Phillip Eger, my EVC podcast co-host, wrote the following in a religious Facebook group post that asked the question, “What books do you accept as scripture?”. I set him up with, “Phillip Eger would say everything that comes from the mind of man. All are portals to the unconscious mind, where the true god can be found.” His response:
To defend my position mentioned by Skyler, I have found reading/watching all media as if it is scripture makes the experience much more enjoyable, profound, and beneficial.
For example, I watched Guardians of the Galaxy this way, and walked away with a profoundly meaningful allegory for healing after a traumatic life event.
Everything can be an allegory, and the most useful allegories move you to a greater state of well-being. I’ve just noticed that this is possible with just about everything. Even fad diets have an underlying symbolic narrative that can point to something even more useful than the diet.
There is danger in taking things that ought to be allegorically understood and making them literal. Karl Marx’s idea of the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat is reductionist, volatile, and deadly when applied literally. Communism killed millions.
But allegorically, it is a really good metaphor at describing the conscious mind (owner class) and its interaction with the unconscious/body (working class). It is especially illuminating to think about it specifically as an allegory for what was happening within Marx himself!
Think about it. He was an intellectual with terrible eating habits and poor hygiene. Big fat sloppy bastard who worshiped his mind at the expense of his body. His ego, what we call ‘me’ or ‘I’, was taking full credit for his ideas, while totally neglecting the body that kept him alive while working on his writings.
Allegorically, his conscious mind/ego was the owner of the factory, and it had exploitative, dangerous and horrible conditions for the workers. Read about his death, and you will see that the workers eventually unionized and overthrew the factory, leaving the factory in ruins after 64 years of operation.
If he had understood and lived [communism] as an internal principle instead of an external mandate, there could have been an entirely different world map than the one we have today. There are real consequences to taking literally that which ought to be allegorical. I play it safe and consider it all allegory.
…and that’s how you make The Communist Manifesto into scripture.
Quite thought provoking.
Skyler.
