The Post-Christian Moral Order

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The Post-Christian Moral Order

April 2023April 21, 2023By Henry George

Wokeness isn’t Marxism. It’s the new moral order for the managerial State . . .

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Comments (33)

Henry George makes an excellent, basic point that separates Marxism, Fascism, and the like from Wokeness. A point, however, I have not seen argued. Those other ideologies, especially Marxism, called for collective and personal sacrifice to achieve a purported greater good. I do not believe I ever have heard a purveyor of Wokeism talk about sacrifice, as opposed to perpetual and ever increasing self-actualization, also as defined that day by the Chosen. Wokeism is not talking about anything akin to The City of God.

April 3, 2023 Michael Kaiser Reply
NERO-BOLSHEVISM. Let me explicate.
Nero = Black (the anointed–sacred disadvantaged) plus the nihilism that is the essence of communism (Bolshevism).
(And my “Nero” deliberately echoes “Neo-” to indicate that it is a new variation of some old elements. Thus, juxtaposed to Neo-Nazi.)
So, I submit that we should refer to the RACISM (anti-White) and SEXISM-Feminism and Sodom-and-Gomorrahism of “Woke” as NERO-BOLSHEVIK.
Verboten as pussy words: woke, cancel culture, identity politics.

April 7, 2023 Nick Reply
We’re still talking about a category of tyranny; A violent imposition upon the citizens without seeking their consent and ignoring the Law/Covenant by which those citizens have already agreed to live, and have not as yet given their consent to Wokeness (and likely will NEVER consent to this insanity). They are Outlaws. To the degree they induce fear and terror in those citizens and burn, loot, murder, they are terrorists. Those in positions of power who aid and abet these outlaws and terrorists will also share in the same judgement to be passed on them. Retribution is at hand, and who said “I am your retribution”? Those in power who interfere with the ballots will invite the bullets. We will either have the man the people truly want in the White House, or we will suffer our “General Pinochet” era, to take out the woke trash, with or without consent of the governed. This would be a revival of an elective office practiced in the old Republic of Rome in times of existential emergency: A Dictator (the official title) elected for a fixed term of six months, whose word was Law, and defiance of it was punishable by death, the Dictator being judge, jury and executioner. Cincinnatus was called to this office twice in his life, both times obediently returning to his farm when the crisis was resolved. We have a Society of the Cincinnati, in existence since the Founding. I’ve wondered about its purpose since I learned of its existence twenty years ago. They have a list of members. I wonder about the unknown list of unknown members, the REAL list.

April 7, 2023 Larry Bowen Reply
The description this article gives me of Wokeism makes it sound even more like Marxism to me. Yes the preferred class is different. The type of revolution is different. The cultural critique is different than 19th century Marxism. But it is the fountain from which all this comes. Where do you think American Progressivism came from? Marx. Where did the Social Gospel come from? Hegel. Maybe not strict Marxism but some other flavor of early Communist ideology.

Yes Wokeism is the offspring of mixing the Frankfurt School, Critical Theory, Post-modernism, and Secular Postmillennial Pietism. All those things were developed in American universities after WW2. Then the revolution strategy was given by Gramsci. That explains why the Left controls every cultural institution in America today. The long march is complete.

Right wingers need to call a spade a spade, and therefore a Wokeista is a Marxist.

https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-ethics-of-liberty-children-and.html

April 7, 2023 RMB Reply
In this woke New Moral Order, as American dissident academic Brandon Van Dyck put it in a 2022 Youtube interview with Kaufmann, “race is at the very centre of our moral order, but the categories of sex and sexual orientation are secondary and round out a kind of holy trinity of victimology. In this holy trinity, race sits on the throne, with sex and sexual orientation to its left and right.”

Please stop referring to any group of three things as a “trinity”. There is only one Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; to refer to anything else as a “trinity” is a grotesque abuse of language. I realize the author is simply quoting Van Dyck here, so this is not a criticism of the author.

Mainline church leaders saw it as their holy duty at the beginning of the 20th century to transform the world into an earthly kingdom of Heaven. … Today’s woke New Moral Order represents the radicalization and intensification of something quintessentially American. Both the social gospel and progressivism represented a transformation of the older form of American Protestantism, rightly glorified by Mitchell. The politics of progressive social reform/social engineering and messianic liberal internationalism were all pillars of this new American ideology. Wokeness is the Protestant-inflected offspring of these positions that have influenced the post-Christian Millennials and Gen Z.

This is not a transformation of Protestantism; it is a complete rejection of Protestantism. The Woke, like their Puritan forebears, have utterly rejected the the doctrine that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and they have likewise rejected sola scriptura. Puritans and the Woke reject(ed) the defining tenets of Protestantism; therefore, they were/are not Protestant, not even a highly mutated form thereof.

April 7, 2023 Matthew Etzell Reply
As a Christian, I don’t believe in Utopias, other than those induced by hallucinogens or alcohol. However, I do embrace some of Marx’s interpretations of the social and economic mechanisms that cause human conflict. Of course that doesn’t make me a Marxist anymore than being a cut and paste Christian permits someone to claim to be a Presbyterian.

I find it refreshing to hear Henry George disassociate Marxism from Woke and Identity Politics. Marx would turn over in his grave to hear people claim in his name that race is the cause of the world’s problems.

I think I know why some Substack and Twitter Conservatives contrive to blame the Marxist boogeyman for Wokeism. Their sales pitch reminds me of info commercials. We have a history of blaming Communism for every world ill just as Progressives blame Whiteness for every world ill. Communism and Whiteness are easy targets because they’re popular scapegoats, comfortable for the masses to unite against, and with a couple of clichés easily understood.

April 7, 2023 RICHARD T BECK Reply
It seems to me all of these things emanating from the Left might as well be grouped using the term used by St. Pius X. Everything undermining Christianity is by definition Modernism. Post-Chistianity is by definition what replaces Christianity. This situation has happened before where the Byzantine Empire once stood in ever decreasing territory until it disappeared. The heresies of that time that were rotting Christianity created a vacuum that was filled by Islam. I suspect in addition to Islam, much of Europe & America will be replaced by China’s current fusion of Mao & Capitalism or Mexico’s current fusion of Neo-Aztec religion and the Cartels. The US is going to be diminished in size the same way the Roman Empire was. The question that should be asked is what do we want the Rump State of Christian Reds to look like?

April 7, 2023 Louis Reply
Woke-ism (what a dreadful neologism) is not marxism (nor I would argue is the frankfurt school) It has been around however longer than Marxism–I will not outline its predicates but simply observe that Robert Penn Warren in his monograph on the civil war labled the disease of the North the “treasury of virtue” –he was in effect talking about the triumph of the Woke–which became our ruling anthropology since the end of the war between the states.. The Agrarians understood the Scopes trial to be an example of the triumph of the Woke. I’d argue that unlike the Russian Revolution the French Revolution was “woke” . It is true that the woke and the putative marxist can walk hand in hand– Mao’s cultural revolution for example. Personally I believe that wokism has historically been far more destructive that Marxism but that is a debate for another time. The woke slogan is “support mental health or I’ll kill you” Marx would not be amused.

April 7, 2023 Robert Alpert Reply
There are plenty of Red States that don’t fit in the boundaries of the Old South and there is plenty of Blue cutting through what was the Old South so the idea that the North=Wokeism is absurd. Virginia and Georgia are essentially more Blue than Red now while Pennsylvania is more Red than Blue. There are a lot of Red States out West that were not even states during the Civil War. I’m even sure there are rural parts of New England and New York that are Red compared to the very Blue cities of Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans and San Antonio. Christian Reds should stick together and not act snobbish towards other Christian Reds outside of their region. What is agrarian about Atlanta what is woke about farmers in New England? What is woke about Christians up North opposing illegal immigrants and what is Christian about factories in the South who have illegal immigrant children working in them? The Neo-Confederates don’t even understand current circumstances in the South let alone what is Woke and what is not.

April 7, 2023 Louis Reply
Louis,

I suspect your comment is in reply to Robert Alpine. What he said is that Wokeism in America first took root in the North, and subsequently spread from there; he did not say that it is presently confined to the North.

April 7, 2023 Matthew Etzell Reply
Alpert, not Alpine.

April 7, 2023 Matthew Etzell Reply
Between Henry George and Dr. Paul Gottfried I think we have probably the most precise diagnosis of the disease. Such a disease is eradicated by civil war alone…or annexation by the PRC…if the latter has not already transpired.

April 7, 2023 Nick Reply
A lot of finger-pointing about the origin of woke-ism going on here. Human nature has both Good and Evil within it. THAT is where woke-ism comes from, from the Dark Side (Sinestra; the sinister Left side in mystic practice of traveling the Path of Mystics) of human nature. It appeals to psycho/sociopaths seeking tyranny over their fellow man. These wolves in sheep’s clothing especially love sanctimonious posturing, as if they wear priestly robes and we must bow down before these insane folks (taking the knee as it’s called these days). They must be crushed, broken and scattered from our midst, and confined, as they are a poisonous toxin amongst us. Hopefully, legal and democratic means can be used to accomplish the task, but there are plenty of examples in history of more drastic measures being taken to “take out the trash” before its’ stink sickens and kills The Community of Man.

April 7, 2023 Larry Bowen Reply
Matthew,

I don’t think Abe Lincoln ever uttered a word about Marxism, Cultural Marxism, LGBTQ, Transgenderism, paying Blacks reparations for slavery, supporting Hollywood Groomers, Global Warming, ending our energy independence, outsourcing jobs, going to war with Russia, gun control, defunding the police, closing prisons, feminism, support for after school Satan clubs, etc. None of that was in the Republican platform. Sam Houston never supported any of those things either when he sided with the Union. All the southerners who supported Globalism back in the 1990s thought they were returning us to Confederate principles.

April 7, 2023 Louis Reply
Weren’t there some so called ‘Marxists’ that changed their mind and became neo-cons?

Marxism has been dead ever since fat Marx sat scratching his scabs and reading the London stock market tickers.

You only keep talking about it because your enemies in academia keep talking about it. But they’re not talking about Marxism, and you’re not talk about them.

April 8, 2023 not sure Reply
The Trotskyite Marxists may have change their name, but they didn’t change their minds.

April 8, 2023 Louis Reply
I think Mr. George makes some valid points, however, his argument strains to separate “Wokeness” from its ideological progenitors in Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, and Maoism, as well as earlier strains of ideological nihilism emblematic in the works of Hegel, Darwin, and Malthus whose thoughts contributed greatly to the 20th Century Communist exegesis and are also prevalent in what could termed 21st Century American Marxist Progressivism. Much how Friedrich Hayek in “The Road to Serfdom” and Vasily Grossman in his epic novel, “Life and Fate”, depicted German National Socialism and Bolshevism(Marxist-Leninism, International Socialism) as mirror images of one another emanating from the same ideological framework, as Richard Pipes notes in the third piece of his Russian Revolution trilogy, “Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime”; “Wokeness’s” intersectional hierarchy of race, sex, and gender is just the modern American interpretation of Marxist class system of oppressed and oppressor.

Leo Strauss wrote that ideology manifests itself politically in one of two ways, exoteric and esoteric, i.e. ideology that is espoused openly as part of a platform and those beliefs that are believed but not revealed outside of the network of associates. One could contribute “Wokeness” in practice to one man. That man being Barack Obama, who put all the people and policies into place to facilitate “wokeness”. And Barack Obama is definitely a Marxist of some sort.

April 8, 2023 Terry Reply
Well, Honest Abe was very interested in Marx. There is a great deal of literature on that. In any case, Messianic wars of the American style really do originate with Lincoln. There is also a great deal about our managerial state starts in that period. There might be other things in the deep background of the country that contributed, but with Lincoln we chose our new identity, certainly. Harness that Lincolnian Leviathan state, and whatever you want can be achieved. There were certainly no substantive values left to prevent such things as we witness today. Surely intellectuals of a Marxist bent knew that.

April 8, 2023 rbthomasjr Reply
The Knights of the Golden Circle tried igniting revolutions all over Latin America. Southerners have their own history of making unnecessary wars and butting into other people’s business. Neo-Confederates spin their own history just as much as most everyone else.

April 8, 2023 Louis Reply
Yes! All very intellectually, , philosophically, brilliant, literary excellence! To what good? None! Why? No one outside your crucible can relate or understand you! It is very simply a matter of good versus evil! Good grief, get over yourselves!

April 8, 2023 philip pelletier Reply
Since Thomas Jefferson admired the writings of Thomas Paine in support of the French Revolution does that make him a Jacobin? Could that be where Wokeism started in the US? Unlike the Northerners such as Adams in Massachusettes or Gouvernour Morris in New York who staunchly opposed the French Revolution Thomas Jefferson must’ve been looking forward to today’s America where there would be NO SUBSTANTIVE VALUES LEFT TO PREVENT SUCH THINGS AS WE SEE TODAY. Rubbish!!! Neo-Confederates suffer from tunnel vision.

April 9, 2023 Louis Reply
To Mr. Pelletier: you make the most pertinent point here; we are confronted with Evil. We wish to align ourselves with Good. Evil tries forcefully to make us follow Evil. What is to be done? And what is to be done, the doing of which will not make us feel that WE have abandoned Good in the process of repelling or defeating or capturing & imprisoning Evil (theme of the “Nevada Smith” western)? I can’t help feeling that this Evil’s persistent thrusting of Itself upon us, capturing all of our normal institutions (DA positions, university positions news media positions, bought off politicians, generals, sherriffs, brainwashed children, etc…) is forcing us to align with some “Strongman” and commission an armed Posse at his command to “take out the Trash”. If we could make our election process cheat-proof, then we could just vote the bums out and have security make sure they clean out their desks and hit the door and don’t come back. That entails convincing a majority of fifty state legislatures (over 8,300 people) to change their election process to make it cheat-proof, and how many of THEM are bought off, blackmailed, pre-selected by the enemy, threatened, bullied, passive “limp noodles”, etc…?

April 9, 2023 Larry Bowen Reply
to P Pelletier

Yes, it is simply good versus evil but I still like to plant a garden and watch it grow. Watching something come to fruition is a kind of victory. Planting a garden is like having a conversation. So many today are solitary gardeners. If a tree falls in the woods…If we only talk to ourselves, is there anybody listening? The talk-of-the-talk (meta-talk) from the pulpit and the talk-of-the-talk in the seminary (and this website) address different audiences…the former is prescriptive, the latter critical…in other words one is more down-to-earth and the other high falutin…not to change the subject but, I don’t know about you but I haven’t figured out a code to use when addressing GenZers. I can talk the talk with the Chronicles guys and gals and pretend to have a level of intelligence but with GenZers I’m lost. I went into Walmart and asked an associate (worker as in sharecropper) for a product. She looked at me as if I were speaking Tlingit. I texted her my question instead and then she understood. It’s as if humanity is a distraction to understanding. They speak a digital vernacular that lacks emotive words; intonated the same way Tonto spoke to the Lone Ranger. Understand, Kemosabe?

April 9, 2023 RICHARD T BECK Reply
I learned when I was in school that there were not many of us GenXers who were Reaganites. At least not in San Antonio. Most of the people I grew up with became good Democrats AS WERE THERE FATHERS AND GRANDFATHERS. Most of their fathers and grandfathers converted when W stands for Wetarded became governor. Most people I went though school with don’t go to church anymore. As for GenZers around here they will probably be picked for sacrifice by the Neo-Aztecs in the not too distant future. I hope to be safe up in Yankee territory before that happens. Larry is right about Good vs. Evil only you all don’t identify exactly who or what represents the evil we face. I am not sure the gangs and cartels who increasingly even have influence among law enforcement on this side of the border are actually Marxist. They just allow the GenZers who love Frida Khalo to believe that. I admit I was one of only about 1%/approx. 3,000 who voted for Pat Buchanan in Bexar County in 2,000. Not sure how many others voted for him in the primaries in 1992 and 1996 here. That makes me a very rare species around here, but I am absolutely no GenXer. Most of the idiots Vegans after all and don’t know who John Wayne was.

April 9, 2023 Louis Reply
Excuse me I meant to say I am absolutely no GenZer and Those IDIOTS when referring to them. Perhaps around here I think even think of myself as a Boomer even though I am Not quite that old.

April 9, 2023 Louis Reply
This is important for the Right to learn: wokeism (or, if one prefers, neo-Marxism or bioleninism) is an essentially religious movement. To borrow a phrase, we are not debating our way out of this one.

Now you know how the old pagan loyalists must have felt watching Christian mobs hunt down Hypatia. This is the regime’s new faith-based creed and it can no more be reasoned with than the disputants in the Middle East over millenia. Religion is umbilical, not rational.

Having learned this lesson, conservatives must circle the wagons and protect their people, or stand down if they have no stomach for such a fight. David French, Bill Kristol, Kevin Williamson, and others have already made the short, happy journey back to the Left.

The Age of Ideology is over. The Age of Territory, the Age of Demographics has begun.

April 9, 2023 Anti-Gnostic Reply
If the Right cannot fight a holy war now, it is because it is not holy, only right

April 9, 2023 Nick Reply
If the Right cannot fight a holy war now, it is because it is not holy–only right. All reason–no religion. The religion is on the Left…until I see us in the streets rampaging and torching for Ashli Babbitt…murdered with impunity by a Black miscreant. Die Stimme des Blutes schreit zu mir.

April 9, 2023 Nick Reply
GenZers cannot read the handwriting on the wall as it were. You need a Rosetta Stone to interpret for them.

April 9, 2023 Louis Reply
To Louis: It really seems to me hat it’s a smoke screen to focus on what particular brand of ideology (communist, socialist, Marxist, Woke-ist, anarchist, Synarchist, etc…) these criminals use to hide behind. We are talking about various crime cartels, some of whom want to be bullies and tyrants over ordinary, regular folks (using various “ideologies” to persuade their victims this is “The Right Thing To Do”), others of whom just want to operate off the books and in the shadows. The whole World has crime cartels of varying size and strength, a few are transnational outfits trying to “capture” nationstates as THEIR source of wealth and power. The Chinese Communist Party is one such outfit, without even the “classyness” of Don Corleone’s outfit. Tony Soprano would see the CCP as a group of disgusting animals, and he would know what to do to any of their operatives trying to move in on HIS territory. No “ideology” enters into the issue at all. He would usually start with diplomatic courtesy, ending with termination, with extreme prejudice, should they fail to come up with a satisfactory deal. During the Nixon era, someone (a journalist I think), asked one of “Nixon’s people” some question about a policy issue. The guy (I wish I knew who) replied “you wanna know how the World works? Read The Godfather novel. THAT’S how the World Works.”

April 10, 2023 Larry Bowen Reply
To Larry

I completely agree with that. That was my comment about them trying to be hip to the GenZers who like Frida Khalo. The Leftists use whatever sounds hip to any age group. When they are worried about changes to Social Security they use language that recalls FDR, and when they want young people to vote to legalize shoplifting they use language to say they want to legalize drugs to turn out the vote, and when they want to protect abortion they appeal to women of all ages by saying their “Healthcare” is in danger. They get their Satanic Transgender Lackeys to shoot up schools and when legislation is proposed to protect kids from perverts they claim conservatives don’t really want to protect kids because Americans won’t surrender their guns. Anything to get power.

April 11, 2023 Louis Reply
Also, when they want to dump illegal drugs in the US they talk about Free Trade and when they want to put soldiers in another country they talk about the Soviet Union or the Nazis to try to convince Americans to support endless wars. To bring in more cheap labor they talk about refugees. To deflect criticism of Neo-Cons they talk about anti-semitism even though there are plenty of stupid Catholics and Evangelicals who have contributed significantly to Neo-Conservatism. Hell they even talk about Lincoln mistreating the Old South if they are addressing Chronicles readers when they want to pretend free trade and interventionism/revolution in Central America were not part of old Southern thinking. On a side note, Of what purpose is it to pretend that only Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps when millions of others who were mostly Christian also died in those camps. Or that Nazism and Communism are somehow on opposite poles when they both exterminated Christians in the tens of millions!

April 11, 2023 Louis Reply
To Larry:

I think you’re still not grasping that the wokeist war against you and your civilization is religious, not ideological. To fight holy warriors, you need holy warriors, not mere well-read conservatives.

April 11, 2023 Anti-Gnostic Reply

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