Children hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
In many ways, communism is a cult and a dangerous one at that. In China, to this day, the cult of Mao still carries significant weight. Across the country, young people are still drawn to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a vicious cult led by Xi Jinping.
In the United States, “wokeism” has formed into a cult of its own. Like communism, it threatens to destroy the very fabric of American society. The writer Max Funk calls the woke movement a “new religion,” comparing it to a tidal wave ripping “through every facet of western culture, shaping and redefining society.”
Another writer, Andrew Sullivan, famously described wokeism as “a religion whose followers show the same zeal as any born-again Evangelical.” Linguist John McWhorter, one of wokeism’s biggest critics, has labeled the movement “profoundly religious” in nature. In “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America,” due for release in October, McWhorther, an associate professor at Columbia University, set out to reveal “the workings of this new religion.”
There’s just one thing, though: Wokeism isn’t a religion. It’s a cult.
Before going any further, it’s important to state the following: From this point forward, when discussing religion, I will use Christianity as a reference point throughout. This is a little narrow, you might say. Not quite. There are more than 2.5 billion Christians worldwide. Although it doesn’t speak for all religions, Christianity certainly speaks for a large number of believers. Also, with more than 4,000 religions worldwide, I dare not speak for all of them, nor would I ever want to.
Separating the Sacred From the Silly
A traditional religion such as Christianity is a social-cultural system of belief, replete with designated behaviors and practices, traditions, teachings, and philosophies. Although wokeism has its own set of practices and beliefs, it isn’t a religion. Karate has its own sets of practices and beliefs, and no one calls it a religion. No, wokeism is little more than the weaponization of personal grievances.
Unlike Christianity, there’s little, if any, room for empathy. In fact, the entire woke movement appears to be underpinned by a high degree of narcissism, the antithesis of empathy. Christianity, in its purest form, is about being at one with God. For this to occur, ego dissolution, or the death of the ego, must occur. In other words, an individual must offer himself up to a higher power.
However, traditional religions and the woke movement do share one common characteristic. They’re both tribal. Although the very utterance of the word tribal conjures up images of heated exchanges, vindictiveness, and even warfare, it’s important to remember that a tribe is little more than a group of people with very specific links. Hostility is optional, not mandatory. So, yes, even if Christians are to some degree tribal, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most Christians are united by a devotion to a higher power.
With wokeism, on the other hand, many of its members are united by a mutual disdain for the other. A nonconformist can ask for forgiveness, but it’s rarely, if ever, granted. Christianity, in stark contrast, offers the chance for redemption.
Red Guard members wave copies of Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” during a parade in Beijing in June 1966. Lenin’s and Mao’s paranoid loathing of the bourgeoisie has once again mutated, as it did a century ago, from class hatred into race hatred. (Jean Vincent/AFP via Getty Images)
If religion, in its purest form, is the “sigh of the oppressed,” then wokeism, in its purest form, is the sigh of the ostensibly oppressed. A self-indulgent pastime for the privileged, the woke movement’s followers are mostly affluent millennials.
How to Speak Cult
In her new book, “Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism,” linguist Amanda Montell explained the ways in which cults immerse themselves in technical jargon. Although the author refrained from discussing wokeism, the woke glossary is filled with words such “heteronormativity,” “gender presentation,“ and ”cisgender.“ Acronyms abound: A.F.A.B and A.M.A.B., for example, stand for ”assigned female at birth“ and ”assigned male at birth.“ The ”C“ in C.A.F.A.B or C.A.M.A.B stands for ”coercively.“ Oh, and it would be remiss of me not to mention the acronym T.E.R.F., which stands for ”trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”
When the woke speak, they usually speak in tongues. According to Steve Eichel, a psychologist who researches cults, speaking in tongues is a common feature of cults. Wokeism has a number of other cult-like qualities. It prospers by further dividing people. As Eichel wrote, cults have “a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.”
Cults regularly make their members read assigned texts. The New York Post’s Karol Markowicz recently discussed the ways in which wokeism has infiltrated schools around the country. In New York, teachers have been told to read “the book ‘Stamped’ by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds.”
“As part of the Teachers College curriculum in the fall, students in grades seven and eight will read the young-adult edition of ‘Stamped.’ Students in grades three to six will be reading the junior edition of this title by Sonja Cherry-Paul,” Markowicz wrote.
She calls the woke movement an agenda.
As history has taught us, every cult has an agenda. These agendas tend to be radical in nature. Most definitely radical in nature, wokeism has successfully infiltrated every aspect of U.S. society, from school classrooms to the highest echelons of American politics.
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of The New York Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, The American Conservative, National Review, Public Discourse, and other respectable outlets. He’s also a columnist at Cointelegraph.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. He covers psychology and social relations, and has a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation. His work has been published by the New York Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek, National Review, and The Spectator US, among others.
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