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Notes -
Arnold Kling on Michael Huemer on Thought Crime
It kind of goes without saying, but inherent in the notion of "thought crime" are both crime and punishment. If it doesn't deserve punishment, then it's not a crime.
Amen, brother. But is this just preaching to the choir? Consider: A whole lot of NPCs and talking heads sure ate up The Narrative. Propaganda is effective, to an extent, but beyond that extent it is deeply corrosive, particularly to any intellectual class, who become disillusioned and cynical. Thought crime is next.
Religions in general, and Christianity in particular, are all about thought crime. You have to take the salvation of Jesus into your heart or something, and if you don't, have fun with eternal damnation. I can accept Aquinas, Chesterton, C.S. Lewis. These are men who appealed to reason, writing to convince and persuade.
I imagine only atheists see the appeal of comparing woke (progressive, successor) ideology to a religion of sorts, likely filling some kind of primitive need for tribal loyalty, purity tests, and expensive signals (rabid adherence to nonsense). I'd love to hear Antonin Scalia's take though. Or L. Ron Hubbard's. Perhaps what we are seeing with successor ideology is not an individual need for such, but instead just the character of mass movements, the nature of power, its patterns of growth and movement and perpetuation. Are propaganda and thought crime inevitable?
Let's take it back to 1984. Orwell demonstrates the existential horror of a regime that can successfully deploy thought crime. Didn't he make it blindingly obvious for everyone? I'm pretty sure we were all nodding our heads in 8th grade English class about the evils of totalitarianism, only a few years after the USSR fell. I suspect this issue is particularly salient for me, as a libertarian.
Anyways, I'm not mad, just disappointed.
I think you go to far to say religious can’t see woke as a proto-religion. The woke can’t because they don’t want to be labeled a religion. In fact I think woke is specifically a Christian religion. Jesus made the slave the equal to the emperor and ate with prostitutes etc. Woke is just the same thing of picking the people they think are the lowest in society and putting them on top. Where it differs is Christianity made the slave equal to the emperor whereas woke seems to want to put George Floyd above the POTUS and the black transvestite above George Floyd. A reverse pyramid instead of equality.
On thought crime I think Kling hits on some truth that thought crime only matters when it leads to elite insecurity. I think of Marxism and communism where I don’t have any big issue restricting their speech but that only comes into play when I see a threat they will win. Knowing the end game of Marxism makes me not have a problem with punishing their thought crime.
The older I get the more I realize libertarianism is a second order belief after you have a good culture. Humans are social creatures. Nobody would want to live in a world where 90% of society becomes fentanyl zombies. You’d rather just ban fentanyl.
The last will allegedly be first in Christianity too, this is just pushed till the eschaton. Wokeness obviously doesn't have this luxury and so tries to make a theological claim manifest in politics, with ludicrous consequences.
The other thing is that it seems Christianity has a more substantive concept of the Good, which acts as a guardrail. The "meek" may nominally be praised (or at least seen as opportunities to display Christian charity) are not allowed to demand a blank cheque because there are other priorities.
Wokeness is a revolutionary ideology that almost celebrates not just the violation of old norms but the upcoming obsolescence of even previously progressive versions. Which leads to weird, unconstrained ideologies and outcomes.
'Meek' is actually translated as something like "those who know how to use weapons, but keep them sheathed." At least according to Jordan Peterson.
Due to semantic drift the word "prautes" that appears in the original Greek is better understood as something like "taimed" or "restrained" than "meek" as those words are used in modern times. IE when a 1st century Greek asks "is your dog meek?" what they mean is "does your dog bite?" You can still see some remnants of the earlier meaning of the word in how the term "meeked" still appears in animal husbandry to indicate a horse or ox has been harness/saddle trained.
A more culturally accurate translation of the beatitude might be "blessed are those who show restraint" or blessed is the dog who doesn't bite.
I like Greek translations for better understanding the bible, but isn't Jesus quoting Psalms here? I assumed the Hebrew word would be more what we're searching for, and the context there seems to be talking about the poor and oppressed (not a bible expert at all here though).
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Those who don’t defect opportunistically (in game theory language). Non-criminals, non-cheaters, non-thieves. People who follow the rules even when no one’s watching.
“Meek” really got shafted by pairing up with “mild”.
indeed
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EDIT: Actually reversed my opinion when reading further.
The Beatitudes seem to be actually referring to the objectively downtrodden or humble. The whole point is that a reversal of fortune is coming for the actually-lowly and devout. This is especially clear in Luke (Matthew seems to spiritualize it as "poor in spirit").
I only have one relevant Biblical commentary on hand - Luz Ulrich's Matthew 1-7, screenshots here, p194- and he does note that the concept - which is also translated as also "gentle" or "humble" - is applied to Jesus in Matthew 11:29 and he does seem to read it as meaning something more complex than "powerlessness". Which makes sense...for Jesus. His membership in this class is of a particular nature. He models a certain behavior and elevates the class by his conduct ("if you did it for the least of my brethren...") but he's not hemmed in by an absence of choice.
In that case...I'm going with a tentative yes? This is reminding me why I bottomed out on my Biblical scholarship hobby; without putting time into learning Greek certain rabbit holes become even deeper.
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That's an interesting take. Much more appealing to me, honestly.
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If the meek demanded a blank cheque, then they're no longer meek and no longer qualify to inherit the earth. Problem solved!
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