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No Matter Who Denies it, Wokeism is a Religion
For years we’ve likened “wokeism” to religion; some people have even called Wokeism a religion. But it’s time to stop skirting around the issue for a number of reasons. We need to call Wokeism what it is and not only describe how it is a religious practice, but how it must be banished from our culture. In particular, the workplace is an excellent place to begin this attack not only on moral grounds but through the legal system.
To begin, what qualifies Wokeism as a religion? Here’s one description from US Border Patrol and Customs Protection:
For purposes of Title VII, religion includes not only traditional, organized religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, but also religious beliefs that are new, uncommon, not part of a formal church or sect, only subscribed to by a small number of people, or that seem illogical or unreasonable to others. An employee’s belief or practice can be ‘religious’ under Title VII even if the employee is affiliated with a religious group that does not espouse or recognize that individual’s belief or practice, or if few – or no – other people adhere to it. Title VII’s protections also extend to those who are discriminated against or need accommodation because they profess no religious beliefs.
Religious beliefs include theistic beliefs (i.e. those that include a belief in God) as well as non-theistic ‘moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.’
(Italics are mine.)
Wokeism can also be defined in more specific terms, although further explanation of these examples (which appear in italics) might be helpful I have only included the most obvious criteria listed in the original article:
- Belief in something sacred (for example, gods or other supernatural beings). The tenets of Marxism and aspects of socialism are held as sacred.
- A distinction between sacred and profane spaces and/or objects. Churches, statues of the Founders, and even the Constitution are held in contempt and considered profane.
- Ritual acts focused on sacred spaces and/or objects. Riots, attacking the police, burning down government buildings, removing statues could be seen as condoned ritual acts.
- A moral code believed to have a sacred or supernatural basis. White supremacy is to be condemned, as is racism.
- A worldview, ideology, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of individuals therein which contains a description of an overall purpose or point of the world and how individuals fit into it. Any white person is an oppressor, any person who is not white is part of the victims’ group.
- A more or less complete organization of one’s life based on this worldview. We see the obsession with Wokeism demonstrated on social media and in the workplace; relationships have been lost in support of these views.
Any questions? Wokeism fits quite comfortably into our own government’s definition of religion. But how does that interfere with activities in the workplace? It’s called discrimination.
If you consider all the training sessions on critical race theory, white fragility, white supremacism, including efforts to shame those who don’t bow down to these wokeist beliefs, we can clearly see those forced activities as acts of discrimination. And what about the bans for people who post opinions on social media that contradict Wokeism? Those employees are harassed, threatened, and mocked for not only holding those beliefs but for posting them for all the world to see. Role-playing in training and other activities that employees must participate in are another method of intimidation; anyone who refuses is, at the very least, avoided, and at worst, could be fired.
It’s called discrimination on the basis of religion.
Many people miss the evangelical side of Wokeism. People are celebrated for bringing people into the community, the more, the merrier.
When secularism came to dominate our culture, it wasn’t sufficiently powerful enough to substitute for religion:
Wokeism offers everything that secularism failed to provide, and has quickly filled the God-shaped hole in our culture. It purports its version of truth, justice, righteousness, sin, and judgment. It provides its adherents meaning, with its meta-narrative of societal conflict, power struggle and the struggle for redemptive freedom. The tearing down those oppressive power structures helps give purpose to the individual and the collective. There is a strong communal aspect, and people feel like they are part of something greater than themselves. Also inherent in this ‘social progress’ is the hypothetical future utopian society liberated from the evils of the current oppressive system. Most of all, however, Wokeism offers what every sinful human heart deeply longs for, and that is moral justification. People believe they are acting justly within the world, and being fair, sometimes they are. But often, all that they are doing is mere posturing, or worse, destructive.
It almost makes you want to join up, doesn’t it?
One last point: there are religious people who participate in the Wokeist agenda, but apparently don’t realize they are betraying their religions of origin. Attributes like tolerance, generosity, compassion, and truth, just to name a handful, are irrelevant in this community. I suspect that many try to ignore, or don’t even realize, the cognitive dissonance and contradictions that arise.
* * * *
So what can be done to stop this oppressive and unconstitutional movement? First, we must speak up—not just complaining—but tell the businesses that have hired us that what they are forcing on employees is not only immoral but illegal. Employees must find out who the others are who are prepared to act against the employers and then act. Then, as Vivek Ramaswamy states, we must take it to the courts. We have to rally every sympathetic organization to fund lawsuits and represent us against the corporate suppressors. When enough businesses realize that we are serious (and it could cost them a bundle of money), they will begin to realize that a strategy that they thought would endear them to the country is backfiring on them.
It will be one major step to taking back our culture and our lives.
Published in Culture
Good then as a traditional Catholic I can put them to the sword and burn down their churches, i.e., government buildings.
If Wokeism is a religion, then doesn’t freedom of religion apply to Wokeism?
You and John McWhorter agree. The subtitle of his book “Woke Racism” is “How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.”
Of course. But employers can’t force it on people in the workplace.
Indeed. I haven’t read his book but I will. Thanks.
Read what Webster says, but when you use the word “sacred” (as in Marxism is sacred), how do YOU understand the term? Do you think Marxists would agree? Or Wokeists?
They wouldn’t even agree with our calling it a religion! But Merriam Webster provides these definitions of sacred:
: dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deityb: devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose)a fund sacred to charity2a: worthy of religious veneration : HOLYb: entitled to reverence and respect I think that those I’m talking about would agree with the devotion to Marxism, as well as the veneration and respect of it. But we could argue about that. They certainly do not allow others to contradict their ideas or allegiance. Remember, just like any religion, your adherents can vary in their devotion and intensity, too.
this is an excellent point!
You wanna bet? See link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/top-med-schools-weed-out-applicants-who-dont-support-dei-new-report-says/
I want to think this through. Thanks for the response, Susan.
If we adopt the view that Wokeism is a religion, then we can’t “banish” it from our culture. It would have to be protected as a religion, I suppose. Would the Woke get to demand religious accommodations? What would those accommodations be? I just don’t know how this would work.
Part of Wokeism seems, to me, to include anti-white racism. Will that be protected? Will Wokeists be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, against whites, as a religious accommodation?
This would implicate the 1st Amendment Establishment and Free Exercise Clause issues, as well as various anti-discrimination statutes.
I should add that I’m skeptical of current Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and of anti-discrimination law in general. I don’t think that these are likely to change in the near future, though, so I’d like to understand the implications of treating Wokeism as a religion under current law.
Yes, but it also applies that the state shall not establish a religion and that it does not belong in the schools.
This is a totally bizarre response by this doctor! I will point out that these were prospective doctors; it’s probably better to find out in advance the mindset of the university than after they are hired. I would also say that doctors will have to carefully screen schools before they apply. There is now a website–criticalrace.org that is accummulating data on medical schools, military academies and K-12 private schools to find out who is practicing this nonsense.
But if Woke becomes a religion, then various company sponsored training sessions become proselytizing.
Heh.
Correct. We can’t technically banish it from our culture, but it should be banned from the workplace culture. And I think the “accommodations” is a crock. There is no excusing discrimination–period. Note that for the most part my OP addresses the workplace. That allows for a narrower approach.
You may laugh, but that is precisely the point!
Remember that Wokeism is not yet calling itself a religion–we are, to protect our own freedoms.
I totally disagree.
Wokeism is a cult, not a religion. And calling it a religion is an insult to religions.
Certainly cults adopt religious practices. But still…
It is in the forming of current law that Christianity was removed from public life. Is there anything saying the left can’t be damned by their own creation?
Sorry. My laugh definitely needed to be more evil.
BWahHAHahahahaha!
Someone somewhere called it a Christian heresy. That was interesting. It’s not too far off, either.
I can understand your taking offense, Don, but here’s one definition of a cult:
A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
I would also add that in my experience, cults take extreme measures to isolate their members and demand members give up independent resources (like their own money to the cult). There are “good” religions and “bad” religions. Some of the sects within a religion vehemently disagree with each other. But all are religions.
McWhorter is a Chad. Even when I disagree with him, I’m impressed.
Now here’s an interesting thought: what if mainstream America insisted on calling Wokeism a religion (which they will hate and deny) but we acted accordingly, given that they are trying to force their religion on the workplace?
Seems to me that the remedy is to ake advantage of the “just as strongly held” bits and consecrate secular conservatism as deserving at least as much or more protection as that afforded to Woke-ism.
This would interest me greatly. As an agnostic/atheist, I cannot qualify for a religious exemption to the coof shots, but there’s a moratoriaum on enforcing shots (on pain of unemployment etc) for those who filed religious exemption “requests”.
Perhaps the trick is to re-frame it as “Title VII” exemptions, using some of the phrasing from the USCBP thing above.
oooh, I like it! Seriously, we must be creative about approaches and solutions!
I’m not offended. I’m not actually very religious; I refer to myself as an “informal Christian”.
But it seems to me that the foundational element of religion is the personal relationship between man and his Creator, and the rest follows; with variations in that belief, and variations in how it’s practiced.
And wokeism doesn’t seem to go anywhere near that foundational element.
These definitions seem to be obsessed with documenting the window dressing while skirting the foundational element.
In my opinion; I don’t actually have expertise here.
People accept or reject religions for all kinds of reasons, often related to their own beliefs and values systems. Some religions don’t include a creator(such as Buddhism, and possibly others). I think if you asked religious people about the list I provided, they might say it’s incomplete, but they would probably agree with most of it; I don’t think they’d call the points “window dressing.” As a Jew, I think it covers many of the bases.
It’s funny. I agree with everything you say except for your starting premise; which generally may be a definitional or linguistic disagreement, or simply a colloquial distinction for clarity’s sake; and which relies on the law for definition.
To me, “religion” always and necessarily involves the supernatural: an immaterial God or immaterial gods or godhead, or material super-humans, or an immaterial Spirit or spirits. But always supernatural. If it is not supernatural, it a is a personal philosophy or morality; atheism may tenuously be called a religion because it at least addresses (denies) the supernatural (and in some cases giving psychological or emotional allegiance to something that is not God — but fills a “God-shaped hole” — may be considered a replacement for God: money, power or prestige, or family, job, and station); but agnosticism and conviction of conscience are not religious, and are purely mental, as so is psychological function or dysfunction.
Induced Mass Psychosis, though I disagree with the use of each of these three words, and though to me it seems far-fetched, nonetheless may be the cause of what we are seeing, and at least there is a historical pattern to it that seems to repeat.
Also, you do use the words sacred and profane and refer to morality and briefly to the supernatural, but I think this is more others’ interpretation than the views of those who hold to Wokism.
As for “It purports its version of truth, justice, righteousness, sin, and judgment” this is simply a secular, natural (as opposed to supernatural) societal model robed in religious terms, and any thoughtless person can imagine it without accepting the divine.
And also, I think relying on legislators, the law, and lawyers is the last thing one should do to determine anything regarding morality, spirituality, religion, or the nature of the universe.
I agree with what you say, except that the spiritual and religion supersede human law, and are not definable or subject to description by the law, which itself is just created by legislators, who I suspect know little about such things and care about them even less.
Things spiritual and religion not only precede the law in human history, but supersede the law in importance. And so the law has no authority over defining or regulating things of conscience.
As for the technicalities of legal protection, Wokism could better be called a creed, which is also a protected characteristic of people.