All Woked-Up: The Religion of Wokistan

All Woked-Up: The Religion of Wokistan

If you want to learn about being all-woked-up, here is your opportunity!!

What does it mean to be woke? Who is woke? Who is not woke? Benefits of being woke, and a whole lot more!! All for approval and to help better understand why some white people are so deeply self-loathing and why some black, brown, red and yellow people feel a sense of entitlement.

Need to better understand how the climate hoax, I mean climate change fuels – battery or solar fuel, of course – what role it plays with the wokistan mob.

This is an in-depth look at the make-up of the radical left, communist agenda and is well worth your time.

Over the last year, a growing number of progressives have pointed to police killings of unarmed black men, rising carbon emissions and extreme weather events, and the killing of trans people as proof that the US has failed to take action on racism, climate change, and transphobia

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

– Police killings of black Americans declined from 217/year in the 1970s to 157/year in the 2010s.

– Between 2011 and 2020, CO2 emissions declined 14% in the US, more than in any other nation

– Just 300 people died from disasters, a 90+% percent decline over the past century.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Progressives respond that these gains obscure broad inequalities, and are under threat. Black Americans are killed at between two to three times the rate of white Americans, according to a Washington Post analysis of police killings between 2015 and 2020.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

In 2020, Human Rights Campaign found that at least 44 transgender and non-gender conforming people were killed, which is the most since it started tracking fatalities in 2013, and already that number has reached 45 this year.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

But those numbers, too, obscure important realities. There are no racial differences in police killings when accounting for whether or not the suspect was armed or a threat (“justified” vs “unjustified” shooting).

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

While climate change may be contributing to extreme weather events, neither the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change nor another other scientific body predicts it will outpace rising resilience to cause an increase in deaths from natural disasters.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Twenty-six states have decriminalized marijuana. California & Oregon have decriminalized and legalized, respectively, the possession of all drugs.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

And yet many Americans would be surprised to learn any of the above information; some would reject it outright as false.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Despite the decline in carbon emissions, 47 percent of the public agreed with the statement, “Carbon emissions have risen in the United States over the last 10 years,” and just 16 percent disagreed.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

And despite the lack of good evidence, mainstream news media widely reported that the killing of trans people is on the rise.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Distrust of the police appears to have contributed to the nearly 30% rise in homicides after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests last year, both by embolding criminals and causing a pull-back of police.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

And there's good reason to fear that misinformation about the killing of trans and non-gender conforming individuals contributes to anxiety and depression among trans and gender dysphoric youth.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Social media fuels rising and unwarranted certainty, dogmatism, and intolerance of viewpoint diversity and disconfirmatory information. Social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram reward users for sharing information popular with peers…

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Experts seek conclusions, and journalists write stories, which affirm the predispositions of their audiences. It may be for these reasons that much of the news media have failed to inform their audiences that there are no racial differences in police killings…

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Campaign, and Drug Policy Alliance have misled journalists, policymakers, and the public, about police killings, drug policy, and trans killings, often by simply leaving out crucial contextual information.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

But neither of these explanations fully captures the religious quality of so much of the progressive discourse on issues relating to race, climate, trans, crime, drugs, homelessness, and the related issue of mental illness.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

As evidence for his argument McWhorter points to commonly held myths, like the debunked claim that the American War of Independence was fought to maintain slavery, or that racial disparities in educational performance are due to racist teachers.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

… pointing out its supernatural elements is likely to have little impact among the Woke.

But just because an ideology is dogmatic and self-righteous does not necessarily make it a religion, and so it is fair to ask whether Wokeism is anything more than a new belief system.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

They include the idea that white people today are responsible for the racist actions of white people in the past; that climate change risks making humans extinct; and that a person can change their sex by simply identifying as the opposite sex.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Each offers an original sin as the cause of present-day evils (e.g., slavery, the industrial revolution). Each has guilty devils (e.g., white people, “climate deniers,” etc.) sacred victims (e.g., black people, poor islanders, etc.) and what McWhorter calls “The Elect” …

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

…or people self-appointed to crusade against evil (e.g., BLM activists, Greta Thunberg, etc.). And each have a set of taboos (e.g., saying “All lives matter,” criticizing renewables, etc.) and purifying rituals (e.g., kneeling/apologizing, buying carbon offsets, etc).

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

I reached out to a new friend, Peter Boghossian, a philosopher who recently resigned his post at Portland State University in response to Wokeist repression, and other experts in different Woke movements, and together we constructed a Woke Religion Taxonomy (below). pic.twitter.com/vCVBSB5TeC

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

It cuts across 10 categories (Original Sin, Guilty Devils, Myths, Sacred Victims, The Elect, Supernatural Beliefs, Taboo Facts, Taboo Speech, Purifying Rituals, Purifying Speech)

We were surprised by how easy it was to fill in each category, and by the fascinating similarities.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

…, despite overwhelming evidence that they are false. We are under no illusion that the Taxonomy will reduce the power that Wokeism holds over true believers. But we also believe it will help orient those who are confused by its irrationalism, and are seeking an overview.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Both Peter and I would like to stress that we have published the Taxonomy in service of the liberal and democratic project of social and environmental progress, which we believe to be under threat from Wokeism.

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

But doing so will require that Wokeism weaken its grip over the American psyche.

As Peter writes, “bigotry and racial discrimination are real and they have no place in society. Yes, there is ongoing racism. Yes, there is ongoing homophobia…

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021

Woke Religion: A Taxonomy v1 pic.twitter.com/ndZbLsgzuk

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 11, 2021