[stakhanov]

Jordan Peterson has some interesting thoughts on how the psychology behind environmentalism, wokism, social justice warriordom etc. has a lot of overlap with the psychology behind religion. And when he says that, that's not a shallow dismissal of something he disapproves of, because he's actually pro-religion.

The problem is the fact that people who hold these viewpoints see religious people as their enemy, so they're weirdly blind to how they themselves are religious. And it's a young and immature religion that hasn't yet been through the formative historical chapter of the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts etc., and the reckoning that followed. History will repeat itself.

[crazydoggers]

> The problem is the fact that people who hold these viewpoints see religious people as their enemy, so they're weirdly blind to how they themselves are religious.

It’s a fascinating realization. It reminds me of the religious history of the Soviet Union. The Soviets attempted to “delete” religion, which instead of creating a rational secular society, instead pushed people into pseudoscience, occultism and superstition.

It may be that in a culture pushed away from orthodox religions, due in many cases to those religions often actually engaging in hate against certain groups, a kind of replacement religious system takes hold.

[stakhanov]

Yeah, it's weird how this particular social transformation has no sticking power and instead produces oscillations. Coming at it from the Christian perspective (since it's the only religion that I know anything about): Jesus himself is portrayed in the New Testament as a rebel against the religious orthodoxy at the time. This resulted in a religion which, itself, eventually turned into an orthodoxy worth opposing. And now, secular opposition to that orthodoxy is weirdly turning into an orthodoxy of its own.

[operatingthetan]

>The problem is the fact that people who hold these viewpoints see religious people as their enemy, so they're weirdly blind to how they themselves are religious. And it's a young and immature religion that hasn't yet been through the formative historical chapter of the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts etc., and the reckoning that followed. History will repeat itself.

First this requires accepting an inaccurate definition of what a religion is, in other words you are mischaracterizing others beliefs. Second it seems like you are shooting your own religious position in the foot by dismissing your opponent's view 'just religion' as well. The rest is condescension.

[blubbity]

How do you define religion? Is Shinto a religion? What about Confucianism? Do you believe that religions need a centralized governing body? Do religions require community? What is an accurate definition of religion that isn’t immediately fraught with counter-examples?

[operatingthetan]

Neither of your examples are even close to being as abstract as 'wokeism.' At least those examples demonstrate something that could go either way, versus something that is clearly defined. E.g. Toyota Tacoma lovers are not a religion, Christianity is. You're pretty close to a 'what do words mean anyway?' type argument which I would struggle to classify as good faith.

It is odd that the only people I've ever encountered who thought secularists were religious were Christians though. A contradiction if you actually believe in definitions.

[stakhanov]

> Second it seems like you are shooting your own religious position in the foot by dismissing your opponent's view 'just religion' as well.

I have a ton of respect for religion, so when I characterize environmentalism, wokeism, and social justice warriordom as sharing characteristics with religion, that's actually not being dismissive at all, but quite the contrary. It implies that the respect I have for religion extends also to those belief systems. -- It strikes me as an internal contradiction that you characterize my position as religious, but also characterize it as a dismissal if I point out that my opponent's position shares characteristics with religion.

It seems, the only thing in what I wrote that could have given offence is that I picked those specific words in the first place. This is similar to how, when you pick the word "terrorist" over "freedom fighter", you've already identified yourself with the political camp that opposes them.

Interestingly, I chose those words precisely because I thought they had greater specificity than alternatives that came to mind (like "liberal" or "left").

I also think it's quite interesting that you seem to think that a concept like "Christian" is specific, while "wokeism" is not. After all the spectrum of different Christian beliefs, number of different social groupings underneath the Christian umbrella, and internal heterogeneity of beliefs within those groups is so great, that, literally, wars have been fought over that.

Another reason I picked those words was because I sincerely don't want to oppose "the left". In fact, the political grouping that historically most closely resembled the beliefs I still hold was the political left in Europe, prior to the financial crisis of 2008. With the tectonic shifts in the political landscape since then, and the likelihood that Americans would misunderstand what I mean by "left", I wanted to avoid that word.

[operatingthetan]

>It strikes me as an internal contradiction that you characterize my position as religious, but also characterize it as a dismissal if I point out that my opponent's position shares characteristics with religion.

Your argument was clearly pro-religion. Are not not religious? If you are, this falls flat. It was a dismissal because you straight called them "young and immature" and suggested a reckoning was coming. Come on... that's not being careful with your words whatsoever. Nor is it "respectful." Truly baffling.

>After all the spectrum of different Christian beliefs, number of different social groupings underneath the Christian umbrella, and internal heterogeneity of beliefs within those groups is so great, that, literally, wars have been fought over that.

You're talking about two different things here. Sets of beliefs versus classifications. I have no doubt if you asked people on the street in the US if Christianity was a religion 9/10 or better would say it was. This is not a serious argument, it's throwing shade only your in-group would understand.

[blubbity]

I apologize for not coming across as being in good faith. I’m just saying that religion takes many varied forms, and it might be within the realm of possibility to use duck typing when thinking about them.

My original point still stands though, not as a matter of combating your viewpoint, but just as an observation, that I bet even the most seemingly iron-clad definition of religion will still have lots of weird and unexpected edge cases.

[operatingthetan]

>that I bet even the most seemingly iron-clad definition of religion will still have lots of weird and unexpected edge cases.

I'm sure there are plenty of edge cases, but this looks like a red herring to me. The OP in question doesn't actually believe people worship wokeism, view it as god, ultimate reality, divinity, or whatever. Their use was purely pejorative and dismissive in nature.

[stakhanov]

> The OP in question doesn't actually believe people worship wokeism, view it as god, ultimate reality, divinity, or whatever. Their use was purely pejorative and dismissive in nature.

Are you referring to me? See sibling comment. It was not pejorative. And I do think wokeism is a form of worship.

The sibling comment from "friend_and_foe" seems to reflect the point I was trying to make:

> What about believing that you must kill a sizeable portion of the human population to save the mother earth? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not? What about the idea that a man can be a woman if he wills it so, and that those who don't agree are ~~blasphemers~~ bigots? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not?

So, to add some meat to the bone here, let's start with Wikipedia's definition of religion:

"Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements"

For example, the way some gender theorists would define "gender" as opposed to "sex" makes it look a lot like "gender" is the abstraction that corresponds to "sex" but on the transcendental plane. It is then connected with a social-cultural system that includes behaviours, practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, [ not sure about sanctified places; can't think of any ] prophecies, ethics, and organizations.

Many environmentalists seem to me to have a quintessentially pessimistic view of man and his role in the universe, reflected in the belief that some of them have that the planet would be better off with fewer humans on it. This reminds me a lot of the chatholic doctrine of "original sin". To escape from original sin, man must exhibit certain behaviours, take part in certain practices, adopt certain morals, beliefs, and worldsviews, be part of certain organizations, etc.

[blubbity]

I think I understand your reasoning better now. I didn’t interpret OP as being purely dismissive or pejorative, but I see how you did. From your viewpoint it makes total sense that it’s wrong to compare “wokeism” to religion because “wokeism” clearly isn’t a religion! Seems obvious when stated that way.

I was originally thinking the OP meant something like, “hey I’ve heard this quacking noise somewhere before… what could this be…?”

[friend_and_foe]

The author of the article that you're discussing in this thread is a counterexample to the only people you've encountered who think secularists were religious (as am I). The man is one of the top 3 candidates for the quintessential secularist.

Toyota Tacoma lovers aren't a religion, we agree on that. What about believing that you must kill a sizeable portion of the human population to save the mother earth? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not? What about the idea that a man can be a woman if he wills it so, and that those who don't agree are ~~blasphemers~~ bigots? Could that be characterized as a religious view? Why or why not?

In addition, what do these two statements have to do with secularism?

100%, in good faith I'm asking you these questions and hoping for a clear and honest answer. You have a genuine opportunity to change my mind on this topic.

[operatingthetan]

> ~~blasphemers~~ bigots?

>100%, in good faith I'm asking you these questions and hoping for a clear and honest answer.

This does not appear to be the case. Why not make your own argument instead of asking leading questions?

[friend_and_foe]

I was trying to draw a comparison in my question so that you could see the similarity, from my point of view.

[nvm0n2]

What definition do you use? I don't think people arguing woke = religion are necessarily deriving that conclusion from a rigorous first-principles definition of religion. It's more like a collection of observations that sum up to a suspicion:

1. Woke people think that white people are born into sin due to the deeds of their ancestors, which is the doctrine of original sin.

2. This sin can be cleansed by becoming an "ally", "doing the work" etc, this is a bit like conversion.

3. Related: this notion that people are born pure and it's police/law (society) that corrupts them, so if you get rid of the police then crime will go away, this is like the Christian teaching of the Fall.

4. Trans stuff is an assertion that people have a sort of (gendered) soul distinct from their body.

5. The obsession with the virtue of minorities is similar to the story of the Good Samaritan and how Christian's are supposed to valorize the meek and the mild.

and so on. There's more of these especially when you get into their actions and not just beliefs, which yeah, do start to resemble Spanish Inquisition albeit with less physical torture thank goodness. So it's a walks like a duck quacks like a duck argument.

[flir]

I think the people saying "religion" actually mean "belief system" (philosophy, religion, political ideology, economic system, scientific paradigm) but they don't have the right language so they're reaching for "religion" as the most obvious example of a belief system. It's just woolly language hiding a very obvious observation: people tend to adopt cohesive ideological packages rather than assembling personalized belief systems à la carte.

For example there's no particular reason why "pro-choice" and "climate change" should be bundled together (if anything you'd expect conservatives to be the ones trying to conserve the environment, and progressives to be the ones trying to tarmac the planet) but they have a pretty strong correlation in US politics.

[nvm0n2]

It's more precise than that. Pro-choice/climate being bundled together is just the ordinary left/right (or non-left) divide, nothing special there. Progressives see motherhood as conservative-coded and anti-feminist, so control over that to be progress, they also assume anything academics say must be true because they're fellow progressives and "scientists" who thus personify Progress itself.

But the people talking about religion mean something more than just an arbitrary ideological package, they mean it has specific elements that are surprisingly close to the beliefs found in Christianity, rebranded. Like the elements in my list.

[flir]

> Pro-choice/climate being bundled together is just the ordinary left/right (or non-left) divide, nothing special there.

Are you sure? They don't track together nearly so strongly in, say, France. They don't naturally, or necessarily, go together IMO.

In your list, items 1 and 3 contradict each other. Item 4 I read as Cartesian dualism. Mind and body, no soul required (I also seriously doubt your interpretation). Item 5... the Parable of the Good Samaritan isn't about being meek and mild, it's about obeying the Golden Rule, and the Good Samaritan is atypical: he doesn't represent all Samartians. Jesus wasn't making a point about the virtue of Samartians in general.

Honestly, I think you're building a straw man here.

[nvm0n2]

Of course not in France, different cultures have different hot button political issues at any given time. In France the equivalent would be support for the EU or mass immigration.

For three you're right, I should have said "non white people". Their belief system is that "white" men are born into sin and other types are born pure then corrupted. More or less. I mean, I wouldn't expect an emerging religion to be internally consistent.

Mind is the same thing as soul in this context. They believe you can have a genetically male brain but the soul (or mind if you prefer) of a woman or vice versa.

For five, yes my sketch is rough and I appreciate the clarifications you're forcing on me here. It's the first time I've written down these thoughts, others have done so better. What I was getting at was the focus on the supposedly weakest members of society as a justification for attacking the strongest (tax collectors, the rich etc).

[stakhanov]

I don't know about others, but when I compare environmentalism, wokism, social justice warriordom, etc. to religions, I definitely do mean more than just "belief system". If I meant belief system, I would use that expression. My vocabulary is not that poor.

I took care not to strictly subsume them under the term of "religion". Specifically, in my initial post I said "overlap with psychology behind religion", I said that people who hold these beliefs are "religious" -- the use of the noun "religion" as an adjective lessens the character of the subsumption so that one reading is that it's just pointing out an analogy or similarity rather than stating a strict subsumption.

And I also predicted that these things all have the potential to undergo a similar historical development as religions did, that they have the potential to bring about something similar to the Spanish Inquisition, or the witch hunts. Not all belief systems have that potency.

So what I'm doing is pointing out an analogy that comes with lots of implications, not all of which I strictly believe to be true, but all of them are things that I find at least interesting to consider. For example, using the Wikipedia definition of "religion", besides implying a belief system, a religion also comes with behaviours, practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations. -- Environmentalism, wokism and social justice warriordom definitely all come with practices as well as just beliefs. Morals and ethics are more than just beliefs. Environmentalism, for example, clearly has prophecies ("doomsday cult" would be an interesting analogy), and it's interesting to think about what that does to the human psyche.

There is a lot in religion that trumps rationality in terms of its salience and psychological potency. And precisely this ability to trump rationality makes religions quite a different animal from belief systems that are strictly grounded in rationality.

For example, if the divide between the political right and left were just about "free market economy vs communist-style planned economy with redistribution" or "low taxes" vs "high taxes" or "small government" vs "big government", it would be about belief systems strictly grounded in rationality. But now add into the mix the thought that many on the political right are associated with established religions and on the political left things like environmentalism, wokism and social justice warriordom increasingly start looking like religions. Now the distinction between the political right and the left starts looking like a religious divide, and that's a whole other level. It used to be "We can't agree on the proper economic system." Now it's "Help! My identity is under attack!"

When I was young, I saw most religious people as bigots, while the message I mostly got from areligious people was that they were preaching tolerance, pluralism, minority protection, etc.

But now, doing my best to adopt a stance of tolerance myself, my impression is that the people who think of themselves as areligious have constructed grand narratives that increasingly look like religions, without even noticing that particular analogy, and have increasingly taken to bigotry themselves. That's my central thesis here.

[Anon_Forever]

>First this requires accepting an inaccurate definition of what a religion is

Not at all, it's a scarily accurate definition. There's a new church of the "woke", complete with scripture, high priestesses, and orthodoxy:

https://www.devever.net/~hl/newchurch