believe me good will come

Leo Tolstoy – The Kingdom of God is Within You

One sometimes wonders what necessitated the corruption of Christianity which is now the greatest obstacle to its acceptance in its true significance. VII

[N]o honest and serious-minded man of our day can help seeing the incompatibly of true Christianity – the doctrine of meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and love – with government, with its pomp, acts of violence, executions and wars. The profession of true Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognising government, but even destroys its very foundations. X

The position of Christian humanity with its prisons, galleys, gibbets, its factories and accumulation of capital, its taxes, churches, gin-palaces, licensed brothels, its ever-increasing armament and its millions of brutalized men, ready, like chained dogs, to attack anyone against whom their master incites them, would be terrible indeed if it were the product of violence, but it is pre-eminently the product of public opinion. And what has been established by public opinion can be destroyed by public opinion – and, indeed, is being destroyed by public opinion. XI

The condition of Christian humanity with its fortresses, cannons, dynamite, guns, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, churches, factories, customs offices, and palaces is really terrible. But still cannons and guns will not fire themselves, prisons will not shut men up of themselves, gallows will not hang them, churches will not delude them, nor customs offices hinder them, and palaces and factories are not built nor kept up of themselves. All those things are the work of men. If men come to understand that they ought not to do these things, then they will cease to be. XI

[T]here can only be a semblance of ethics in which murder in the shape of war and the execution of criminals is allowed, but no true ethics. The recognition of the life of every man as sacred is the first and only basis of all ethics. XII

The doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth has been abrogated by Christianity, because it is the justification of immorality, and a mere semblance of equity, and has no real meaning. Life is a value which has no weight nor size, and cannot be compared to any other, and so there is no sense in destroying a life for a life. Besides, every social law aims at the amelioration of man’s life. What way, then can the annihilation of the life of some men ameliorate men’s life? Annihilation of life cannot be a means of the amelioration of life; it is a suicidal act. XII

Share all you have with others, do not heap up riches, do not steal, do not cause suffering, do not kill, do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you, all that has been said not eighteen hundred, but five thousand years ago, and there could be no doubt of the truth of this law if it were not for hypocrisy. Except for hypocrisy men could not have failed, if not to put the law in practice, at least to recognize it, and admit that it is wrong not to put it in practice.
      But you will say that there is the public good to be considered, and that on that account one must not and ought not to conform to these principles; for the public good one may commit acts of violence and murder. It is better for one man to die than that the whole people perish, you will say like Caiaphas, and you sign the death sentence of one man, of a second, and a third; you load your gun against this man who is to perish for the public good, you imprison him, you take his possessions. You say that you commit these acts of cruelty because you are part of the society and of the state; that it is your duty to serve them, and as landowner, judge, emperor, or soldier to conform to their laws. But besides belonging to the state and having duties created by that position, you belong also to eternity and to God, who also lays duties upon you. XII

– from Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion But as a New Theory of Life (first published in 1894).

[you can read the whole book online here, though it's probably easier on your eyes to borrow the actual book from the library...]

Herbert Marcuse - One Dimensional Man:

The distinguishing feature of advanced industrial society is its effective suffocation of those needs which demand liberation – liberation also from what is tolerable and rewarding and comfortable – while it sustains and absolves the destructive power and repressive function of the affluent society….

The intensity, the satisfaction and even the character of human needs, beyond the biological level, have always been preconditioned….

We may distinguish both true and false needs. “False” are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression….

Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and to hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs.

Such needs have a societal content and function which are determined by external powers over which the individual has no control….No matter how much such needs may have become the individual’s own….no matter how much he identifies himself with them and finds himself in their satisfaction, they continue to be what they were from the beginning – products of a society whose dominant interest demands repression….

The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. The very mechanism which ties the individual to his society has changed, and social control is anchored in the new needs which it has produced….

The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood. And as these beneficial products become available to more individuals in more social classes, the indoctrination they carry ceases to be publicity; it becomes a way of life. It is a good way of life – much better than before – and as a good way of life, it militates against qualitative change.

Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behaviour in which ideas, aspirations, and objectives that, by their content, transcend the established universe of discourse and action are either repelled or reduced to terms of this universe.

The reign of such a one-dimensional reality does not mean that materialism rules, and that the spiritual, metaphysical, and bohemian occupations are petering out. On the contrary, there is a great deal of “Worship together this week,” “Why not try God,” Zen, existentialism, and beat ways of life, etc.

But such modes of protest and transcendence are no longer contradictory to the status quo and no longer negative. They are rather the ceremonial part of a practical behaviorism, its harmless negation, and are quickly digested by the status quo as part of its healthy diet….

All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual’s own.

- from Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), pp. 4-5, 7, 9, 12, 13-14, 256-7.