Gnosticism is actually a pretty good metaphor for false consciousness in capitalism though. Like a lot of religions, I think it people are trying to explain their subconscious/intuitive sense of what's going on and lack the knowledge to do it in a way that maps well to reality. Like how people explain volcanos as angry gods or whatever.
They recognize they live in a spectacle where the real nature of things is obscured, but they don't recognize that it happens through political economy and extrapolate it to existence itself. I see a couple of factors here at least. On the one hand, a lot of people's context for this kind of thinking is religious and makes cosmological or metaphysical claims, so that's the kind of thinking they are used to. On the other hand, they "exist" primarily within the spectacle and in that sense a reverse version of gnosticism is almost literally true - they have an illusory existence within an ideological construct that masks their real material existence.
Isaac Wood
If we could fix our real material existence, would that solve all problems, though user? Many problems are due to exploitation, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The falling rate of profit makes porky need to find a new way of making a profit. This includes by encroaching into everyday life, monetising things that weren't before. Instead of going out with flesh and blood incarnated into the Evil cosmos friends, you go on facebook (you make the content, porky gets the ad revenue.) Instead of dating you wank off to porn (even on free tube sites moar ad revenue for porky.!) But would communism, getting rid of the profit motive, solve all problems? People would not longer be alienated from the fruits of their labour. But what about deep existential problems. One day you will die , no longer exist, sometimes the minds baulks at the idea. What is existence for? Science (including scientific socialism) is good at explaining why one thing exists in terms of another. But it's not good at explaining why anything exists at all, rather than nothing. It's these sort of puzzles that religion , whether orthodox or heretical, seeks to solve. Even though it started off as a slur, there's a case for being a "post modern neo-Marxist" , and rejected Marxism as a "grand narrative." Maybe we could copy the semi-Gnostic approach of Heidegger (but not copy his disastrous political choices ofc) and say we've Fallen into this world, we don't start from a philosophical blank slate, but we should reject the big picture and work on what it is we "care" for. Rick Roderick did a good lecture on this which I'll try to find.
t. illiterate nicene scattering propaganda out of his ass as always Are you done molesting children tho? Of course the gospel is for everyone, but not everyone is ready to understand the deeper meanings. Jesus spoke in parables and ended them with "ὁ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκουέτω". >Oh everybody else is a cult, but we, we are legit guys, trust us. We only kill everyone who dare to take our wealth and power away or simply disagrees with us. Even tho your kind had no other purpose than defend private property and brainfucking the poor and the ignorant in its entire history. Jehovah witnesses are the truest heirs of the church in this regard. Every good idea you took it from us, even scholastic was developed out of the urge to provide something that could be accepted by someone with a brain cell more than a rock has, and there's a reason why it came out in THAT time and in THAT city.
Gnosticism is the end of all religion, the ultimate de-spook.
eww
Gnosticism is completely consistent with materialism, there's even a gnostic text that says explicitly that "gods" (ideas) are made of hyle. If we could change the World by thought the Demiurge wouldn't be a problem.
