Some think it's just that I don't like religion and haven't studied it. And they're right. But that doesn't mean we haven't watched a religion emerge since last year.
I've always said it that leftism, from Rousseau and the later stages of the French Revolution to the present day, is an unconscious parody of Christianity. The specific forms vary by country, period, and which false prophet is the preacher. Tom Paine (who was an eyewitness) noted back then the uncanny recycling of Catholic practices and imagery in the Terror phase of the French Revolution. Marx's version is a pseudo-apocalyptic End Time prophecy, with a coming Rule of the Saints, wrapped in pseudo-scientific analysis. America's "woke" revolution is specifically and obviously Protestant, as noted by Michael Lind, a latter-day version of the Social Gospel, but with an emphasis on a personal sense of sin and a need for personal transformation. I've seen striking cases of this over the last few years, in particular, from people who've never exhibited any racist tendencies and stand in no obvious need of confession and redemption, at least on the surface. But who knows the depths of the human soul? "May the meditation of my heart ... be acceptable to my Rock and Redeemer" (Psalm 19).
(A completely different theme is the constant, obsessive search for "noble savages," a link among all modern leftist movements, and also with its Romantic cousin, the "volkish," counter-Enlightenment theorists of German identity that played an important role in the rise of Nazism.)
I believe it was 4 or 5 years ago, I began telling friends about my young co-workers (most coming out of elite higher education programs) and my experience with them. I would share with my friends my surprise at how intolerant and judgmental they were to any other perspectives and that it reminded me of the fringe religious people in a church. I have worked in a church 13 years(loved it), but I have seen that intolerance before. I will say I saw less of it in the church than I saw it in my co-workers.
Also on a side note, as a Christ follower I take no issue with calling this current culture that John is describing a religion. Religion has always been an idea that it was how humans tried to find God. They create God with their ideas, create their norms and their culture. Christian faith is the opposite of that. It was an active God who came to humans to reclaim the lost connection. The problem is humans for centuries still want to do their own way. Love the writing John!
My own experiences being social-justice-culture-adjacent have also led me to increasingly regard it as someone else's religion. That said, and despite also being an atheist (of the don't-care rather than the don't-believe variety), I have found your pejorative use of the religious categorization to be a bit off-putting. I'm glad the final work will soften that a bit.
If you haven't read it already, I would highly recommend Tara Isabella Burton's excellent recent book "Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World". She addresses social justice culture along with a range of other practices and communities. You may also be interested in John Gray's "Seven Types of Atheism".
(Unrelated to posts below). When comparing the Woke elect to religious believers - is there not a difference between “…I do not have enough evidence to be a believer..” and the outright denial of documented facts (many of the woke elect) per your George Floyd example?
Just something to ponder in response to your question: if someone requires a degree of evidence to believe, then what’s the difference between understanding the evidence to a degree of scientific certainty or truthfulness, and believing anything based on that final leap of faith one must take to use the word “belief” as a description of understanding? If the evidence only works up to a certain point, and you must finally agree with some truth as an act of faith, isn’t that a conflation of how scientists use the word “evidence,” and how theologians or church doctrines use it? Saying “I believe the science” shouldn’t be a phrase used by a scientist. It’s illogical. We should say “I understand the science” since belief should have nothing to do with understanding objective facts or replicable studies of natural phenomena. Sure, there’s always some epistemological assumption underlying our understandings of reality, but scientists leave that realm open to more questions, whereas a believer finds the need to answer all of them definitely, regardless of the absence of evidence.
"Saying 'I believe the science' shouldn’t be a phrase used by a scientist."
And it isn't said or accepted by the best scientists. It's usually heard by people who think that they're sounding like scientists when they parrot it. The better scientists know better. Though scientists, too, come in "better" and "worse."
I just pasted this in a reply. I appreciate this ongoing comparison to a religion. But instead of "shitty religion," much of McWhorter's description reminds me more of "shitty therapy" or "shitty Human Potential movement." Being a shitty therapist or Human Potential guru gets you all the exalted specialness of being a cleric without actually having to undertake the deep philosophical and theological training and reflection, not to mention the stodgy uncoolness of the clerisy. This is my favorite example, as the teacher is clearly a caring individual and genuinely believes in what she is doing. Shitty therapy is abound with the notion that you can just love yourself into a sense of purpose and meaning. Alas, purpose and meaning come from toiling away at things outside yourself, such as the academic content she so easily dismisses. https://www.kusi.com/kearny-high-school-teacher-writes-new-curriculum-with-her-students-to-help-them-find-their-purpose-in-life/
True, these matters lend themselves to easily becoming lost in the semantic weeds. Another and more general term for what we're discussing is, of course, "dogma" and those whose attachments to opinion are "dogmatic".
There is something typically dogmatic somewhere in all religious doctrines while not all dogma is religious in character, strictly speaking. A belief might or might not, independent of its content, be applied, held or defended _dogmatically_ by some but not others of those who share the belief(s). There's always going to be _some_ degree of dogma in the set of beliefs, religious or not, held and disputed in any modern society such as our own. The precise beliefs held dogmatically are going to vary from time to time and they may be more or less "religious" in character. John's points remain valid either way one prefers to look at it. They concern tolerance--how much we have of it and in what and where it consists and is found. So there is, by a rough and ready reckoning, some kind of inverse relation between the prevalence of dogma and tolerance. At present, the particular beliefs advanced and defended dogmatically include some very, very unfortunate ones. We no longer burn witches at the stake. 2.01352 cheers for us!
(sorry, it looks like comments on this segment are running long-ish; alas the following comments will be no exception . . . However Substack seems to impose a length limit so I will post in bits & pieces, continuing as replies to my own comment)
I want to weigh in here as someone holding a couple of degrees in the secular study of religion. (Not theological degrees; I did have to read a bunch of religious thought, as well as sociology, philosophy, etc.)
I have a minor bone to pick with McWhorter’s thesis; but it’s only minor. On the whole what he says about the Elect and religion is worth taking seriously.
Surely it is not just hype.
The minor bone is this: the options for defining religion are substantive, or functional. (For those interested, Appendix I to Peter Berger’s Sacred Canopy is worth reading. “Definitions cannot, by their very nature, be either ‘true’ or ‘false,’ only more useful or less so.”) McWhorter takes the functional option. The functional view runs: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck. So (runs this line of reasoning) if something not obviously religious carries on like something obviously religious, then it is religion. Possibly the type specimen is communism: sure, it’s officially atheistic, but think about the veneration of Lenin’s body (a relic); the worship of Mao (a cult of personality) and the sacred Little Red Book (canonical scripture); and can fundamentalists even hold a candle to Trotskyites for schisms and sectarianism?
The downsides are: in functional terms, what is not like a religion (in one way or other)? If everything is religion, how can we say anything specific and interesting about religion? Also, one risks a basic logical fallacy (affirming the consequent) if one argues in this way: If anything is a religion, then it [has beliefs/makes leaps of faith/etc.]; communism [has beliefs/makes leaps of faith/etc.]; therefore communism is a religion. Perhaps the G-d that Failed, but a g-d nonetheless.
Foibles noted, the next question is: do we learn anything new or important by saying X is religion (or X is like religion)? (Berger’s question: is it more useful to do this, or less so?) In the case of the Elect, the answer is affirmative. This is where McWhorter’s account is valuable. He has said (either literally or in effect) at various points:
1. Racism functions for the Elect like Original Sin. (This is perhaps McWhorter’s prime insight into the Elect as religion; this thesis resounds throughout various pieces he has written.)
2. Original Sin is an article of faith, deriving from metaphysics rather than empirical considerations.
3. For the Elect one either just “gets it,” or else not; Belief transcends proof or argumentation.
4. Then of course there are two castes of souls: either one is Elect, or else Praeterite; oppressed, or oppressor.
5. Election or damnation is predestined, at least from birth. (The wages of Original Sin are, after all, visited upon descendants.)
6. Perhaps it is just futile to argue with the praeterite; Original Sin, after all, darkens the intellect. Depravity is Total. Those who don’t get it, don’t because they can’t; metaphysical perdition lies at the heart of Invincible Ignorance.
7. Masochism abounds.
8. Believers remain children of a Higher Parent; the Elect viewpoint infantilizes Black people in particular.
9. CRT is a millenarian movement: it awaits definitive racial reckoning in some far-off Judgment Day, bye and bye. Its eschatology is fuzzy; exceptionally so.
10. In respect of its millenarianism, it partakes more of charismatic passivism than serious political activism or reformism. It opiates (even if it pumps up the sound volume).
11. It consoles.
12. Key texts -- Coates, DiAngelo, Kendi -- are received as scriptural Truth.
13. It has clergy (Coates, DiAngelo, Kendi, etc.)
14. It has creed.
15. Catechism is demanded.
16. Blasphemy is policed.
17. There are taboos (including about language).
18. Genuflection occurs (literally as well as symbolically).
19. Elect spokespersons sermonize.
20. Elect spokespersons evangelize.
21. As McWhorter points out in the current essay, the Elect will resort to evangelical and crusading language to characterize themselves and their activities.
Others have commented on other religious aspects of the Elect.
• For instance (this has come up in several of the comments on McWhorter’s developing book and elsewhere;) actual religions usually follow condemnation of sin with a scheme for salvation. Elect religion is, curiously, religion without redemption. (At least without universal redemption. Even if and when Blacks attain the salvation of equity, whites remain lost forever and ever amen.)
• Related to this is the fact that its eschatology is fuzzy; redemption apart, it lacks any concept of progress because it lacks any concept of History. It dwells in the eternal present. Or perhaps in the eternal past: since racism will never abate; there is no difference between Dred Scott, Jim Crow and Title VII; white people will never, can never, escape the taint of their Original Sin.
• Predestination is Double-Decree: if anatomy is not destiny, birth is; and this is so equally for both Black and white castes. Whites manifest oppressor Whiteness; equally, Blacks manifest oppressed Blackness. This removes agency from everybody. Moral status (oppressor, oppressed) is totally ascribed; never achieved. (Solely gratuitous, not by works. No human agency, no amount of good intentions, can ever alter this.)
• Like rabbinic Judaism in the Mediterranean diaspora, or developing New England Calvinism, Elect religion has an internal caste system: along with full members of the covenant (the Oppressed) it allows a half-way covenant, with those who fear the Lord but remain second-class (i.e., the “allyship” among select Oppressors).
• Elect religion has its Church Ladies (“sinners in the hands of an Angry Broad”)
• Some at least of the Elect creed is deliberately immune to falsification. (For some, this is a definitive hallmark of theology; one might argue that it is not exclusive to theology; but it is hard to deny that it is pretty common in theology.) Maybe Kendi can be nailed down on falsifiable theses (the good kind of racial discrimination is not really racist); but with DiAngelo, it’s like nailing down jello (to deny, amounts simply to being in a state of psychopathological Denial).
• Hari Kunzru notes “Diversity consultancy is as much a product of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture as Black Lives Matter, but its lineage is not that of the New Left but the Human Potential movement . . . the royal road runs not through organizing but through personal transformation.” What Phillip Rieff called “the triumph of the therapeutic” has long ago replaced traditional pastoral care in the cure of souls -- including in the churches themselves. Elect religion is of a piece with this trendiness in organized religion.
• Elect religion can be denominational (Bertrand Russell: one may be atheist in either Protestant or Catholic flavors)
o Protestant aspects of CRT:
Virtue signaling: smiting the Devil
public (vs private, auricular) General Confession of Sin
No distinction btw venial & mortal sins (microaggression no different from lynching)
Double Decree Predestination (strong determinism, birth is destiny; one is either elected to Blackness, or else damned to anti-Blackness -- sola gratia; no amount of works, or prayers, can alter it)
Three Solae (sola scriptura/theory; sola fide/trust me; sola gratia/nothing you can do or say will redeem)
Revivalism (both the rhetoric: individuals fall under conviction of sin [including Original], then repent; and the public ceremony of repentance)
polycentric control (no Papacy though lots of warlords)
o Catholic aspects of CRT:
Genuflection
Creed
Catechism
Autos da fe -- privilege walks, self-flagellations
Litany
Syllabus of Error
Martyrs and saints (statues to/iconic walls of George Floyd)
• Like Thomas Jefferson, the Elect have razored out a lot of scripture, leaving only
o Book of Genesis (Original Sin & Fall)
o Book of Revelations (wrath; then Millennial perfection of Judgment Day) (Bell, Coates, Kendi & DiAngelo: the Four Horsepersons?)
• “Religion” may include theology but is much broader than its theology.
o Belief vs ritual/ orthodoxy vs orthopraxy. Belief can be variable, even among believers. Are members of the racial Diversity Consulting/Training Industry all true believers in the same way one must be to write for the NYT? Is the average proponent of “Critical Pedagogy” in the schools all that well-versed in post-modern Theory (Marcuse, Foucault, etc.), or are they just reciting the litany?
o Church vs sect. A church has inclusive membership (thus is larger, but with degrees of diluted belief) whereas a sect has exclusive membership (thus is smaller, but each member is potentially more driven and on the same page). Elect anti-racism is more like a church; not every church member is a Jesuit. A church can incorporate degrees of belief, in ways a sect typically does not.
• Transvaluation of values. Much that Nietzsche said about gaslighting and stealthy replacement in the rise of Christianity, might also be said of the CRT juggernaut. (Jagannath.)
• For some Elect preachers, at least, the collection plate is kind of full.
Thank you for your illuminating posts. Apart from my own cultural/philosophical-level religious life, I am not well versed in theology. I looked up the article by Kunzru and that quote about the Human Potential movement is a vital observation. I think that element of the “therapeutic” is missing from McWhorter’s comparison. In my own experience both inside the therapeutic profession and the academic left, it is remarkable how little insight there is about the way in which mundane narcissism drives so much of the organizational dysfunction within these well-intended professions. I think McWhorter’s term of the Elect is close, but I view it more as the Exalted. The guruism on the left reminds me a lot of peer-led groups in AA. The peer is both “just like you” but also of a special status. I’ve seen AA groups, therapy groups, and diversity-training groups devolve in similar beat-up-the-scapegoat fashion, because groups often unwittingly become centered around the emotive pantomime of mundane narcissism (both the mini-guru’s and the participants’) instead of creating the behavioral and/or structural change the group is supposedly tasked with. Ironically, AA has a quote for this, “Doing the hard work without working hard.” McWhorter points to “shitty religion,” but I guess I would liken the current zeitgeist more to “shitty therapy.” He has also talked about Kaufman's “Victimhood Mindset,” and that I think is exceptionally relevant. And the problem with shitty therapy is that it comes from a well-intentioned place of validating victimization. Most shitty therapists think they are wonderful therapists, because colluding with the victimhood mindset (which is a narcissistic defense) feels really good, kind, and caring. So, the anecdotal interpersonal feedback of left-leaning guruism is always positive. Religion, AA, social justice activism, therapy, and the liberal arts are all ambiguous tools. They can be tools to help people build functional prosocial relationships, know the depths and limits of their agency, and tolerate the grief and uncertainty of life. As the serenity prayer puts it, they can be tools to develop the wisdom to know the difference between what one can control and what one cannot. But these tools can also be easily and unknowingly misused to give the illusion of “doing the hard work” without really making any changes at all; the positive feedback loop and the exalted guru status make it easy to mistake contemplation (demonstrating distress) for actually working hard. And when this happens, you not only promote antisocial relationships, you substitute self-aggrandizement for self-agency, anger for grief, and control for acceptance.
Oh that's great, thanks for sharing! It's a great take. The issue with therapy-speak is that it gives the illusion of embracing complexity, vulnerability, and grief when really it is a great tool for avoiding those things. I think one of the issues with therapy, for which the profession is not self-critical enough, is that a large portion of the profession is centered around the private practice model. And that model can create an underlying incentive to keep people unwell, coming back every week for their dedicated talk therapy hour. Very few therapists fire themselves for lack of progress. So, a lot of what leaks out of therapy can be un-wellness disguised as healing.
We're not dealing with therapists, well-intentioned or not, or with their potential for indulging in some ill-conceived victim-validization. We're dealing with a particular subset of society, one claiming to be victims of alleged general and persistent social injustice and, as several have seen and explained here, these supposed victims' toxic juvenile demands on the rest of society at large. Those demands spring from a claim that a prejudiced view of skin-color is the basis of a racist society's general injurious practices.
It's one thing to need and to seek help in facing and coping with one's personal emotional traumas. It's something else to attempt to instrumentalize such personal struggles, making them into a grand con-game of guilt-mongering on a society-wide scale.
_________________
Hey, John,
Your comment software REALLY should have a preview/edit function. I'm sick of re-posting edits after repeated and meticulous reviews only to find after posting that there's still something amiss in it.
There are definitely a number of individuals who are using the current zeitgeist as a platform for their own interpersonal dysfunction and genuine pathological narcissism. But I think their is more utility in understanding why the con is so readily embraced and amplified by so many people, on so many sides, who are not themselves dysfunctional. Why is the sideshow so appealing? Ian Rowe, regarding K12 education, speaks to the way in which the current zeitgeist is a distraction from actually doing the things we need to do to educate children. And yet, the sideshow is treated as the main event. In my experience, the sideshow is appealing because it is a way to genuinely believe you're doing hard work without actually working hard. Moreover, the sideshow flatters the self while the core work is often thankless. For example, it is way more exciting to extol the virtues of race conscious math than to stress the necessity of smaller class sizes and paraprofessional teacher aids. Effective opposition to the sideshow must not fall into the trap of arguing with the sideshow only to become its own sideshow. Rather, it must focus on the active ingredients for accomplishing core work.
..." there is more utility in understanding why the con is so readily embraced and amplified by so many people, on so many sides, who are not themselves dysfunctional."
Briefly: Ask yourself why, the last time you fell for a con, that happened. The basic reasons and processes are the same in everyone. Only the details vary.
no great mystery in the fact that con-games entice by offering attractive opportunities to believe what one is predisposed to believe anyway.
Why did so many people foolishly embrace the nonsense of the Steele dossier's anti-Trump libels? Why do so many continue to insist on its validity? It serves two things: their stupid and self-serving prejudices to do so and also directly serves--or so they believe--the prospect of their ambitions to get or keep political power.
Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators deliberately set out to maliciously defame Trump personally and as a candidate for office. They did this as part of an electoral strategy, a bid to defeat an opponent in an election. When it failed, they carried on with redoubled effort and concocted a still more elaborate scheme to defraud the election processes themselves in the next round of elections--having been shown that they were not up to the challenge of actually defeating Trump in a fair election, they sought --and got--an unfair one in which they cheated their opponent.
We're still in the tortured process of learning these--to many--patently obvious facts. Why do so many stubbornly resist them? Because there is such immense power and wealth tied up in these matters and, for others, what's called the sunk-costs of the "emotional capital" "invested in" the idea of one's accurate grasp of factual reality. A great many people are in danger of a staggering experience of disillusionment if their fantasies about (supposed) Democrat party ( a.k.a."good") versus Trump-style Republican party (a.k.a. "evil") cannot stand the harsh light of authentic facts.
Loved this: “…it is remarkable how little insight there is about the way in which mundane narcissism drives so much of the organizational dysfunction within these well-intended professions.” This is a key point.
It may be mundane, but it is pernicious and sometimes vengeful.
There is a great book by Howard S. Schwartz: Narcissistic Process and Corporate Decay. The book specifically references corporate and bureaucratic structure, but it is applicable to all groups and organizations of all types. Basically, it is very easy for groups/organizations to get "off task" but truly believe they are on task. This is because, out of deference to mundane narcissism, groups will organize around an "ego ideal" instead of around their core task. And organizing around narcissism feels really good and special. Conversely, organizing around the core task can be boring and fraught with responsibility, mistakes, and trade-offs. For example, a college Classics department might decide to organize around manifesting their perfection via opposition to white supremacy instead of organizing around teaching Classics. Schwartz's book has a great case example that really challenged my own childhood embrace of the ego idealized Teacher in Space NASA program and the Challenger Disaster. It highlights how pursuit of the ego ideal over the core work frequently degrades quality and competency, and also fosters dysfunctional I-it relationships over I-thou. Basically, the Teacher in Space program organized the aerospace engineers around a space-for-anyone unifying message, rather than around the absolute high-stakes technical competency necessary for manned space flight. By definition, mundane narcissism isn't vengeful, it's the belief-in-perfection we all carry around. But it definitely is vulnerable to terrible consequences because key players become adherents who can no longer distinguish the core mission from the sideshow, or skeptics who can distinguish but must keep their discernment hidden in order to survive. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narcissistic_Process_and_Corporate_Decay/JGYTCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=narcissistic+process+and+corporate+decay&printsec=frontcover
In the case of the Challenger shuttle's disastrous failure on launch, one and only one key decision was botched: to launch or not to launch that day, January 28th, 1986, versus postponing the launch to a date with temperatures in line with safety's requirements—yes, for reasons of what I'd describe as technicians' hubris. But the inquiry which followed made clear that the launch decision was taken against the vehement objections of certain members of the team's decision-making structure. In other words, the better course was voiced, stressed, insisted upon and, ultimately dismissed and overruled.
The reasons amounted to what we call loss-of-face or the idea of that as a consequence of postponing a launch so heavy with political calculations and expectations. Everyone, from the PotU.S. down through the NASA hierarchy was counting on the launch to go ahead. But freezing temperatures on the launch site--which were _known_ to pose risks to the O-ring rubber seals--threatened the safety of the launch.
Challenger's emotional public-relations "payload," with, yes, the presence of school teacher Christa McAuliffe as compliicating and contributing factor, is what destroyed the Challenger.
Pathological narcissism and hubris (both of which concepts come from the literature of classical Greece) are not the same things.
More to your point about vengeance: The sideshow created by pursuit of the ego ideal can most definitely take a vengeful form! What I'm calling mundane, Freud calls "primary." But it is this narcissism we almost all carry around, which is the desire for the world to be loving and for us to be at the very center of that loving world.
You’re welcome. And thank you for your kind words.
McWhorter is juggling lots of balls all at once, while riding a tiger. (And possibly tossing in more balls to the mix, as my lists did, will not be welcome.) He does however talk at several points about “therapeutic alienation,” which he defined in Winning The Race, pp. 6-9. But perhaps he might emphasize more the point Kunzru makes, Rieff likewise, about how generally definitive the therapeutic outlook has become. A question of emphasis.
Goethe once said, concerning the future, “I fear that . . . the world will be one big hospital and each person will be the other person's humane keeper.” We have seen this future and it works (well, sort of).
“The peer is both ‘just like you’ but also of a special status.” Good one. Hi, I’m Bill, and I’m an alcoholic (just like you); BUT: . . . Humblebrag. Upmanship. Like in the old USSR, getting to address someone as “comrade Colonel” (but still, he IS the colonel!) or in K12 when the august holder of the EdD degree appears to put subordinates at ease with: oh, just call me Dr. Dolly, that’s fine . . .
Regarding the psychopathology of everyday Therapy, I’ll see your “narcissism” and raise you “S&M.”
Wow, that Goethe quote is fantastic! I'm always humbled by the thoughts and writings of the past. That is the absolute paradox of humanitarianism. At what point does caring for others take away their agency? At what point do you inadvertently pathologize normal human suffering? And at what point does it all become reified, so that the only way people believe they are cared for and/or can show care is through a medical-grade response? At a funny level, this is like how a toddler needs a bandaid on the smallest of scratches in order to feel comforted.
Thank you for pointing out McWhorter's therapeutic alienation. I just read an excerpt of Losing the Race. He describes quite well how external systems of support can promote the loss of agency, especially when coupled with traumatic damage to self-esteem. But I think what makes it so intractable, is that a sort of pseudo-agency takes the place of legitimate agency. And shitty therapy is really about fixating on promoting pseudo-agency. Pseudo-agency is obsessed with the primacy of the self. The problem is when you prioritize your sense-of-self as the most important thing you own, you create an existential faberge egg that you now have to protect everywhere you go. One of my favorite sayings is "you can't save your face and your ass at the same time." So, we've found ourselves in a zeitgeist that is all about saving face (or showing how willing you are to save the face of others by disparaging your own), or maybe has confused the face and the ass (sorry to be so crude). And yes, all these professional doctorates are just that.
The real trick to healthy self-esteem, is to cultivate a portfolio of doing and to find other people who also like doing those things. And that is the exact opposite of what is happening. If I had to pick a single culprit at a top-down level, it is the way in which the exorbitant cost of higher ed, coupled with the student loan industry, has given academia the subconscious motive to please-the-customer. As such, academia has become less about doing hard things and more about getting accolades for being...but still having the veneer of doing hard things. Kind of like how Starbucks has us all convinced that a $7 caffeinated milkshake is the same as a $2 bitter espresso. And this self-aggrandizement/self-flagellation that crowds out the real doing, is now trickling down into K12 education, and that has me really freaked out.
This is a brilliant example of mini-gurism. This teacher seems so earnest and well-intentioned. But you can see how easy it is to become organized around a narcissistic ego ideal, especially when that ego ideal is the perfect self. Unbeknownst to this teacher, by asserting this ego ideal she is positioning her classroom into a shitty therapy space and exalting herself. If she were a trained group therapist, she would be violating several ethical and professional standards (though in her defense, many trained group therapist do this too). https://www.kusi.com/kearny-high-school-teacher-writes-new-curriculum-with-her-students-to-help-them-find-their-purpose-in-life/
Are there ways in which Electism is not like religion? Let me count the ways.
1. Lack of redemption has already been mentioned.
2. It has a clergy, but no clear hierarchy. (Yes, there are polycentric religions; there is congregational polity as well as episcopal polity; but the Elect just lacks regular congregation whatsoever.) The Elect has no papacy, but many warlords.
3. There are core beliefs, and family resemblances among bodies of belief, but no council has ever hammered out anything firm like a Nicene Creed.
4. It is disorganized religion, not organized religion. Its congregants do not gather together on a regular schedule. It is propagated, impersonally, through “social” media rather than interpersonally through actual social gatherings. (As religion, it is very much The Electronic Church.)
5. Ritual is minimal (mostly punishment and degradation ceremonies for the praeterite; very little for edification of the Church itself).
6. Sacraments? None of which to speak.
7. Music? None (for better or for worse).
8. St Paul said “there is neither Jew nor Greek, . . . for ye are all one . . . ” but the Elect disagree: humanity is not universal but is divided fundamentally into distinct races, superior and inferior. Double standards are not so much a moral offence as a positive way of life.
9. The main reason for thinking the Elect to constitute a religion, is their theology; but actual religion is more than just its theology.
Clearly in addressing this Substack audience on how McWhorter is onto something important, I risk preaching to the choir. But let us conclude with some larger implications of calling the Elect a religion:
If it genuinely is a religion, and it becomes established ideology in schools and civil service, this is is violation of the U S Constitution; and if people are denied hiring and promotion based on violating its tenets, equally unconstitutional
Whether one says it is religion, or it is like religion, its downsides are the same as many of the civil, moral, and intellectual downsides of religion. (Is it a distinctively “shitty religion” as religions go? Or merely “shitty” in some ways that religion typically is for ordinary, civil life?) If the Elect outlook opiates, distracts, misleads, infantilizes and so on, is it more important to point out these actual downsides, or to compare it to religion? Auguste Comte founded, among other things, a Religion of Humanity (complete with scriptures, holy trinity, a calendar, a priesthood, a catechism, etc.); T H Huxley described it as “Catholicism, minus Christianity.” The Elect may have achieved something comparable: much of the shitty stuff of religion, minus redemption (the potentially good bit).
Then, once we discover something that is religion (or even like religion) what does that discovery tell us? (Beyond ringing the usual bell and causing Sam Harris or Bill Maher to salivate.) It always amuses me when religious believers themselves gleefully declare, e.g.: see, even [fill in the blank: evolution, Marxism, etc.] is just a religion! (A religious believer using the label “religion” as a stigma.) Beyond stigma, what does it tell us to discover that CRT is a religion, or like a religion?
John's statement "My point is that religion typically includes a wing of belief that must stand apart from empiricism, that at a certain point one must just “believe.” " is true for any system of statements based on logic. That would be my interpretation of Godel's theorem. It is mathematically proven that no system of logical statements can exist without either a contradiction or an unproven assumption, i.e. a belief.
With that as mathematical proof, every empirical system based on logic will require some element of belief (more or less) and will be by your definition a religion of sorts. Some religions require more beliefs than others, any many have beliefs that are contradicted by evidence but I don't think that matters as much as the processes the religion advocates and the results of those processes. That is what makes a religion "shitty" or not. I would acknowledge there is a lot of evidence that different individuals of the same religion can exhibit widely divergent processes with opposite results. So I would not stereotype members of any religion.
I am emphasizing results because those effect other people more than beliefs. People tend to use beliefs to justify their own desires, so religion is a lot like a Rorschach. The way the person expresses their religion tell you far more about them than about God.
Electism as a set of propositions is necessarily going to be a religion. Many (most?) of its beliefs seem contradicted by quite a bit of evidence. However, what is dangerous is that the actions advocated by its more vocal proponents seem to consist of stereotyping, self-righteousness, blaming, and polarizing. These actions are going to have very negative results.
Note that I have anecdotal evidence from a friend in which a public forum on critical race theory ended up with the theme that we all need to be kind to each other. So even adherents of Electism can exhibit divergent behaviors.
I would suggest focusing less on whether Electism is a religion. It is a moot point and spending energy on the argument will just tend to confuse the issue. The problem is that we have people who are justifying using destructive processes of stereotyping, character assassination, self-righteousness, blaming, and the polarization of society based on "racial" characteristics. Those processes are the exact same processes used by white supremacists and other racists, and therefore the Elect are racist.
What they are doing is using their religion to justify destructive processes. This is a common and regrettable tendency in humans. "Others are "bad" and so when they use a destructive process they bad things. We are "good" so when we use a destructive process we do good things." This is utter nonsense but it is used to justify all sorts of atrocities. The Elect are falling into the same delusion.
I’ve long held that many people who do not consider themselves religious, in fact are. Indifferent agnostics are probably the least religious of my acquaintances; rather ironically, outspoken, “evangelical” atheists are some of the most devoutly religious people I know. An affirmative faith that there is no god — for this can’t be empirically proven, any more than that there is a god or gods — can be a central, motivating life’s belief.
McWhorter makes a compelling argument for Electism being a religion; depending on how one differentiates religion from cult, Electism could fall into either or both categories: One man’s cult is another’s religion. Electism evidences many hallmarks of a religion, e.g. public confession of sin, shibboleths, and excommunication of heretics — to list only three. How much evidence is necessary to definitively say that a social movement has morphed into a religion? When is religious critical mass reached? It’s difficult or impossible to quantify, but it seems to me that it isn’t ridiculous or offensive to call Electism a religion.
People who may object to the characterization of woke racism as a religion don’t want their own religion denigrated. Thus many may fail to see that, while religions have always served the human need to comprehend or make use of that which cannot be explained or proven by physical means, they also have been used to control large swaths of people. They have existed on two sides of the coin in varying degrees over human history: they comfort, unite and uplift, or persecute, divide and exploit. While the Elect likely feel the former regarding their activism, McWhorter argues the latter.
Leftism is a religion in general then. Everything that promises salvation and healing and offers a faith which makes one a member of the group is by definition a religious enterprise. Communist Parties are churches, as well as the Democratic Party is one. Every political vision, which projects some objectives onto the future is a religion, according to this definition.
The Elect are a cult. They promise salvation and membership by faith through religious means, but to be a religion you have to be universal. A religion is a means to an end, which is to stabilize society, reduce conflicts and guarantee the status of non-believers. Even Islam, the most intolerant of religions provide something like that. The Elect doesn't.
The Elect just demonise "whiteness" and thereby strengthening the disintegration of the society which created them in the first place.
"I will be roundly slammed for seeming disrespectful of religion, and for not knowing enough about it to sully it with a comparison to Elect ideology." It's possible that you're being overly sensitive here, Professor McWhorter. In fact, you've forced me to confront the source of some of our pushback. Many of us commenting here are deeply worried about the current, blithe, one-size-fits-all societal prescriptions (evangelization, actually) aimed at eliminating religion entirely from the human condition.
Putting others down for having faith or believing in something that is "irrational" or "can't be scientifically proved" is disrespectful. Admitting that religious commitment "perplexes and sometimes even irritates" you is **not** disrespectful: it's an expression of, well, your lived experience, not to mention the unique quality of your mind which is, after all, the source of all the important ideas in the new book. Everything you've said about religion in "The Elect" is valid as far as I can tell based on my dated M.Div. and subsequent spiritual exploration. (While a strict reading of the Calvinist doctrine and its subsequent development through all the branchings and mergings of Christian theology can only lead to rabbit holes, you're using the term "Elect" in a more conventional, ecumenical sense that is completely correct, appropriate and marvelously effective.)
Perhaps we "pro-religion" folks have sometimes been too quick to respond with knee-jerk (but hopefully thoughtful) reactions triggered by what we see as the unrelenting, cold rationality of present times. Nevertheless, I haven't seen anyone "slamming" you in the wonderfully stimulating comments to this substack. And actually, I have a confession: those of us who worry about society's increasing beleaguerment of religion are always on the lookout for any forum in which we can proclaim our side of things, whether or not our comments are strictly related to the source ideas we're commenting on.
Regarding religion and belief in God: Religion nor belief in 'God' is necessary to know God. Belief, and religion based on belief, is testament to the uncertainty of actually knowing. Beliefs as such can actually hinder knowing because conceptualization(s) more often than not serve as substitutes for knowing. Knowing God is like knowing the sun. One just steps outside, sees the light and feels the warmth on one's body. It doesn't require belief, or even description. It only requires stepping outside. The sun, without a doubt, is.
Similarly the 'is-ness' of 'God' is available for anyone and everyone. All it takes is faith and trust in the un-figure-out-able, the unknown, in all-that-is. The stepping outside of one's separateness (Yes, it is a tall order.) reveals the reality of It, (or 'God', for lack of a better word). Whether or not one 'believes' in God or even has a concept of 'God' is irrelevant.
McWhorter would be good to make a distinction between ordinary religious, political and ideological beliefs and associated identities, from the possibility of coming upon what exists beyond belief.
This section of John McWhorter's piece stuck out for me: "Here’s another grand old academy being choked by CRT ideology, while smart media types stand by claiming nothing’s going on because legal theorists forty years ago had no such things in mind and thus it isn’t CRT and thus if you don’t like it, you’re a racist..."
Did anyone see this past week the interview on MSNBC by Joy Reid with Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute? It was an embarrassment... for Reid. She didn't let him speak, dismissing what he struggled to say because "people could look up his talking points." Plus, Reid specifically took the view of what John states in the citation above -- that what's going on now has nothing to do with CRT as written in the 1970s and 80s. The segment was really a nasty contest of wills than an enlightening interview.
It's time for a substantive, drama-free discussion of exactly what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is and what it isn't to combat the constant noise going on from 1. the crazy right-wing who co-opt the term (along with "cancel culture") with no idea what either actually mean and 2. the Elect left who make the same claim as Reid did in the interview with Rufo. Ideally, this discussion could be in the form of a debate, of no less than 2 hours, among knowledgeable, level-headed people -- to set the record straight and express good faith opposing views. How refreshing would that be?
I saw a replay. Honestly, I didn't think Rufo came across much better. Like you said, we need "substantive, drama-free discussion." Let Reid and Rufo have a two-hour conversation, Jordan Peterson style. Sometimes JBP's interviews don't really click until 30 minutes or an hour in.
I don't have time for those television soundbites with descriptions like CLOBBERED and DEMOLISHED and OWNED. But I've got two hours for serious discussion.
True. Rufo did not come across much better. But, Reid was the host. She invited Rufo on and (at the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish) she is supposed to care about what her guests have to say, even if she doesn't agree with them. Sure, push back on obvious BS but she didn't allow even a conversation. Think what could have happened instead if she had given him just a bit of time to make his case, or a point. Reid could have still responded as she did with "that's not Critical Race Theory." Then there might have been a definition coming from m either or both of them perhaps then leading to a question like "How does CRT manifest within the realities of 2021?" We might have had a substantive exchange in the few minutes allotted for the segment.
But, that, of course, didn't happen. Instead Reid, in words you suggest, clobbered, demolished and owned Rufo -- or so was her intent. And that should never be the intent of someone who has five hours/week of national television under their control.
I'm not sure I'd go with Reid and Rufo in the 2-hour debate. More measured voices are needed. Not to put him on the spot but John McWhorter would be great, by himself or perhaps part of a team of debaters.
Speaking of McWhorter and MSNBC: He did an interview with Chris Hayes on the "Why is this Happening?" podcast. Similar themes were talked about and there was much more time, to a much better outcome.
Even though no one learned a thing. Neither one of them, and I know I didn’t. Much popular discourse has become increasingly about the act of arguing. Conflict for conflict sake. A side show. Yeah, it may be juicy to click on a story in which someone got “schooled” or some other (fill in the blank) conflict verb but these words have already begun to lose their meaning.
I've always said it that leftism, from Rousseau and the later stages of the French Revolution to the present day, is an unconscious parody of Christianity. The specific forms vary by country, period, and which false prophet is the preacher. Tom Paine (who was an eyewitness) noted back then the uncanny recycling of Catholic practices and imagery in the Terror phase of the French Revolution. Marx's version is a pseudo-apocalyptic End Time prophecy, with a coming Rule of the Saints, wrapped in pseudo-scientific analysis. America's "woke" revolution is specifically and obviously Protestant, as noted by Michael Lind, a latter-day version of the Social Gospel, but with an emphasis on a personal sense of sin and a need for personal transformation. I've seen striking cases of this over the last few years, in particular, from people who've never exhibited any racist tendencies and stand in no obvious need of confession and redemption, at least on the surface. But who knows the depths of the human soul? "May the meditation of my heart ... be acceptable to my Rock and Redeemer" (Psalm 19).
(A completely different theme is the constant, obsessive search for "noble savages," a link among all modern leftist movements, and also with its Romantic cousin, the "volkish," counter-Enlightenment theorists of German identity that played an important role in the rise of Nazism.)
I believe it was 4 or 5 years ago, I began telling friends about my young co-workers (most coming out of elite higher education programs) and my experience with them. I would share with my friends my surprise at how intolerant and judgmental they were to any other perspectives and that it reminded me of the fringe religious people in a church. I have worked in a church 13 years(loved it), but I have seen that intolerance before. I will say I saw less of it in the church than I saw it in my co-workers.
Also on a side note, as a Christ follower I take no issue with calling this current culture that John is describing a religion. Religion has always been an idea that it was how humans tried to find God. They create God with their ideas, create their norms and their culture. Christian faith is the opposite of that. It was an active God who came to humans to reclaim the lost connection. The problem is humans for centuries still want to do their own way. Love the writing John!
My own experiences being social-justice-culture-adjacent have also led me to increasingly regard it as someone else's religion. That said, and despite also being an atheist (of the don't-care rather than the don't-believe variety), I have found your pejorative use of the religious categorization to be a bit off-putting. I'm glad the final work will soften that a bit.
If you haven't read it already, I would highly recommend Tara Isabella Burton's excellent recent book "Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World". She addresses social justice culture along with a range of other practices and communities. You may also be interested in John Gray's "Seven Types of Atheism".
(Unrelated to posts below). When comparing the Woke elect to religious believers - is there not a difference between “…I do not have enough evidence to be a believer..” and the outright denial of documented facts (many of the woke elect) per your George Floyd example?
Just something to ponder in response to your question: if someone requires a degree of evidence to believe, then what’s the difference between understanding the evidence to a degree of scientific certainty or truthfulness, and believing anything based on that final leap of faith one must take to use the word “belief” as a description of understanding? If the evidence only works up to a certain point, and you must finally agree with some truth as an act of faith, isn’t that a conflation of how scientists use the word “evidence,” and how theologians or church doctrines use it? Saying “I believe the science” shouldn’t be a phrase used by a scientist. It’s illogical. We should say “I understand the science” since belief should have nothing to do with understanding objective facts or replicable studies of natural phenomena. Sure, there’s always some epistemological assumption underlying our understandings of reality, but scientists leave that realm open to more questions, whereas a believer finds the need to answer all of them definitely, regardless of the absence of evidence.
"Saying 'I believe the science' shouldn’t be a phrase used by a scientist."
And it isn't said or accepted by the best scientists. It's usually heard by people who think that they're sounding like scientists when they parrot it. The better scientists know better. Though scientists, too, come in "better" and "worse."
I just pasted this in a reply. I appreciate this ongoing comparison to a religion. But instead of "shitty religion," much of McWhorter's description reminds me more of "shitty therapy" or "shitty Human Potential movement." Being a shitty therapist or Human Potential guru gets you all the exalted specialness of being a cleric without actually having to undertake the deep philosophical and theological training and reflection, not to mention the stodgy uncoolness of the clerisy. This is my favorite example, as the teacher is clearly a caring individual and genuinely believes in what she is doing. Shitty therapy is abound with the notion that you can just love yourself into a sense of purpose and meaning. Alas, purpose and meaning come from toiling away at things outside yourself, such as the academic content she so easily dismisses. https://www.kusi.com/kearny-high-school-teacher-writes-new-curriculum-with-her-students-to-help-them-find-their-purpose-in-life/
True, these matters lend themselves to easily becoming lost in the semantic weeds. Another and more general term for what we're discussing is, of course, "dogma" and those whose attachments to opinion are "dogmatic".
There is something typically dogmatic somewhere in all religious doctrines while not all dogma is religious in character, strictly speaking. A belief might or might not, independent of its content, be applied, held or defended _dogmatically_ by some but not others of those who share the belief(s). There's always going to be _some_ degree of dogma in the set of beliefs, religious or not, held and disputed in any modern society such as our own. The precise beliefs held dogmatically are going to vary from time to time and they may be more or less "religious" in character. John's points remain valid either way one prefers to look at it. They concern tolerance--how much we have of it and in what and where it consists and is found. So there is, by a rough and ready reckoning, some kind of inverse relation between the prevalence of dogma and tolerance. At present, the particular beliefs advanced and defended dogmatically include some very, very unfortunate ones. We no longer burn witches at the stake. 2.01352 cheers for us!
(sorry, it looks like comments on this segment are running long-ish; alas the following comments will be no exception . . . However Substack seems to impose a length limit so I will post in bits & pieces, continuing as replies to my own comment)
I want to weigh in here as someone holding a couple of degrees in the secular study of religion. (Not theological degrees; I did have to read a bunch of religious thought, as well as sociology, philosophy, etc.)
I have a minor bone to pick with McWhorter’s thesis; but it’s only minor. On the whole what he says about the Elect and religion is worth taking seriously.
Surely it is not just hype.
The minor bone is this: the options for defining religion are substantive, or functional. (For those interested, Appendix I to Peter Berger’s Sacred Canopy is worth reading. “Definitions cannot, by their very nature, be either ‘true’ or ‘false,’ only more useful or less so.”) McWhorter takes the functional option. The functional view runs: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck. So (runs this line of reasoning) if something not obviously religious carries on like something obviously religious, then it is religion. Possibly the type specimen is communism: sure, it’s officially atheistic, but think about the veneration of Lenin’s body (a relic); the worship of Mao (a cult of personality) and the sacred Little Red Book (canonical scripture); and can fundamentalists even hold a candle to Trotskyites for schisms and sectarianism?
The downsides are: in functional terms, what is not like a religion (in one way or other)? If everything is religion, how can we say anything specific and interesting about religion? Also, one risks a basic logical fallacy (affirming the consequent) if one argues in this way: If anything is a religion, then it [has beliefs/makes leaps of faith/etc.]; communism [has beliefs/makes leaps of faith/etc.]; therefore communism is a religion. Perhaps the G-d that Failed, but a g-d nonetheless.
Foibles noted, the next question is: do we learn anything new or important by saying X is religion (or X is like religion)? (Berger’s question: is it more useful to do this, or less so?) In the case of the Elect, the answer is affirmative. This is where McWhorter’s account is valuable. He has said (either literally or in effect) at various points:
1. Racism functions for the Elect like Original Sin. (This is perhaps McWhorter’s prime insight into the Elect as religion; this thesis resounds throughout various pieces he has written.)
2. Original Sin is an article of faith, deriving from metaphysics rather than empirical considerations.
3. For the Elect one either just “gets it,” or else not; Belief transcends proof or argumentation.
4. Then of course there are two castes of souls: either one is Elect, or else Praeterite; oppressed, or oppressor.
5. Election or damnation is predestined, at least from birth. (The wages of Original Sin are, after all, visited upon descendants.)
6. Perhaps it is just futile to argue with the praeterite; Original Sin, after all, darkens the intellect. Depravity is Total. Those who don’t get it, don’t because they can’t; metaphysical perdition lies at the heart of Invincible Ignorance.
7. Masochism abounds.
8. Believers remain children of a Higher Parent; the Elect viewpoint infantilizes Black people in particular.
9. CRT is a millenarian movement: it awaits definitive racial reckoning in some far-off Judgment Day, bye and bye. Its eschatology is fuzzy; exceptionally so.
10. In respect of its millenarianism, it partakes more of charismatic passivism than serious political activism or reformism. It opiates (even if it pumps up the sound volume).
11. It consoles.
12. Key texts -- Coates, DiAngelo, Kendi -- are received as scriptural Truth.
13. It has clergy (Coates, DiAngelo, Kendi, etc.)
14. It has creed.
15. Catechism is demanded.
16. Blasphemy is policed.
17. There are taboos (including about language).
18. Genuflection occurs (literally as well as symbolically).
19. Elect spokespersons sermonize.
20. Elect spokespersons evangelize.
21. As McWhorter points out in the current essay, the Elect will resort to evangelical and crusading language to characterize themselves and their activities.
Others have commented on other religious aspects of the Elect.
• For instance (this has come up in several of the comments on McWhorter’s developing book and elsewhere;) actual religions usually follow condemnation of sin with a scheme for salvation. Elect religion is, curiously, religion without redemption. (At least without universal redemption. Even if and when Blacks attain the salvation of equity, whites remain lost forever and ever amen.)
• Related to this is the fact that its eschatology is fuzzy; redemption apart, it lacks any concept of progress because it lacks any concept of History. It dwells in the eternal present. Or perhaps in the eternal past: since racism will never abate; there is no difference between Dred Scott, Jim Crow and Title VII; white people will never, can never, escape the taint of their Original Sin.
• Predestination is Double-Decree: if anatomy is not destiny, birth is; and this is so equally for both Black and white castes. Whites manifest oppressor Whiteness; equally, Blacks manifest oppressed Blackness. This removes agency from everybody. Moral status (oppressor, oppressed) is totally ascribed; never achieved. (Solely gratuitous, not by works. No human agency, no amount of good intentions, can ever alter this.)
• Like rabbinic Judaism in the Mediterranean diaspora, or developing New England Calvinism, Elect religion has an internal caste system: along with full members of the covenant (the Oppressed) it allows a half-way covenant, with those who fear the Lord but remain second-class (i.e., the “allyship” among select Oppressors).
• Elect religion has its Church Ladies (“sinners in the hands of an Angry Broad”)
• Some at least of the Elect creed is deliberately immune to falsification. (For some, this is a definitive hallmark of theology; one might argue that it is not exclusive to theology; but it is hard to deny that it is pretty common in theology.) Maybe Kendi can be nailed down on falsifiable theses (the good kind of racial discrimination is not really racist); but with DiAngelo, it’s like nailing down jello (to deny, amounts simply to being in a state of psychopathological Denial).
• Hari Kunzru notes “Diversity consultancy is as much a product of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture as Black Lives Matter, but its lineage is not that of the New Left but the Human Potential movement . . . the royal road runs not through organizing but through personal transformation.” What Phillip Rieff called “the triumph of the therapeutic” has long ago replaced traditional pastoral care in the cure of souls -- including in the churches themselves. Elect religion is of a piece with this trendiness in organized religion.
• Elect religion can be denominational (Bertrand Russell: one may be atheist in either Protestant or Catholic flavors)
o Protestant aspects of CRT:
Virtue signaling: smiting the Devil
public (vs private, auricular) General Confession of Sin
No distinction btw venial & mortal sins (microaggression no different from lynching)
Double Decree Predestination (strong determinism, birth is destiny; one is either elected to Blackness, or else damned to anti-Blackness -- sola gratia; no amount of works, or prayers, can alter it)
Three Solae (sola scriptura/theory; sola fide/trust me; sola gratia/nothing you can do or say will redeem)
Revivalism (both the rhetoric: individuals fall under conviction of sin [including Original], then repent; and the public ceremony of repentance)
polycentric control (no Papacy though lots of warlords)
o Catholic aspects of CRT:
Genuflection
Creed
Catechism
Autos da fe -- privilege walks, self-flagellations
Litany
Syllabus of Error
Martyrs and saints (statues to/iconic walls of George Floyd)
• Like Thomas Jefferson, the Elect have razored out a lot of scripture, leaving only
o Book of Genesis (Original Sin & Fall)
o Book of Revelations (wrath; then Millennial perfection of Judgment Day) (Bell, Coates, Kendi & DiAngelo: the Four Horsepersons?)
• “Religion” may include theology but is much broader than its theology.
o Belief vs ritual/ orthodoxy vs orthopraxy. Belief can be variable, even among believers. Are members of the racial Diversity Consulting/Training Industry all true believers in the same way one must be to write for the NYT? Is the average proponent of “Critical Pedagogy” in the schools all that well-versed in post-modern Theory (Marcuse, Foucault, etc.), or are they just reciting the litany?
o Church vs sect. A church has inclusive membership (thus is larger, but with degrees of diluted belief) whereas a sect has exclusive membership (thus is smaller, but each member is potentially more driven and on the same page). Elect anti-racism is more like a church; not every church member is a Jesuit. A church can incorporate degrees of belief, in ways a sect typically does not.
• Transvaluation of values. Much that Nietzsche said about gaslighting and stealthy replacement in the rise of Christianity, might also be said of the CRT juggernaut. (Jagannath.)
• For some Elect preachers, at least, the collection plate is kind of full.
Thank you for your illuminating posts. Apart from my own cultural/philosophical-level religious life, I am not well versed in theology. I looked up the article by Kunzru and that quote about the Human Potential movement is a vital observation. I think that element of the “therapeutic” is missing from McWhorter’s comparison. In my own experience both inside the therapeutic profession and the academic left, it is remarkable how little insight there is about the way in which mundane narcissism drives so much of the organizational dysfunction within these well-intended professions. I think McWhorter’s term of the Elect is close, but I view it more as the Exalted. The guruism on the left reminds me a lot of peer-led groups in AA. The peer is both “just like you” but also of a special status. I’ve seen AA groups, therapy groups, and diversity-training groups devolve in similar beat-up-the-scapegoat fashion, because groups often unwittingly become centered around the emotive pantomime of mundane narcissism (both the mini-guru’s and the participants’) instead of creating the behavioral and/or structural change the group is supposedly tasked with. Ironically, AA has a quote for this, “Doing the hard work without working hard.” McWhorter points to “shitty religion,” but I guess I would liken the current zeitgeist more to “shitty therapy.” He has also talked about Kaufman's “Victimhood Mindset,” and that I think is exceptionally relevant. And the problem with shitty therapy is that it comes from a well-intentioned place of validating victimization. Most shitty therapists think they are wonderful therapists, because colluding with the victimhood mindset (which is a narcissistic defense) feels really good, kind, and caring. So, the anecdotal interpersonal feedback of left-leaning guruism is always positive. Religion, AA, social justice activism, therapy, and the liberal arts are all ambiguous tools. They can be tools to help people build functional prosocial relationships, know the depths and limits of their agency, and tolerate the grief and uncertainty of life. As the serenity prayer puts it, they can be tools to develop the wisdom to know the difference between what one can control and what one cannot. But these tools can also be easily and unknowingly misused to give the illusion of “doing the hard work” without really making any changes at all; the positive feedback loop and the exalted guru status make it easy to mistake contemplation (demonstrating distress) for actually working hard. And when this happens, you not only promote antisocial relationships, you substitute self-aggrandizement for self-agency, anger for grief, and control for acceptance.
In the New Yorker recently, Katy Waldman had an interesting take on "the rise of therapy-speak:" https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rise-of-therapy-speak
Oh that's great, thanks for sharing! It's a great take. The issue with therapy-speak is that it gives the illusion of embracing complexity, vulnerability, and grief when really it is a great tool for avoiding those things. I think one of the issues with therapy, for which the profession is not self-critical enough, is that a large portion of the profession is centered around the private practice model. And that model can create an underlying incentive to keep people unwell, coming back every week for their dedicated talk therapy hour. Very few therapists fire themselves for lack of progress. So, a lot of what leaks out of therapy can be un-wellness disguised as healing.
"Don't be upset by the result you didn't get with the work you didn't do."
We're not dealing with therapists, well-intentioned or not, or with their potential for indulging in some ill-conceived victim-validization. We're dealing with a particular subset of society, one claiming to be victims of alleged general and persistent social injustice and, as several have seen and explained here, these supposed victims' toxic juvenile demands on the rest of society at large. Those demands spring from a claim that a prejudiced view of skin-color is the basis of a racist society's general injurious practices.
It's one thing to need and to seek help in facing and coping with one's personal emotional traumas. It's something else to attempt to instrumentalize such personal struggles, making them into a grand con-game of guilt-mongering on a society-wide scale.
_________________
Hey, John,
Your comment software REALLY should have a preview/edit function. I'm sick of re-posting edits after repeated and meticulous reviews only to find after posting that there's still something amiss in it.
There are definitely a number of individuals who are using the current zeitgeist as a platform for their own interpersonal dysfunction and genuine pathological narcissism. But I think their is more utility in understanding why the con is so readily embraced and amplified by so many people, on so many sides, who are not themselves dysfunctional. Why is the sideshow so appealing? Ian Rowe, regarding K12 education, speaks to the way in which the current zeitgeist is a distraction from actually doing the things we need to do to educate children. And yet, the sideshow is treated as the main event. In my experience, the sideshow is appealing because it is a way to genuinely believe you're doing hard work without actually working hard. Moreover, the sideshow flatters the self while the core work is often thankless. For example, it is way more exciting to extol the virtues of race conscious math than to stress the necessity of smaller class sizes and paraprofessional teacher aids. Effective opposition to the sideshow must not fall into the trap of arguing with the sideshow only to become its own sideshow. Rather, it must focus on the active ingredients for accomplishing core work.
..." there is more utility in understanding why the con is so readily embraced and amplified by so many people, on so many sides, who are not themselves dysfunctional."
Briefly: Ask yourself why, the last time you fell for a con, that happened. The basic reasons and processes are the same in everyone. Only the details vary.
no great mystery in the fact that con-games entice by offering attractive opportunities to believe what one is predisposed to believe anyway.
Why did so many people foolishly embrace the nonsense of the Steele dossier's anti-Trump libels? Why do so many continue to insist on its validity? It serves two things: their stupid and self-serving prejudices to do so and also directly serves--or so they believe--the prospect of their ambitions to get or keep political power.
Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators deliberately set out to maliciously defame Trump personally and as a candidate for office. They did this as part of an electoral strategy, a bid to defeat an opponent in an election. When it failed, they carried on with redoubled effort and concocted a still more elaborate scheme to defraud the election processes themselves in the next round of elections--having been shown that they were not up to the challenge of actually defeating Trump in a fair election, they sought --and got--an unfair one in which they cheated their opponent.
We're still in the tortured process of learning these--to many--patently obvious facts. Why do so many stubbornly resist them? Because there is such immense power and wealth tied up in these matters and, for others, what's called the sunk-costs of the "emotional capital" "invested in" the idea of one's accurate grasp of factual reality. A great many people are in danger of a staggering experience of disillusionment if their fantasies about (supposed) Democrat party ( a.k.a."good") versus Trump-style Republican party (a.k.a. "evil") cannot stand the harsh light of authentic facts.
Loved this: “…it is remarkable how little insight there is about the way in which mundane narcissism drives so much of the organizational dysfunction within these well-intended professions.” This is a key point.
It may be mundane, but it is pernicious and sometimes vengeful.
There is a great book by Howard S. Schwartz: Narcissistic Process and Corporate Decay. The book specifically references corporate and bureaucratic structure, but it is applicable to all groups and organizations of all types. Basically, it is very easy for groups/organizations to get "off task" but truly believe they are on task. This is because, out of deference to mundane narcissism, groups will organize around an "ego ideal" instead of around their core task. And organizing around narcissism feels really good and special. Conversely, organizing around the core task can be boring and fraught with responsibility, mistakes, and trade-offs. For example, a college Classics department might decide to organize around manifesting their perfection via opposition to white supremacy instead of organizing around teaching Classics. Schwartz's book has a great case example that really challenged my own childhood embrace of the ego idealized Teacher in Space NASA program and the Challenger Disaster. It highlights how pursuit of the ego ideal over the core work frequently degrades quality and competency, and also fosters dysfunctional I-it relationships over I-thou. Basically, the Teacher in Space program organized the aerospace engineers around a space-for-anyone unifying message, rather than around the absolute high-stakes technical competency necessary for manned space flight. By definition, mundane narcissism isn't vengeful, it's the belief-in-perfection we all carry around. But it definitely is vulnerable to terrible consequences because key players become adherents who can no longer distinguish the core mission from the sideshow, or skeptics who can distinguish but must keep their discernment hidden in order to survive. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narcissistic_Process_and_Corporate_Decay/JGYTCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=narcissistic+process+and+corporate+decay&printsec=frontcover
In the case of the Challenger shuttle's disastrous failure on launch, one and only one key decision was botched: to launch or not to launch that day, January 28th, 1986, versus postponing the launch to a date with temperatures in line with safety's requirements—yes, for reasons of what I'd describe as technicians' hubris. But the inquiry which followed made clear that the launch decision was taken against the vehement objections of certain members of the team's decision-making structure. In other words, the better course was voiced, stressed, insisted upon and, ultimately dismissed and overruled.
The reasons amounted to what we call loss-of-face or the idea of that as a consequence of postponing a launch so heavy with political calculations and expectations. Everyone, from the PotU.S. down through the NASA hierarchy was counting on the launch to go ahead. But freezing temperatures on the launch site--which were _known_ to pose risks to the O-ring rubber seals--threatened the safety of the launch.
Challenger's emotional public-relations "payload," with, yes, the presence of school teacher Christa McAuliffe as compliicating and contributing factor, is what destroyed the Challenger.
Pathological narcissism and hubris (both of which concepts come from the literature of classical Greece) are not the same things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Thiokol%E2%80%93NASA_conference_call
More to your point about vengeance: The sideshow created by pursuit of the ego ideal can most definitely take a vengeful form! What I'm calling mundane, Freud calls "primary." But it is this narcissism we almost all carry around, which is the desire for the world to be loving and for us to be at the very center of that loving world.
You’re welcome. And thank you for your kind words.
McWhorter is juggling lots of balls all at once, while riding a tiger. (And possibly tossing in more balls to the mix, as my lists did, will not be welcome.) He does however talk at several points about “therapeutic alienation,” which he defined in Winning The Race, pp. 6-9. But perhaps he might emphasize more the point Kunzru makes, Rieff likewise, about how generally definitive the therapeutic outlook has become. A question of emphasis.
Goethe once said, concerning the future, “I fear that . . . the world will be one big hospital and each person will be the other person's humane keeper.” We have seen this future and it works (well, sort of).
“The peer is both ‘just like you’ but also of a special status.” Good one. Hi, I’m Bill, and I’m an alcoholic (just like you); BUT: . . . Humblebrag. Upmanship. Like in the old USSR, getting to address someone as “comrade Colonel” (but still, he IS the colonel!) or in K12 when the august holder of the EdD degree appears to put subordinates at ease with: oh, just call me Dr. Dolly, that’s fine . . .
Regarding the psychopathology of everyday Therapy, I’ll see your “narcissism” and raise you “S&M.”
Wow, that Goethe quote is fantastic! I'm always humbled by the thoughts and writings of the past. That is the absolute paradox of humanitarianism. At what point does caring for others take away their agency? At what point do you inadvertently pathologize normal human suffering? And at what point does it all become reified, so that the only way people believe they are cared for and/or can show care is through a medical-grade response? At a funny level, this is like how a toddler needs a bandaid on the smallest of scratches in order to feel comforted.
Thank you for pointing out McWhorter's therapeutic alienation. I just read an excerpt of Losing the Race. He describes quite well how external systems of support can promote the loss of agency, especially when coupled with traumatic damage to self-esteem. But I think what makes it so intractable, is that a sort of pseudo-agency takes the place of legitimate agency. And shitty therapy is really about fixating on promoting pseudo-agency. Pseudo-agency is obsessed with the primacy of the self. The problem is when you prioritize your sense-of-self as the most important thing you own, you create an existential faberge egg that you now have to protect everywhere you go. One of my favorite sayings is "you can't save your face and your ass at the same time." So, we've found ourselves in a zeitgeist that is all about saving face (or showing how willing you are to save the face of others by disparaging your own), or maybe has confused the face and the ass (sorry to be so crude). And yes, all these professional doctorates are just that.
The real trick to healthy self-esteem, is to cultivate a portfolio of doing and to find other people who also like doing those things. And that is the exact opposite of what is happening. If I had to pick a single culprit at a top-down level, it is the way in which the exorbitant cost of higher ed, coupled with the student loan industry, has given academia the subconscious motive to please-the-customer. As such, academia has become less about doing hard things and more about getting accolades for being...but still having the veneer of doing hard things. Kind of like how Starbucks has us all convinced that a $7 caffeinated milkshake is the same as a $2 bitter espresso. And this self-aggrandizement/self-flagellation that crowds out the real doing, is now trickling down into K12 education, and that has me really freaked out.
Attributed to Gen "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell but probably much older: the higher a monkey climbs, the more of his arse he shows.
This is a brilliant example of mini-gurism. This teacher seems so earnest and well-intentioned. But you can see how easy it is to become organized around a narcissistic ego ideal, especially when that ego ideal is the perfect self. Unbeknownst to this teacher, by asserting this ego ideal she is positioning her classroom into a shitty therapy space and exalting herself. If she were a trained group therapist, she would be violating several ethical and professional standards (though in her defense, many trained group therapist do this too). https://www.kusi.com/kearny-high-school-teacher-writes-new-curriculum-with-her-students-to-help-them-find-their-purpose-in-life/
Are there ways in which Electism is not like religion? Let me count the ways.
1. Lack of redemption has already been mentioned.
2. It has a clergy, but no clear hierarchy. (Yes, there are polycentric religions; there is congregational polity as well as episcopal polity; but the Elect just lacks regular congregation whatsoever.) The Elect has no papacy, but many warlords.
3. There are core beliefs, and family resemblances among bodies of belief, but no council has ever hammered out anything firm like a Nicene Creed.
4. It is disorganized religion, not organized religion. Its congregants do not gather together on a regular schedule. It is propagated, impersonally, through “social” media rather than interpersonally through actual social gatherings. (As religion, it is very much The Electronic Church.)
5. Ritual is minimal (mostly punishment and degradation ceremonies for the praeterite; very little for edification of the Church itself).
6. Sacraments? None of which to speak.
7. Music? None (for better or for worse).
8. St Paul said “there is neither Jew nor Greek, . . . for ye are all one . . . ” but the Elect disagree: humanity is not universal but is divided fundamentally into distinct races, superior and inferior. Double standards are not so much a moral offence as a positive way of life.
9. The main reason for thinking the Elect to constitute a religion, is their theology; but actual religion is more than just its theology.
Clearly in addressing this Substack audience on how McWhorter is onto something important, I risk preaching to the choir. But let us conclude with some larger implications of calling the Elect a religion:
If it genuinely is a religion, and it becomes established ideology in schools and civil service, this is is violation of the U S Constitution; and if people are denied hiring and promotion based on violating its tenets, equally unconstitutional
Whether one says it is religion, or it is like religion, its downsides are the same as many of the civil, moral, and intellectual downsides of religion. (Is it a distinctively “shitty religion” as religions go? Or merely “shitty” in some ways that religion typically is for ordinary, civil life?) If the Elect outlook opiates, distracts, misleads, infantilizes and so on, is it more important to point out these actual downsides, or to compare it to religion? Auguste Comte founded, among other things, a Religion of Humanity (complete with scriptures, holy trinity, a calendar, a priesthood, a catechism, etc.); T H Huxley described it as “Catholicism, minus Christianity.” The Elect may have achieved something comparable: much of the shitty stuff of religion, minus redemption (the potentially good bit).
Then, once we discover something that is religion (or even like religion) what does that discovery tell us? (Beyond ringing the usual bell and causing Sam Harris or Bill Maher to salivate.) It always amuses me when religious believers themselves gleefully declare, e.g.: see, even [fill in the blank: evolution, Marxism, etc.] is just a religion! (A religious believer using the label “religion” as a stigma.) Beyond stigma, what does it tell us to discover that CRT is a religion, or like a religion?
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John's statement "My point is that religion typically includes a wing of belief that must stand apart from empiricism, that at a certain point one must just “believe.” " is true for any system of statements based on logic. That would be my interpretation of Godel's theorem. It is mathematically proven that no system of logical statements can exist without either a contradiction or an unproven assumption, i.e. a belief.
With that as mathematical proof, every empirical system based on logic will require some element of belief (more or less) and will be by your definition a religion of sorts. Some religions require more beliefs than others, any many have beliefs that are contradicted by evidence but I don't think that matters as much as the processes the religion advocates and the results of those processes. That is what makes a religion "shitty" or not. I would acknowledge there is a lot of evidence that different individuals of the same religion can exhibit widely divergent processes with opposite results. So I would not stereotype members of any religion.
I am emphasizing results because those effect other people more than beliefs. People tend to use beliefs to justify their own desires, so religion is a lot like a Rorschach. The way the person expresses their religion tell you far more about them than about God.
Electism as a set of propositions is necessarily going to be a religion. Many (most?) of its beliefs seem contradicted by quite a bit of evidence. However, what is dangerous is that the actions advocated by its more vocal proponents seem to consist of stereotyping, self-righteousness, blaming, and polarizing. These actions are going to have very negative results.
Note that I have anecdotal evidence from a friend in which a public forum on critical race theory ended up with the theme that we all need to be kind to each other. So even adherents of Electism can exhibit divergent behaviors.
I would suggest focusing less on whether Electism is a religion. It is a moot point and spending energy on the argument will just tend to confuse the issue. The problem is that we have people who are justifying using destructive processes of stereotyping, character assassination, self-righteousness, blaming, and the polarization of society based on "racial" characteristics. Those processes are the exact same processes used by white supremacists and other racists, and therefore the Elect are racist.
What they are doing is using their religion to justify destructive processes. This is a common and regrettable tendency in humans. "Others are "bad" and so when they use a destructive process they bad things. We are "good" so when we use a destructive process we do good things." This is utter nonsense but it is used to justify all sorts of atrocities. The Elect are falling into the same delusion.
The latest from Victor Davis Hanson brings together all the main themes being discussed in this thread --and J McW's essay.
The Cruel Progressive Creed Undoing Civilization
The Left’s progressive wasteland is an acceptable price to pay for the terrifying visions of its anointed. | By Victor Davis Hanson | June 27, 2021
Link : https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/27/the-cruel-progressive-creed-undoing-civilization/
I’ve long held that many people who do not consider themselves religious, in fact are. Indifferent agnostics are probably the least religious of my acquaintances; rather ironically, outspoken, “evangelical” atheists are some of the most devoutly religious people I know. An affirmative faith that there is no god — for this can’t be empirically proven, any more than that there is a god or gods — can be a central, motivating life’s belief.
McWhorter makes a compelling argument for Electism being a religion; depending on how one differentiates religion from cult, Electism could fall into either or both categories: One man’s cult is another’s religion. Electism evidences many hallmarks of a religion, e.g. public confession of sin, shibboleths, and excommunication of heretics — to list only three. How much evidence is necessary to definitively say that a social movement has morphed into a religion? When is religious critical mass reached? It’s difficult or impossible to quantify, but it seems to me that it isn’t ridiculous or offensive to call Electism a religion.
People who may object to the characterization of woke racism as a religion don’t want their own religion denigrated. Thus many may fail to see that, while religions have always served the human need to comprehend or make use of that which cannot be explained or proven by physical means, they also have been used to control large swaths of people. They have existed on two sides of the coin in varying degrees over human history: they comfort, unite and uplift, or persecute, divide and exploit. While the Elect likely feel the former regarding their activism, McWhorter argues the latter.
Leftism is a religion in general then. Everything that promises salvation and healing and offers a faith which makes one a member of the group is by definition a religious enterprise. Communist Parties are churches, as well as the Democratic Party is one. Every political vision, which projects some objectives onto the future is a religion, according to this definition.
The Elect are a cult. They promise salvation and membership by faith through religious means, but to be a religion you have to be universal. A religion is a means to an end, which is to stabilize society, reduce conflicts and guarantee the status of non-believers. Even Islam, the most intolerant of religions provide something like that. The Elect doesn't.
The Elect just demonise "whiteness" and thereby strengthening the disintegration of the society which created them in the first place.
I would say it is more like cult or sect.
"I will be roundly slammed for seeming disrespectful of religion, and for not knowing enough about it to sully it with a comparison to Elect ideology." It's possible that you're being overly sensitive here, Professor McWhorter. In fact, you've forced me to confront the source of some of our pushback. Many of us commenting here are deeply worried about the current, blithe, one-size-fits-all societal prescriptions (evangelization, actually) aimed at eliminating religion entirely from the human condition.
Putting others down for having faith or believing in something that is "irrational" or "can't be scientifically proved" is disrespectful. Admitting that religious commitment "perplexes and sometimes even irritates" you is **not** disrespectful: it's an expression of, well, your lived experience, not to mention the unique quality of your mind which is, after all, the source of all the important ideas in the new book. Everything you've said about religion in "The Elect" is valid as far as I can tell based on my dated M.Div. and subsequent spiritual exploration. (While a strict reading of the Calvinist doctrine and its subsequent development through all the branchings and mergings of Christian theology can only lead to rabbit holes, you're using the term "Elect" in a more conventional, ecumenical sense that is completely correct, appropriate and marvelously effective.)
Perhaps we "pro-religion" folks have sometimes been too quick to respond with knee-jerk (but hopefully thoughtful) reactions triggered by what we see as the unrelenting, cold rationality of present times. Nevertheless, I haven't seen anyone "slamming" you in the wonderfully stimulating comments to this substack. And actually, I have a confession: those of us who worry about society's increasing beleaguerment of religion are always on the lookout for any forum in which we can proclaim our side of things, whether or not our comments are strictly related to the source ideas we're commenting on.
Regarding religion and belief in God: Religion nor belief in 'God' is necessary to know God. Belief, and religion based on belief, is testament to the uncertainty of actually knowing. Beliefs as such can actually hinder knowing because conceptualization(s) more often than not serve as substitutes for knowing. Knowing God is like knowing the sun. One just steps outside, sees the light and feels the warmth on one's body. It doesn't require belief, or even description. It only requires stepping outside. The sun, without a doubt, is.
Similarly the 'is-ness' of 'God' is available for anyone and everyone. All it takes is faith and trust in the un-figure-out-able, the unknown, in all-that-is. The stepping outside of one's separateness (Yes, it is a tall order.) reveals the reality of It, (or 'God', for lack of a better word). Whether or not one 'believes' in God or even has a concept of 'God' is irrelevant.
McWhorter would be good to make a distinction between ordinary religious, political and ideological beliefs and associated identities, from the possibility of coming upon what exists beyond belief.
This section of John McWhorter's piece stuck out for me: "Here’s another grand old academy being choked by CRT ideology, while smart media types stand by claiming nothing’s going on because legal theorists forty years ago had no such things in mind and thus it isn’t CRT and thus if you don’t like it, you’re a racist..."
Did anyone see this past week the interview on MSNBC by Joy Reid with Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute? It was an embarrassment... for Reid. She didn't let him speak, dismissing what he struggled to say because "people could look up his talking points." Plus, Reid specifically took the view of what John states in the citation above -- that what's going on now has nothing to do with CRT as written in the 1970s and 80s. The segment was really a nasty contest of wills than an enlightening interview.
It's time for a substantive, drama-free discussion of exactly what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is and what it isn't to combat the constant noise going on from 1. the crazy right-wing who co-opt the term (along with "cancel culture") with no idea what either actually mean and 2. the Elect left who make the same claim as Reid did in the interview with Rufo. Ideally, this discussion could be in the form of a debate, of no less than 2 hours, among knowledgeable, level-headed people -- to set the record straight and express good faith opposing views. How refreshing would that be?
I saw a replay. Honestly, I didn't think Rufo came across much better. Like you said, we need "substantive, drama-free discussion." Let Reid and Rufo have a two-hour conversation, Jordan Peterson style. Sometimes JBP's interviews don't really click until 30 minutes or an hour in.
I don't have time for those television soundbites with descriptions like CLOBBERED and DEMOLISHED and OWNED. But I've got two hours for serious discussion.
True. Rufo did not come across much better. But, Reid was the host. She invited Rufo on and (at the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish) she is supposed to care about what her guests have to say, even if she doesn't agree with them. Sure, push back on obvious BS but she didn't allow even a conversation. Think what could have happened instead if she had given him just a bit of time to make his case, or a point. Reid could have still responded as she did with "that's not Critical Race Theory." Then there might have been a definition coming from m either or both of them perhaps then leading to a question like "How does CRT manifest within the realities of 2021?" We might have had a substantive exchange in the few minutes allotted for the segment.
But, that, of course, didn't happen. Instead Reid, in words you suggest, clobbered, demolished and owned Rufo -- or so was her intent. And that should never be the intent of someone who has five hours/week of national television under their control.
I'm not sure I'd go with Reid and Rufo in the 2-hour debate. More measured voices are needed. Not to put him on the spot but John McWhorter would be great, by himself or perhaps part of a team of debaters.
Speaking of McWhorter and MSNBC: He did an interview with Chris Hayes on the "Why is this Happening?" podcast. Similar themes were talked about and there was much more time, to a much better outcome.
Here's what's funny. When I searched for it on YouTube, these were two of the video headlines I found:
"Joy Reid Schools Critical Race Theory Critic On Legal Scholarship"
"Joy Reid is schooled by critical race theory critic whom she refused to let speak"
"Schools" is good clickbait, I guess.
Even though no one learned a thing. Neither one of them, and I know I didn’t. Much popular discourse has become increasingly about the act of arguing. Conflict for conflict sake. A side show. Yeah, it may be juicy to click on a story in which someone got “schooled” or some other (fill in the blank) conflict verb but these words have already begun to lose their meaning.