It is a meme among those on the right for a long time that anyone who steps even slightly out of the left-wing orthodoxy will be labeled “some kind of ist or phobic.”[1] When the left in America is voted out of power, the leftists say that the nation’s racist core is once again in charge, and no progress in race relations whatsoever has been made. In fact, everyone who didn’t vote for the left-wing candidate voted for a dumber, crueler, more evil America because they are those kinds of people. Any attempt to say it was the economy or crime or the border is, according to the left, a weak smokescreen for this unfalsifiable core truth.[2]
This is, of course, self-evidently false. First of all, it’s more than a little presumptuous to claim to know the hearts of half the country. Secondly, it indicates a profound arrogance to believe that nobody could disagree with the speaker and vote for the only other viable option on the ballot. But at an even more practical level, even those who are not terminally online and hyper-political are allowed to and do in fact vote. They can see that prices for essentials like food and gas have gone up. Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s response to this was, for example, “if you can’t afford a tank of gas, buy an electric vehicle.”[3] It is a stretch to assume that every border town in Texas shifted towards Trump because of racism. It is more ridiculous to see non-white voters shift to Trump and assume that they are racist as well[4]
It is not surprising that leftists react so forcefully to right-wing ideas. If the kind of stuff coming out of the media, Reddit and newly popular-ish BlueSky[5] is any indication, many leftists are rather proud of their bubble and they do not truly understand how the other half thinks. This would explain why the first (and sometimes only) reason they can come up with is some for of “ism” or “phobia”. Given what I have seen and some growing research on the subject[6], it is hard to imagine that many leftists have read even “Mere Christianity” or even early Ben Shapiro. Even the leftist Onion, back in 2015, ran the headline “College starts with lively exchange of idea”[7]. (Note: idea. Singular) When a right-wing candidate or cause like Trump or Brexit respectively, wins an election or referendum, it is common for leftist outlets to proudly note that “college educated” people voted for the leftist choice on the ballot. Because the college degree implies but does not prove an educated mind earned it, the leftist’s first salvo is almost always something of the memetic “ist” or “phobic” variety.
The point of this arrogance and hostility could be founded in the problems we’ve already alluded to: that leftists do not actually understand what or why those who disagree with them actually believe and, worryingly, this lack of strong resistance in their bubble has damaged their ability to know or articulate what they believe as well. Theologian and philosopher William Lane Craig once observed that people who know what they’re talking about[8] and more importantly have a decent grasp of the worldview their starting down, are considerably less likely to jump down their opponent’s throat,. The bluster and big words we see from progressives, some panicked, screaming amalgamation of “systemically racist, white supremacist, cis-gendered heteronormative patriarchy, littered with historic AAA subconscious bias”, can be considered a smokescreen for this ignorance. John Stuart Mill notes the consequences of avoiding exposure to an opposing worldview in his legendary 1859 essay “On Liberty”:
“Our merely social intolerance, kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain or even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind”[9]
When confronted with these attacks, the conservative must be able withstand this relentless and baseless character attacks that more frequently than not are the leftist’s entire, and entirely insubstantial, opening statement. An easy strategy here is to simply reject the moral authority of the accuser, which we look at more specifically in due course. For now, it is enough to point out that a leftist with a view towards a perfect good/perfect evil binary is already working from a flawed prism. Secondly, secular morality, as will be proven later, is not based in anything substantial. We see this in the progressive world where there are at least three definitions of racism[10], each of which applied to the situation as it serves the activist.
Conservatives and Christians do not generally have the luxury of a complete bubble. Regardless of who is in power, Conservatives and conservative Christians are the minority in all but tiny pockets of academia and culture. They must deal with opposing views every day, especially in largely democratic urban centers like Houston and Pittsburgh. Because of this, leftists have been so dominant for so long that they are ill-prepared to deal with anything beyond the caricature they laugh about with their like-minded friends. The perfect good/perfect evil binary endemic to progressivism leads to yet another caveat which further reveals their lack of understanding and worse yet, a lack of desire to understand. The conservative -has- to be as evil as the leftist says they are for their rhetoric and in some cases their actions to be “justified” in any sense.[11] He has to be a racist, bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic Nazi sympathizer, so the ideology with such greatest hits as “Stand Your Ground and the concept self-defense are smokescreens for wanting to kill non-white people”[12], and “if you can’t afford a tank of gas, buy an EV”, seem Christ-like in comparison.
One wonders what happens when the progressive leaves his bubble, encounters someone in the real world who is supposed to be so beyond evil, only to discover that he, and most like him, simply aren’t. What happens to the millennial progressive when the core of their self-righteous anger is dissipated by merely encountering a learned conservative? In the same way, what has all this self-righteous anger done when their side of the aisle is utterly defeated in an election, and they have burned all but the equally zealous from their friend group and familial relations, as they are statistically more likely to do?[13]“Terminally online” does imply a lonely, empty life. However, similar to Neo from The Matrix (though lacking any sense of real justice, humility and/or depth), when he awakes, he finds his world empty, run by unthinking machines that are contemptuous of free thought.
There are, in the progressive world, no guardrails for this kind of hivemind approach, and there is nothing saying you shouldn’t cut off those who disagree with you. In fact, there seem to be many in progressive circles who encourage this practice[14]
In the Christian world however, these guardrails run along the spine of the church and to the head that is Christ. There are several allusions to opposing worldviews as well as calls to be prepared to challenge them and be challenged by them, as well as rules for conduct in doing so. We will discus three of them; starting with 1 Peter 3:15, which will lead to a short digression into 2 Timothy 2:25 which says essentially the same thing, and Colossians 2:8.
The apologetic tentpole of 1 Peter 3:15 sets the tone for us. Peter is telling the Christian “to revere Christ in his heart, but always be prepared to make a case for the joy that is within you, but to do so with gentleness and respect.” Let us break this down into three sections.
“Revere Christ in your heart”: At bottom, the Christian is a follower of Christ. He is not a crusader, certainly not an online warrior. His calling is considerably greater (to serve as an example of Christ-like behavior to the best of his ability and to be an advocate for Christ on Earth) his sphere of influence considerably smaller. To revere Christ is to follow His example in how he dealt with those who challenged Him; to do so calmly and with reason. He could certainly be disdaining, but what He said came from a place of pain for their ignorance and love for the people; the latter half being missing from much of today’s politics.
“Always be ready to make a case for the joy that is within you”, Put another way: “Christian, what do you believe and why do you believe it?” There are two elements here. One, you need to be ready to face resistance, meaning you must not fear it. As Craig discussed earlier, this is far easier to accomplish when you really know what you are talking about. When you know not just your Bible, but have a deeper understanding of the issues that may concern your questioner, and a better understanding of how they may have come to their views (that is, you must read the opponent’s philosophy as their proponents present it) it is much easier to deal with questions than a secular progressive who has no such
“But do so with gentleness and respect”: This is echoed in 2 Timothy 2:25’s call that the “Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, eager to teach, patiently enduring evil”. We do not have the luxury of being completely self-satisfied with a Christopher Hitchens’ style pithy “takedown”. We must be teachers. We are not all priests or pastors, or even professional academic theologians. But it is important for all of us to know more than John 3:16 and Genesis 1:1 and to draw connections between the two.[15] It is a strange tactic, for example, to skip the section explicitly called Wisdom Literature and hope for something good to come out of a worldview lacking anything from that.
Another key passage to consider in regard to opposing viewpoints comes to us from Colossians 2:8-10:
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirts of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”
The first thing to notice is the Paul’s two-fold approach to secular philosophy. The first point is that it is understood that the Christian will encounter other worldviews and should not be surprised by them. The second half of this passage observes that the secular philosophies are not founded in Christ, who is God incarnate, and who is therefore the foundation “of all rule and authority”[16]. Whatever one may believe of Marxism, progressivism or even secular philosophies that don’t hate people, they are all simply lists of how one “ought” to live because “it’s the right thing to do”. “Right” however, in this case, is based in absolutely nothing. Apart from God, we are simply evolved primates. We can create a moral system, but that moral system does not have in itself anything that compels the other animals in other packs to obey it.[17] It is difficult to get from a materialist, Darwinist universe, to some semblance of free will (an idea that contradicts our animal nature) and objective morality (something outside of our animal nature, based in nothing, that compels us to be “good people”).
In these examples, which are three of many in the Scriptures, we see that the Christian is obligated to be more prepared to defend the truth of the Gospel than the leftist is to defend the godless misanthropy of his position. More to the point, it seems the leftist can have an unqualified claim to the goodness of his beliefs on the basis that the people who stand in the way are backward, racist, bigoted, sexist, bloodthirsty or whatever pejorative fits the occasion. There is no secular call to see the other person as good in himself, and moreover there is no basis for “good” in the first place. This obligation, of course, does not indicate that the Christian will be able to make the case for the joy that is within them, but it does indicate at the very least that there is an obligation, based in the Creator of the Universe to do so, which is lacking in secular philosophy generally and progressive ideas specifically. The post-election calls from Republicans and Democrats are based on the understanding that being at each other’s throats when there are greater threats outside the country is unsustainable and strategically ill-advised anyway. It does not however, create anything could cultivate unity that lasts beyond the danger of those threats. In fact, the presence of China and Russia and their growing alliance does not seem to be creating any sort of Americanism in the left at all.
Whereas part of the appeal of the upcoming Trump presidency is a return to the US claiming to be and acting like the world’s sole superpower instead of one of many big nations with equal claim to being heard. The implications of that are outside the scope of this essay, but the point is still relevant. Part of the foundation of Western culture, of which I’d say the United States is the apex of for all her faults, is that transcendent worth of the individual that comes from God, which then requires “inasmuch as depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18)[18]. This does not mean, and cannot mean given the rest of the Scripture, that we are to lay down when an opposing view comes to us. It does mean that we are to look -past- the opposing view and see that the other person is an image bearer of God, and not merely an avatar of something we can should be able to demonstrate is a destructive and godless philosophy.
[1] William Safire, “Isms and Phobias,” The New York Times, May 15, 2005, sec. Magazine, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/magazine/isms-and-phobias.html.
“We Don’t Care If You Think It’s Racist | Lotus Eaters,” accessed November 18, 2024, https://www.lotuseaters.com/we-dont-care-if-you-think-its-racist-09-05-24.
[2] “There’s Only One Reason Anyone Votes for Trump,” Esquire, November 5, 2024, https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a62818275/election-day-2024/.
[3] Callie Patteson, “Buttigieg Slammed for Urging Electric Car Buying to Counter Gas Prices,” November 29, 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/buttigieg-slammed-for-urging-electric-car-buying-to-counter-gas-prices/.
[4] “Scarborough: ‘A Lot Of Hispanic Voters Have Problems With Black Candidates’ | Video | RealClearPolitics,” accessed November 18, 2024, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/06/al_sharpton_a_lot_of_hispanic_voters_have_problems_with_black_candidates.html.
[5] “Liberal X Users Peel off toward Competitor Bluesky – The Washington Post,” accessed November 17, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/14/x-social-media-bluesky-threads/.
[6] “A Characterization of Political Communities on Reddit | Request PDF,” accessed November 17, 2024, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335878887_A_Characterization_of_Political_Communities_on_Reddit.
[7] The Onion Staff, “College Encourages Lively Exchange Of Idea,” The Onion (blog), April 27, 2015, https://theonion.com/college-encourages-lively-exchange-of-idea-1819577755/.
[8] “If you have good reasons for what you believe and know the answers to the unbeliever’s questions or objections, there’s just no reason to get hot under the collar. Instead, you’ll find yourself calm and confident when you’re under attack, because you know you have the answers.” William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010).
[9] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Seedbox Press, 2012).
[10] These three definitions include the traditional view of hatred based on skin-color (Webster’s Dictionary), the grifter’s Marxist approach of race being a power dynamic where whites are the oppressor and non-whites are the oppressed (Critical Race Theory, specifically the works of Kimberlee Crenshaw and Gary Peller live and die on this definition being correct.) and a further expansion of this idea by ascribing vice to white people and virtue to non-whites (DEI, which appears to just be CRT with a new coat of paint.)
[11] The concept of “pathological dualism”, which states that “we” are the “children of Light” and they are “the Children of Darkness” from which no good can come. “They” are, according to “us” such a threat to the good in the world, and are so evil that whatever “we” do to them is justified, even if it would be morally reprehensible to do to someone who was “decent” like us. Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religions Violence (New York: Shocken Books, n.d.).
[12] “Further, those who claim stand your ground helps fight crime should take into account that in the decade
after Florida enacted the law, murders increased 22%, with a 75% hike in justifiable homicides. Nationwide, states with stand your ground witnessed a 53% average increase in the justifiable homicide rate after passage of the law.” It is interesting that an increase in “justifiable homicides”, another term for “self-defense” is a bad thing to the author of this article. David Love, “‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws Encourage Racially Charged Violence,” CNN, August 4, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/opinions/stand-your-ground-law-racial-violence-opinion-love/index.html.
[13] “Study: Liberals Nearly 3-Times More Likely Than Conservatives To Block, Unfriend Someone Over Political Posts – CBS Philadelphia,” December 20, 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/study-liberals-nearly-3-times-more-likely-than-conservatives-to-block-unfriend-someone-over-political-posts/.
Lisa Bonos, “Republicans Have More Friends across the Political Divide than Democrats, Study Finds,” Washington Post, July 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/03/how-politics-divides-friends/.
[14] Neal Rothschild, “Young Democrats More Likely to Despise the Other Party,” Axios, December 8, 2021, https://www.axios.com/2021/12/08/poll-political-polarization-students.
[15] “Imagine yourself in the midst of a decision and needing guidance or struggling with a difficult temptation and needing victory. The Holy Spirit enters your mental arsenal and looks around for available weapons, but all He finds is a John 3:16, a Genesis 1:1, and a Great Commission. Those are great swords, but they’re not made for every battle.” Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life(NavPress, 2014).
[16] Recall 1 Peter 3:15’s obligation to “revere Christ” and “be prepared to make a case”. This is the verse that where those calls are put to the test.
[17] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2008).
[18] Rom 12:18 “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (ESV)
Bibliography
“A Characterization of Political Communities on Reddit | Request PDF.” Accessed November 17, 2024. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335878887_A_Characterization_of_Political_Communities_on_Reddit.
Bonos, Lisa. “Republicans Have More Friends across the Political Divide than Democrats, Study Finds.” Washington Post, July 3, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/03/how-politics-divides-friends/.
Craig, William Lane. On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010.
Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd ed. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2008.
Esquire. “There’s Only One Reason Anyone Votes for Trump,” November 5, 2024. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a62818275/election-day-2024/.
“Liberal X Users Peel off toward Competitor Bluesky – The Washington Post.” Accessed November 17, 2024. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/14/x-social-media-bluesky-threads/.
Love, David. “‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws Encourage Racially Charged Violence.” CNN, August 4, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/opinions/stand-your-ground-law-racial-violence-opinion-love/index.html.
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Seedbox Press, 2012.
Patteson, Callie. “Buttigieg Slammed for Urging Electric Car Buying to Counter Gas Prices,” November 29, 2021. https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/buttigieg-slammed-for-urging-electric-car-buying-to-counter-gas-prices/.
Rothschild, Neal. “Young Democrats More Likely to Despise the Other Party.” Axios, December 8, 2021. https://www.axios.com/2021/12/08/poll-political-polarization-students.
S. Whitney, Donald. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. NavPress, 2014.
Sacks, Jonathan. Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religions Violence. New York: Shocken Books, n.d.
Safire, William. “Isms and Phobias.” The New York Times, May 15, 2005, sec. Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/magazine/isms-and-phobias.html.
“Scarborough: ‘A Lot Of Hispanic Voters Have Problems With Black Candidates’ | Video | RealClearPolitics.” Accessed November 18, 2024. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/06/al_sharpton_a_lot_of_hispanic_voters_have_problems_with_black_candidates.html.
Staff, The Onion. “College Encourages Lively Exchange Of Idea.” The Onion (blog), April 27, 2015. https://theonion.com/college-encourages-lively-exchange-of-idea-1819577755/.
“Study: Liberals Nearly 3-Times More Likely Than Conservatives To Block, Unfriend Someone Over Political Posts – CBS Philadelphia,” December 20, 2016. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/study-liberals-nearly-3-times-more-likely-than-conservatives-to-block-unfriend-someone-over-political-posts/.
“We Don’t Care If You Think It’s Racist | Lotus Eaters.” Accessed November 18, 2024. https://www.lotuseaters.com/we-dont-care-if-you-think-its-racist-09-05-24.
Finally tonight 