It seems the Chinese government is starting to understand that a political system with no real values is not healthy for people. The citizens of the country are increasingly developing a sort of nihilistic tendency. “Among the online youth, for example, ‘sang culture’ (roughly the equivalent of “doomerism” in the West) has proliferated.”

To combat a lack of spirituality in their culture, the Communist party is turning to Marx to inspire. From People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist party:

Recalling the “warmth” he still feels after finishing this study of Marx, a “warmth [that] comes from spiritual excitement, spiritual joy,” the reviewer concludes with an account of the “deep sense of inner satisfaction and happiness” he has gained, before declaring himself, with the cry of a convert, “a Marxist believer!”

The piece notes that these pronouncements sound more like they come from mid-2000’s American Evangelical Christians than Chinese Communists. The party recognizes, though, that they need to combat the malaise that their culture has engendered.

This has kicked off a scramble, led by top Party political theorist Wang Huning, to “create core values” to fill this uncomfortably God-shaped societal hole with the comforts of a synthetic ideological alternative.

It remains to be seen if the Chinese can be spiritually fulfilled by Marxist theory, which is still purely materialist.

→ The CCP gets religious about Karl Marx | The Post

Via social.ayjay.org