Socialism, Democracy, Brazil, and Evil

Week of 10/19-24/2026:

Socialism & Democracy, Brazil, Evil

By the Daily Meditations Team

This is a summary of the previous week’s daily meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF) and some are written by his colleague, Gianluigi Gugliermetto. (GG) You can click on any title to view the DM in its entirety.

October 29, 2026: Karl Marx, Socialism, Susan Neiman & Meister Eckhart (MF)

Today the topic of “socialism” is becoming more prominent in mainstream political discourse. And so, we will reflect on Meister Eckhart’s significant teachings on that topic.

Several years ago, Matthew published a substantive article of 33 pages and 100 endnotes on “Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx: The Mystic as Political Theologian.”* Eckhart scholar Reiner Schürmann says: “To a healthy number of Marxists, Meister Eckhart appears as the theoretician of the class struggle in the Middle Ages.” The last talk Catholic monk Thomas Merton ever gave was titled “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives.”

Eckhart insists that the spiritual journey culminates in a return to the world—not a flight from it. “In contemplation you serve only yourself, in good works you serve many people.”

Understanding Democratic Socialism

Understanding Democratic Socialism. Video by Act.TV.

October 20, 2026: Karl Marx and Meister Eckhart, “Mystic of the Left,” cont’d (MF)

Eckhart proposed three actions for resisting injustice and spreading justice. The first is to reject the “merchant mentality.” The second is to hold up humanity’s nobility. The third is to struggle for justice.

Said he: “As long as we perform our works for the sake of salvation or of going to heaven, we are on the wrong track.” Therefore we should work without a “why or wherefore.” We are to love for the sake of love and do justice for the sake of justice.

Eckhart teaches that “compassion means justice” and justice is integral to spirituality. Eckhart wrote an entire treatise on how everyone is noble or an aristocrat. That did not sit well with the bankers, bishops and aristocrats of the day.

October 21, 2026: Eckhart on Equality, Democracy, Mysticism & Justice (MF)

Marx talked about changing the world rather than gazing at it. Eckhart agreed. He invited all to give birth, to beget, to create, to change and be changed. Like Marx, he is action-oriented. Eckhart says that we need to “practice equality in human society.”

If we are brothers and sisters in one God, then we are all equals. This is the springboard for compassion. Eckhart advises: You are to love, esteem, and consider all people like yourself; what happens to another, be it bad or good, should be for you as if it happened to you.

Eckhart does not limit the dignity of personhood to white people or men or men with property, as did Jefferson in practice if not on paper. Thus Eckhart, writing 450 years before Thomas Jefferson, has a far broader understanding of democracy than he did.

Equality in Diversity. Photo by Amy Elting on Unsplash

October 22, 2026: Brazil on the Edge (GG)

Recently, GG watched the documentary, The Edge of Democracy, which describes recent events in Brazilian politics. Brazil has been on the edge of a new totalitarian regime for a while. Most people don’t seem to remember the horrors of the military junta (1964-1985).

The risk is very high now if current president Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva loses the runoff election against Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, scheduled for next Sunday.

In 2023, not willing to leave power, Jair Bolsonaro staged a storming of the parliament and even an assassination attempt of legitimately elected Lula. Bolsonaro is now serving a long sentence, but few doubt that if his son gets elected, he will be out the next day.

The edge of democracy means also the edge of decency. Surely the power of evil is not metaphorical in our times.

October 23, 2026: The Opposite of the Holy (GG)

In light of all that has been happening these past several years, Matthew Fox has brought the discussion of evil into public discourse. In his book, TRUMP AND THE MAGA MOVEMENT AS ANTICHRIST: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time, he says: I have come to realize that the opposite of evil is not the good. Bad is the opposite of good. The opposite of evil is the sacred, the holy.

A recovery of the sacred is key to working through evil. Augustine once defined evil as “the absence of good.” But this definition of evil seems to misrepresent certain important characteristics of evil, namely its huge capacity for destruction, its cunningness, its deceit, and even its sadism.

Confrontation of Good and Evil, Virtue and Vice. French tapestry, ca. 1505. Photo by Wuselig. Wikimedia Commons.

October 24, 2026: Evil as an Archetype (GG)

In the 1990s, Matthew wrote: Perhaps the reality of our time was best summarized in a sentence by J. Robert Oppenheimer, when the first atomic blast was successfully detonated in the New Mexico desert: “Now we know evil,” he said.

GG reflects: It seems to me that we have devolved (since then), rather than evolved. Thus it becomes necessary to relearn how to recognize evil.

The Christ/Antichrist archetype defines a personality with messianic qualities—a great leader with huge appeal, but such an archetype is embodied in the good by people like Jesus, and on the dark side by people like Trump. You cannot find a starker opposition in life than between those two.

Recognizing the presence and the power of any archetype is essential to keeping its power in check. Thus naming MAGA as Antichrist, and helping as many people as possible to see it as such, is the only way to help the world wake up.

* Matthew Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 166-168, 183.