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What does the light at the end of the tunnel look like?
Look, every now and then I stop watching my footfalls and get pensive. And one of the things I've gotten pensive about the past few days is this: the Western culture war is not going to last forever, which means it's going to end. And when it does, how will we look back on this mad time?
Two of the answers are obvious:
But what I can't really put together is the third option, the narrative that will be told if SJ is indeed just a passing phase, either because Red/Grey defeated it or because it wins and then turns out to be unsustainable. Frankly, the Blue Tribe's been writing all the history books since before I was born, so it's hard for me to even picture it. And that troubles me; it's the scenario I think is most likely, and the one I'm to at least some extent trying to bring about, so if I don't have a good idea of what it even looks like that's kind of an HCF. "It is not enough to say that you do not like the way things are. You must say how you will change them, and to what."
So, how will the people in that scenario think of this time? What story will they tell?
(To the SJers here: feel free to answer, if you think you understand your opposition, or feel free to correct me if you think my #2 is uncharitable.)
I'll go ahead and guess: it will look explicitly and seriously religious.
To me the social history of the last few decades, and indeed the last few centuries, is that of a hollowing out and lack of seriousness in religious practices and traditions. While there have been revivals here and there, the overall trend has been to become more and more secular as modern 'philosophy' and science becomes more powerful. When Descartes completely threw out Aristotelean formal causes, and claimed the Mind was totally separate from the body and physical reality, he unwittingly destroyed the way humans made sense of the world and each other from time immemorial.
At this point I'm convinced that modern philosophy, specifically post-Cartesian philosophy that sees materialism as the ultimate truth and the universe as nothing more than meaningless particles bouncing into each other, cannot coexist with human society. Either we will destroy our societies through increasing social fragmentation, or the transhumanists will get their wish and change the fundamental way human beings interact with each other to paper over the problems of a materialist philosophy. Perhaps both will happen.
Either way, Social Justice has become such a force because it attempts to fill the gap left by the absence of sincere religions, and just like previous 'isms' and secular ideologies, it is doomed to fail because these sorts of religious systems just can't work in a materialist universe. For better or worse, humans need to believe in purpose and meaning beyond dead matter in order to cohere together in large social groups. If we can't have that, well, we will burn it all down.
Personally I think Christianity will rise again to rule the day, at least on a religious level. It has died many times before and come back from the grave - that motif being the mythological bedrock upon which the entire enterprise is founded is no coincidence. The primary, hidden strength of Christ's gospel is the fact that it gives hope in the darkest of times, and promises a renewal and escape from death.
When? The reconquista?
The reformation and counter-reformation probably did lead to increases in popular piety in certain areas. The Islamic world is much more religious than it was 50 years ago. America had a massive revival in the early 19th century leading to more-or-less permanently higher religiosity than Europe.
Contra Dag, I think Christianity is in rapid and terminal decline, especially in America.
America is incredibly un-Christian. Its foreign policy prioritizes promoting LGBT, defending Christians is ignored. Nearly a million abortions per year. Gay marriage, Pride parades. A world-class pornography and casual sex industry with all the top brands - Pornhub, Tinder, Grindr. Breakdown in the family: more born to unmarried parents than to married. Intense materialism that largely overtakes the religious essence of the holidays.
I can't think of any Christian value or doctrine that the US particularly exemplifies, as a state. There are certainly Christian lobby groups and pockets of devout Christians but they're largely insignificant to the state, if not actively despised. Can anyone call the US a Christian country? Are Christians in control? Are Christians capable of anything more than legal tomfoolery like making people drive to another state to get an abortion?
See the 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence' being invited to the Dodgers game - what kind of Christian country has explicitly and intensely anti-Christian groups being invited and legitimized at popular events? They'd be lucky to escape with their lives if they tried that in an Islamic country. Look how angry the Islamic world got over quran-burnings in Sweden, that's what real religiosity looks like.
Compare the fervour of Christians in the US to LGBT, BLM, trans, climate change. Even white supremacists can find more men willing to kill and die for their beliefs than Christians can. The latter ideologies possess much more power, they are acknowledged or feared by the state, they drive debate.
Sure, there are those statistics that say 70% of the US is Christian but what is the point if their beliefs don't seem to have any effect on the state or national culture? If they can't wield state power, if they can't cancel, if they can't get the obsequious submission of the big corporations what good are they?
US still has double the church attendance of Western Europe.
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Global South is the new dominant Christian sphere. There's a shift in emphasis from the West, and if the forthcoming years are going to be non-white, the new missionaries will be African and Asian clergy coming to reconvert Europe.
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I got curious about this claim, so I headed down to the US State Department webpage. Current topics of main concern seem to be, in addition to the predictable Middle East and Ukraine focuses, to be climate, health and terrorism (and, notably, regarding the climate themes, the administration is talking a lot about increasing nuclear power capacities).
It was surprisingly hard to find anything talking about LGBT issues; I guess those would fall under the purview of the "Human Rights and Democracy" policy category, but browsing five pages of statements, the only one that, by title, was related to his was a short boilerplate statement on Transgender Day of Remembrance. After using search, I found out that Dept of State has a special LGBTQI+ envoy but what she does, apart from travelling to various events for representation, remains a bit of a mystery.
State Dept also has an Office of International Religious Freedom, which doesn't seem to be one of the more important offices around, but still has issued a number of statements defending the religious freedom of Christians (as a group and individually), like this one, this one and this one.
On the basis of this exercise, neither seems to be a particular priority for US foreign policy, as expressed by its State Department.
I was thinking more of the Biden memo, or Blinken talking about how he hectors the Saudis on LGBT.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/16/blinken-i-press-saudis-on-lgbtqi-issues-every-time-00040325
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/04/memorandum-advancing-the-human-rights-of-lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer-and-intersex-persons-around-the-world/
There's no equivalent 'defending Christianity' memo, nor do dozens of US embassies make use of Christian symbolism like they do LGBT symbolism.
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