The Washington Examiner looks at a recent John McWhorter analysis of wokeness as a religion. Part of McWhorter's approach is almost getting to be old-hat: the equation of woke frenzy with other anti-intellectual fundamentalisms. One part that caught my eye was his observation that wokeness appeals to our deep need to silence a nagging conscience.
My own view is: beware any creed that soothes your conscience without changing your own behavior. There's a reason the communion prayer includes the request to guard us from the temptation to seek solace only, and not strength, or pardon only, and not renewal. In my experience most of us are in an almost ceaseless quest to find the magic elixir that numbs pain, whether it's drunkenness, rage, power, security, or the many distractions of hedonism. Without ever having been much attracted to Eastern mysticism, I do appreciate the directive of Buddhism to pay attention and respect to what is actually happening here and now, no matter how distressing, not papering it over with fluff. What can't be cured must be endured, but what can be cured should be. If it needs to change, change it, stop wishing it away or hoping someone else will pay the price to alter it. In short, spend your own treasure on whatever you claim is bothering you.
3 comments:
One can make a case that wokeism doesn't provide any soothing for conscience. (I haven't read McWorther's book but I read the rough drafts he posted on SubStack, and I recall that he specifically identifies this.) There doesn't seem to be any point where you have sufficiently renounced your privilege, or done enough anti-racism work to be called not a racist. There is a certain degree of similarity with the Christian tradition of daily repentance but even then there's no other worldly reward, unless you conjure up some cosmic exultation that will take place when 'systemic racism' is ended.
It seems a lot more like the selling of indulgences, granting pre-package forgiveness for doing things the woke were already doing, like buying free-trade coffee or voting for Democrats.
Yes, continual repentance without the hope of redemption.
It is a heresy that takes the harshest aspect of double predestination (reprobation without hope for salvation) but strips away the possibility of election (salvation). All are reprobated, even [victim group member here] if he or she rejects any of the current teachings of Wokeness, or errs in the future as standards change. Election is never permanent.
I'd love to see what Augustin of Hippo, Jean Calvin, and John Knox would do to some of the acolytes of the woke-heresy. I have a mental picture of Augustin chasing them, whapping the slower ones with his bishop's staff. (Not kind or charitable, but entertaining to consider.)
LittleRed1
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