Liberalism and the woke spectre of CRT that haunts it

By David Matthews

The world as we have always known it, is seemingly coming to an end, culturally, socially, and politically. 

This is evident in the inability of the liberal democratic philosophy upon which it is founded, to fend off the quasi-religious attack on it by the Woke, Neo-Marxist ideology of CRT (Critical Race Theory).

The enormous political success that CRT is currently enjoying, is attributable principally to its success in identifying and attacking Liberalism’s greatest weakness. This is Liberalism’s failure ever to face up to, and address, the social problem of racism (more comprehensively described as cultural prejudice) that violates numerous fundamental Liberal principles, such as those of diversity, tolerance, and moral equality. 

Liberalism had, understandably, not seen racism as a significant social problem in the largely culturally homogeneous Western societies of the early 19th century, when cultural prejudice, or racism, was, in fact, regarded as normal. It soon became evident that it had become a problem in the increasingly racially mixed, and so culturally heterogeneous societies of the 20th century. It was from only about 1950, however, that racism leapt into the Western public consciousness, principally as a black/white issue.

By 1950, despite the extraordinary success of the liberal/capitalist economy and the democratic form of government that it had enabled, the vigorous Liberalism of the 19th century had started to compromise certain of its basic principles, primarily in order to accommodate the concept of a welfare state, encouraged by the enormous World War-facilitated growth in the bureaucratic state. 

Major social problem 

Accordingly, when racism finally became recognised as a major social problem, Liberalism, instead of perceiving and analysing the phenomenon of racism secularly as negative human social behaviour, like drunkenness or theft, calling for its amelioration or possible elimination, instead passively accepted the quasi-religious, Woke definition of it. This defined racism, not scientifically as a malign and undesirable, yet normal form of human behaviour, but as a spiritual sin, and, incredibly, a sin of which only whites are guilty.

The Neo-Marxist and fundamentally infantile belief-system of Critical Race Theory has, astonishingly, come intellectually to dominate the centres of power in the Western world, and is currently undermining Liberal Democracy. It is a teleological political ideology that, like religion, utilises a spiritual belief system, rather than secular reasoning to attain its objective, which is political power. Capitalising on the legitimate social grievances of select Western minority groups, which modern Liberalism has still failed to address fully, CRT declares that it has revealed in racism, not a secular social problem, but a spiritual and moral evil haunting Western society.

Just as mortal sin was deemed to be inherent in humanity, in terms of Christian theology, so the sin of racial prejudice is deemed by the Woke to be inherent in all whites. And, inexplicably, Liberalism shares the Woke basic premise that racism is uniquely a moral sin. 

Tacit agreement

This tacit agreement is manifest in Liberals’ unwillingness to acknowledge that, as individuals, they, like every other human, experience at times feelings of racial prejudice, however mild. They deny ever feeling racial prejudice, even though to be able honestly to declare oneself totally free of all racial prejudice, one would have at all times to feel absolutely no difference whatsoever between one’s feelings for people of one’s own culture and for people of a different ‘race’. And who, with a straight face, would claim that? 

To be in a rational position to address the problem of racism, Liberals need to acknowledge that racism is not a spiritual phenomenon or a mortal sin, but a negative human psychological trait common to everybody, including themselves, that needs to be addressed secularly and sociologically, if the problem is ever to be resolved. 

And in order to do this, they have first to come to understand counterintuitively what racism is (i.e, an archaic, once beneficial, human behavioural trait that altered social circumstances have now rendered malign). 

Only after having done this, can Liberals escape the intellectual trap into which they have fallen, and so be able to deal effectively with the infantile Woke ideology of Critical Race Theory, as well as the other racial problems that face us.

https://dailyfriend.co.za/2021/11/20/liberalism-and-the-woke-spectre-of-crt-that-haunts-it/