“wokeness” Part 1: – Neo Tribalism.

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“Wokeness”

A Conservative Christian Perspective.

Where things are at.

Modern Western culture has become decadent, inasmuch as its unrestrained self indulgence has capitulated a previously imperfect temperance, to an enthusiastic purveyance of libertine freedom, manifested by an insistence of publicly advancing “Cultural Marxist” causes, namely; homosexual “marriage”, abortion, and philosophical and political multiculturalism amongst others.

From the first centuries the church was involved in its own ventures for welfare, education, health, framing and shaping the laws of the West. “The roots of social welfare go deep into the soil of the Judeo-Christian tradition” 1Karger, A. & Stoesz, D. (2008). American social welfare policy: A pluralist approach. Boston: Pearson. p. 39 (Karger & Stoesz, 2008, p. 39) For almost two millennia Christians understood they were to be involved in these enterprises, because this is a way of understanding that people are made in the image of God. “The reason to care about the poor is not simply the reciprocal benefit of charity or obedience to the Old Testament laws, but one’s commitment
to God. One cares about others, especially the poor, not because it brings benefit but because that person in need is made in the image of God:“Whatever you do for one of the least of these, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).”2Poe, M., A. (2008). Good news for the poor: Christian influence on social welfare. In Hugen, B. & Scales, T., L. (2008). (Eds.), Christianity and Social Work (p.105-118) Botsford, CT: NACSW available at https://www.nacsw.org/Download/CSW/GoodNews.pdf (Poe, 2008, p. 65). It was in fact scripturally encouraged and mandated.

Along came Gramsci

Christianity, by its complacency and lack of courage, on the one part and not being able to predict what it’s enemies would do next, on the other, allowed the open ground for the “New Left” to come in with its Cultural Marxism, who understood that values are pivotal to all politics and human life.

“In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.” 3Cited in Damien Tudehope, “Whats Left of Western Culture? Just About Everything,” The Spectator, 9 October 2017, HTTPS://WWW.SPECTATOR.COM.AU/2017/10/WHATS-LEFT-OF-WESTERN-CULTURE-JUST-ABOUT-EVERYTHING/

Antonio Gramsci

Gramsci was probably the first to introduce and develop the idea of “cultural hegemony” which acquires its meaning from the Ancient Greek word hegemonia (ἡγεμονία)42. political supremacy, “ἡ ἡ. Τῆς ‘Ελλάδος” X.HG7.1.33; “παρ ἑκόντων τῶν ‘Ελλήνων τὴν ἡ. Ἐλάβομεν” Isoc.8.30; “ἡ. Ἡ κατὰ θάλατταν” Id.12.67,cf. Arist. Ath.23.2; ἡ ἐν ‘Αρείῳ πάγῳ βουλὴ οὐδενὶ δόγματι λαβοῦσα τὴν ἡ. ib.1, cf.Pol.1304a23; political leadership of an individual, ib.1296a39; γένος ὑπερέχον πρὸς ἡ. Πολιτικήν ib.1288a9. (“Agamemnon”, “Hom. Od. 9.1”, “denarius”) Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=h(gemoni/a vaguely represented as “dominance”. T. J. Jackson Lears writes “Gramsci’s translated writings contain no precise definition of cultural hegemony. What comes closest is his often-quoted characterisation of hegemony as “the ‘spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group;” 5T. J. Jackson Lears. “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities.” The American Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 3, [Oxford University Press, American Historical Association], 1985, pp. 567–93, (p.568), https://doi.org/10.2307/1860957.

Gramsci argued that cultural hegemony is attained by the dissemination of doctrines, (beliefs and values) through social institutions including, schools, churches and the media etc. He illustrates the power of ideology to replicate the social structure through these institutions and the work of culture into integrating people into the norms, values, and beliefs of the dominant social group. The resultant is that; the group that controls these institutions, axiomatically controls the society over which it has influence.

Evidence that this cultural infiltration has already taken place is manifested in the replacement of Western (hence Christian) values with another set of contrived “valueless” ones. Solid definable values such as Temperance, Justice, Prudence, and Fortitude promoted by Christianity as virtues, have been replaced with vague “indefinable” terms like political correctness, hate speech, identity politics, social justice, diversity, tolerance, inclusivity, multiculturalism, reproductive rights, sensitivity training etc. all inculcated into the minds of the young in their formative years, (through the various institutions) as fundamental life issues in this generation.

Gramsci thus prescibes and promotes a Utopian religion of social salvation by politics, utilising Nietzsche’s transvaluation of all values (Umwertung aller Werte) the objective here being the an inversion of the system; the creation of what Gramsci called a “periphery-centred society.” The meaning of this for Christians is that, Christianity must be supplanted by a new secular order and the Church by an all-powerful communist totalitarian state. Wokeness is totalitarian and the following quote from Bernhard Rust, should constitute a warning against such totalitarian manoeuvres, the results of which are always genocide:

“The whole function of education is to create a Nazi.”

Bernhard Rust, Nazi education minister, February 1938

Gramscian Neo-Fundamentalism

Dr Scott Masson, (Associate Professor of English at Tyndale University. Toronto. Canada.) in his 2014 video lecture titled, Cultural Marxism and Social Justice states “evidence that we are in a fundamentalist age, a new fundamentalist age is incontrovertible.” He continues to argue how that, you could not possibly replace fundamental rights in law and political practice, with compromises to them. It is impossible to abrogate a fundamental right with just a convenient arrangement, settlement or compromise. You have to regard one as more fundamental. Only a new fundamental can do that, being that the fundamental character of that new fundamental is to eliminate the freedoms of the West, noted as the precise aim of Cultural Marxism all along.

“Gramsci is one of the first modern Marxists to recognize that interests are not given but have to be politically and ideologically constructed.” 6Hall Stuart.1988. “Gramsci and Us.” In The hard road to renewal: Thatcherism and the crisis of the left, 161–73. London: Verso. Google Scholar

Stuart Hall

The fact that it’s religious in nature, is revealed by the reality that marriage which is an established Christian right central to the Christian faith, and that this fundamental institution is being redefined makes it clear that, this is a religious fundamental being brought right into the heart of Western culture. Dr Scott Masson, Cultural Marxism and Social Justice. 2014.7Dr Scott Masson, Cultural Marxism and Social Justice 2014 video lecture available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC7q26ddu2k timestamp 25:17

Pathologising of Dissension

Cultural Marxist media (including the well know biased Wikipedia) will promote and write off these verities as antisemitic conspiracy-mongering propaganda of the lunatic fringe, because this reality doesn’t run with their narrative and confirmation bias, quoting many partisan (pun intended) scholars in their defence. 8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory.

I am not a scholar, however what I can do is speak to the Marcusian pathologising of any dissension to Cultural Marxist rhetoric as antisemitism, by quoting Alexander Zubatov in his article Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ‘Cultural Marxism’ Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real, in which he articulates the point: “these wild-swinging claims are themselves, examples of the very “crude slander” and “phantasmagoria” against which Moyn sets out to inveigh. They are epithets aimed at a convenient straw man…….. in tarring the idea of cultural Marxism with the charge of “anti-Semitism,” has done precisely what I just described. That charge, surely, is deployed for the sole purpose of leaving those who would otherwise dare to speak of cultural Marxism cowed and intimidated into silence lest they be accused of perpetuating an anti-Semitic trope.”9 Alexander Zubatov. Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ‘Cultural Marxism’ Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real. available at https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/just-because-anti-semites-talk-about-cultural-marxism-doesnt-mean-it-isnt-real Alexander Zubatov. Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ‘Cultural Marxism’ Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real.

True Christianity subscribes to both the texts of the Tanakh (Old Testament or Hebrew Canon) and of the New Testament. The refusal to endorse the first subcorpus of books (namely, the Hebrew Bible) of the Christian Canon, would result in a truncating of ones understanding of God’s counsel to a very narrow platform and that of “walking in the way of Marcion” and possibly, the consequence of the forfeiting of any claim to being a Christian. A reassertion of how the Old and New Testaments are interconnected becomes a necessity. In other words, there would be no Gospel and no Christian hope without Israel; the covenant relationship people of God. It is precisely the promised Hebrew Messiah, the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets (Luke 16:16), who gifts the Holy Spirit to Gentiles for adoption as sons and daughters of Abraham. Being both a true Christian and antisemitic is an oxymoron.

One finds any dissension to the “woke” narrative shut down with, in quoting Zubatov again, “the incessant, resounding, comically misdirected and increasingly hollow cries of “racist,” “sexist,” “misogynist,” “homophobe,” “Islamophobe,” “transphobe” and more that have yet to be invented to demonise all those with whom the brittle hordes partaking in such calumnies happen to disagree.” It’s like they have had their right to a pain free existence revoked by the requirement to learn about adversity (not diversity, pun intended) and have gone into hysterical meltdown over a perfectly normal point of view, requiring a safe space, in other words, protection from any form of critical thinking in the classical sense (not of the modern of Critical Theory).

The purpose of Critical Theory is not to develop discernment (which is a mark of the Holy Spirit) as in the tradition of the West by subjecting it to the rules of Logic. The interest of Critical Theory practised by the Cultural Marxist is simply to denigrate and criticise its opponents and to shut down any dissenting conversation, as in the vilification of all Bible-believing Christians as bigoted haters of all that is ‘virtuous.’ It is noteworthy that Christians in the early centuries of the churches life were called ‘haters of humanity’ in light of their opposition to abortion, sexual immorality and other matters.

Post-Christianity is not Neo Pagan.

“Socialism is precisely the religion that must kill Christianity. [It is a] religion in the sense that it too is a faith … [and] because it has substituted for the consciousness of the transcendental God of the Catholics, trust in man and his best strengths as the sole spiritual reality.”10Antonio Gramsci, “Audacia e Fede,” Avanti, 22 May 1916; reprinted in Sotto la Mole: 1916–1929 (Turin: Einaudi, 1960), 148, available at

Antonio Gramsci,

The biblical worldview is expressed in the two kinds of reality in existence: The reality of God the Creator and the reality of everything else which is creation. An affirmation by C.S. Lewis articulated in a letter to Rev. Fr. Don Giovanni Calabria found in the book, The Latin Letters of CS Lewis states:

 For they neglect not only the Law of Christ, but even the Law of Nature as known by the Pagans. For now they do not blush at adultery, treachery perjury, theft and other crimes, which I will not say Christian doctors, but the Pagans and Barbarians have themselves denounced. 11Cited in Msgr. Charles Pope. Remarkable and Lesser Known Insights by CS Lewis on the Loss of Faith in the West. dated 07/03/12 available at http://blog.adw.org/2012/03/lewis/

C.S. Lewis.

Those cultures which were formerly designated “Christian”, inasmuch as they came into being by adopting the Christian “worldview” and applying Christian values and principles, that have since deserted and renounced it, are not reverting to paganism. They are not pagan cultures but apostate, or better still rebellious ones; they have seen and experienced Christian based societies and turned away from them. They cannot be Pagan, because they reject moral values that the Pagans and Barbarians subscribed to.

C.S. Lewis laments a Europe, that is in a largely faithless landscape:

They err who say: “The world is turning pagan again.” Would that it were! The truth is, we are falling into a much worse state. Post-Christian man is not the same as pre-Christian man. 12 ibid.

C.S. Lewis.

In Christianity having a secular worldview would describe a condition where a country, or individual, does not defer to the authority of God in its “life”. In the absence of that authority of God, you are not left with no authority, you’re left with the authority of the “self”. In contradistinction having a biblical worldview describes a condition where a country, or individual, defers all authority to God and what He has revealed through his inspired authoritative word, the Holy Bible.

Secularism is so appealing; the bible tells us that every single one of us by our very nature wants to go our own way, we want to be our own authority (Genesis 3:5, Isaiah 53:6, 1 Peter 2:25,). It allows one to choose a Nihilistic Philosophy, to rationalise a hedonistic lifestyle, by believing that there is little or no accountability for immoral actions, as there is little or no consequence for ones carried out that are morally wrong and here’s the important part:- if parties consent.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

(II Corinthians 13:14 [ASV])

Featured Image: Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

Footnotes

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