An argument against coercive religion

Mustafa Aykol says,

the coercive system we have in the Muslim-majority world today, in countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, doesn’t make individuals pious—it makes them hypocritical.

This applies to the Woke religion, I think.

6 thoughts on “An argument against coercive religion

  1. Wokeness doesn’t really work without coercion.

    The claim that the justice system is out to get black men, or perhaps the more specific claim, that there is an epidemic of police killings of unarmed black men, is simply false. Only in the most slightest of senses (in that you can actually find examples of police killing black men) is it a more accurate representation of reality than QAnon.

    Yet for wokeness this is not only an issue, but given the amount of protesting related to the rare examples of this happening, and the veneration shown to the flawed men involved in these cases, it’s clear that there isn’t a more important issue in the world.

    The woke point of view on this issue does not survive calm, dispassionate scrutiny. Without coercion, which suppresses dissent and contrary views from most non-woke people, it would not survive.

  2. Aykol’s wrong about this. Sure, some people become hypocrites, but others are indeed made pious true believers. Especially kids raised in it, who see that all high status people share a consensus, and who are exposed to minimal undermining criticism in public.

    The numbers likely go up or down together. The fewer hypocrites, the more influential social signals of deviation from orthodoxy, and the less reinforcement of piety for the potentially pious.

    It sounds like he is hoping his audience will infer a claim that liberalizing, increasing ideological freedom, and relaxing the Heretic Destruction Machine will also increase piety. But that is fighting against the clear trend of history going back three centuries.

    • Right, and I don’t think one necessarily needs to wait for the kids. Talk to an adult who’s views have moved dramatically in the ‘woke’ direction in the lat 10 years (e.g., from legalizing gay marriage to mandatory wedding cakes) and it’s mainly because that’s the direction their social milieu has taken them, but they nonetheless are usually entirely sincere. People sincerely adopt the views of those around them. We humans are habitual Rortians. If I say something I think is fine but everyone around me gasps and I get in trouble, my first instinct is to think “what did I do wrong,” or to defend myself by saying “I didn’t know it was wrong when I said it,” not, rather, to demand that someone rationally convince me that it was actually wrong. Coercion absolutely creates a good deal of sincere piety, unfortunately.

  3. Handle’s own reply indicates that he doesn’t fully understand how the coercion works, in that the reason kids may be “exposed to minimal undermining criticism in public” is precisely because different forms of coercions limit the criticism. The same is true for woke ideologies, which perversely often call for a need to respect diversity & inclusion even as they intimidate any hint of dissent. Example: In one major social media company here in Silicon Valley, meeting introductions include preferred pronouns, and declining to subordinate yourself to the ritual abasement leads to ostracism. Woke coercion.

    • Ha, I understand well enough to know what it feels like to be coerced into constant hypocrisy. But that coercion also means that in generation following me, there are many fewer hypocrites, and in the one after that … le deluge.

  4. As Steve Sailer has noted on occasion, the heart of the woke religion is the sacralization of Blacks. Sacralization of Blacks requires the denigration of whites. This naturally caused friction that can be exploited for political gain. Hence Joe Biden’s apartheid agenda of “whites need not apply” give away programs.

    Persuasion has nothing to do with it. As Sailer quite astutely observes, Blacks only object to a throne when there isn’t a Black sitting in it. See: https://www.unz.com/isteve/giant-new-statue-at-rockefeller-center-reveals-that-2001s-big-brained-space-baby-was-actually-black/

    And if a fat sacred cow like Michelle Obama can claim with a straight face to be frightened to go outside because of all the lurking white terrorists out to get her (See: https://www.unz.com/mmalkin/check-your-obama-privilege/ ) there is absolutely zero chance sense or reason is ever going to enter into any discourse on the matter.

    And this leaves us with garbage government, garbage courts, garbage schools, garbage tax-exempts, garbage media, garbage corporate management, and a garbage future. It is enough to move one to acquiesce to the pacifist libertarian Religion That Passively Submits to Global Domination By General Secretary Xi. Somehow one doubts Xi will be buying what Blacks are selling.

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