Yes, as you may imagine, I will be using the term religion in its pejorative form, as in a belief system that relies on faith and not facts, one that crosses the threshold of reason and logic for the sole purpose of zealously upholding certain beliefs.
This will be by far the most controversial article I’ve written, and I may indeed lose some followers because, let’s face it, political and ideological perspectives can be quite toxic and extremely polarizing.
I want to make clear that my blog is neither a liberal nor conservative propaganda machine. Although my views generally veer more to the left than the right, I personally try to avoid falling into this false dichotomy because reality is complex and nuanced, and what is best for society does not always fall neatly into the liberal or conservative slot.
I also want to clarify that I don’t rely on this blog as a source of income and, unlike most blogs and media outlets, I am not in the business of telling my readers what they want to hear based on their political and/or ideological beliefs, with the sole purpose of gaining more followers and making more money.
And even though it would certainly boost my ego, I have no desire to amass a cult-like following.
So here goes.
It’s no secret that politics has gotten much more polarized in recent years, especially since the growth and influence of social media. Those on the right of the political spectrum have become particularly zealous and fanatical.
The Trump era brought out the worst of society, not just in the US but throughout the globe, as the world’s racists, nationalists, bigots, sexists, homophobes, etc., crawled out from under the soil to revive a kind of pre-World War II era where fascism was a much more dominant philosophy.
It’s hard to deny that, overall, those on the right (especially the far-right) are more notorious for denying reality (statistics, scientific facts, etc.) than those on the left.
A clear example is how the most imminent threat we all face, human-induced climate change, continues to be fervently denied by those with right-wing views.
But as human civilization has become more polarized, the views of many of those on the left (especially the far left) have also begun to skirt past the lines of reality.
Here are three examples of left leaning movements that, in their more extreme versions, can morph into religion-like belief systems, and how this may or may not be detrimental to society.
Wokeism
Wokeism, or wokery, is defined as a way of referring to the acts and opinions of people who are especially aware of social problems such as racism and inequality.
Being aware of the social problems mentioned above is necessary for a functional and just society. Of that there is no doubt. There should also be no doubt about the terrible injustices inflicted upon minority groups throughout history around the globe.
For the past few centuries, Europeans have conquered foreign lands, desecrated the Indian Sub-Continent, much of Africa, the Americas, along with Australia and New Zealand, while kidnapping and enslaving native cultures from these regions, all in the name of profit.
The problem is the irrational, zealous and religious form of modern-day wokeism oversimplifies the world (as humans of all walks of life are notorious for doing) and blames all or most of human civilization’s problems on white people, particularly white men (along with believing there are no biological differences between men and women, and that men who “feel” like women should be able to compete against women in sports, even dangerous combat sports like boxing).
In some spheres, the doctrine implies that white heterosexual men are inherently evil while black and brown people are merely the innocent victims of the former. Any problem in just about any corner of the world can be traced back to the evil deeds of white heterosexual men and their inherent thirst for imperialism.
There are a few issues with this premise. Sure, many of the world’s problems can indeed be traced back to European (and later American) imperialism which basically took over much of the world since the 15th century and beyond.
But imperialism and slavery were not invented by Europeans. Throughout human history, those who had an advantage, for whatever reason (most tribal advantages had to do with geographical advantages and historical coincidences instead of inherent superiority of one group over another), tended to conquer, and often enslave, those at a disadvantage.
This has been the case on all continents, among all races. Yes, European settlers committed atrocities to local populations in Africa, India and the Americas. But there is plenty of historic evidence that these same local populations committed atrocities among themselves and their neighbors long before the arrival of Europeans.
Less than a century ago, Japan attempted to conquer much of Asia and the rest of the world, committing atrocities against Chinese and Korean populations, while in many Middle Eastern, African and Latin American nations today, local leaders commit horrible crimes against local populations.
The “woke” idea that if it wasn’t for heterosexual white men the world would be a peaceful paradise with untouched, pristine nature everywhere and unicorns and butterflies and bunny rabbits all over the place is quite absurd… to say the least.
Feminism
Anyone who denies that throughout history women have suffered at the hands of men is willfully wearing blinders or is simply blind. Even today, women and girls are forced into marriage in many parts of the world, or trafficked into forced labor and/or sex slavery. In places like Afghanistan, they are not allowed to get an education and are prohibited from participating in politics, and in places in perpetual conflict, they are raped and used as weapons of war.
In many places, women who are raped are forced to give birth to children, whether they want to or not, which also happens in countries regarded as highly advanced.
Feminism is a movement that fights these injustices, and rightfully so.
The problem is when the movement is taken to another level that surpasses logic, to the detriment of the movement’s very own adherents.
Many feminists believe all men (especially white heterosexual men, when feminism is coupled with wokeism) are inherently evil and that absolutely everything we’ve been told throughout history is a lie brought about by the evil patriarchy.
Historically, the tobacco industry has capitalized on this form of feminism by encouraging women to rebel against the patriarchy by smoking. The extreme feminist logic goes that if male doctors and scientific studies carried out by predominantly male experts show that smoking is terrible for your health, it must be a lie to subjugate women.
What better way to rebel against the patriarchs than by smoking?
In Spain, smoking rates are falling among men but increasing among women, in large part because of the increasing pervasiveness of extreme feminist ideology. Feminism in pop culture also seems to encourage young women to be as promiscuous as possible to show their independence and break free from the evil patriarchy.
What greater display of a woman’s freedom than a lung cancer diagnosis, plus some gonorrhoea and perhaps an unwanted pregnancy to show those patriarchs who’s in charge now?
Veganism
Sure, humans have been eating animals for thousands of years. But humans have also been doing lots of things for thousands of years, many of which we shouldn’t exactly be proud of.
Each year humans breed at least 70 billion land animals into existence, most of which are “raised” in factory farms, which are virtually torture chambers for animals.
Aside from the ethical issues related to modern-day animal agriculture, the meat industry is eating away at the planet, whether you want to accept it or not.
Most reasonable people around the world claim to be against the idea of animals being needlessly tortured and killed. Unfortunately, many of those same people seem to forget that cows, pigs, sheep and even fish are also animals.
Veganism is against the needless exploitation, torture and murder of animals for food, clothing, makeup, etc. I myself have been vegan since 2017, and I encourage all intelligent, reasonable and compassionate individuals to follow the same path, for obvious reasons, including the ones mentioned above.
Plus, there can be numerous health benefits to adopting a plant-based lifestyle.
But, as with most movements, there is a faction within the vegan movement that harbors unreasonable and unproven beliefs (though in this case I consider this lack of reasonableness to be relatively harmless).
For one, many vegans like to believe that if everyone went vegan all of the world’s problems would be immediately solved, all the environmental issues of the world would be erased, everyone would live to be well over 100 years old and still feel like they are 25, and world peace would be the new norm, since they believe all violence stems from the consumption of animals who suffered, which attracts negative energy and makes meat eaters violent.
Although the idea sounds fascinating, there is no concrete evidence for the validation of such beliefs. Either way, if this were the case, places like India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, which consume the least amount of meat in the world, should be the most peaceful places on Earth.
And yet, India has some of the highest rates of violence against women and feminicides on the planet. Bangladesh is perpetually plagued by state sponsored and religious violence against minority groups, and ethnic violence seems to be quite common in Ethiopia.
Lots of vegans also like to convince themselves that it won’t be long before we have a “vegan world”, because everyone is “opening their eyes” and going vegan, and the animal agriculture industry is totally “collapsing”.
In reality (and quite unfortunately), global meat consumption is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, especially in places like China and developing countries like Nigeria and other African nations.
(Carnism, or the belief that humans should continue to consume meat for illogical reasons, «but our ancestors, but lions, but the Bible…» etc, can also be considered a kind of religion in itself).
The belief that some kind of “great awakening” is right around the corner is common in most belief systems, especially in their more religious factions, when they become analogous to the Jehova’s Witnesses who believe the second coming of Christ is near.
In the United States, proud southerners continue to proclaim that pretty soon “the south will rise again”. White supremacists believe it won’t be long before whites around the world will «unite» under the swastika. On the left side of the political spectrum, many believe wokeness is also a kind of great awakening that will be embraced by all of humanity in the coming years.
Adherents to most movements need to believe that «people are opening their eyes» and that some sort of utopian future is inevitable and coming soon, otherwise there would be no purpose to believing whatever it is they believe, whether those beliefs are logical or not, or grounded in love or hate.
Some of the movements mentioned above are perfectly logical and can even be necessary and positive for society and even life on Earth as a whole, like veganism. But when its adherents start distorting reality in the name of that very movement, and when they start seeing butterflies and bunny rabbits and rainbows and unicorns on the horizon, that’s when we know the movement has morphed into a religion.
Amen.
