Putting the Heart into a Heartless World (2011)

The Halo Halo! column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists understand why people accept religious ideas. What can be hard to understand though is the irrationality of some of the beliefs, or what they will do to back them up.

The idea of sin for example. As far as Christianity is concerned we are all sinners. By design. We’re born with it, whether we want it or not. We were created, apparently, by a god who wants us to be good, yet programmes us with ‘original sin’ at birth.  It’s all to do with Adam and Eve eating that apple in the Garden of Eden.

(But if god is all-knowing he must have known that Eve was going to eat the bloody apple – even before he created her. Why didn’t he create her with a bit more will-power?)

When it comes to wacky irrationality though, few are more irrational than Terry Jones in Florida. Jones is the Christian pastor, you remember, who put a Koran on trial in his church. After an eight minute hearing he found it guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to be executed – by being burnt. He has announced his plans to put the prophet Mohammed (who died in 632 AD) on trial next.

The outcome of this (at the time of writing) was that after 2 days of rioting in Afghanistan by Moslems who, in protest of Jones antics, decided to take revenge on Westerners, more than 20 innocent people have been killed (2 by beheading) and numerous more injured. Hopefully the Christian and the Islamic gods will be satisfied with the blood sacrifices made to them so far.

On a happier note it’s recently been announced that a thorn from Jesus Christ’s crown held at Stoneyhurst College (a Jesuit Boarding school in Lancashire) whose previous owners include King Louis IX of France and Mary Queen of Scots is to be displayed at the British Museum.

We know it’s a genuine thorn because according to the Catholic Encyclopaedia “two holy thorns are at present venerated, the one at St. Michaels Church in Ghent, the other at Stonyhurst College both professing, upon what seems quite satisfactory evidence, to be the thorn given by Mary Queen of Scots to Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland”.

“Quite satisfactory evidence” you see. You can’t argue with that.

The thorn from Stoneyhurst College, which is displayed in its own casket, comes complete with a string of pearls (also once owned by Mary Queen of Scots) entwined around it – well you understand, it’s not just any old thorn –  will be on display at the British Museum from 23 June until 9 October.

If you are unable to get there you may like to console yourself by taking advantage of The Socialist Party’s special offer.  Anyone taking out a subscription to the Socialist Standard this month will be entitled to a free whisker from Karl Marx’s beard. Like the Catholics and their thorn, we “profess upon what seems quite satisfactory evidence” that our supply of Charlie’s whiskers are genuine.

NW

Mixed Media: Ice Age Art (2013)

The Mixed Media Column from the September 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent exhibition Ice Age Art at the British Museum demonstrates what Marx called 'the vitality of primitive communities' in the Upper Palaeolithic era 12,000 to 50,000 years ago. It is widely believed that human beings in this period lived in 'primitive communism' where women were held in high esteem, sexual relationships were unregulated, and society was based on the maternal clan. Upper Palaeolithic Art includes carving, engraving, and sculpture in baked clay, bone, stone, reindeer antler, and mammoth ivory.

There are many depictions of the female form which as Evelyn Reed describes in Woman's Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family, in the matrilineal clan system of hunter gatherer communistic households there was a belief in women having superior magic, demonstrated by their ability to produce children, men were kept well away from child birth and may not even have known where babies came from. Bertell Ollman wrote 'for the greater part of human history the link between sexual intercourse and paternity was not even known'.

Woman of Willendorf is a 24,000 years old limestone statuette tinted with red ochre with large breasts and abdomen and a detailed vulva. Woman of Dolni Vestonice is a 30,000 years old baked clay (ceramic) statuette with large pendulous breasts, large abdomen and wide hips. Woman of Hohle Fels known as the 'Schwabian Eve' is made of mammoth tusk ivory and because of a perforated protrusion was probably an amulet. At 40,000 years old it is arguably the oldest discovered piece of figurative art.

Hohle Fels Flute is a 35,000 years old musical instrument perforated with five holes and made from the wing-bone of a griffon vulture. Lion Human of the Hohlenstein Stadel is a mammoth ivory lion-headed figurine 40,000 years old and in a modern experiment using the stone tools available then it took 400 hours to create this highly skilled carving. Swimming Reindeer, 13,000 years old, is carved from the tip of a mammoth tusk and depicts two reindeer swimming nose to tail probably on their way to mating grounds or winter pastures. Head of a Musk Ox is a rare limestone three dimensional sculpture 18,000 years old. Hooked Spear Throwers are 13,000 years old hunting implements to increase speed and the force of the throw, carved from reindeer antler in the form of a mammoth.

Ice Age Art is a fascinating glimpse into a period of early human history which ended with what Engels called 'the overthrow of mother-right [and] the world historical defeat of the female sex' and the rise of the patriarchal family, private property and the state.

Steve Clayton

Letter: Ice Age Art (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ice Age Art

Dear Editors

Thank you very much for forwarding the copy of the review (Mixed Media, September). It is great to read a piece in which the Marxist arguments are remembered and there are certainly excellent discussions to be had on these themes. More information on the topics mentioned can be found in the book that accompanied the exhibition. In both I tried to get away from the notion that these societies were ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ as this is the language of the nineteenth century used to place modern western Europeans at the top of the evolutionary tree. The language of Marx and Engels that pursues evolution from savagery to barbarism and then civilization also need to be brought up to date with modern knowledge. It also sought to avoid the concept of Rousseau’s noble savage that is also inherent in the Marxist approach.

Ice Age art shows the developing skills in language and communication that enable modern humans to form larger, successful communities with many forms of organisation. Hunter gatherer communities have to be collaborative to survive and as I say in the book, these people probably did have gender specific activities but without concepts of male/female superiority or measures of value for activities. Men and women served one world through different tasks. The breakdown of this comes with agriculture and the measured values for activities. The concept of Mutterrecht as fully expressed by Jung’s disciple Erich Neumann also needs to be used with care.

The elaborate ornaments in the exhibition also express ideas about personal and social identities, wealth and status that may have been politically, socially or spiritually hierarchical but as always it is difficult to be conclusive about the implications from the archaeological record.

There is as ever much to debate.

Jill Cook, 

Curator Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind, British Museum

Educational Visits (1935)

Party News from the November 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

1st and 3rd Saturdays each month (3 p.m., sharp). 

Nov. 2nd          British Museum         - Gilmac
                          Real Relics

Nov. 16th  S. Kensington         - Lestor
                          From Stone to Steel

Educational Visits continue to be well attended. Comrade Lestor attracted a big party to hear history about Westminster Abbey not given by vergers and official guides. Two hours passed quickly at South Kensington when some features of Evolution bearing on Socialism were objectively-illustrated. At the Victoria and Albert Museum, Comrade Devereux interested a big party (including many non-members of the S.P.) by her brilliant illumination of odd corners of the M.C.H. from such apparently intractable objects as wooden chairs and the Great Bed of Ware.

The Organiser will be grateful for comments, criticisms, etc., from those attending Visits.

Reginald