Langtlesing
Postmodern Religion and the Faith of Social Justice
by James A. Lindsay and Mike Nayna
Increasingly, we are seeing insistences that Social Justice has become a new religion. The purpose of this essay is to explore this topic in some depth. Because this essay is inordinately long—because the topic is inordinately complicated—it is broken into sections as listed below. The reader is encouraged to engage with it in pieces and to treat it like they would a short book on this topic.
Table of Contents
Social Justice and Religion – What I intend to say and not say about whether Social Justice is best thought of as a religion—mostly housekeeping and a bit dry
Ideologically Motivated Moral Communities – A Durkheimian view of the religion-like sociocultural phenomenon to which both Social Justice and religions belong
Religions Meet Needs – An elaboration on the previous section that explains why human beings organize into ideologically motivated moral communities
Social Justice Institutionalized – A presentation of how Social Justice exhibits institutionalization, which is central to organized religions
The Scholarly Canon – How academic scholarship in “grievance studies” serves as a scriptural canon for Social Justice
Faith in Social Justice – An exposition on faith and its role in the Social Justice ideology
The Mythological Core of Applied Postmodernism – A lengthy discussion of mythology inside and outside of religion and how postmodernism and its currently ascendant derivatives fit into this framework. (If you really want to understand the deepest part of this essay, it’s probably in this section, which can be read first if desired.)
Pocket Epistemologies – A discussion of the means by which an ideological tribe aims to legitimize the “special knowledge” that serves it and how this manifests in Social Justice
A Focus on the Unconscious – A more focused discussion upon the methods of special knowledge production of ideological tribes and the postmodern numinous experience
Ritual, Redemption, and Prayer – A short section about the role these play in ideological tribes and how they manifest in Social Justice
Gender Nuns and the Grand Wizards of the Diversity Board – Addresses the function of the priest caste within ideological tribes, including Social Justice, and how they put their faith into practice
Summary – A short summary of the case made about whether Social Justice constitutes a religion. TL;DR: Yes and no, and mostly yes.
What Can We Do with This? – A brief discussion of secularism construed much more broadly than usually is discussed and how it applies to dealing with a very religion-like Social Justice
https://areomagazine.com/2018/12/18/postmodern-religion-and-the-faith-of-social-justice/
