violence is rarely (if ever) an option. I could go on but I would like to tie this back to people can come into faith like Simone Weil did.

Being brief, Weil after going about doing factory work for some months and goes to Portugal to witness a procession to honor a patron saint of fishing villagers that she writes “the conviction was suddenly borne in upon me that Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of slaves, that slaves cannot help belonging to it, and I among others.”¹¹ In her experience in the factory work too, she finds that such an experience, perhaps surprisingly or paradoxically, makes a person docile and prevents thinking. If such an experience is found to be common among the working class, it may be no surprise as to more people do not go about breaking their chains, so to speak. The oppressive atmosphere and condition the industrial worker finds himself in bondage or slavery (slavery is the word used in my translation of her anthology). This type of atmosphere is one of many that brings one into real sense of bondage and oppression and “the condition of the workers is one in which the hunger for purpose that is the very being of all people cannot be satisfied except by God… Nothing separates them from God.” “Echoing Marx’s materialistic conception of religion giving expression to real, concrete suffering and being a protest against it, of “religion [being] the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions,” Horkheimer stated that religion was originally the expression through which suffering humanity gave voice to their cries and longing for justice.¹²” Paralleling man’s condition with religious narratives, I think, make it make sense how people come into faith. This is something neglected by those like Dawkins because it is not scientific and the cause for belief, to him, is enough to dispel the need to believe. This cannot be so, so long as Slave is and even then, faith would likely be around—people come to believe for a variety of reasons and suffering is only one of them.

The Jews, who had sang the Psalms through the millennium, knew that all too often they themselves were counted as sacrificed to the sword of barbarians, to the torture chambers, to the funeral pile. However, rather than renounce the love, exuberance, and praise of God, who will finally rescue the just of all nation, they calculated their own dead, their own people, individual as well as the collective, among those who had been punished.¹³

Songs that have similar content or sentiments had in Psalms can be found throughout the world but here I will focus on Rasta reggae and the music of Seun and Fela Kuti reflect, I think, this continued expression of love as well as real suffering among the oppressed—with, of course, an emphasis on the African’s plight. Many of the songs Seun Kuti has as well as various songs by the Rasta manage to bring me to tears as the emotion of loss and the counting of the dead is made audible in a sense. Seun Kuti’s African Dreams makes many references to the many attempts by Africans to bring about positive change in their countries. Thomas Sankara, Lumumba, and the many dead as a result from oppression and exploitation. “We must dream for the victims of aggression, we must dream for the dying children, we must dream for the victims of oppression, we must dream for the suffering children… What if Sankara never dreamed for me? What if Lumumba never dreamed for me?” Mortimer’s Misery, or most Rasta reggae, are meant to imitate Biblical scripture whether it be like Psalms, Lamentations, or Revelations. The former two, representing the suffering and strife, most often, where Revelations, in both the Bible and when echoed in the reggae, are representative of this longing for justice down on the behalf of the downtrodden onto the oppressor.

Say me no dig them kind of wicked men

Fo me no find righteousness

All I see is dread dread wickedness

Everybody beat down Babylon

Everybody whip them wicked men

Whip them, whip them…”¹⁴

Though some believe in diamonds and pearl,

And feel like they’re on top of the world,

They shall fade away, hear what I say.¹⁵

Computers, Warmongers, dem shoot us dem loot us.

Pharaoh river is blood.

And my bed is stone.

While they sit pon throne.

We have to struggle for our own people.

King Rastafari.

Is the most high.

He leads I.¹⁶

This leads me to conclude with summarizing Michael R. Ott’s Solidarity Through Compassion in that it is through this shared suffering the most of us come to share on the Earth and the antagonistic, solipsistic, and alienating conditions of bourgeoise society that we come to long for a non-antagonistic society. “The consciousness of shared human suffering and the solidarity that it can produce is the catalyst for what Horkheimer called “original human interest” to create a better, more reconciled future society… It is from this consciousness of shared suffering and the finitude of all worldly things that the radicalized religious notion of the Infinite One or totally Other is understood and expressed by Horkheimer.”¹⁷

1. Though, being somewhat familiar with Marx, Lenin, and so forth, I do recognize that from the Marxist perspective, that by not quite examining, say, class antagonisms, contradictions, material analyses, and such we may come to similar conclusions but then there are nuances to be had in such a way that these less methodological explanations and conclusions are left wanting or lack an edge.

2. Kojève Alexandre et al., Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 15.

Kojève Alexandre et al., Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 19.

3. Anti Christ By Yabby You and The Prophets

We must remember that the Rasta in particular make about 1-5% of any of the Caribbean islands and the governments or general public have a history of, well, oppressing them in a variety of ways; they are also very often outcasts and, visibly, not unlike the sanyasa of India. However, their songs and speeches are often made on the behalf of the oppressed even some of the factions of the oppressed oppress them.

The Slave is marked by his activity and the production of things made to be negated/consumed by the Master.

If voting with paper ballots were capable of meaningfully redefining the position of the Slave, voting would be illegal. If not the ballot, then the bullet is made necessary as Malcom made clear. I think, too, that voting would perhaps work if the Slave is recognized by the Master but this cannot be so unless the Slave vies and wrestles the Master into submission.

4. I would also like to note how the Rasta are known for altering the English language (sometimes referred to as a dialect with the name of lyaric or dread talk) to better reflect reality. You may hear a Rasta call money blindza (if I remember correctly) as a play on how money blinds ya. Downpression instead oppression as oppression holds one down instead of op (up). Politricks (or poly tricks) for politics for obvious reasons and so on.

5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Donald A. Cress, and David Wootton, Basic Political Writings Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, Discourse on Political Economy, on the Social Contract, the State of War (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2011), 54-55.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Donald A. Cress, and David Wootton, Basic Political Writings Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, Discourse on Political Economy, on the Social Contract, the State of War (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2011), 60.

6. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that the Rasta sometimes don’t quite view Marxists or communists in a positive light due to how Haile Selassie dies in prison because of the Marxist revolution within Ethiopia and how the Rasta do come to see Haile Selassie as another prophet on par with Jesus when he comes to stand for many things the Rasta do not stand for. This is partially explained by historical conditions that bring forth the Rasta and how their relationship to Ethiopia is not similar to that of a historian. Marcus Garvey said to look toward Africa where a new king shall be crowned and so it was so. However, the ability for the average Jamaican to understand not only the history of Ethiopia but Selassie himself was practically nonexistent. However, when Selassie visits Jamaica during a period of drought, his appearance seemed to have brought about much needed rain. Historical knowledge is not important here but what he symbolically comes to represent from their perspective is enough. While Marxism and intelligentsia in general (notably Marcus Garvey) existed in Jamaica, I am not aware of how far and deep reaching their influence was on the Rasta or otherwise aside from Garvey’s influence.

Stealing in the Name of Jah by Max Romeo and The Upsetters.

7. ibid.

8. Valley of Jehosaphat by Max Romeo

9. Warren S. Goldstein and William Claire Roberts, “The Origin of Political Economy and the Descent of Man,” in Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009), pp. 32-58, 46.

Warren S. Goldstein and Andrew M. McKinnon, “Opium as Dialectics of Religion,” in Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009), pp. 12-29, 26.

10. Warren S. Goldstein and Andrew M. McKinnon, “Opium as Dialectics of Religion,” in Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009), pp. 12-29, 25.

While I feel like I understand the condemnation of violence, I may always have doubts on whether the Leviathans (especially when made irate) can be put to sleep without violence. These Leviathans, in their half-slumber, are responsible for the deaths of many millions so that the flow of capital may continue to grow like the leeches upon the Earth they are and they have no qualms in hiring the death squads and assassins to kill our beloved Siegfrieds or our Archangel Saint Michaels.

The Living Philosophy, “The Living Philosophy of Simone Weil: Philosopher, Soldier, Saint,” of Simone Weil: Philosopher, Soldier, Saint (The Living Philosophy, November 25, 2021), https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/p/the-living-philosophy-of-simone-weil.

11. Simone Weil, Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. Siân Miles (London: Penguin Books, 2005), 249.

12. Warren S. Goldstein and Michael R. Ott, “The Notion of the Totally ‘Other,’” in Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009), pp. 122-150, 134.

13. Warren S. Goldstein and Max Horkheimer, “Psalm 91,” in Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009), pp. 115-120, 118.

14. Beat Down Babylon by Lee “Scratch” Perry.

15. Fade Away by Junior Byles

16. Nah Look Back - Rohan’s Straight Mix by Raging Fyah

17. Warren S. Goldstein and Michael R. Ott, “The Notion of the Totally ‘Other,’” in Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009), pp. 122-150, 139.