social justice religion
23 - 08/22 /10:20
Someone yells “repent” in the street. Are they a …
rrrrrReligious preacher
rrrrrLeft-wing activist
October 2021 a crowd outside Netflix’s offices protested Dave Chappelle’s comedy special The Closer, which criticized transgender activists. There was a counterprotest: a lonely Chappelle fan holding a sign: “We Like Dave”. His sign was stolen and ripped up. Someone shouted in his face, “Repent!”
rrrrrReligious preacher
rrrrrLeft-wing activist
October 2021 a crowd outside Netflix’s offices protested Dave Chappelle’s comedy special The Closer, which criticized transgender activists. There was a counterprotest: a lonely Chappelle fan holding a sign: “We Like Dave”. His sign was stolen and ripped up. Someone shouted in his face, “Repent!”
Adapted from an article in The Atlantic, by Helen Lewis.
July 2022, students protested the University College London’s decision to stop paying Stonewall, an LGBTQ charity, to audit their diversity law compliance. The student protestors rallied around a sign that proclaimed: “Rejoin Stonewall or Go to Hell”.
In the USA, the nonreligious are younger and more liberal than the population as a whole. They are most likely to be involved in high-profile social-justice blowups. They’ve substituted one religion for another.
The Coddling of the American Mind interprets campus protests as outbreaks of “collective effervescence”—emotions accessed via a crowd. Singing, swaying, and chanting build up an electricity, which ripples through the gathering. And that’s how a person can end up screaming “repent” at a stranger holding a funny sign.
Treating politics like religion makes it more emotionally volatile, more tribal (differences of opinion become matters of good and evil), more prone to outbreaks of moralizing. Former director of Theos, Elizabeth Oldfield says, “Marx thought religion the opium of the people. I think politics is now the amphetamines of the people.”
Politics has crept into every aspect of our lives. In countries where intermarriage have become commonplace, dating across political lines has become taboo. Young British writer Tomiwa Owolade explains he often sees dating profiles that insist “no conservatives.”
Victoria Turner, editor of Young, Woke and Christian explains she could date someone from another faith, or no faith. But a conservative? “Absolutely not. Whether your God looks the same as my God, I don’t know. But I do know what the answers are to stop people from suffering and to make the world a more equitable place.”
As politics has usurped religion, it has adopted religious concepts. John McWhorter writes that notions such as white privilege and male privilege are political versions of original sin—a stain humans are born with.
At Donald Trump’s rallies, booing members of the press—who were kept in an exposed pen—became part of the ritual. The storming of the Capitol involved hardened militia members and gun extremists, but also law-abiding citizens swept up in collective effervescence.
Our most effective vote-getting politicians corrupt religion and feed it through a polarization machine. No wonder today’s politics feels like a wasteland of anguished ranting. And like we are in hell. ~
Blessings,
Dan Nygaard
July 2022, students protested the University College London’s decision to stop paying Stonewall, an LGBTQ charity, to audit their diversity law compliance. The student protestors rallied around a sign that proclaimed: “Rejoin Stonewall or Go to Hell”.
In the USA, the nonreligious are younger and more liberal than the population as a whole. They are most likely to be involved in high-profile social-justice blowups. They’ve substituted one religion for another.
The Coddling of the American Mind interprets campus protests as outbreaks of “collective effervescence”—emotions accessed via a crowd. Singing, swaying, and chanting build up an electricity, which ripples through the gathering. And that’s how a person can end up screaming “repent” at a stranger holding a funny sign.
Treating politics like religion makes it more emotionally volatile, more tribal (differences of opinion become matters of good and evil), more prone to outbreaks of moralizing. Former director of Theos, Elizabeth Oldfield says, “Marx thought religion the opium of the people. I think politics is now the amphetamines of the people.”
Politics has crept into every aspect of our lives. In countries where intermarriage have become commonplace, dating across political lines has become taboo. Young British writer Tomiwa Owolade explains he often sees dating profiles that insist “no conservatives.”
Victoria Turner, editor of Young, Woke and Christian explains she could date someone from another faith, or no faith. But a conservative? “Absolutely not. Whether your God looks the same as my God, I don’t know. But I do know what the answers are to stop people from suffering and to make the world a more equitable place.”
As politics has usurped religion, it has adopted religious concepts. John McWhorter writes that notions such as white privilege and male privilege are political versions of original sin—a stain humans are born with.
At Donald Trump’s rallies, booing members of the press—who were kept in an exposed pen—became part of the ritual. The storming of the Capitol involved hardened militia members and gun extremists, but also law-abiding citizens swept up in collective effervescence.
Our most effective vote-getting politicians corrupt religion and feed it through a polarization machine. No wonder today’s politics feels like a wasteland of anguished ranting. And like we are in hell. ~
Blessings,
Dan Nygaard