Politics is downstream of culture. Even if you won the elections and changed the laws, demoralized people will still find ways around them. Make reality cool again, be a rebel start a family.
EVERYTHING that humans think/believe/do is downstream from the way we perceive and treat children.
This may be of interest:
I have posted the following elsewhere and repeatedly.... and will likely continue to do so ... Please take what you like and leave the rest...
***
MONEY HAS REPLACED HUMAN VALUES
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
~ Krishnamurti
***
"We are faced with a breakdown of general social order and human values that threatens stability [and survival] throughout the world. Existing knowledge cannot meet this challenge. Something much deeper is needed, a completely new approach. I am suggesting that the very means by which we try to solve our problems is the problem. The source of our problems is within the structure of thought itself."
~ David Bohm (1981)
***
NOTHING will change fundamentally, until we fundamentally change the way we perceive and treat children. Until then, we will continue to see childhood adversity re-enacted upon EVERY aspect of society.
Furthermore, #childhood #adversity more often than not consists of imposing utterly INSANE societal standards of "normalcy" on children, to which they MUST conform, in order to survive, at a time when they are too young to understand and reject the madness being imposed on them.
The "masses" are essentially clueless and unaware of their own conditioning...
“The total neglect or trivialization of the childhood factor operative in the context of violence and the way it evolves in early infancy sometimes leads to explanations that are not only unconvincing and abortive but actively deflect attention away from the genuine roots of violence."
Paul Valery declared “War is a place where young people who don’t know each other kill each other, based on decisions made by old people, who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other.”
***
Harry Patch, last surviving soldier of WW2, who died in 2009, bravely said “War is organised murder and nothing else”.
If you've never read The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman, you probably should. You would like it, and it provides real ideas for altering this status quo.
Oct 27, 2023·edited Oct 27, 2023Liked by Christopher F. Rufo
I’d take changing the law over eliminating woke ideas if it involved not just civil rights law but universal school choice, defunding higher education, etc. As you've written, these people largely don't exist without government funding!
But either way, what’s good to focus on is that we’re political writers. Law is what we can hope to influence. If people want to make movies or TikTok videos or whatever to influence the culture, they have my full blessing.
Back in the ‘90s, my constitutional law professor used to say that “law is applied philosophy”, which I think echoes the Breitbart quote. While we clearly need to change both laws and culture to derail our headlong plunge into madness and destruction, changing the culture makes people “receptive” to legal changes, whereas trying to enforce unpopular laws is an uphill battle.
Another issue not covered in Mr. Rufo’s piece is the level to which the legal changes have been accomplished via executive/administrative fiat and activist lobbyists and judges. These latter factors are, I would argue, more “cultural” than purely legal.
Why would we defund higher education if its simply teaching the truth as all good people know?
Why do we need universal school choice if our K-12 educators are preparing students to be successful adults and citizens? So racists and religious bigots can indoctrinate their bigotry in the privacy of their own homes?
Why should we change Civil Rights law when it's the only thing protecting minorities from the racists? Doesn't disparate impact prove racism? I mean we are all the same so there must be some racism in there somewhere of the outcomes are different.
Even if the racist voters outlaw it at the ballot box we can just ignore them in our policy, we've done it before.
And on and on. Changing the law is important, but its hard to change the law and get it implemented by the relevant stakeholders without a culture change.
We didn't get school choice in a bunch of red states because people started to buy libertarian talking points from the last several decades. We got it because they didn't want their kids wearing masks during drag queen story hour at school.
Parents went from trusting Dems 2-1 on education to trusting the GOP 2-1 on education. The culture changed, and then people wanted to change the law to reflect that cultural change.
ACADEMIA IS BROKEN is today’s front-page headline in the National Post, one of Canada’s national newspapers. To counteract woke ideas Hanania suggests “defunding higher education”. It seems that scores of readers of that story comment that they are stopping their alumni donations. Now, that sends a message to universities.
Furthermore, Hanania also suggests “universal school choice” as a means to help dry up a source of woke. Yes, compulsory, monopoly-style public education seems to grant wholesale license for instilling woke mindsets. Here is where state governments should legislate universal school choice — not only to accommodate people’s varied preferences but also as cost saving. And, not to belabor the point, this would provide anti-woke families alternatives to choose from.
This article is about two influencers, both despairing woke intrusions into society and personal lives. Both predict dismal, decades-long efforts at remedies. Rufo supports the cultural route by challenging the ideology, language, and institutional entrenchment. Hanania would go the legal route through such means as legislating universal school choice and defunding higher education.
However, I see a third constituency of people in the anti-woke field. These are the practical, everyday crowd — not interested in intellectual debates — but who are impatient for practical solutions in their lifetimes. They want to vote with their feet today — out of this quagmire of woke intimidation and control.
Hanania exposes the root of the problem by saying “these people largely don’t exist without government funding!” They are the ultimate example of rent-seeking – pursuing selfish vested interests through misdirecting taxpayer dollars. Anything to cut off their funding asap would be good.
So the Maoist cultural revolution the left has thrown isn't the key driver? My take is they co-opted a legit movement for racial justice and pushed it too far. And with respect, Chris Cantwell's take on the civil rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act essentially represent a new constitution makes more sense to me than your take. In any event, the history of the NAACP and the movement being co-opted and overrun finally by Marxists is well documented. Rosa Parks husband was a card carrying communist - she was too smart to give herself away like that. But she went to the party meetings with her husband.
And your writing is a cultural act, no different than a TikTok video...
Agreed. Culture and laws are complementary, not exclusionary, in western society. To put it very simple terms, a constitution (like ours) is worthless if the culture to keep it intact does not exist. The exception would be the authoritarian who replaces culture with draconian laws. A long term effort, no doubt, is needed for us to recapture our culture. That is why cleaning up education is so important.
What you wrote reminds me of a quote by John Adams:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“
Once the Bible and prayer were removed from the schools, we witnessed the rapid decline of culture.
Our ancestors understood the importance of prayer and the Bible in school and its positive effect on all generations.
In 1647, the Puritans put in place, “The Old Deluder Satan Act.” Prior to this act, the majority of families homeschooled their children. Once a town got big enough, about 50 families, they would start a public school. Typically, the local church also served as the schoolhouse. These families put a high priority on literacy, because they wanted their children to be able to read the Bible, which was available to all students in the school, to read for themselves.
“The religious basis of the act was explicit: the act stated its intention was to thwart “ye old deluder, Satan” in his goal “to keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures.”
How far we have fallen in our hubris. The culture no longer prizes literacy, math or science, or beauty in music and in art. Instead, it rejects these things and says, “we do not want God.”
What is good and true has been replaced with gender ideology, critical race theory, a hatred for oneself, a hatred for one’s country and a hatred for the One True God.
Education absolutely needs to be cleaned up. All the woke garbage must be thrown out, and God needs to be let back in. If the public schools resist, then people need to go back to homeschooling or sending their children to a private school which agrees with their beliefs.
Amen Gathering Blue. Our meely mouthed timid respsonse to the Godlessness taught in public schools is the heart of the problem. John Dewey (the architect of modern progressive education) taught that "The chief task of the school is to counteract and undermine those neighborhood values the child learns in the home and the church."
The church never responded or mounted an effective response. Our entire educational system was infiltrated with that ideology and now we're suprised that unbelief is the dominant worldview. As Francis Schaeffer said."Christians have been more than naive, they've been just plain stupid."
Woke church ,NAR and Andy Stanley are just examples of how the church wanted acceptance instead of sticking to the gospel. Come out from among them and be in the world but not of the world comes to mind at this time.
The Puritans (Calvinists) set the framework for the Woke. Woke is a Secular version of John Calvin and Calvinism. Calvinism has little if anything to do with Christianity, in fact, it is the direct opposite in very foundational ways. Religions that are rooted in Calvinism are typically strong adherants of Wokism, I see it every day.
Christianity that is rooted in the idea that no human being is “Elect” or predestined by God to certain fates, where all human beings are considered fallable, and one that understands the importance of forgiveness and change is the only answer to Woke.
That is not at all what Calvinism is. In-other-words, we are all human beings who determine our fates through our individual actions and the choices we make. (Free Will) To me, Western civilization is founded on that belief, and why it is targeted for destruction by the Woke?
Predestination and preordination isn't biblical. The only thing that is guaranteed is a time appointed to be born and a time to die and only He knows this. He also knew us before we were in our mothers wombs. I agree sir. Freewill Baptist here.
To Ye old deluder, Jesus insisted, "The kingdom of God is not food and pleasure but every Word from the Father's mouth." At that point the Deluder knew his plans would fail. Jesus twice again answered with those Words, finally saying, "Get out of here, Deluder!"
Family culture is the heart of society. Reinforcing traditional marriage and cohesive, responsible families would change everything. Fatherless homes and irresponsibility promote lawlessness and destruction of basic human value. Reigniting the family structure would change the nihilistic trends we are currently experiencing.
And that is exactly why the Marxists want to destroy the nuclear family. They equate it with Capitalism. In order to overthrow Capitalism, they must fist dismantle the basis of society: the family.
I think Christopher is correct. Politics is downstream of culture. Way downstream. Now Christopher and a few politicians like DeSantis have helped enormously in some states. However, there has been relatively little cultural change. I am a professor and high end business consultant. One can see how much culture has impacted academia easily but it has impacted premier business consulting a great deal as well. Just take a look at articles by McKinsey, BCG and Bain. One might think almost all of what businesses care about is DEI and ESG. Crazy. And these folks know that - but they dare not say it.
I also have an MFA from one of the best art schools in the world. In the art sphere, many/almost all exhibitions and articles are by or about women, minorities and the LBGTQI+ alphabet project. There are articles and exhibitions focusing on a few white man - so long as they are dead. In short, we are making almost no progress in this important aspect of culture. This needs to stop. Being human - whatever colour, gender or sexual preference - is the primitive. The Creator created everything and everyone. Let's start there. Let's celebrate that! We need to support excellence in whomever and wherever we find it. This seems like a way to start changing culture - for the better. And we have made scant progress in the last 30 years. It's going to be hard, especially if we don't start.
I'm so curious about how quickly woke infected global corporations and their marketing. I keep coming back to Larry Fink's (BlackRock) comment: "we force behaviors". Could just a couple of financial behemoth$ like BlackRock & Vanguard be THAT powerful? I'm honestly curious.
They absolutely are. Goes back a long time before that. Club of Rome, CFR( Latin American off shoot and Rockefeller links to both follow the Marxist trail backwards) It must be reverse engineered, all of it.
Hi Rick and Friends. I think that a large part of what has happened is that wokeness has become a type of focal point in society. A focal is neutral in itself. For example for two people that don't know each other and can't communicate but want to meet in New York City they might both choose to go to the Empire State building. Innocent enough. However, in social situation a value is attached and deviations from the focal and, presumably, herd behaviour are rewarded/punished asymmetrically. There is no great reward to going along with the current orthodoxy but devations are punished severely.
I agree with Rufo, over the past 5 years, the acceleration of woke culture and identity politics has happened primarily because of the Left’s “long march” through, and ultimately capture of, America’s institutions, especially academia and the media. Ordinary Americans are largely unaware of current events and historical facts that reflect negatively on Leftist ideology, political leaders and non-profit organizations. Well-educated people are often the most entrenched in their support for Leftist causes, because they’ve been more exposed to, and relentlessly indoctrinated by, higher education and the media. These culture-shaping institutions frame everything from, and even celebrate, Leftist perspectives, while simultaneously vilifying and suppressing Conservative viewpoints.
Make no mistake the Biden Administration's AI Bill of Rights is an equity trojan horse and they are using this to push this world(in the UK earlier this week where Harris presented) wide woke agenda into the AI regulation, controls & legislation.
As much as I hate to admit it, Gramsci was accurate. Russian Revolution vs Mao vs The US Left. Seems to work better when beliefs influence law. I don’t think the civil rights laws would have been extended beyond their intent had not the left had their beliefs about regulating beyond political equality.
I also think it goes further back to the through line of the Enlightenment deism - when you remove transcendent reality, people are going to look for it somewhere. The Age of Utopia looked for it in future man, making him god. The Age of Nihilism is the extension of that and our reality today. As Yuri commented earlier to this article, make reality cool again. And God.
Please read Thomas Sowell on the harm civil rights legislation did for the very people it meant to help. He is brilliant, insightful, and relies on facts to support his points.
The insane dedire for utopia is a significant cause for Wokeness. That is in the face of the failures of communism and progressivism, which has brought with it a resentful tear it all down mindset. Yet, the utopian impulse does not want to face facts. That may be because of Neo Marxist gnosticism (see James Lindsay) which blames the world for the ills of humanity. It is kind of utopianism by the back door of denial.
Ultimately it is satan behind woke but it is certainly with the help of his human henchmen in the form of culture curators. I agree that this requires an all-hands-on-deck approach including culture and law and most importantly, a return to Christianity. Our country was built for people of faith and without that faith the seams unravel. That you for answering the call to take on the beast. We wholeheartedly support you!
This analysis does not consider the "S-curve" product cycle that starts off slow initially with pioneer adopters, then curves up and accelerates as the product achieves adoption by broader user groups, reaches mass acceptance at a high level, and then becomes irrelevant to users and crashes. The left hates history because after achieving dominance in the 1890s, 1930s, and 1970s, the movement suffered existential collapses. The left hates history because their economic policies cyclically fail and the movement crashes. The social turmoil right now is the harbinger of the left's next crash.
Ultimate cause is religion, defined as 'the system by which you gain (and lose) value'.
People are woke because it gives them value. Find a better way of giving them value, and they will flock to it.
Bureaucrats get value out of using their power to help the state/make themselves feel important. Reward them for rooting out DIE, and the culture will change, along with the rules.
Anti-DIE bills in Florida and Texas were great starts. But the bureaucrats and administrators need to fear DIE. Right now, they're just hiding it, and rearranging departments. And all the diversity hires are still there.
We need some sustained journalism focused on revealing the Marxists that are trying to hide in TX and FL universities, and take them down. Any journalists interested in exposing them, please hmu.
As lawlessness increases Civil Rights laws are ignored or reinterpreted. This requires a change in our culture and a recognition that we have been overcome by deep Marxist ideology that most often goes unrecognized by the public including those in politics. Many leaders of industry, education, politics, entertainment, media etc. have already been knowingly or unknowingly been captured. Western Civilization is being replaced by Marxist ideology brick by brick.
My belief is that the communists were right about their assumptions. Take control of the education system and force it on the population, then you control the population. In the late 1940's one of the top goals of the Communist Party USA was to take control of the education system. In the 1960's the fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union caused the communists to fall out of favor in this country and most of the CPUSA members joined the Democrat party. By the middle 1980's they had attained their goal of controlling our education system. With truancy laws most children are forced to attend government schools. With that many years of indoctrination, the majority of the next generation will believe it because they will have heard no other side to the story.
Thus, to change the game the right has to change those who control the education system.
What are the vehicles through which ideology is transmitted? What is the value proposition of a particular idea that makes it attractive to people? Under which conditions do the purveyors of destructive ideas thrive?
The Left has the biggest megaphones and the loudest amplifiers. So their message tends to drown everything else out. It’s clear that the educational bureaucracy and corporate media dominate and constitute a vertical communications monopoly on mainstream thought. To address this is going to require a multifaceted strategic approach - legal, economic, and content creation. So it’s simultaneously a cultural challenge in terms of winning mindshare and a barrage of litigation, legislation and electoral action to level the playing field.
The worse conditions are perceived to be, even in spite of objective evidence, the “climate crisis” for example, the more amenable people become to radical ideas. By tearing down societal pillars the Left has created a low trust society. I don’t think we can resurrect those pillars as they were. They will need to be made palatable to a modern society. This is a propaganda function of content creation and marketing of better ideas.
Finally, punishment is in order. There can be no realignment of values without taking the purveyors of toxic garbage, who have damaged many innocent people, and holding them accountable.
None of this is easy. But we have no alternative in the face of a coordinated, deliberate takeover and Neo Marxist makeover of society.
100% correct. Sadly I haven’t seen the commitment from conservative wealth. You can’t “break into Hollywood” with traditional values because those gates are closed. Tired of hearing from conservative billionaires echoing what the problems are when they won’t spend a dime on content creators, production and distribution. You can’t change the culture unless you’re IN the culture. Another book or column isn’t going to move the ball.
Hahaha. No not that one. Although it’s cool hearing Tucker say my name. 😂 I’m a writer, screenwriter who follows all the “right” people, writers and thinkers. I’ve been published in American Greatness “Ghost of Don Imus” and American Thinker “Black Comedians Told Uncomfortable Truths…”
Interesting. I read your article in American Thinker. Spot on, and the points are echoed by many black intellectuals, albeit less humorously than Chris Rock. So if you had whatever constitutes a reasonable financial war chest in your opinion to work on this problem, how would you spend it?
Way way too much to unpack here. I’ve got scripts. Ideas. You name it. I’m an “all the above” proponent. We didn’t get here overnight so it’s not a “one thing” solution. We need to be everywhere. I wrote a missive “If I could sit down with a billionaire”. If only…
“What are the vehicles through which ideology is transmitted?”
He who controls education and the internet will control the future. Which means that things are NOT looking good for any kind of sane, balanced future society. But still, we must fight as hard as we can...there is no honorable alternative.
Maybe needless to say, "God is still in charge of the outcome." Unfortunately for many, the final days don't turn out well for the ones wanting to die, seeking caves to hide in.
Politics is downstream of culture. Even if you won the elections and changed the laws, demoralized people will still find ways around them. Make reality cool again, be a rebel start a family.
EVERYTHING that humans think/believe/do is downstream from the way we perceive and treat children.
This may be of interest:
I have posted the following elsewhere and repeatedly.... and will likely continue to do so ... Please take what you like and leave the rest...
***
MONEY HAS REPLACED HUMAN VALUES
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
~ Krishnamurti
***
"We are faced with a breakdown of general social order and human values that threatens stability [and survival] throughout the world. Existing knowledge cannot meet this challenge. Something much deeper is needed, a completely new approach. I am suggesting that the very means by which we try to solve our problems is the problem. The source of our problems is within the structure of thought itself."
~ David Bohm (1981)
***
NOTHING will change fundamentally, until we fundamentally change the way we perceive and treat children. Until then, we will continue to see childhood adversity re-enacted upon EVERY aspect of society.
Furthermore, #childhood #adversity more often than not consists of imposing utterly INSANE societal standards of "normalcy" on children, to which they MUST conform, in order to survive, at a time when they are too young to understand and reject the madness being imposed on them.
The "masses" are essentially clueless and unaware of their own conditioning...
***
Aware Parenting website:
"It is paradoxical, yet true:
Children are the most
in need of loving attention,
when they act the least deserving of it."
~ Aletha Solter
www.awareparenting.com
***
“The total neglect or trivialization of the childhood factor operative in the context of violence and the way it evolves in early infancy sometimes leads to explanations that are not only unconvincing and abortive but actively deflect attention away from the genuine roots of violence."
~ Alice Miller
Full article 👇🏼
http://psychohistory.com/articles/the-political-consequences-of-child-abuse/
***
THE CHILDREN’S FIRE ...
"What kind of a society is it, that does NOT place the Children's Fire at the very centre of its institutions of power?
It's an INSANE society!"
~ Tim "Mac" Macartney
#TheChildrensFire
Please Watch this Video presentation:
👇🏼
https://youtu.be/1JchSac-VP0
***
Why males are more violent:
👇🏼
http://psychohistory.com/books/the-origins-of-war-in-child-abuse/chapter-2-why-males-are-more-violent/
***
Eric Clopper and Dr Denniston ... #circumcision
👇🏼
https://youtu.be/HEyTP9mafb4
***
Dissolving my vaxxed illusions:
👇🏼
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/dissolving-my-vaxxed-illusions?s=r
***
The Medical Mafia (2002)
~ Ghislaine Lanctôt
Direct link to PDF file: 👇🏼
https://ia800304.us.archive.org/2/items/TheMedicalMafia/TheMedicalMafia.pdf
~*~
Paul Valery declared “War is a place where young people who don’t know each other kill each other, based on decisions made by old people, who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other.”
***
Harry Patch, last surviving soldier of WW2, who died in 2009, bravely said “War is organised murder and nothing else”.
If you've never read The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman, you probably should. You would like it, and it provides real ideas for altering this status quo.
Glow Kids is great and I need to read Digital Madness by Nicholas Kardaras.
Thanks for the reference. Will look into it.
I’d take changing the law over eliminating woke ideas if it involved not just civil rights law but universal school choice, defunding higher education, etc. As you've written, these people largely don't exist without government funding!
But either way, what’s good to focus on is that we’re political writers. Law is what we can hope to influence. If people want to make movies or TikTok videos or whatever to influence the culture, they have my full blessing.
Back in the ‘90s, my constitutional law professor used to say that “law is applied philosophy”, which I think echoes the Breitbart quote. While we clearly need to change both laws and culture to derail our headlong plunge into madness and destruction, changing the culture makes people “receptive” to legal changes, whereas trying to enforce unpopular laws is an uphill battle.
Another issue not covered in Mr. Rufo’s piece is the level to which the legal changes have been accomplished via executive/administrative fiat and activist lobbyists and judges. These latter factors are, I would argue, more “cultural” than purely legal.
Let the "woke" die the death of a thousand cuts. But, beware, almost all revolutions are begun by the upper-middle class unemployed adults.
Why would we defund higher education if its simply teaching the truth as all good people know?
Why do we need universal school choice if our K-12 educators are preparing students to be successful adults and citizens? So racists and religious bigots can indoctrinate their bigotry in the privacy of their own homes?
Why should we change Civil Rights law when it's the only thing protecting minorities from the racists? Doesn't disparate impact prove racism? I mean we are all the same so there must be some racism in there somewhere of the outcomes are different.
Even if the racist voters outlaw it at the ballot box we can just ignore them in our policy, we've done it before.
And on and on. Changing the law is important, but its hard to change the law and get it implemented by the relevant stakeholders without a culture change.
We didn't get school choice in a bunch of red states because people started to buy libertarian talking points from the last several decades. We got it because they didn't want their kids wearing masks during drag queen story hour at school.
Parents went from trusting Dems 2-1 on education to trusting the GOP 2-1 on education. The culture changed, and then people wanted to change the law to reflect that cultural change.
ACADEMIA IS BROKEN is today’s front-page headline in the National Post, one of Canada’s national newspapers. To counteract woke ideas Hanania suggests “defunding higher education”. It seems that scores of readers of that story comment that they are stopping their alumni donations. Now, that sends a message to universities.
Furthermore, Hanania also suggests “universal school choice” as a means to help dry up a source of woke. Yes, compulsory, monopoly-style public education seems to grant wholesale license for instilling woke mindsets. Here is where state governments should legislate universal school choice — not only to accommodate people’s varied preferences but also as cost saving. And, not to belabor the point, this would provide anti-woke families alternatives to choose from.
This article is about two influencers, both despairing woke intrusions into society and personal lives. Both predict dismal, decades-long efforts at remedies. Rufo supports the cultural route by challenging the ideology, language, and institutional entrenchment. Hanania would go the legal route through such means as legislating universal school choice and defunding higher education.
However, I see a third constituency of people in the anti-woke field. These are the practical, everyday crowd — not interested in intellectual debates — but who are impatient for practical solutions in their lifetimes. They want to vote with their feet today — out of this quagmire of woke intimidation and control.
Hanania exposes the root of the problem by saying “these people largely don’t exist without government funding!” They are the ultimate example of rent-seeking – pursuing selfish vested interests through misdirecting taxpayer dollars. Anything to cut off their funding asap would be good.
So the Maoist cultural revolution the left has thrown isn't the key driver? My take is they co-opted a legit movement for racial justice and pushed it too far. And with respect, Chris Cantwell's take on the civil rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act essentially represent a new constitution makes more sense to me than your take. In any event, the history of the NAACP and the movement being co-opted and overrun finally by Marxists is well documented. Rosa Parks husband was a card carrying communist - she was too smart to give herself away like that. But she went to the party meetings with her husband.
And your writing is a cultural act, no different than a TikTok video...
Agreed. Culture and laws are complementary, not exclusionary, in western society. To put it very simple terms, a constitution (like ours) is worthless if the culture to keep it intact does not exist. The exception would be the authoritarian who replaces culture with draconian laws. A long term effort, no doubt, is needed for us to recapture our culture. That is why cleaning up education is so important.
What you wrote reminds me of a quote by John Adams:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“
Once the Bible and prayer were removed from the schools, we witnessed the rapid decline of culture.
Our ancestors understood the importance of prayer and the Bible in school and its positive effect on all generations.
In 1647, the Puritans put in place, “The Old Deluder Satan Act.” Prior to this act, the majority of families homeschooled their children. Once a town got big enough, about 50 families, they would start a public school. Typically, the local church also served as the schoolhouse. These families put a high priority on literacy, because they wanted their children to be able to read the Bible, which was available to all students in the school, to read for themselves.
“The religious basis of the act was explicit: the act stated its intention was to thwart “ye old deluder, Satan” in his goal “to keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures.”
How far we have fallen in our hubris. The culture no longer prizes literacy, math or science, or beauty in music and in art. Instead, it rejects these things and says, “we do not want God.”
What is good and true has been replaced with gender ideology, critical race theory, a hatred for oneself, a hatred for one’s country and a hatred for the One True God.
Education absolutely needs to be cleaned up. All the woke garbage must be thrown out, and God needs to be let back in. If the public schools resist, then people need to go back to homeschooling or sending their children to a private school which agrees with their beliefs.
Amen Gathering Blue. Our meely mouthed timid respsonse to the Godlessness taught in public schools is the heart of the problem. John Dewey (the architect of modern progressive education) taught that "The chief task of the school is to counteract and undermine those neighborhood values the child learns in the home and the church."
The church never responded or mounted an effective response. Our entire educational system was infiltrated with that ideology and now we're suprised that unbelief is the dominant worldview. As Francis Schaeffer said."Christians have been more than naive, they've been just plain stupid."
Woke church ,NAR and Andy Stanley are just examples of how the church wanted acceptance instead of sticking to the gospel. Come out from among them and be in the world but not of the world comes to mind at this time.
The Puritans (Calvinists) set the framework for the Woke. Woke is a Secular version of John Calvin and Calvinism. Calvinism has little if anything to do with Christianity, in fact, it is the direct opposite in very foundational ways. Religions that are rooted in Calvinism are typically strong adherants of Wokism, I see it every day.
Christianity that is rooted in the idea that no human being is “Elect” or predestined by God to certain fates, where all human beings are considered fallable, and one that understands the importance of forgiveness and change is the only answer to Woke.
That is not at all what Calvinism is. In-other-words, we are all human beings who determine our fates through our individual actions and the choices we make. (Free Will) To me, Western civilization is founded on that belief, and why it is targeted for destruction by the Woke?
Predestination and preordination isn't biblical. The only thing that is guaranteed is a time appointed to be born and a time to die and only He knows this. He also knew us before we were in our mothers wombs. I agree sir. Freewill Baptist here.
If you know your Bible you are able to read and understand anything. The fear of God is the beginning of all knowledge.
We hit on the same quote from Adams, mine written before I read your comment. I agree with your take here, too.
To Ye old deluder, Jesus insisted, "The kingdom of God is not food and pleasure but every Word from the Father's mouth." At that point the Deluder knew his plans would fail. Jesus twice again answered with those Words, finally saying, "Get out of here, Deluder!"
Family culture is the heart of society. Reinforcing traditional marriage and cohesive, responsible families would change everything. Fatherless homes and irresponsibility promote lawlessness and destruction of basic human value. Reigniting the family structure would change the nihilistic trends we are currently experiencing.
And that is exactly why the Marxists want to destroy the nuclear family. They equate it with Capitalism. In order to overthrow Capitalism, they must fist dismantle the basis of society: the family.
Mother and father are needed. Now they are pushing a single dad agenda and if your a republican you must be mentally ill.
I think Christopher is correct. Politics is downstream of culture. Way downstream. Now Christopher and a few politicians like DeSantis have helped enormously in some states. However, there has been relatively little cultural change. I am a professor and high end business consultant. One can see how much culture has impacted academia easily but it has impacted premier business consulting a great deal as well. Just take a look at articles by McKinsey, BCG and Bain. One might think almost all of what businesses care about is DEI and ESG. Crazy. And these folks know that - but they dare not say it.
I also have an MFA from one of the best art schools in the world. In the art sphere, many/almost all exhibitions and articles are by or about women, minorities and the LBGTQI+ alphabet project. There are articles and exhibitions focusing on a few white man - so long as they are dead. In short, we are making almost no progress in this important aspect of culture. This needs to stop. Being human - whatever colour, gender or sexual preference - is the primitive. The Creator created everything and everyone. Let's start there. Let's celebrate that! We need to support excellence in whomever and wherever we find it. This seems like a way to start changing culture - for the better. And we have made scant progress in the last 30 years. It's going to be hard, especially if we don't start.
I'm so curious about how quickly woke infected global corporations and their marketing. I keep coming back to Larry Fink's (BlackRock) comment: "we force behaviors". Could just a couple of financial behemoth$ like BlackRock & Vanguard be THAT powerful? I'm honestly curious.
They absolutely are. Goes back a long time before that. Club of Rome, CFR( Latin American off shoot and Rockefeller links to both follow the Marxist trail backwards) It must be reverse engineered, all of it.
and those two own disproportionately large shares of most global corporations which, I guess, makes the "forcing" a cakewalk
Club of Rome has Her Klaus ties going back to the 60s.
Hi Rick and Friends. I think that a large part of what has happened is that wokeness has become a type of focal point in society. A focal is neutral in itself. For example for two people that don't know each other and can't communicate but want to meet in New York City they might both choose to go to the Empire State building. Innocent enough. However, in social situation a value is attached and deviations from the focal and, presumably, herd behaviour are rewarded/punished asymmetrically. There is no great reward to going along with the current orthodoxy but devations are punished severely.
I agree with Rufo, over the past 5 years, the acceleration of woke culture and identity politics has happened primarily because of the Left’s “long march” through, and ultimately capture of, America’s institutions, especially academia and the media. Ordinary Americans are largely unaware of current events and historical facts that reflect negatively on Leftist ideology, political leaders and non-profit organizations. Well-educated people are often the most entrenched in their support for Leftist causes, because they’ve been more exposed to, and relentlessly indoctrinated by, higher education and the media. These culture-shaping institutions frame everything from, and even celebrate, Leftist perspectives, while simultaneously vilifying and suppressing Conservative viewpoints.
Yes!
Make no mistake the Biden Administration's AI Bill of Rights is an equity trojan horse and they are using this to push this world(in the UK earlier this week where Harris presented) wide woke agenda into the AI regulation, controls & legislation.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Blueprint-for-an-AI-Bill-of-Rights.pdf
https://www.c-span.org/video/?531550-1/vice-president-harris-remarks-london-artificial-intelligence
As much as I hate to admit it, Gramsci was accurate. Russian Revolution vs Mao vs The US Left. Seems to work better when beliefs influence law. I don’t think the civil rights laws would have been extended beyond their intent had not the left had their beliefs about regulating beyond political equality.
I also think it goes further back to the through line of the Enlightenment deism - when you remove transcendent reality, people are going to look for it somewhere. The Age of Utopia looked for it in future man, making him god. The Age of Nihilism is the extension of that and our reality today. As Yuri commented earlier to this article, make reality cool again. And God.
no god: no sense of purpose or direction
Know God: reveals a sense of direction and purpose from a higher power
barbara
Please read Thomas Sowell on the harm civil rights legislation did for the very people it meant to help. He is brilliant, insightful, and relies on facts to support his points.
Love Sowell.
The insane dedire for utopia is a significant cause for Wokeness. That is in the face of the failures of communism and progressivism, which has brought with it a resentful tear it all down mindset. Yet, the utopian impulse does not want to face facts. That may be because of Neo Marxist gnosticism (see James Lindsay) which blames the world for the ills of humanity. It is kind of utopianism by the back door of denial.
Ultimately it is satan behind woke but it is certainly with the help of his human henchmen in the form of culture curators. I agree that this requires an all-hands-on-deck approach including culture and law and most importantly, a return to Christianity. Our country was built for people of faith and without that faith the seams unravel. That you for answering the call to take on the beast. We wholeheartedly support you!
Snake wrestling, for sure.
This analysis does not consider the "S-curve" product cycle that starts off slow initially with pioneer adopters, then curves up and accelerates as the product achieves adoption by broader user groups, reaches mass acceptance at a high level, and then becomes irrelevant to users and crashes. The left hates history because after achieving dominance in the 1890s, 1930s, and 1970s, the movement suffered existential collapses. The left hates history because their economic policies cyclically fail and the movement crashes. The social turmoil right now is the harbinger of the left's next crash.
Great point!
“Cyclically fail” might be better phrased as “repeatedly, inevitably fail”
Ultimate cause is religion, defined as 'the system by which you gain (and lose) value'.
People are woke because it gives them value. Find a better way of giving them value, and they will flock to it.
Bureaucrats get value out of using their power to help the state/make themselves feel important. Reward them for rooting out DIE, and the culture will change, along with the rules.
Anti-DIE bills in Florida and Texas were great starts. But the bureaucrats and administrators need to fear DIE. Right now, they're just hiding it, and rearranging departments. And all the diversity hires are still there.
We need some sustained journalism focused on revealing the Marxists that are trying to hide in TX and FL universities, and take them down. Any journalists interested in exposing them, please hmu.
Interesting point!
As lawlessness increases Civil Rights laws are ignored or reinterpreted. This requires a change in our culture and a recognition that we have been overcome by deep Marxist ideology that most often goes unrecognized by the public including those in politics. Many leaders of industry, education, politics, entertainment, media etc. have already been knowingly or unknowingly been captured. Western Civilization is being replaced by Marxist ideology brick by brick.
My belief is that the communists were right about their assumptions. Take control of the education system and force it on the population, then you control the population. In the late 1940's one of the top goals of the Communist Party USA was to take control of the education system. In the 1960's the fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union caused the communists to fall out of favor in this country and most of the CPUSA members joined the Democrat party. By the middle 1980's they had attained their goal of controlling our education system. With truancy laws most children are forced to attend government schools. With that many years of indoctrination, the majority of the next generation will believe it because they will have heard no other side to the story.
Thus, to change the game the right has to change those who control the education system.
What are the vehicles through which ideology is transmitted? What is the value proposition of a particular idea that makes it attractive to people? Under which conditions do the purveyors of destructive ideas thrive?
The Left has the biggest megaphones and the loudest amplifiers. So their message tends to drown everything else out. It’s clear that the educational bureaucracy and corporate media dominate and constitute a vertical communications monopoly on mainstream thought. To address this is going to require a multifaceted strategic approach - legal, economic, and content creation. So it’s simultaneously a cultural challenge in terms of winning mindshare and a barrage of litigation, legislation and electoral action to level the playing field.
The worse conditions are perceived to be, even in spite of objective evidence, the “climate crisis” for example, the more amenable people become to radical ideas. By tearing down societal pillars the Left has created a low trust society. I don’t think we can resurrect those pillars as they were. They will need to be made palatable to a modern society. This is a propaganda function of content creation and marketing of better ideas.
Finally, punishment is in order. There can be no realignment of values without taking the purveyors of toxic garbage, who have damaged many innocent people, and holding them accountable.
None of this is easy. But we have no alternative in the face of a coordinated, deliberate takeover and Neo Marxist makeover of society.
100% correct. Sadly I haven’t seen the commitment from conservative wealth. You can’t “break into Hollywood” with traditional values because those gates are closed. Tired of hearing from conservative billionaires echoing what the problems are when they won’t spend a dime on content creators, production and distribution. You can’t change the culture unless you’re IN the culture. Another book or column isn’t going to move the ball.
Are you Colonel MacGregor?
Hahaha. No not that one. Although it’s cool hearing Tucker say my name. 😂 I’m a writer, screenwriter who follows all the “right” people, writers and thinkers. I’ve been published in American Greatness “Ghost of Don Imus” and American Thinker “Black Comedians Told Uncomfortable Truths…”
Interesting. I read your article in American Thinker. Spot on, and the points are echoed by many black intellectuals, albeit less humorously than Chris Rock. So if you had whatever constitutes a reasonable financial war chest in your opinion to work on this problem, how would you spend it?
Way way too much to unpack here. I’ve got scripts. Ideas. You name it. I’m an “all the above” proponent. We didn’t get here overnight so it’s not a “one thing” solution. We need to be everywhere. I wrote a missive “If I could sit down with a billionaire”. If only…
“What are the vehicles through which ideology is transmitted?”
He who controls education and the internet will control the future. Which means that things are NOT looking good for any kind of sane, balanced future society. But still, we must fight as hard as we can...there is no honorable alternative.
Maybe needless to say, "God is still in charge of the outcome." Unfortunately for many, the final days don't turn out well for the ones wanting to die, seeking caves to hide in.
Disrupting the incumbents is always difficult, but not always impossible. Kodak ain’t it what it used to be.