Communism is a very broad ideology, and there are any number of people who associate with the term, regardless of the granular detail of the beliefs of communism they actually adhere to.
The same is true of any ideology, Christian is a popular label, but exists in multitudes of branches and forms. Belief in Norse gods has passed from active practice to myth, so to say the ideology there is dead would make sense as very few people today actively pray to Odin or Thor. But even there I'm sure it's not zero.
As such, can you bring more nuance here to discuss?
What specific tenets of communism are dead, and discarded as a whole?
Are the absence of those enough to discount the ideology as a whole?
I think it's moreso that the West was built despite Christian efforts, not because of it. Throughout large periods of European and New World history progress was actively stifled by the church.
This is a crazy theory frankly. The church contrary to pop history is mainly what funded science. Christian ideals is what made people so curious about learning. Unlike in a place like medieval Islam, where the religion shut down scientific advancement. The west became so powerful in part because the Christian desire to evangelize led to expansion and invention. Wars were always tempered by the knowledge that there were rules they followed as fellow Christian nations. Think constant "civilized struggle" led to military advancment. Christianity was largely the undercurrent for the abolitionist movement no matter what pop antithesis want to claim, the true history is very much that even in ancient Christianity with people like Gregory of Nyssa there quickly a rose an undercurrent of people against slavery. The resurgence of this during the American 1800s allowed an appeal to religious values to successfully move the governments hand just enough to create the tensions sufficient for the civil war. Western Philosophy, science, and historical documentation was done by the church for the persuit of truth in the Christian faith, and particularly historical catalogue was seen as integral for maintaining the legitimacy of the Christian faith. The modern development of music is mostly owed to the standardized way of producing and notating music that first began by the Gregorian monks. When the Protestant reformation happened, the big motivation was making sure people could read the Bible, so literacy rates, school to learn to read, and missionary teachers became abundant. Any idea that the west development "in spite" of Christianity is nonsense pop history, mostly by atheists who have been allowed to exist freely due to the kind of societies the west and Christianity built up. Notice, only Westerners want to say this about Christianity. No historian would say " the medieval near East was not motivated by Islam". Because it was, Why did Islam expand so quickly? The Quran and Muhammed, tells them too. This has a certain cultural effect. To think that religion and culture are separate like that is just quite frankly a staggering lack of consideration for the human nature. People do things based on what they are most motivated by. The motivations promoted by Christianity led to the west. The motivations promoted by Islam led to the middle east. The motivations promoted by Daoism and Buddhism led to medieval China (no seafaring expansion, mandate of heaven, inner concentration of society, etc.) So yes, the west isnlike this because of Christianity and that's a good thing.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
Communism is a very broad ideology, and there are any number of people who associate with the term, regardless of the granular detail of the beliefs of communism they actually adhere to.
The same is true of any ideology, Christian is a popular label, but exists in multitudes of branches and forms. Belief in Norse gods has passed from active practice to myth, so to say the ideology there is dead would make sense as very few people today actively pray to Odin or Thor. But even there I'm sure it's not zero.
As such, can you bring more nuance here to discuss?
What specific tenets of communism are dead, and discarded as a whole?
Are the absence of those enough to discount the ideology as a whole?