The Woke and the Un-Woke

 

America is undergoing a godless revival. A new creed—called “social justice,” “wokeism,” or “the successor ideology”—resembling religion yet avowedly secular and anti-spiritual, is spreading across the country. Its seminaries are the nation’s elite universities, its missionaries work in prestigious newsrooms. Adherents are remaking powerful institutions by “canceling” anyone who dissents or lacks zeal for the cause. 

Like any good revival, this one is replete with hellfire preaching. Eager audiences are told of their inescapable guilt, or “privilege.” Repentance is demanded, but forgiveness is not offered. An overlooked aspect in the now crowded conversation around the rise of “wokeness” is its potential to transform a decadesold pattern of cultural and political divisions in America. 

As secular progressivism becomes more zealous and evangelical, trampling over traditional American notions of limited governance and tolerance, it may be drawing together common enemies. Catholic traditionalists, Orthodox Jews, middle American small-business owners, and skeptical liberal atheists may not seem to have much in common, yet each group is threatened by the hegemonic power of progressive ideology. 

As a consequence, the defining fault line in American politics may no longer be between left and right. The relevant division now is between people who accept the binding, state-backed power of the new post-secular creed and the diverse coalition of groups—including traditional religious communities, left-wing materialists, and one-time liberals alienated by the creeping dominance of left-wing absolutism—who resist its authority.

GRTWT.