My X feed has recently been flooded with parodies of the “White Women for Kamala” Zoom call, where a kindergarten teacher turned social media influencer “gentle parented” a group of white women, explaining that “our BIPOC sisters have tapped us in as white women to step up, listen, and get involved this election season.” Among many ridiculous and troubling elements of the call—Democrats now support separate but equal political gatherings?—one particularly glaring aspect was the kind of self-flagellation on racial grounds that has gained widespread adoption since at least the publication of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility.
Happy, God-fearing, patriotic Americans don’t understand these rituals and the sentiments underlying them. Hence the mockery, along with the investigations into the financial and institutional incentives that reward and propagate these ideas. This has to be orchestrated by some Marxist dark money that seeks to undermine American bourgeois society, right? Or, as Rob Henderson argues, perhaps this is simply how the “educated elite” now distinguish themselves from the rest of us?
It’s certainly worthwhile to investigate the social and financial incentives promoting such behavior, and our educational and cultural institutions are doubtless in dire need of institutional reform. Yet focusing solely on these aspects obscures a key question: Why are these bizarre rituals so widespread, not just among elites but among ordinary people—suburbanites, soccer moms? Why have they caught on so widely?
Friedrich Nietzsche offers a compelling answer to this question. The self-abasement inherent in wokeness is a contemporary example of the ascetic ideal that Nietzsche describes in his Genealogy of Morals. As he explains, man is a sick animal; he alone among the animals needs a goal in order to live. Ascetic or otherwise self-denying belief systems provide that goal. “Man would rather will nothingness than not will,” Nietzsche explains.
How does self-denial provide meaning? “By being energetically wearied with himself, and even wounding himself, man is compelled to live.” It sounds counterintuitive, but self-denial gives meaning. Writing almost 140 years ago, Nietzsche points to manifestations of this self-abnegation familiar to us today: in the “hatred of the human” and in a “fear of happiness and beauty.” In other words, belief systems that deny happiness, peace, and prosperity provide those who adhere to them with the spiritual fulfillment that they seek.
This perspective helps us make sense of why the myriad manifestations of wokeness today appear more interested in ritual and signaling than in the actual impact of policies. If Black Lives Matter supporters truly cared about black lives, they would be demanding more police presence in black neighborhoods, not less. Similarly, those committed to minority success in the United States would do better to promote proven habits of successful people, such as hard work and family formation, rather than a host of other proposals. Staying fixated on past injustices is counterproductive for all involved.
Indigenous land acknowledgments are now commonplace at the beginning of meetings and ceremonies at many religious and educational institutions, especially in wealthy communities. If they really meant what they said, though, shouldn’t those who partake in such rituals deed their property to some local Native Americans—and then go back to wherever their ancestors came from?
Slavery reparations, a popular cause among many on the left, present numerous moral and practical problems—especially in California, which entered the Union as a free, non-slave state. Here again, making substantive restitution for specific wrongdoing doesn’t seem to be the point. Ritualistic moral signaling is the goal.
The Nietzschean framework seems useful in understanding the environmental movement as well. How many people painstakingly separate recyclables from trash, despite the evidence that recycling’s benefits are dubious? The real-world effect, again, is less important than making a gesture that provides spiritual satisfaction.
These observations may have important implications for reform efforts. Alongside institutional reform—getting rid of DEI bureaucracies, for example—we need to foster healthier outlets for our spiritual yearnings. God, family, and country remain our civilization’s best answers, but how can they be promoted in our skeptical age?
We need to remind young Americans about American exceptionalism. Studying and appreciating the Federalist Papers and the writings and speeches of such Americans as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass should be mandatory for all high school students. In recent years, efforts to promote civic renewal in higher and secondary education have gained momentum and are ripe for greater investment and expansion nationally.
We should also consider a year of mandatory service between high school and college for all Americans—whether it’s service in the military or in underserved communities here at home. For a long time, the military served as a democratizing and unifying institution in America. As Tocqueville taught, such institutions serve an important civic function above and beyond their immediate purposes.
God and family, of course, are harder to promote directly through policy. We need to do what we can at the margins. That means helping religious institutions, including schools, to the extent that First Amendment jurisprudence allows. This would include potentially challenging the current limits that it imposes—for example, in Drummond v. Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board.
The spiritual component also points to the need for a renewal in the humanities and arts. When approached with the proper perspective, great works of literature, music, and fine art help us better understand the human condition. They allow us to grapple with our mortality and the moral challenges we face. By contrast, interpreting works through the grievance framework so common today not only promotes an unhealthy mindset but also undermines our ability to engage with great art on a deeper level. This is why, when it comes to education reform, we must care not only about practical concerns like job-readiness and economic impact but also about renewing the humanities.
Our leaders would do well to speak of their own personal attachments to these values and model the kind of behavior that we want to encourage. Political and business leaders from both parties should be touting the promise of the American dream, as well as the importance of duty to others—in particular, one’s spouse, children, and community.
Recognizing the spiritually seductive nature of wokeness is a key to understanding its pervasiveness. Those who care about reform should be concerned not only with bureaucracies and policies that are harmful but also with countering this ascetic ideal with life-affirming messages.
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