(by Midnight Freemason Contributor WB Darin A. Lahners)
One of the main unspoken rules of Freemasonry is the exclusion of discussion of politics and religion within the lodge room. This of course, is a very good thing. We should probably add discussion of sports to the list, depending on where you live and your local climate. Being in Central Illinois, I know that the discussions between Cardinals fans and Chicago Cub fans can become as heated, if not more so. My point being, where ever there can be space for a topic to cause discontent amongst the brethren, it should then be absent from a tiled lodge room. All this being said, I’d be willing to state that the majority of Freemasons that I know would fall into the right side of the political spectrum. I would state this because I either know them personally or can discern from their opinions posted on social media where they land. However, I think it might be a surprise to them that they belong to an institution which while not political, has a philosophy which is very similar to Socialism. Before I begin, I want to be clear that I am not arguing for Socialism, nor am I wanting to get into the economic theory of Socialism versus Free-market capitalism. I am merely postulating that at the heart of both Freemasonry and Socialism, there may be similar ideals.
It is pretty much taken as historical fact that Modern Freemasonry grew out of the Operative Mason Guilds which were formed during the middle ages. One of the core values of the guilds was egalitarianism, which broadly defined is “equal access to resources and to decision-making power”. Decision making was…
