Rejecting the impact of culture and traditions developed in any given society is not marxism but a vulgarization of marxism, and an efficient way of getting dismissed by the people.

This is the view that i have come around to accepting as well.

Coming from a scientific background for me this is ultimately a matter of pragmatism. We can have abstract ideological and philosophical debates all we want but what it really comes down to when we are considering whether to adopt a political line or a policy is this: will it advance the goals of the revolution or hinder them? Ultimately that is the most important thing because all further progress depends on the success of the revolution.

A correct line/policy is that which helps the cause of the revolution to succeed. An erroneous one does the opposite…whether we call it vulgarization or idealism or just ultra-left deviation (that is trying to advance socially and ideologically too far ahead of where the material and cultural basis of a society is currently at) is less important to me than what the practical result is in relation to the success of the revolution and the building of socialism.

The tricky part is that often we can only know what works and what doesn’t with the benefit of hindsight, which is why proceeding according to trial and error is important (China for example often does this by trying out new and experimental policies on a smaller local scale first before adopting the successful ones on a larger scale), but also studying and learning from past revolutionaries and their successes and failures.

I think most of us who live in America would say that Christianity absolutely does need to be rooted out of the culture because it is monstrous.

On a personal level i agree with you, but politically that is probably a non-starter. You have to work with the material you have in front of you, not the material you wish you had. The masses that form the basis of a revolution exist in a real cultural context and ignoring that reality is idealism.

I don’t know what the right answer is here, but it’s probably going to involve some sort of pragmatic compromise, otherwise your revolutionary movement will remain small, sectarian, insular, dogmatic and isolated from the masses. It goes without saying that this is a recipe for perpetual failure, and the bourgeois state knows this too which is why COINTELPRO has always strived to encourage that sort of narrow ideological dogmatism.

And before anyone misunderstands what i am saying, this does not mean that we should be tailing the masses. Absolutely we should continue to denounce the reactionary elements of our culture, because it is precisely these which are the biggest hindrance to waging a successful revolution (false consciousness, etc.).

Confucianism, being a philosophy and not a religion, really loses wiggle room that religions have in terms of benign beliefs

I’m actually inclined to give Confucianism more leeway because of this. Religions, especially theistic ones, are fundamentally anti-materialist, whereas an atheistic philosophy at least could be compatible with materialism (not saying that it is…again: i just don’t know enough about it).

It’s almost entirely things that have real, practical significance, like filial piety and ren (which are reactionary).

I am not a big fan of the whole “filial piety” thing myself, but then again i didn’t grow up in that culture. I’m sure if you asked Chinese communists many of them would disagree with your view that filial piety is necessarily reactionary. They might acknowledge some downsides but ultimately view it as a net positive.

I just think we could all do with a little more humility and not be so quick to dismiss other cultures’ mores just because they don’t align with our own cultural ideas of what it means to be progressive.

What matters is if it is actually actionably reactionary. Confucianism, being a philosophy and not a religion, really loses wiggle room that religions have in terms of benign beliefs like “mee-maw is looking down on me from Heaven” or whatever. It’s almost entirely things that have real, practical significance, like filial piety and ren (which are reactionary).

I think this is a very poor interpretation of confucianism. Confucianism as a political system, used by feudal rulers to enforce control over society, has been practically completed rooted out, and most of the reactionary elements you mention are more complicated than you make them seem… Are they reactionary? Maybe partially, but a respect for parents doesn’t mean that Chinese will take shit from the people raising them lying down, and likewise ren doesn’t mean they’ll let people walk over them. Confucius himself discussed these concepts in his original teachings, where you can clearly see that he gives different concepts to different students depending on their own situations, which I would argue ironically is the best approach to applying marxism to various movements today.