Today we live in a postmodern, post-constitutional era, where anyone can choose a gender from a myriad list of possibilities, a race and ethnic and tribal affiliation, and even write an impressionistic history of the affiliation. Anarchy rules, if you will allow a bad pun.
The “1619 Project,” for example, wrote the history of black America without the slightest regard for historical truth. Like all progressive inspired groups, the “1619 Project” was not concerned with the past or present but the “end of history”—the future. The radical superiority of the future is guaranteed by the dialectic of history and any memory of the past detracts from the illusion of the superiority of the future. History is thus malleable and serves as propaganda in service of a future state. But if groups, racial and ethnic tribes, and genders (in all their various permutations) can write history as propaganda, why can’t individuals?
Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) claims he was once a drag queen. Does it matter whether he was or not? If someone publicly claims to be cis-queer and believes the claim, who can question it? If Santos believed the claim to be a drag queen, was he any less a drag queen than the cis-queer person was cis-queer?
Aren’t we all taught that the universe is random, atoms in random motion with no objective order or reality?
This results in our most powerful orthodoxy: that perception is reality. Can we say that Santos’ perception was wrong? Santos also claims that he was a volleyball player for a major university and claims to have made millions of dollars working on Wall Street. When asked about this money, he refused to answer, saying only—with some politically incorrect inspired ill-grace—that “it didn’t come from China, Ukraine or Burisma.” Facts seem to belie the claim about the volleyball team and Wall Street, but if he believes these things, who is to say that his embellishments were different from those of the cis-queer person? Like the “1619 Project,” can’t Santos make up his own history in a chaotic universe that is progressing toward no discernable end? The only way the universe becomes intelligible to individuals is through perception and perception is reality. Haven’t we heard that often enough?
Why the outrage about Santos? He is the perfect postmodern, post-constitutional embodiment of what all progressives wish to be. Has he lied? Or is he true to the most powerful postmodern dogma that “perception is reality”? You are what you perceive yourself to be. You are free to choose your gender, race, ethnicity, and tribe: the progressive dialectic of history has produced unfettered human freedom to choose the “self,” whether that “self” is real or imagined, is a meaningless question.
Liberation movements from the very beginning sought to free (or liberate) human beings from the restraints of nature and of nature’s God. Marx, of course, wasn’t the first, but his simple account is the easiest to explain. We create God to put moral restraints upon ourselves. Creating this non-human or divine source gives the restraints greater authority. But once we realize that God is only a myth or creation, it loses its authoritative power as a tool of oppression for the ruling classes. Once the proletariat seizes power in the inevitable dialectic of history, God, now exposed as a fraud foisted on the people, can be dismissed. A new, secular morality will be designed to support the party of the working class.
Today’s secular religion of the “woke” resembles that party, but it no longer has its roots in the working class. But the ruling elites—university faculty and administrators, the media, big tech, government bureaucracy, and corporations—who enforce “wokeism” demand the same loyalty and mete out the same harsh discipline as Marxist-Leninism.
Here we see the dilemma of George Santos, the perfect avatar of our age. He is liberated—he is postmodern, post-Constitution, and most important, incapable of shame. After all, in the universe where reality is merely perception, what is there to be ashamed of? Santos’ only problem is that he is not “woke.” His claim to have been a drag queen violates one of the most sacred current prohibitions of wokeism. Drag queens seem to out-rank other forms of perversity in the precincts of wokeism. Thus for Santos to have claimed to be one among this sacred sect of elites is the greatest imaginable outrage. How could he, a mere white male, the equivalent of the “sweeper class” in the caste system, lay claim to such high status? The gods of wokeism can never forgive such blasphemy.
The “1619 Project” is woke; the trans movement is woke, as are all the identity groups. They do not want to be liberated. Wokeism seems to be the shelter they seek against anarchy. Is Santos the bravest among us, standing alone in the storm? God save us!