Emma Goldman: “The Philosophy of Atheism”

Context

In thinking about Goldman’s essay, it is worth bearing in mind that philosophical writing is a conversation, not simply the statement of an independent conclusion. Goldman was engaged in a lively conversation with the events around her and also with the work of other philosophers. Like many radical thinkers in the nineteenth century, she reasoned in accord with the inversion of orthodox Christian theology proposed by the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872). This inversion includes the assumptions that God is a human construct and that not only have people made God in their image (an idea that can be traced back as far as the pre-Socratic philosophers) but they also make gods to compensate for shortcomings and explain what is found inexplicable.

“God,” as John Lennon would later write, “is a concept by which we measure our pain.” This is essentially the argument that Marx made in his critique of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1821). Goldman’s essay is rooted in the reaction to the Hegelian system identified with Marx and Feuerbach but also present in Bakunin, whose God and the State (1882) was a direct influence on Goldman. Like Marx, Goldman roots the concept of God in the true needs of real human beings while also defining religion as the process by which that concept is constructed. The concept of God is a product of religion, and religion is a response to human need: Thus, God is the product of a social process. The more needy humankind is, the more likely it is that religion will be put into play as a way to produce a god (or gods) that satisfies particular human needs. Religion, then, is a sign of human need, and the amelioration of human need reduces the necessity of religion.

This connection of religion with need partly explains the connection between atheism and radical politics. Goldman stands in a line of political radicals who were convinced that addressing the real needs of human beings would reduce the dependence of human beings on religion. The word dependence is critical. When Marx describes religion as the opiate of the people (an image close to those Bakunin used at about the same time), he classifies it as a painkiller—not a bad thing for a people in pain but a distraction if the cause of the pain is not addressed. Nineteenth-century radical political thought based on Feuerbach’s criticism of Hegel saw a danger of dependence in religion that could be exploited by the powerful to keep the mass of the people powerless. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) took this up in his dismissal of Christianity as weak, as a religion of slaves.

Marx, Bakunin, and Kropotkin saw religion as a means of political oppression as well as a sign of neediness because it encourages dependence. But they also viewed it as a means of oppression because it can serve as a distraction. Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century political radicals were particularly critical of Christianity because it promised a reward in another life that made this life important only as something to be endured. An attack on religion was understood as a way to turn the attention of suffering people to the cause of their suffering in this life.

European theorists, in particular, had reason to see both church and state as centers of power, and they often took up the “protestant” principle of resistance to global power as a way to make a space in which to exercise power locally. The tension between local and global permeated debates over organization and strategy that shaped radical movements in Europe and the United States, the movements within which Goldman’s thought developed.

The International Workingmen’s Association, the First International, was formed in 1864 as a response to the need for an organization of workers to confront the organized powers that oppressed them. It split in 1872 because there were irreconcilable differences over whether the power of the state could be harnessed by the oppressed against their oppressors. The split separated anarchists (including Bakunin) from Communists (including Marx) and both from syndicalists, who embraced communal organization but rejected the power of the state as inherently oppressive. Goldman was particularly attuned to the split, critical of Marx for his embrace of the power of the state while sympathetic to both anarchists and syndicalists.

In the United States, the radical thought of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is inextricably connected with the labor movement—which made questions of organization decidedly practical for workers struggling for a living wage and decent working conditions. The practical questions led to coalitions that had an impact on the political philosophy of the time. In Chicago, for example, radical theorists who saw reforms such as the eight-hour workday as cosmetic nevertheless lent their support to labor actions organized around “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what you will.” One such action targeted the McCormick Reaper plant and culminated in the Haymarket tragedy of May 4, 1886. An explosion near the end of a peaceful demonstration led to gunfire in which eight police officers and a number of civilians were killed. As a result, local anarchist and Socialist leaders were arrested (whether or not they had been present at the time of the explosion). Eight anarchists were tried and convicted; one committed suicide in prison, and four were executed on November 11, 1887. Goldman points to that date as the moment that inspired her anarchism and galvanized her political activities for the remainder of her life, as it did for many radical thinkers in the United States and abroad.

The period between the Haymarket tragedy and World War I was one of the most active in the history of labor organizing in the United States, encompassing the organization of both the American Federation of Labor in 1886 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. It was also a period of growth for progressive and radical political movements. Goldman played a significant role in both, often speaking on behalf of workers and tirelessly devoting herself to educating popular audiences on the philosophy of anarchism. It is within the context of that work that Goldman developed her philosophy of atheism, as presented in her lecture in San Francisco on July 29, 1915, which led to her publication of “The Philosophy of Atheism” in Mother Earth in February 1916.