Is this the Princeton you used to respect?

When I was younger, Ayn Rand's cynicism appealed to me:

“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1957

And that's what's happening now. Create guilt and cash in on it. -Q Querius

Polistra @1, Yes, but not Christianity in “disguise,” but more like some people have said, “Marxism is a Christian heresy.” KRock @4, Yes. This is not so different than the brown shirts in Germany and the Red Guards in China brutalizing and intimidating the people under the passive protection of the government. Seversky @6, Good observation, and I think you’re right. As such, it’s a religious movement founded on social karma rather than personal karma. I don't think that government can or should become pervasive enough to punish all forms of hostility between people and people groups. This includes misogyny, racism and ethnicism of all kinds, ageism, and so on, which seems to be the rule in all human history. It includes discrimination against people shorter than average, red hair, blond hair, rural heritage, and so on. For example, the family memories of some immigrants to the U.S. includes notices reading "Irish Need Not Apply." How did THAT go away? It's my belief that the tools to re-educate and monitor everyone's attitudes can and will be used to identify any "unpatriotic" or "non-participatory attitudes as well, resulting in a sort of secular theocracy based on social virtue, which as you're pointing out, is largely symbolic and hypocritical. -Q Querius

It appears to me that concern for social injustices very easily slip into nothing more than virtue-signaling. Removing the name of Thomas Henry Huxley from the College of the Environment at West Washington University, for example, does little if anything towards addressing social injustices. It just appeases student's own prejudices rather than compelling them to confront them, which is what a university should be doing. Seversky

Wokers are NOT naturalists. They think human belief and human will power can change all facts of nature. That’s a spiritual worldview, basically Christianity in disguise.

Have you ever read the Everlasting Man? There's a reason agnostics wear charm bracelets. Anyway, Christians have long been pointing out, the many different ways that atheist presuppositions lead to epistemological nightmares, but even as a non-theist, you can get away with it as long as you had some kind of metaphysical structure that supported the idea that humans were meant to genuinely discover truth, a kind of teleology. But teleology was discarded along with Paley. It was only a matter of time then before one of these nightmares stuck. What stuck: Critical Theory. Logic is merely a power play now, a means of controlling others. Naturalism has burned to death in the acid of its own skepticism. Congratulations. You played yourself. Yarrgonaut

After just watching Part III of the video (The Hunted Individual) posted above, I think any of the respect I had left for our academic institutions, which wasn't very much, has finally dissolved into nothing. Unbelievable! It's also incredibly sad that western society has caved to this unhinged mafia! KRock

@Polistra The woke movement, in its current form, is about being conscious of social injustices, both past and present. And while it might be possible to draw some parallels between Christianity and wokeness, the latter of the two is fundamentally secular in its origins. Wokeness is also typically associated with institutions that lean decisively to the left, such as most secular universities. KRock

Polistra claims that 'wokeness' is "basically Christianity in disguise." REALLY??? Perhaps Polistra should do just a little bit of research before he blurts out the first thing that pops into his head? For instance, perhaps it might interest Polistra to know, far from being "basically Christianity in disguise", that 'wokeness' is actually the 'spiritual child' of Marxism and Darwinism? First off, Critical Theory was "conceived within the crucible of Marxism",,,

On Critical Theory, Cancel Culture, and Being Woke - Mar 6, 2021 Excerpt: During the 1930's, the Frankfurt School established 'Critical Theory' which was "conceived within the crucible of Marxism ...[and] not only contested establishmentarianism view of history, but projected a radical alternative. European radicals applied its ideas to reconfiguring the family, sexuality, and education” (Bronner, pp. 2, 7).,,, Over the course of the next sixty years, other intellectuals and scholars further explored these ideas, focusing on cultural oppression, rather than economic, under the disparate branches of cultural studies, post-colonialism, critical pedagogy, feminism, black feminism, postmodernism, queer theory, critical race theory, and others. https://www.culturestack.online/post/critical-theory

And secondly, Darwinism provides the "basis in natural history" for the Marxist worldview. As Karl Marx himself observed, “This is the book (Origin of Species) which contains the basis in natural history for our view.”

Darwin on Marx – by Richard William Nelson | Apr 18, 2010 Excerpt: Marx and Engels immediately recognized the significance of Darwin’s theory. Within weeks of the publication of The Origin of Species in November 1859, Engels wrote to Marx – “Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done…. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.” Marx wrote back to Engels on December 19, 1860 – “This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.” The Origin of Species became the natural cause basis for Marx’s emerging class struggle movement. In a letter to comrade Ferdinand Lassalle, on January 16, 1861, Marx wrote – “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Marx inscribed “sincere admirer” in Darwin’s copy of Marx’s first volume of Das Kapital in 1867. The importance of the theory of evolution for Communism was critical. In Das Kapital, Marx wrote – “Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention?” To acknowledge Darwin’s influence, Marx asked to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. https://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2010/04/darwin-on-marx/

Of additional note on the uneasy relationship between Darwinism, Postmodern Pragmatism, and Critical Theory.

Why Pragmatism? The Puzzling Place of Pragmatism in Critical Theory Excerpt: contrary to the claims of critical theorists, pragmatism yields no privileged perspective,,, pragmatism yields relativism about truth and justice,, https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1692&context=fac_schol

And postmodern pragmatism is also, like Critical Theory, the bastard 'spiritual child' of Darwinism,

How Darwinism Dumbs Us Down – Nancy Pearcey Excerpt: One of the leading pragmatists was John Dewey, who had a greater influence on educational theory in America than anyone else in the 20th century. Dewey rejected the idea that there is a transcendent element in human nature, typically defined in terms of mind or soul or spirit, capable of knowing a transcendent truth or moral order. Instead he treated humans as mere organisms adapting to challenges in the environment. In his educational theory, learning is just another form of adaptation–a kind of mental natural selection. Ideas evolve as tools for survival, no different from the evolution of the lion’s teeth or the eagle’s claws. In a famous essay called “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” Dewey said Darwinism leads to a “new logic to apply to mind and morals and life.” In this new evolutionary logic, ideas are not judged by a transcendent standard of Truth, but by how they work in getting us what we want. Ideas do not “reflect reality” but only serve human interests.,,, I once presented this progression from Darwinism to postmodern pragmatism at a Christian college, when a man in the audience raised his hand: “I have only one question. These guys who think all our ideas and beliefs evolved . . . do they think their own ideas evolved?” The audience broke into delighted applause, because of course he had captured the key fallacy of the Darwinian approach to knowledge. If all ideas are products of evolution, and thus not really true but only useful for survival, then evolution itself is not true either–and why should the rest of us pay any attention to it? https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/how-darwinism-dumbs-us-down/

So while 'wokeness', as Polistra noted, may indeed be a 'spiritual worldview', it is, at its basis, a self-refuting spiritual worldview in that it denies the reality of spiritual realm altogether. Which is, as should be needless to say, diametrically opposed to Christianity which holds the spiritual realm to be 'more real' than the physical realm. As Sedgwick scolded Darwin,

"There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly" Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin - 24 November 1859 https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml

bornagain77

Wokers are NOT naturalists. They think human belief and human will power can change all facts of nature. That's a spiritual worldview, basically Christianity in disguise. polistra