If there’s one thing the Right doesn’t need any more of, it is atheism. This is not to say that secularists should not be welcome within the conservative tent: I’m personally agnostic. But people like me need to recognize that we are guests in this movement. Those atheists who feel, as Ronald Reagan once said, that the Left has left them should spend more time reflecting on how this happened, rather than policing the ‘religious Right’ from inside its own walls. The West finds itself at an inflection point, torn between the entropic forces of ‘wokeism,’ which has rushed in to fill the void of secular post-modernity, and the fading Christian faith upon which the West was founded. Claims that we can create a new secular narrative, one that keeps all the things liberalism still values about religion while countering the excesses of ‘woke’ ideology, is not a realistic solution. We can’t create our own values. Even if we could, we don’t have time. Now is the moment for those of us committed to fighting back against the ‘woke’ religion to come to terms with the fact that only the uncompromising force of faith is potent enough to beat back the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Non-believers need not convert, but if they cannot at least allow for an explicit religious response to ‘wokeism,’ it is time for them to get out of the way.
Many within the anti-‘woke’ coalition who do not belong to the ‘religious Right’ still believe that doubling down on rationalism is the most effective way to oppose the rising zealotry on the Left. This is itself irrational. Secularists have been unable to mount meaningful opposition to the ‘woke’ crusade over the past decade. Once the pinnacle of secular rationality, the New Atheist movement has largely succumbed to ‘woke’ progressivism. Its membership base now debates how many different gender identities can dance on the head of a pin and whether or not it is appropriate for a man to ask a woman to have a cup of coffee with him. Its former superstars are political pariahs for daring to stand up against ‘woke’ shibboleths as they simultaneously shift the very ire that they once directed at otherworldly deities to vaccine skeptics and Donald Trump. While they are sure that no gods exist, they do at least seem to believe in devils.
Richard Dawkins, one of the infamous four horsemen of atheism, recently displayed the limitations of secularism in an interview with Piers Morgan. Dawkins was reduced to terrified silence when asked about ISIS Bride Shamima Begum. Given the very non-secular scimitar dangling above him, one which had nearly claimed the life of his friend Salman Rushdie a few months earlier, his refusal to speak on the subject was perfectly rational. While Dawkins may think that anyone who believes in God is deluded, he is more than willing to acknowledge the fanatical determination of many of those who seek to maintain said delusion. The same sort of fanaticism that shot fear through that horseman is shared by those who attacked swimmer Riley Gaines, with cries of “Allahu Akbar” substituted for the proclamations that “trans rights are human rights.” The secular liberals who believe that pure reason is the antidote to an ideology that flies in the face of all scientific knowledge—the claims of which now echo through every major institution originally designed to advance the scientific enterprise—must reconcile themselves to the fact that public declarations of fanatical absurdity provide people with some vital things that logic and science struggle to provide: comradery, certainty, cohesion, and combat.
The ‘woke’ tide
The immediate, predictable response to this from the secular liberal crowd is obvious. “See, religion provides its own problems, and we need to double down uncompromisingly on the classically liberal values of equality, tolerance, and pluralism. Tribalism is not an antidote to tribalism or fanaticism, and I take pride in my rational individualism.” This seems to be an almost exclusively millennial modality, one I agreed with until relatively recently, having spent my high school years obsessed with Christopher Hitchens. But I was wrong and have lost my faith that atheism can maintain, let alone improve, society. It provides certainty—but comradery and cohesion are in short supply. While the secularists certainly have ample opportunity for combat, waging war on both fronts against the hegemonic forces of ‘wokeism’ and Christianity is not a winning strategy. As stated in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, “So our virtues; Lie in the interpretation of the time; And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair.” Critical independence and rationality are virtues, just not ones that win culture wars or elections. Those, as even the fearsome Coriolanus is forced to admit, require appealing to the mass of plebeians, who resent the arrogance visited upon them by the secular elitists who are unwilling to stand with them but require their support. Coriolanus won the support of Rome by showing his scars; us secularists are still denying we have any. We must learn from his fatal mistake: turning against both tribes is usually done out of resentment and pride, but even if it is for the noblest of causes, it ultimately leaves one abandoned with enemies on all sides.
While the ‘anti-woke’ coalition is defined by what it is against, it is not united by it. Strength is found in numbers, and the ‘woke’ are entirely united, institutionally and ideologically, by the irrationality of their beliefs. As Curtis Yarvin once wrote, “nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.” Outside of the religious Right, nothing is uniform about the forces opposing ‘wokeism’ except their habit of spinning off into endless infighting over philosophical and pragmatic differences. This is great for driving Twitter engagement and Substack subscriptions, but, polarized and atomized, there is little holding the unfaithful together. Those secularists intelligent enough to pick apart the constantly metamorphizing insanity of ‘woke’ ideology and who are courageous enough to do something about it must recognize that they are the exception, rather than the rule. The principles and practices that have brought them independent success as stalwart opponents to progressive intolerance are actively working against them when trying to create a capable, cohesive counter-movement. These virtues must be interpreted in the time we are in.
It must now be apparent to even the most moderate centrist that gender ideology, now the prime pillar of ‘wokeism,’ is fundamentally totalitarian. The claim of ‘trans genocide’ is not about the literal killing of trans people, but rather the recognition that any divergence from the delusion breaks the spell and must be stamped out if the ideology is to survive: the gender zealots require constant affirmation to deny reality. It is not enough to respectfully disagree if that disagreement takes the form of improper pronoun usage or disallowing men, regardless of how they identify, into women’s spaces and sports. Pointing out this dynamic is what initially launched Jordan Peterson into the public eye, when he explained that there is a considerable difference between laws enforcing what one cannot say and laws demanding what one must say. There can be no lasting peace between a religion that demands you refer to a man as a woman and those who would prefer not to.
With no middle ground to be found, pluralism cannot be maintained, and Chamberlain-esque calls for “peace in our time” are misguided at best. A lack of an inherently antagonistic moral vision to ‘wokeism,’ either from classical liberals seeking plurality, libertarians seeking total freedom, or the ‘just let me grill’ Right, may shield one from direct conflict for a little while longer, but will not stop the drag preachers interested in reading to their children. These polygender proselytizers are imbued with the modern conception of manifest destiny, expanding their dominion by injecting themselves into all aspects of society, from the lowest levels of the public-school curriculum to the highest corporate rungs. Every aspect of modern life is becoming politicized, from the ballet to Bud Light. The ‘woke’ are coming for it all and are highly motivated to convert or cancel any remaining proponents of plurality.
Secular submission
Most secularists realize this but are still unwilling to commit to an explicitly religious Right. Subsummation takes humility, and it’s understandable why that may be in short supply. The virtues that pulled humanity out of material deprivation have brought us to this moment. Liberalism, the great emancipator, won the battles of the 20th century but has lost the battle against itself. Without external opposition, its realized goals have collapsed inwards, unchaining us from our communities and opening us up to the infinite horizon of post-modernity. Standing upon the peak of rational science, we see only the atomic, both in our stars and in each other, as stardust. While reflecting on the pillars of creation might fulfill some of the grandeur and awe men seek, it provides no meaning. The occasional moral nihilist of sufficient self-agency might be able to survive in a void of their own creation, using refrains about being the universe experiencing itself and absolving themself of free will to erase their individuality, but this has never and will never satisfy an entire society. Man is a religious animal who will demand refuge from the pains of spiritual and social isolation with a morality that, to use the phrase popularized by Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind, will first blind him from infinite choice and then bind him to a community.
Many secularists believe they can provide this with a new, rational story that retains the guiding moral principles of religion but has enough clarity and force to overcome ‘wokeism’ and put us back onto the path toward the end of history. They are attempting to engage in the great embarrassment of modernity once again: creating their own values, a new, synthetic, Frankenstein narrative that can only turn on its creators. We cannot create a new culture on our own, spinning the tapestry of guidelines necessary for a new type of morality and society by disregarding instinct and relying on pure intelligence. We in the West live amongst the bones of the Christian God, and the past hundred years have been defined by those who thought they could shape these bones into tools through their reason and will. Like Icarus, once we could fly, we couldn’t stop ourselves from flying too high, disregarding the guiding religious stories that had evolved over the previous millennia and prevented us from placing rational man above all. We survived our fall, which came in the form of the twin horrors of communism and fascism, but now lack the ingenuity to fashion new wings and the courage necessary to try. Even if we did, the consequences of getting it wrong again are simply too severe.
Regardless, we don’t have the time to bicker amongst each other about the shape of this new story, nor can we wait around to see if one evolves on its own. The civilizational costs of ‘wokeism’ are accumulating, and there is no political, logistical, and, perhaps most importantly, psychological infrastructure that can widely implement this unarticulated dream quickly enough. Those who would seek to have us fall back towards objectivism or some other fringe but pre-established orientating principles must contend with the fact that these ideologies failed to seize hearts and minds when they had little competition from liberalism and none from ‘wokeism.’ Why would they be likely to do so now that the forces against them are so much greater? Disagree with Christianity all you like, but it is of the West, and its entrenchment and legacy cannot be denied. The churches have already been built, the Bibles are bound, and it has pre-existing political parties. It should go without saying that this is not an argument for the faithful to be weaponized against the ‘woke,’ regarded with high-minded scorn and manipulated by snickering secularists. This is a call for sheer pragmatism. Secularism cannot write a new rational story, certainly not one that converts a critical mass of the Christian Right while also taking on the ‘woke’ Left politically and ideologically. Attempting to subvert or sermonize to our allies will spurn them, like Coriolanus did, right as he was on the cusp of reclaiming Rome. “All bond and privilege of nature, break! Let it be virtuous to be obstinate,” Coriolanus’s obstinance failed him when he needed it most, but we should not take this as a lesson to remain resolute in our disregard for religion. He had an army behind him; we do not.
For secularists opposed to ‘wokeism,’ that only leaves one option left: submission. I am not arguing that everyone must go back to church. Though Christianity can be beautiful even to a non-believer, the arguments for its veracity and the necessity of belief should be made by the faithful and taken seriously. But non-believers need to acknowledge the reality of our situation. Real political wins within the democratic system will force us to a choice between two types of heresy: either against ‘wokeism’ from within the Left (good luck) or alongside the Christian Right. Of the two inescapable religious choices before us, Christianity is undoubtedly the better option. This is not to say that it is perfect, but even if you are worried about having to counteract the excesses of Christianity sometime in the future, this is likely decades away. We can discuss crossing that bridge if and when we get there; that’s a small problem compared to all the bridges collapsing around us now, leaving us nowhere to turn but on each other. And while Christianity’s influence has been on the decline in the West, this is not necessarily a permanent trend. Some demographic arguments and the existence of ‘wokeism’ itself suggest that religiosity is going through a resurgence. Only the religious are reproducing enough to stay above the replacement rate—it is surely no accident that the only advanced Western nation with a replacement rate above the necessary 2.1 figure is Israel—and the future belongs to those who show up for it.
Because of all this, it is in our best interest as non-Christians to help ensure the Christian revival and re-conquest of Western culture. At the very least, we should get out of its way. The corner of the culture wars that the anti-‘woke’ secularists have carved out for themselves is small and unlikely to become much more prominent in the coming years. I personally think a resurrection of faith is coming, but even if Christianity continues to decline this does not mean that secular liberal rationality will increase proportionally. It seems far more likely that we will end up with many more individuals who ‘believe in science’ while not believing in the biological reality of men and women. The enemy of our enemy is our friend, and we need to be better friends to our religious conservative allies. We don’t need to agree on everything, but we should also acknowledge that we are a small faction in this fight and be grateful to have a place within the Right. Christians are generally accepting and forgiving, eager to bring in new potential allies. These are virtues that are not to be taken advantage of: as G.K. Chesterton once said, “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” As the lines separating friend from enemy in our new moral battleground continue to converge into something resembling a cross, those unwilling to stand behind religion must at least step aside.
Believe in Believers
If there’s one thing the Right doesn’t need any more of, it is atheism. This is not to say that secularists should not be welcome within the conservative tent: I’m personally agnostic. But people like me need to recognize that we are guests in this movement. Those atheists who feel, as Ronald Reagan once said, that the Left has left them should spend more time reflecting on how this happened, rather than policing the ‘religious Right’ from inside its own walls. The West finds itself at an inflection point, torn between the entropic forces of ‘wokeism,’ which has rushed in to fill the void of secular post-modernity, and the fading Christian faith upon which the West was founded. Claims that we can create a new secular narrative, one that keeps all the things liberalism still values about religion while countering the excesses of ‘woke’ ideology, is not a realistic solution. We can’t create our own values. Even if we could, we don’t have time. Now is the moment for those of us committed to fighting back against the ‘woke’ religion to come to terms with the fact that only the uncompromising force of faith is potent enough to beat back the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Non-believers need not convert, but if they cannot at least allow for an explicit religious response to ‘wokeism,’ it is time for them to get out of the way.
Many within the anti-‘woke’ coalition who do not belong to the ‘religious Right’ still believe that doubling down on rationalism is the most effective way to oppose the rising zealotry on the Left. This is itself irrational. Secularists have been unable to mount meaningful opposition to the ‘woke’ crusade over the past decade. Once the pinnacle of secular rationality, the New Atheist movement has largely succumbed to ‘woke’ progressivism. Its membership base now debates how many different gender identities can dance on the head of a pin and whether or not it is appropriate for a man to ask a woman to have a cup of coffee with him. Its former superstars are political pariahs for daring to stand up against ‘woke’ shibboleths as they simultaneously shift the very ire that they once directed at otherworldly deities to vaccine skeptics and Donald Trump. While they are sure that no gods exist, they do at least seem to believe in devils.
Richard Dawkins, one of the infamous four horsemen of atheism, recently displayed the limitations of secularism in an interview with Piers Morgan. Dawkins was reduced to terrified silence when asked about ISIS Bride Shamima Begum. Given the very non-secular scimitar dangling above him, one which had nearly claimed the life of his friend Salman Rushdie a few months earlier, his refusal to speak on the subject was perfectly rational. While Dawkins may think that anyone who believes in God is deluded, he is more than willing to acknowledge the fanatical determination of many of those who seek to maintain said delusion. The same sort of fanaticism that shot fear through that horseman is shared by those who attacked swimmer Riley Gaines, with cries of “Allahu Akbar” substituted for the proclamations that “trans rights are human rights.” The secular liberals who believe that pure reason is the antidote to an ideology that flies in the face of all scientific knowledge—the claims of which now echo through every major institution originally designed to advance the scientific enterprise—must reconcile themselves to the fact that public declarations of fanatical absurdity provide people with some vital things that logic and science struggle to provide: comradery, certainty, cohesion, and combat.
The ‘woke’ tide
The immediate, predictable response to this from the secular liberal crowd is obvious. “See, religion provides its own problems, and we need to double down uncompromisingly on the classically liberal values of equality, tolerance, and pluralism. Tribalism is not an antidote to tribalism or fanaticism, and I take pride in my rational individualism.” This seems to be an almost exclusively millennial modality, one I agreed with until relatively recently, having spent my high school years obsessed with Christopher Hitchens. But I was wrong and have lost my faith that atheism can maintain, let alone improve, society. It provides certainty—but comradery and cohesion are in short supply. While the secularists certainly have ample opportunity for combat, waging war on both fronts against the hegemonic forces of ‘wokeism’ and Christianity is not a winning strategy. As stated in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, “So our virtues; Lie in the interpretation of the time; And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair.” Critical independence and rationality are virtues, just not ones that win culture wars or elections. Those, as even the fearsome Coriolanus is forced to admit, require appealing to the mass of plebeians, who resent the arrogance visited upon them by the secular elitists who are unwilling to stand with them but require their support. Coriolanus won the support of Rome by showing his scars; us secularists are still denying we have any. We must learn from his fatal mistake: turning against both tribes is usually done out of resentment and pride, but even if it is for the noblest of causes, it ultimately leaves one abandoned with enemies on all sides.
While the ‘anti-woke’ coalition is defined by what it is against, it is not united by it. Strength is found in numbers, and the ‘woke’ are entirely united, institutionally and ideologically, by the irrationality of their beliefs. As Curtis Yarvin once wrote, “nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.” Outside of the religious Right, nothing is uniform about the forces opposing ‘wokeism’ except their habit of spinning off into endless infighting over philosophical and pragmatic differences. This is great for driving Twitter engagement and Substack subscriptions, but, polarized and atomized, there is little holding the unfaithful together. Those secularists intelligent enough to pick apart the constantly metamorphizing insanity of ‘woke’ ideology and who are courageous enough to do something about it must recognize that they are the exception, rather than the rule. The principles and practices that have brought them independent success as stalwart opponents to progressive intolerance are actively working against them when trying to create a capable, cohesive counter-movement. These virtues must be interpreted in the time we are in.
It must now be apparent to even the most moderate centrist that gender ideology, now the prime pillar of ‘wokeism,’ is fundamentally totalitarian. The claim of ‘trans genocide’ is not about the literal killing of trans people, but rather the recognition that any divergence from the delusion breaks the spell and must be stamped out if the ideology is to survive: the gender zealots require constant affirmation to deny reality. It is not enough to respectfully disagree if that disagreement takes the form of improper pronoun usage or disallowing men, regardless of how they identify, into women’s spaces and sports. Pointing out this dynamic is what initially launched Jordan Peterson into the public eye, when he explained that there is a considerable difference between laws enforcing what one cannot say and laws demanding what one must say. There can be no lasting peace between a religion that demands you refer to a man as a woman and those who would prefer not to.
With no middle ground to be found, pluralism cannot be maintained, and Chamberlain-esque calls for “peace in our time” are misguided at best. A lack of an inherently antagonistic moral vision to ‘wokeism,’ either from classical liberals seeking plurality, libertarians seeking total freedom, or the ‘just let me grill’ Right, may shield one from direct conflict for a little while longer, but will not stop the drag preachers interested in reading to their children. These polygender proselytizers are imbued with the modern conception of manifest destiny, expanding their dominion by injecting themselves into all aspects of society, from the lowest levels of the public-school curriculum to the highest corporate rungs. Every aspect of modern life is becoming politicized, from the ballet to Bud Light. The ‘woke’ are coming for it all and are highly motivated to convert or cancel any remaining proponents of plurality.
Secular submission
Most secularists realize this but are still unwilling to commit to an explicitly religious Right. Subsummation takes humility, and it’s understandable why that may be in short supply. The virtues that pulled humanity out of material deprivation have brought us to this moment. Liberalism, the great emancipator, won the battles of the 20th century but has lost the battle against itself. Without external opposition, its realized goals have collapsed inwards, unchaining us from our communities and opening us up to the infinite horizon of post-modernity. Standing upon the peak of rational science, we see only the atomic, both in our stars and in each other, as stardust. While reflecting on the pillars of creation might fulfill some of the grandeur and awe men seek, it provides no meaning. The occasional moral nihilist of sufficient self-agency might be able to survive in a void of their own creation, using refrains about being the universe experiencing itself and absolving themself of free will to erase their individuality, but this has never and will never satisfy an entire society. Man is a religious animal who will demand refuge from the pains of spiritual and social isolation with a morality that, to use the phrase popularized by Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind, will first blind him from infinite choice and then bind him to a community.
Many secularists believe they can provide this with a new, rational story that retains the guiding moral principles of religion but has enough clarity and force to overcome ‘wokeism’ and put us back onto the path toward the end of history. They are attempting to engage in the great embarrassment of modernity once again: creating their own values, a new, synthetic, Frankenstein narrative that can only turn on its creators. We cannot create a new culture on our own, spinning the tapestry of guidelines necessary for a new type of morality and society by disregarding instinct and relying on pure intelligence. We in the West live amongst the bones of the Christian God, and the past hundred years have been defined by those who thought they could shape these bones into tools through their reason and will. Like Icarus, once we could fly, we couldn’t stop ourselves from flying too high, disregarding the guiding religious stories that had evolved over the previous millennia and prevented us from placing rational man above all. We survived our fall, which came in the form of the twin horrors of communism and fascism, but now lack the ingenuity to fashion new wings and the courage necessary to try. Even if we did, the consequences of getting it wrong again are simply too severe.
Regardless, we don’t have the time to bicker amongst each other about the shape of this new story, nor can we wait around to see if one evolves on its own. The civilizational costs of ‘wokeism’ are accumulating, and there is no political, logistical, and, perhaps most importantly, psychological infrastructure that can widely implement this unarticulated dream quickly enough. Those who would seek to have us fall back towards objectivism or some other fringe but pre-established orientating principles must contend with the fact that these ideologies failed to seize hearts and minds when they had little competition from liberalism and none from ‘wokeism.’ Why would they be likely to do so now that the forces against them are so much greater? Disagree with Christianity all you like, but it is of the West, and its entrenchment and legacy cannot be denied. The churches have already been built, the Bibles are bound, and it has pre-existing political parties. It should go without saying that this is not an argument for the faithful to be weaponized against the ‘woke,’ regarded with high-minded scorn and manipulated by snickering secularists. This is a call for sheer pragmatism. Secularism cannot write a new rational story, certainly not one that converts a critical mass of the Christian Right while also taking on the ‘woke’ Left politically and ideologically. Attempting to subvert or sermonize to our allies will spurn them, like Coriolanus did, right as he was on the cusp of reclaiming Rome. “All bond and privilege of nature, break! Let it be virtuous to be obstinate,” Coriolanus’s obstinance failed him when he needed it most, but we should not take this as a lesson to remain resolute in our disregard for religion. He had an army behind him; we do not.
For secularists opposed to ‘wokeism,’ that only leaves one option left: submission. I am not arguing that everyone must go back to church. Though Christianity can be beautiful even to a non-believer, the arguments for its veracity and the necessity of belief should be made by the faithful and taken seriously. But non-believers need to acknowledge the reality of our situation. Real political wins within the democratic system will force us to a choice between two types of heresy: either against ‘wokeism’ from within the Left (good luck) or alongside the Christian Right. Of the two inescapable religious choices before us, Christianity is undoubtedly the better option. This is not to say that it is perfect, but even if you are worried about having to counteract the excesses of Christianity sometime in the future, this is likely decades away. We can discuss crossing that bridge if and when we get there; that’s a small problem compared to all the bridges collapsing around us now, leaving us nowhere to turn but on each other. And while Christianity’s influence has been on the decline in the West, this is not necessarily a permanent trend. Some demographic arguments and the existence of ‘wokeism’ itself suggest that religiosity is going through a resurgence. Only the religious are reproducing enough to stay above the replacement rate—it is surely no accident that the only advanced Western nation with a replacement rate above the necessary 2.1 figure is Israel—and the future belongs to those who show up for it.
Because of all this, it is in our best interest as non-Christians to help ensure the Christian revival and re-conquest of Western culture. At the very least, we should get out of its way. The corner of the culture wars that the anti-‘woke’ secularists have carved out for themselves is small and unlikely to become much more prominent in the coming years. I personally think a resurrection of faith is coming, but even if Christianity continues to decline this does not mean that secular liberal rationality will increase proportionally. It seems far more likely that we will end up with many more individuals who ‘believe in science’ while not believing in the biological reality of men and women. The enemy of our enemy is our friend, and we need to be better friends to our religious conservative allies. We don’t need to agree on everything, but we should also acknowledge that we are a small faction in this fight and be grateful to have a place within the Right. Christians are generally accepting and forgiving, eager to bring in new potential allies. These are virtues that are not to be taken advantage of: as G.K. Chesterton once said, “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” As the lines separating friend from enemy in our new moral battleground continue to converge into something resembling a cross, those unwilling to stand behind religion must at least step aside.
READ NEXT
Play the Ball, not the Man: Cancel Culture’s Attempt To Capture Hungarian Academia
Starmer’s War on Farmers: a New Low for Client Politics
Unprincipled Liberals & the Principle of Cause and Effect