Red Epistles

Letters among Friends / For the exorcism of every capitalist mediation / For the Sacramental Gemeinwesen

Exorcism Journal

Exorcism Journal is a planned theoretical project concerned with explicating a Catholic Communist project by synthesizing the traditions of the Church and the Communist Ultraleft. It should always be understood as contingent and nothing found here or within its pages can be understood as set in stone.

At the moment, Exorcism Journal is purely imagined. Our work has yet to begin. In lieu of our first issue, please enjoy these 14 Stopgap Theses, which we fear will have to suffice for now...

14 Stopgap Theses on the Class, the Party, and the Church

1. These theses are a stop-gap measure and do not define the project forever, but rather point towards an orientation for later explication.
2. Capitalism--by which we mean the totality of social relations and their forms of appearance in this period of history--expresses a threat to the human race, both directly and in it's so-called exigencies.
3. Capitalism began with the throwing out of a class of nothings, of those sans-reserves--the proletariat--from it's heretofore form of life and means of subsistence.
4. Thus unrooted, this class was made dependent on the wage, and thus on work.
5. In working, the proletariat is subjected to the laws of an alien deity: value. In working, the objects produced by the proletariat stand against it, appearing to be generated by Capital. On the market, these objects appear as commodities.
6. The only thing worse than working is being without work. This is the state of many proles today. Since Capital only values the proletariat insofar as it is the bearer of labor power, these proles are surplus to Capital. These abjects are imprisoned, shot, and/or left to die.
7. This state of affairs is unbearable to the proletariat. Throughout its existence, the proletariat has rebelled, attacked Capital in numerous ways, always making use of what was at hand.
8. This ceaseless antagonism, this long fight for exorcism, is what is meant, more or less by Communism.
9. Roughly 2000 years ago, Christ came down among the proletarii--the propertyless--of his time. He was born, died for us, and was resurrected. He left the Church in order to tend to his flock following his ascension.
10. While the Church has acted quite badly at times in carrying out her duties, it remains the instrument of God's work in human history.
11. We speak of two histories, that of the Party (those among the proletariat and its co-conspirators who are conscious of the movement of antagonism and who ally themselves with it) and that of the Church.
12. Our project is discern the relationship between the two. As members of that party which Marx tells us arises from the soil of capitalism and of that Church which arises from the soil of Christ's work, we have a personal interest in this project. As proles and humans, we have an objective interest in this project.
13. Capital claims the throne of Godhood--the ultimate idolatry. We are wreckers of idols. We are exorcists.
14. We hold with Christ: No Peace with the false gods of this world; Up with the sword!

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