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‘Woke’ Activism Is a Dangerous Religion
So argues a new book by Daniel J. Mahoney, reviewed currently in City Journal by Gerald J. Russello. Philosophers have been seeking to replace the strictures of both religious faith and politics since the Enlightenment, and it seems that they have nearly achieved their project at last. The new faith does not have a formal name as yet, but several observers have described it as “Humanitarianism.”
Humanitarianism is itself a religion, and as Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule has argued, modern secularism has its own eschatology (the eternal overcoming of “hatred”), its own sacraments and holidays, and various prohibitions and commandments, usually centered around specific groups. Coupled with the rise of various would-be pagan religions and the cult of the self, these movements represent a retreat from rational reflection on politics.
That eschatology (meaning, the beliefs associated with The End, that is the ultimate destiny) should terrify us all, for it is unbounded by any goal, and barrier, or any moral lines. It simply latches onto the eternal defeat of “hatred,” which is a term that has been denuded of meaning, and now relegated to mean a failure to affirm any other person’s choices or self-definition, no matter how destructive. To fail to affirm is to “hate,” and to “hate” is to be an enemy of all.
But Humanitarianism infects more than one might suppose.
Augusto del Noce [wrote] that, with modernity, “everything becomes purely an object of commerce. This is symbolized by the disappearance of modesty; in the most elementary forms everything is reduced to ‘water, sleep, sex,’ falling, in short, into pure animalism.” Kolnai, too focuses on modesty and the range of intimate relationships that virtue was meant to regulate. For the humanitarian, living up to or in accord with virtue is unnecessary because virtue is unnecessary—the category implies that people may want something that is not good. “Humanitarianism,” explains Mahoney, “ultimately impairs human cognition, since a horizon that deifies undifferentiated ‘human needs’ has a hard time acknowledging the ‘unpleasant,’ the truly morally demanding dimensions of the moral life.” [emphasis my own]
Put another way, we have lost the ability to tell others that their very way of living is unvirtuous. The Left wants to affirm every self-definition one could invent (and label as oppressors those who refuse to affirm), while the Right is afraid of morally censuring anything that appears to be free commerce, even if such trades violate human dignity.
Socialism was difficult to oppose when it first achieved international popularity. It took decades for the horrors of socialism in practice, and the brutality it required, to be acknowledged, and few even today are willing to label Socialism as a religious belief system. But in time, Western Civilization did at least come to understand at some level that socialism was dangerous, and was able to oppose the worse expressions of it (even if now those memories of its horrors are fading again). Can Western Civilization rouse itself sufficiently to recognize this new cult? Time will tell. Perhaps it won’t and will fall into this new totalitarianism, or perhaps, enervated and disunited by the radical individualism therein, busy destroying itself in a vain attempt to defeat “hate,” it will be unable to oppose the other totalitarianism promulgated by China.
Regardless, we should all recognize that “Woke” politics may very well be foretaste of a new totalitarian secular cult.
Published in Politics
Skipsul – thank you for posting this – so much food for thought – wow!! The writing is on the wall – and the devil is paying attention….
This is an excellent post. Thank you.
I’ve long thought that there is a need to get a case in front of the Supreme Court that will require a definition of what constitutes a religion. Because I can’t think of a way to do so that will capture all of the major religions of the world that won’t also cover most of the beliefs systems of the left. And if you can’t teach religion in schools, then that should apply to everyone’s religion.
End the left wing indoctrination in schools, and you would be much closer to effectively fighting this kind of crap.
It is now even worse. Apple CEO Tim Cook has now defined opposing his way of living as “sin.” Meeke Addison made the point this past week on Airing the Addisons, that Christians conceded the word “hate” by shying away rather than rejecting the lie in righteous anger. Since “hate” was conceded, secular supremacists have moved on to “sin,” making themselves the morally good and faithful Christians the morally wicked.
The only solution is a full-throated public push back on both words, every day in every forum.
There is a massive flaw in this new religion. It preaches a lack of judgement, but enforces judgements ruthlessly on “haters” The only sin is to say there is sin. It demands unquestioning acceptance and celebration of all practices except those that involve any judgement.
But its practitioners are unlikely to notice. They keep getting caught in the human tendency to focus on the speck in someone else’s eye while ignoring the log in their own (see Matthew 7:3,4).
A very fine and insightful post.
I just ordered Mahoney’s book and I can’t wait to read it, thanks to your post. I read some of the sample on Amazon and it is a book for our day and time – it’s amazing to watch world events unfold so quickly, and this book puts it into perspective.
Wow. This entire paragraph is spot on.
This is an amazing article.
Isn’t this humanitarianism just humanism with a few more syllables?
No. It has instead a goal of eliminating hate and promoting a radical individualism. To eliminate “hate” it must defeat any moral systems that tell people they are wrong or immoral.
Sounds like humanism to me.
Edit: Should have said humanist.
Well done. Thanks, Skip.