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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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I know many people on the right like to categorize Wokeism as a theological/religious movement but then they immediately balk when you ask what base theology did Wokeism form from.

I will not balk, it is a Hegelian "religion", same as OG Marxism etc, which in turn was informed by other religions and traditions such as Christianity, Hermeticism, enlightenment philosophy etc. They developed their own philosophical system answering question for instance of ontology (what is a man), sociology (how should society organize itself) etc. And they do not even deny it, they have a process for it inside their own religious tradition - Hegelian dialectic. Just one example, the concept of abolish has Hegelian roots, it is the concept of aufheben - it is to resolve the contradiction by dissolving it in higher truth.

There are many such words, even the word oppression is based on Hegelian Master-Slave (or more precise Lordship-Bondage) framework developed in his Phenomenology of Spirit way back in 1807. It is interesting because to explain this concept, Hegel framed it as clash of Will where the weaker will submits to the stronger one, thus forging the relationship. He introduced a new form of social and historical will as result of clash for power, which is quite distinct to let's say Augustinian concept of free will as a gift from God. There are stark differences in theology of philosophical systems that borrow from different traditions.

The same for words like alienation or consciousness in a sense of let's say class consciousness or false consciousness. These are religiously supercharged terms, talking about false consciousness requires you to accept the whole baggage in this religious system and its theology, it is completely different meaning from regular usage of let's say falling unconscious after hitting your head.

Just for instance look at the topic of "human rights". What are they, how they come to be, who has authority to arbitrate between them in terms of hierarchy, how do we amend or cancel them. These are all highly metaphysical questions for which there is no simple answer.

The very fact that they refuse to categorize it as religion is part of the culture war, they want to posit their religious dogma and doctrine informing how law and morality is enforced as some "universal" system outside of any critique. They presuppose that their religion is correct and invite you to only discuss the issue on their own terms.