John, you have done great work here. This is heroic. This is what drinking from the Grail, the Cup of Imagination, looks like. Imaginal realms open up when we stop indulging ourselves and connect to the life force of the Divine.
Alright! Very well laid out. We seem to share many of the same instincts and perspectives.
For my part, I would deemphasize (but not eliminate!) race as the core of Wokeness. Two reasons. First, the term "race" is so distracting to so many people that it might be preferable to just punt the term entirely.
But second, and more substantively, I think it clear that the Wokesters are using race as a proxy for historic Christianity and, by extension, its perceived perspectives and interests. Hence Biden's "you ain't black," comment. This is also resonant with your observation that "These are all achievements of a Christian people. . . ."
If you do want to keep the emphasis on race discourse, I'd recommend that you go way harder and more explicitly that you're appealing to a Romantic notion of "race" which focuses more on cultural traditions and history than biological descent. I think that's really what your after here, isn't it? The "spirit of the [fill-in-the-blank] people." Sure, maybe there's some biology in there, but the significance of "blood" here is at least as symbolic and metaphorical as physical.
I would recommend one correction though. Or at least a clarification. You write that, "with the rejection of universals, society became entirely reliant on Christianity to determine what was normal and what was abnormal." This statement is both too broad and too specific.
It's too broad in that society didn't become reliant on Christianity in general, but on the specific institutional and organizational authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, with the Vatican at its apex. But it's too narrow in that society wasn't reliant on the Vatican just for determinations about "what was normal and what was abnormal." It was reliant on the authority of the church for determinations about what was true, in general.
Really. This is, for example, why there were trials of combat and ordeal. The theory was that when the proceedings were observed and blessed by a priest, that God was expressing his opinion on the matter through the outcome. So when the Vatican declared that priests weren't going to participate in such proceedings anymore (Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 18, AD 1215) the practice of trial by combat and ordeal almost immediately disappeared. That, in and of itself, isn't really part of the problem here, but it does show just how fundamental ecclesiastical authority was to the medieval epistemic consensus.
You are absolutely correct that the emergence of nominalism--itself likely inevitable given the (arguable) metaphysical and (undeniable) empirical shortcomings of Aristotelianism--was the death knell of the medieval epistemic consensus. But the lynchpin of that consensus was, functionally, the magisterial authority of the Pope. Over the next few centuries, the Vatican became so demonstrably corrupt that this ceased to be plausible and functional, leading to the Protestant Reformation.
Yarvin said somewhere that the "truth engine," whatever it may be, can only work so long as it is always correct. Well, the authority of the Vatican was the truth engine of the medieval consensus. But by the early modern period, it was far too obvious to far too many people that the Vatican wasn't always right. A century of rival claimants to the papacy will do that, but the manifest corruption and venality of centuries of popes certainly didn't help things much. A truth engine that isn't always right doesn't work as a truth engine. Hence the Protestant Reformation.
Surprised you didn't just say ban pornography. It'd be easier than coming up with all these highly complicated anonymous age verification techniques just so some guy can get a nut off. But overall despite very minor differences of opinion due mostly to national situation and some tweaks from my own religious background, this was a really good article on wokeism.
Epic article! The only thing I basically disagree with is that I consider both Marxists and French Revolutionaries to also be woke. Majority/minority status is irrelevant; what defines woke is simply spiteful envy manifesting in sociopolitical ideology.
This was amazing John. Really tied all the different dissident perspectives together whether it’s race, religion, immigration, etc. Really enjoyed all the different references too whether it was skin folk and kin folk, or memes about feminism. I think the piece really hits on internet right wing culture of the 2010-2020s and will be something to reference in the future. I also think you got to the fundamental issue of modernity, that of nominalism leading to the split of faith and reason. Everything else stems from that and hopefully we can get back to hylomorphism and divine revelation (luckily step one hylomorphism is making a big comeback right now in analytic philosophy in the Anglosphere so hopefully we will see this awful period end in our lifetimes)
On Woke issues I have a similar position to reactionary Catholics I think; harsh on LGBT, more moderate on feminism and race.
On other social issues I would diverge however, at least in certain respects. I think long-term we need to return to something which is at least similar in order to have above-replacement level birthrates though.
Yeah that’s about where I am. For reference the Church has issues that are considered non-negotiable such as the family and life issues, theological issues such as Christs divinity etc, but for other political issues that have to due with the secular realm (meaning of this age not having to do with the next), Catholics can prudentially disagree so that’s a fair perspective
Actually, this is an interesting question: what makes say, opposition to abortion, a non-negotiable Catholic position, but Pope Francis' open borders statements not?
Well abortion is a moral issue that is intrinsically wrong thus a government doesn’t have the authority to allow it because a governments laws don’t come before Gods law. An immigration policy while has some moral precepts that need to be respected, technically is a prudential issue and the government can decide with their own judgement who they want to be citizens. If a nation wants to invite tons of immigrants it can in order to build a good economy, it’s just extremely destructive to the Common Good as any pre-modern philosopher (Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, all discussed) so it’s really stupid but technically allowed.
But Pope Francis' positions aren't canon law though?
Another example is that Catholic teaching, at least since Vatican II, has been opposed to capital punishment, but yet most American conservative Catholics continue to support it.
Is it simply the age of the teaching and longstanding tradition? If so, are service in the vernacular allowed? If Vatican II could break with tradition so radically, why couldn't some Pope even more liberal than Francis mandate that, actually... homosexuality isn't a sin anymore?
Not arguing, just asking some genuine questions about Catholicism.
A popes words are only doctrine if he speaks ex cathedra, meaning only in specific circumstances (has happened twice ever) so pope Francis opinions don’t just become doctrine. Death penalty is a complex one and I agree on the surface there are some issues. If you want a good analysis on both of these issues, this is a good video: https://youtu.be/o8ubCSJya-A?si=9h9v0kEcmFKg0Whv
LGBT is the only one on your list that you appear strong. On the rest, you seem weak and morally/intellectually insecure. In other words, you come across as a typical classical liberal. Lame. And the fact that you never even mention liberalism as a cause of wokeness is telling. Tired of libs. All of them!
John, you have done great work here. This is heroic. This is what drinking from the Grail, the Cup of Imagination, looks like. Imaginal realms open up when we stop indulging ourselves and connect to the life force of the Divine.
Alright! Very well laid out. We seem to share many of the same instincts and perspectives.
For my part, I would deemphasize (but not eliminate!) race as the core of Wokeness. Two reasons. First, the term "race" is so distracting to so many people that it might be preferable to just punt the term entirely.
But second, and more substantively, I think it clear that the Wokesters are using race as a proxy for historic Christianity and, by extension, its perceived perspectives and interests. Hence Biden's "you ain't black," comment. This is also resonant with your observation that "These are all achievements of a Christian people. . . ."
If you do want to keep the emphasis on race discourse, I'd recommend that you go way harder and more explicitly that you're appealing to a Romantic notion of "race" which focuses more on cultural traditions and history than biological descent. I think that's really what your after here, isn't it? The "spirit of the [fill-in-the-blank] people." Sure, maybe there's some biology in there, but the significance of "blood" here is at least as symbolic and metaphorical as physical.
I would recommend one correction though. Or at least a clarification. You write that, "with the rejection of universals, society became entirely reliant on Christianity to determine what was normal and what was abnormal." This statement is both too broad and too specific.
It's too broad in that society didn't become reliant on Christianity in general, but on the specific institutional and organizational authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, with the Vatican at its apex. But it's too narrow in that society wasn't reliant on the Vatican just for determinations about "what was normal and what was abnormal." It was reliant on the authority of the church for determinations about what was true, in general.
Really. This is, for example, why there were trials of combat and ordeal. The theory was that when the proceedings were observed and blessed by a priest, that God was expressing his opinion on the matter through the outcome. So when the Vatican declared that priests weren't going to participate in such proceedings anymore (Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 18, AD 1215) the practice of trial by combat and ordeal almost immediately disappeared. That, in and of itself, isn't really part of the problem here, but it does show just how fundamental ecclesiastical authority was to the medieval epistemic consensus.
You are absolutely correct that the emergence of nominalism--itself likely inevitable given the (arguable) metaphysical and (undeniable) empirical shortcomings of Aristotelianism--was the death knell of the medieval epistemic consensus. But the lynchpin of that consensus was, functionally, the magisterial authority of the Pope. Over the next few centuries, the Vatican became so demonstrably corrupt that this ceased to be plausible and functional, leading to the Protestant Reformation.
Yarvin said somewhere that the "truth engine," whatever it may be, can only work so long as it is always correct. Well, the authority of the Vatican was the truth engine of the medieval consensus. But by the early modern period, it was far too obvious to far too many people that the Vatican wasn't always right. A century of rival claimants to the papacy will do that, but the manifest corruption and venality of centuries of popes certainly didn't help things much. A truth engine that isn't always right doesn't work as a truth engine. Hence the Protestant Reformation.
Surprised you didn't just say ban pornography. It'd be easier than coming up with all these highly complicated anonymous age verification techniques just so some guy can get a nut off. But overall despite very minor differences of opinion due mostly to national situation and some tweaks from my own religious background, this was a really good article on wokeism.
Epic article! The only thing I basically disagree with is that I consider both Marxists and French Revolutionaries to also be woke. Majority/minority status is irrelevant; what defines woke is simply spiteful envy manifesting in sociopolitical ideology.
Yeah this is a crucial difference.
Wokeism is the 'minorities good, majorities bad' impulse, plus feminism.
The social levelling emphasis is the same, but the ideologues are fundamentally different.
Thanks for reading though.
This was amazing John. Really tied all the different dissident perspectives together whether it’s race, religion, immigration, etc. Really enjoyed all the different references too whether it was skin folk and kin folk, or memes about feminism. I think the piece really hits on internet right wing culture of the 2010-2020s and will be something to reference in the future. I also think you got to the fundamental issue of modernity, that of nominalism leading to the split of faith and reason. Everything else stems from that and hopefully we can get back to hylomorphism and divine revelation (luckily step one hylomorphism is making a big comeback right now in analytic philosophy in the Anglosphere so hopefully we will see this awful period end in our lifetimes)
Thanks for reading.
On Woke issues I have a similar position to reactionary Catholics I think; harsh on LGBT, more moderate on feminism and race.
On other social issues I would diverge however, at least in certain respects. I think long-term we need to return to something which is at least similar in order to have above-replacement level birthrates though.
Yeah that’s about where I am. For reference the Church has issues that are considered non-negotiable such as the family and life issues, theological issues such as Christs divinity etc, but for other political issues that have to due with the secular realm (meaning of this age not having to do with the next), Catholics can prudentially disagree so that’s a fair perspective
Actually, this is an interesting question: what makes say, opposition to abortion, a non-negotiable Catholic position, but Pope Francis' open borders statements not?
Well abortion is a moral issue that is intrinsically wrong thus a government doesn’t have the authority to allow it because a governments laws don’t come before Gods law. An immigration policy while has some moral precepts that need to be respected, technically is a prudential issue and the government can decide with their own judgement who they want to be citizens. If a nation wants to invite tons of immigrants it can in order to build a good economy, it’s just extremely destructive to the Common Good as any pre-modern philosopher (Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, all discussed) so it’s really stupid but technically allowed.
But Pope Francis' positions aren't canon law though?
Another example is that Catholic teaching, at least since Vatican II, has been opposed to capital punishment, but yet most American conservative Catholics continue to support it.
Is it simply the age of the teaching and longstanding tradition? If so, are service in the vernacular allowed? If Vatican II could break with tradition so radically, why couldn't some Pope even more liberal than Francis mandate that, actually... homosexuality isn't a sin anymore?
Not arguing, just asking some genuine questions about Catholicism.
A popes words are only doctrine if he speaks ex cathedra, meaning only in specific circumstances (has happened twice ever) so pope Francis opinions don’t just become doctrine. Death penalty is a complex one and I agree on the surface there are some issues. If you want a good analysis on both of these issues, this is a good video: https://youtu.be/o8ubCSJya-A?si=9h9v0kEcmFKg0Whv
Great article, well documented argument, I agree with most of your proposals, especially the strangulation of the NGO's.
Lynn has shown average man is actually more intelligent than the average woman, if only by some five points.
Nothing ascends in our culture without the Jew advancing it.
Google genders in the Talmud.
LGBT is the only one on your list that you appear strong. On the rest, you seem weak and morally/intellectually insecure. In other words, you come across as a typical classical liberal. Lame. And the fact that you never even mention liberalism as a cause of wokeness is telling. Tired of libs. All of them!
I do criticise liberalism, but the label is so broad I narrow it down to post-war liberalism, which is effectively Wokeism.
> For instance, terms like ‘Woke Right’ are being used by containment ‘classical liberals’ to stigmatise Sensible Centrists
So does "containment" just mean "reminding John Arcto that reality isn't optional' now?