The Woke Religion

An empty creed leaves a hollow civilization

So many observers have noted the religious tone and mindset of various woke causes that the existence of a “woke religion” has become essentially conventional wisdom on the right (and even worthy of recognition among the more perceptive on the left).

It is also becoming conventional wisdom on both the right and left that the decline in traditional Christian belief, worship, and affiliation is directly related to the rise of more strident (or, if you prefer, extreme) ideologies.

At some level, this should hardly be a surprise: Nietzsche, most famously, predicted more than a century ago the crisis in moral values that European civilization would experience once the decline in Christian belief undermined the foundation of those values.

He, of course, also thought that at least a select few could create their own values, thus escaping the trap of nihilism.

But let’s start at the beginning: Why do humans even need moral values?

It’s a question worth revisiting because of the rising concern of morality with subjective harm. Older moral values were more often concerned with objective harms: Don’t kill a man unjustly, don’t let your neighbor starve. (Exceptions exist: Honoring your mother and father has a subjective component.)

The new morality more typically aims at the subjective: Don’t offend someone, don’t trigger someone, don’t cause someone to question their identity or self-worth – the “someone” being limited to a particular group.

Without getting into a technical debate about the definition of moral values, we can generally agree that moral values are critical because, without them, we have no consistent framework to evaluate, coordinate, and limit our individual and collective actions to do good and avoid evil.

History has not been kind to Nietzsche’s view that individuals can create their own moral values. The beatniks and hippies of the mid-20th century, for example, rarely proved to be Ubermenschen. No one should have expected otherwise: Individuals on their own and starting from a blank slate lack the knowledge, wisdom, and experience to create useful and consistent moral values.

Moreover, individual creation of values precludes the strategic function of moral values. Idiosyncratic values cannot be used effectively to coordinate actions, because there is no reason to think individuals on their own will create mutually consistent or even compatible values.

Fine, you may say, what if we combine our efforts and create new moral systems and values collectively?

Alas, this has also proven notably unsuccessful. No one thinks the New Communist Man seeped deep into the Russian soul. Again, this should surprise no one: The large-scale moral systems of the world have grown and evolved over centuries or even millennia to their current states. Creating an artificial replacement whole-cloth is a fool’s errand.

So what are we left with once old moral values decline, new systems fail to gain acceptance, and individuals prove incapable of creating their own values?

In a word: hedonism. Without higher moral principles, we are left with the one value system that all animals share: Increase pleasure, avoid pain.

But in humans, hedonism is particularly pernicious because of our deep-rooted need to assign higher meaning to our motivations and actions. We cannot bear to admit that we are just chasing another high while waiting for death.

Inevitably, the trappings of religion rush into the vacuum created by the departure of actual religion, cloaking hedonism in noble cloth, and we are all expected to honor the new woke religion.

I know what the woke will say in rebuttal: being woke isn’t hedonism – look at all the concerns we have for others!

If only it were true … but we’ll get to that the next time.