Jump to content

A Skeptic Confronts False Prophets


Valin

Recommended Posts

a-skeptic-confronts-false-prophets
Law & Liberty

Joshua Mitchell

Aug 16 2022

John McWhorter has written an important book—a heretical book, really, because in today’s America, black men are anathema if they believe what he believes, or write what he writes. McWhorter knows the bounds within which he is expected to live, but will not suffer the faux righteousness disseminated by the Elect of the Establishment Church of Wokeness. We will come to this church’s relationship, if any, to the Christian churches shortly; but supposing some linkage, we might, with respect to its understanding of race in America, be tempted to invoke Rom. 1:22, and say of this new religion: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Woke Racism is McWhorter’s account of its foolishness.

Why can men like John McWhorter not have a place in the ghoulish world The Elect has constructed, a world in which the necessary separation between politics and religion has collapsed, a world in which a self-assured and disconnected elite does immense harm to black America while professing to help it? Consider the term, diversity, one of the articles of confession of this new religion. In a country with an historic but never fully realized commitment to pluralism, diversity sounds like a noble idea. It is not. Diversity presupposes that persons must be treated in terms of their purportedly essential group identities. These group characteristics are monovalent. To be a woman, you must be a feminist; to be black, you must vote for the Democratic Party and shun conservative ideas, etc. 

(Snip)

McWhorter’s proposed on-the-ground way of dealing with the Elect is of a piece with a growing chorus of thinkers on the right and even on the center-left. Zealotry can only be listened to and endured for so long before citizens close their door and tell proselytizers to go away. The shame, here, for McWhorter, is that at its best, the political left brings forth new ideas about justice that all societies need from time to time, to be renewed. The Elect parishioners in the Established Church of Wokeness, who think they have found the key that unlocks the riddle of history, are in fact obstacles to the provisional achievement of justice that it is each generation’s responsibility to establish.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apr. 4 2022

Dr. Jordan Peterson and John McWhorter exchange ideas on the field of linguistics, how language affects our worldview, music, children’s capacity to learn languages, race problems in the US, virtue signaling, wokeism, Chomsky’s universal grammar, and more.

John Mcwhorter is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Professor McWhorter is an author of more than a dozen books including ‘The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language,’ ‘Losing the Race: Self Sabotage in Black America’ and ‘Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English.’ He’s also a regular contributor to publications like The New Republic and The Atlantic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • 1711666173
×
×
  • Create New...