Introduction
So James Lindsay recently tried to pull a fast one on what he and others are calling the “woke right.” He took selections of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and substituted some words, under the pseudonym Marcus Carlson (ha), and managed to get it published in the American Reformer, a newer conservative online journal. I thought it was kind of funny, even if it ultimately looks like he changed too much of Marx’s text to make his point clearly. But regardless, James Lindsay has made it his raison d’etre to accuse the “new right” of adopting leftist ideology and tactics, such as dividing the world into superficial classes of people and reducing politics to power dynamics.
At the same time, closer to home, my friend A.D. Robles (among others) has been referring to something called “Woke Wars 2.0” apparently describing the recent skirmishes surrounding antisemitism and Kinism in the Christian Nationalist orbit. Presumably, the new “woke” in this telling are actually the James Lindseys and James Whites denouncing this “new right” as racists and antisemites. If the BLM riots were “Woke War 1.0,” and consisted of gnostic witch hunts and struggle sessions, trying to get white people to admit they really did have secret racist thoughts deep, deep down in their heart (where?) and trying to get males to acknowledge they really were misogynists, “Woke Wars 2.0” appears to them as the same thing with antisemitism and Kinism only this time from supposed fellow conservatives. So interestingly, we have something of a conservative “civil war” with both sides calling the other side “woke.” At the very least, conservatives apparently agree that it is very bad to be “woke,” but the question is who is right and perhaps more importantly who will win?
A Very Short Overview
Before cannonballing into the melee, a quick philosophical overview is called for: remember, “woke” is modern slang for Marxist. Karl Marx swiped Hegel’s dialectic theory, which was that history moves forward via ideas that clash and collide resulting (inevitably) in greater truth (thesis + antithesis = synthesis). While Hegel was a theist and idealist and saw all of this as orchestrated according to the mind and will of God, Marx postulated a dialectical materialism: that history moves forward through the collision and re-synthesis of purely material realities, principally economic classes (working class + capitalist owners = socialist utopia). In Marx’s view, these material forces collide because the rich and powerful systematically oppress the poor and weak. Why this is not OK in a materialistic universe is never really explained, but Marx said that eventually the workers of the world would unite in revolution and throw off the chains of their overlords, take collective ownership of all property and means of production and destroy every vestige of capitalism, including things like marriage, family, private property, and religion – all of which Marx alleged were props and whips for Capitalist oppression. Following me so far?
In the early 20th century, some of Marx’s ideological descendants said that Marx was right but that he didn’t take it far enough. Not only were the oppressed those without money and property, they were also every sort of minority: women oppressed by the patriarchy (traditional marriage), blacks oppressed by whites (capitalist wealth built by slavery), and of course homosexuals and (eventually) every sexual minority imaginable (apparently including furries) constantly being oppressed by all that heteronormativity. So the new tagline became something like, “Help! Help We’re being repressed!”
Marx and all his ugly stepsons hate hierarchy. They are radical individualists, statists, and revolutionaries. This is why abortion has been the sacrament of the revolution: women must be “free” from the natural consequences of sexual promiscuity, free to compete with “the patriarchy.” This is why DEI policies have been enforced from workplaces to universities: sexual and racial minorities must be given places of priestly prominence. Likewise, the push for unlimited immigration and multiculturalism are liturgies of this cultural revolution. Large groups of homogeneity are considered threats to peace and harmony because large groups of homogenous people create “hegemony” – centers of power, and power is always used to oppress and subjugate. All power must (in theory) be divested in order to “empower” the powerless. It is also why you must believe all women, except Crystal Mangum and Potiphar’s wife.
Of course, in the middle of the revolution very few of the leaders have ever felt it was the right time to actually divest themselves of power. Turns out, in order to accomplish said revolution, there must be certain enlightened leaders pulling the levers of power, all in the name of the will of the people (of course) and only as long as it takes to bring the socialist utopia into being, which it also turns out, takes longer than anyone imagined and has never actually happened. This is how you get something like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemning America for refusing to elect a woman president, but then he is not resigning and divesting himself of power, as the male chauvinist pig he (apparently) is (although his administration seems to be crumbling at the moment).
Who is the Wokest of Them All?
So the question is: have conservatives adopted any of these categories or tactics and is there really a Woke War 2.0? My answer is “yes” and “yes,” but both sides are doing it. While the accusation is perhaps being launched rather recklessly in some quarters, wherever conservatives are not grounded in the truth of God’s Word, they are necessarily drifting woke, which is to say: if your politics is not chained to an immoveable rock, when it comes to giving an account for why we should do what you think we should do, whatever your reason, it’s not because God said so. And that means your answer has to be some variation of because I said so, because we said so, because science said so, whatever. Whenever your politics is not grounded on God’s Word in Scripture, you are going the gnostic route of hunting for secret, mystical knowledge, whether in the caverns of Philosophy or the ruminations of Dominion voting machines or the whims of Anthony Fauci and the high priests at the CDC.
A true “conservative” is someone dedicated to preserving and defending fundamental realities that do not shift or change. This would include things like the fixed realities of male and female, marriage only between one of each, sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death, and the public honoring and enforcement of the Ten Commandments. And this is because the Creator said so. This is because the Lord God Almighty has spoken, and He did not stutter. And this means recognizing both individual, inalienable rights from the Creator as well as hierarchical and covenantal realities that bind people together in families, churches, nations, and other social institutions. Even though there is ebb and flow in these institutions, they are natural (and therefore basically good) and create various inescapable hierarchies in the world because God Himself has granted authority to the heads of those covenantal entities. While that authority can always be abused, these natural hierarchies are good in so far as they are instituted by the Creator and under the personal Lordship of Jesus Christ and therefore are limited and accountable to Him and His Word.
The fact of the matter is that everyone has been swimming in this progressive Marxist swamp for the last 80 years. What Rusty Reno has called the “post war consensus” really is a thing, and nobody is fully immune. And that post war consensus really was laced with Marxist heroin: in the name of preventing World War 3, the liberal establishment agreed to demote Christianity for a bland Judeo-Christian deism and began a full scale assault on marriage and family as the bedrock for national identity. In its place, a multicultural, multisexual ethic was embraced, and the boomers largely bought it for the price of a booming economy, Winnebagos the size of Vermont, and lots of cheap sex on the side.
And the thing to notice is that in the name of preventing the abuses of power of the Nazis and Fascists and Communists, the West largely embraced an inverse form of identity politics. Instead of Aryan hubris, we chose multicultural hubris. Instead of nationalism, we chose globalism. Instead of monogamy, we chose polyamory. Instead of orthodox Christianity, we chose a privatized, castrated state religion based on the myth of neutrality and the salvation of secular statism. But both sets of “identities” are fully capable of being weaponized and exploited by powermongers. Identity politics cannot save us from our sins or usher in world peace.
So a bunch of guys on the right are rightly bothered by all the newly arrived parasitic Republicans longing for the glory days of 1990s secular liberalism. And please note here that I’m using “liberal” in its old Lockean sense: liberalism as in the secular democracy of the last couple hundred years divorced from explicit Biblical truth. But that project is the moldy toadstool (the Enlightenment) that grew the fungus we now affectionately refer to as the “post war consensus.” And James Lindsay appears to be among these so-called conservatives that talk about “inalienable rights” but refuse to say why they are inalienable and where they come from. If you will not tell us where these so-called rights come from, what makes your ideas better? What makes you right? And more importantly, if you are agnostic about where our inalienable rights come from, then your version of conservatism can be manipulated and exploited, just as it has been over the last hundred years. You can’t rewind to 1995 or even 1945, embrace the myths of state neutrality and secularism end up somewhere else. And when you accuse people of being racists and antisemites, your accusations are suspect because you have no standard to point to. By what standard? If you have no fixed, transcendent standard, then you are drifting woke. All your philosophical sophistication is a gnostic struggle session. And we’ve had enough of those, thank you very much.
On the other hand, those on the “radical right” who are talking about “using the power of the state to crush radical leftists” need to spend a lot more time defining that power and the objects of that vengeance. This is where the James Lindsays of the right have a point. And this is where James White has a very good point. There is such a thing as racial vainglory and racial animosity. There is such a thing as fleshly pride, spite, vengeance, and wrath. There is such a thing is true hatred of Jews. There is such a thing as a bunch of white boys flopping on the soccer field crying “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” Just because the leftists have weaponized sins and victimhood and falsely accused us of being racists and bigots and homophobes for decades, doesn’t mean that those sins don’t exist or that no one on our side harbors them. And for a bunch of so-called Christians to go suddenly agnostic about the real version of those capital “S” sins is to join James Lindsay in his philosophical labyrinth.
Conclusion
We are Christians. We are conservatives. This means we believe in absolute standards of right and wrong, good and evil. This is why the sudden right wing love affair with anonymous accounts on social media is kind of mind boggling. And yes, I know about the long and venerable history of Junius Brutus, Publius, and Hebrews (but it’s Paul). And so if you are saying good and virtuous things online that might get you in trouble with your woke employer, I get it, but your wife and pastor should know who you are. But if you’re MemeLord578, and you’re using the anonymity to say things to people you would not otherwise ever dream of saying to someone in person, that’s what we would call hypocrisy and sin. And you are acting like the BLM rioters with your words. And if you’re encouraging social media mobs, yes, that’s woker than a Biden supreme court appointment prancing around in a Broadway musical. Stop giving James Lindsay such easy targets.
And besides, all of this is the central tactic of Satan, the Accuser. Not only is he the Accuser, he is also a liar, and the father of lies. Satan has been accusing and manipulating sinners of real sin and fake sin since our first parents stumbled out of Paradise six thousand years ago. And all his sons are full of evil, brawling, lust, malice, envy, and hatred. Which is why our side is exhorted: “To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3-4).
The answer to all satanic lies and condemnation is the Cross of Christ. If you think the BLM and MeToo struggle sessions were evil and unseemly, don’t you know that Satan’s guilt tripping makes those look like kindergarten playground tiffs? But you can’t fight accusations like a kindergartner: Did too! Did not! The only comeback that works is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. His blood answers every stain of real guilt, and His righteousness answers all the lies. We need the sword of the Spirit, and that sword is only found in the rock of His Word.
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