By Allan Stevo
Some identify religion as a human necessity. Seemingly as a testament to that, even those who have proudly done away with what they see as the banal and barbaric myths of the past, make a god of the state and a religion of the political process. Others may see Tony Robbins as a high priest overseeing an invigorating religious ceremony. Still others, may see Oprah as a prophet, or a periodic, lavish dinner as an epicurean communion of ritualistic value.
It is apparent that man longs for a story about the order of the universe that religion offers.
Christianity did not become the de rigueur spiritual, philosophical, and political system of vast portions of the world without having something to offer its adherents. Writers like Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell have written volumes on the universal need of humans for certain structures in life. Religion satisfies many of those structural needs.
As the extreme left in America veers further from established religion, it inevitably engages in a very human behavior and builds itself yet another religion.
The problem is, unlike religions that have had centuries or millennia of the brightest minds in the world testing and retesting the ideas of the religion in fervent debate, the religion of the social justice warrior is a several decades old mish mosh of screwy ideas.
Far from a work of prescription, it is with the utmost sadness that I present to the reader a descriptive work of this befuddling body of thought. Sadness, because these ideas somehow exist as a body of thought in an age where the most brilliant, tested, consistent and cohesive ideas are just a few keystrokes away. It is not lack of access that stops more solid ideas from being adopted. Nor is it lack of resources or education, for the more education a person receives, the more likely they are to subscribe to this body of ideas. To identify a few:
Original Sin — The modern feminist movement imposes original sin on the man in the relationship, popularly referred to over the past decade as “privilege.”
Unlike original sin, privilege is not digital or binary, but analog and appearing in gradients. If the man is white, then his original sin is even greater. Privilege of all sorts exist. The less privileged one is, the better that person is.
All privileged people must confess their sins and come to the collective with a spirit of humbleness. The more privilege one has, the more this is needed. The less privilege one has, the less this is expected.
God — The flavor-of-the-month trend deemed popular by the collective is able to act as god. The role of god shifts from group to group and time period to time period. The status of god verges on the omnipotent and omniscient, but is so temporary that some may be imbued with this role for mere days.
Council of Nicaea — The Council of Nicaea is an ongoing meeting, often taking place on social media. Where two or three gather in the name of social justice, there is a Council of Nicaea serving as implementer of dire and important dogma, the temporariness of which does not detract from the direness of the implementation, but makes it all the more passionate, high stakes, and extreme.
Prophetic Voices — Only those who are seen as being identified with an issue are permitted to speak on an issue. The idea that a straight white man could have a valuable opinion on racism, abortion, homosexuality, or hardship is anathema. Total self-censorship is recommended when speaking to those of less privilege, with only the most self-deprecatory statements considered permissible.
Sinners — Only those who can be shamed into accepting their own privilege are deemed sinners. Though the unrepentant will be pursued with a missionary zeal, refusal to publicly accept one’s role as a sinner largely excludes a person from the worst defilement the religion has to offer. A sinner must willingly accept his role as sinner. Any public apology makes one a sinner in the eyes of the social justice movement. The act verges on masochistic.
Once a sinner, always a sinner. In this regard, the public apology is a form of baptism that does not cleanse the soul, but opens it up to repeated defilement. The act of baptism is repeated over and over publicly as a show of humbleness and attrition (sorrow) but not contrition (remorse and penitence).
There is no method of reaching contrition in this religion, and no attainment of forgiveness.