Talcot Parsons, a functionalist sociologist and a conservative thinker, argued that the social function of religion was to cope with risky life activities and large life events which bare some danger. He observed how islander in the Pacific would have religious rituals for lagoon fishing but not for other forms of fishing because it offered some form of danger. This doesn’t mean religion exists to perform a social function, it just happens too.
Now let us look at our century in which the traditional religion of the western world outside of America has been in decline. I could add a lot of statistics about declining church attendance in Europe. The rising share of the non-believing population. Let for a second take it for granted. Why this is a topic can be discussed better in another place.
We see how religion as suggested by George Murdoch, another functionalist and at least small c conservative. Suggested that religion helps us cope with big life changes. This is why our religious rituals mark birth with let say baptism in Christianity. As well as marriage in most faiths. Also death with in all faith a funeral. In the face of climate change if it is man-made or otherwise. As well as other great changes such as brought on in the US by the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and Brexit in 2016. These great political decisions signaled an end to the neoliberal world order in English speaking countries. The world is based on the free movement of goods and people. Centered in life was about an individual quest for personal betterment and gain.
This view is controversial but the economic order I was born into was created by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan, which so dominated the English speaking world. Outside of this we see a more fragmented picture, one of many competing ideas to hold sway over the minds of peoples. We have returned to national capitalism in which the rules of the economy have been changed. An old system personified with a free market only existing within national borders has become a reality.
Here step in woke a comfort blanket to allow a younger generation without memory of the old social order to deal with the unknown. Who is worried that climate change will affect our future? The decline of Christianity means that a void exists which no other religious group has yet filled.
In the face of great change we see a need for something to offer stability. Woke, the moral code for millions, is the answer. It offers an anchor in a fast changing world, at least for the young. The older generation who remembers clearly the old order doesn’t have such a void to fill. To many parents and grandparents this is a return to a world of certainty, security and safety.
As for the young who didn’t know this world before. The woke moral faith offers a future in which climate change can be stopped and an economic order created which is of benefit to them. Which offers to make home ownership in the UK a reality. In the United States make health care a reality for all.
This vision isn’t totally confined to young people alone but mainly found among them. We are discontent with the social order. Both the right and left are aiming to change the world we live in. Woke is like many movements over time a void to fill a spiritual gap in the face of great social and environmental change.
It is problematic in its puritanical impulse that all must share its moral code or be heretical, and those who break it must be punished. It has adopted the style of the mediaeval Catholic Church in it is my way or the highway. An example found a thousand times throughout history is just the one which comes to my mind as the easiest point of comparison. Like the mediaeval church the woke religion doesn’t like freedom of speech or expression . Let us remember Galileo Galilei defied the church and was locked away for life. Our when Joan of Arc broke the gender norm of her time and faced the flame and ironically now is a saint.
Woke greatest sin is racism understandably racism isn’t a good thing. In our multicultural world it is a real threat to social stability and creates conflict which could destabilize our societies. It is understandable it should be discouraged.
However, in its effort to fight the sin. Like the mediaeval Roman Catholic Church it has set up an inquisition. It, like the inquisition of the middle ages, is clumsy and oppressive. It brings to trial many of the innocent. In doing so it attacks the modern concept of freedom of speech. It nearly in an Orwellian way in newspeak aims to eliminate racism through controlling language itself. I am going to note the good intentions have paved the way to hell. The woke, despite what we may think, wanted to merely bring social harmony to a multicultural society created by the neoliberal economic system.
Woke is a late attempt to deal with the changes brought by neoliberal society while trying to, at the same time, battle for a future against the rise of national capitalism. The woke faith, like Islam in Arabia, emerged at a time of great change. It offered certainty in the face of the collapse of neoliberalism.
Woke is a fear reaction scared of change, so it creates a way of maintaining the neoliberal economy and promising the climate will not change, while almost contradictorily blending in policy aimed at connecting with young people, such as ending tuition fees. In the end it is a choice between fear and hope. I will not speculate on who offers hope, but I will say woke is one of the faiths of fear in our world. It isn’t the only one. A much simpler and positive answer to fill the void may be religious faith whatever form it may take.
By Alasdair Dow
Alasdair Dow is an academic writer mainly writing on issues prevalent in the United Kingdom. He writes particularly about the changing economic situation in the UK and Europe. He was published in the 1884 Journal and has a master degree in sociology from Bangor University.
